To Reach a Distant Star

May 8, 1992

Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. -Hebrews 11:6

INTRODUCTION

I am a seeker after God. This is a favorite verse of mine; a "life verse" that I live by every day. The example here is Enoch, one of two men the Bible describes as having been translated, i.e., simply "beamed up" to God's Presence.

But there is another "life verse" that says that the seeker is God: You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen YOU, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain. - John 15:16

Just who is seeking whom?

Being human, we want to reduce this mystery of who is seeking whom; so we go to one extreme or another— "My life's work, even my spiritual existence depends entirely on ME!" Or, "If it is God's will then certainly HE will work it all out?" Which is true? Shall I be super-active? or shall I take a passive role in faith?

Actually, the Greeks had another way to use verbs of action. We have two: "I act!" or "I am acted upon." The Greeks had a middle voice, "I enter into the action!"

Finding God's best will for our lives is not just a matter of our effort, or a matter of praying that something will turn up. It is a matter of 1) believing that God IS God! and it is a matter of diligently seeking to keep our life centered in Him. Yet all the time we are seeking, Jesus is at work— we are seeking the One who has already located us, and is at work to bring about His life in us:

You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. -John 15:16

I. I HAVE CHOSEN YOU

CHOSEN: THE SOVEREIGN HAND OF GOD IN OUR LIVES . . . IN YOUR LIFE

I believe in the Sovereignty of Almighty God.

E.N.C. did not 'happen'

You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you!

The full attention of a Personal God. Not possible to be fully Christian and kiss off our days with a tip of the Bible toward a distant Sovereign; we are meant to live and walk with this God in a holiness that brings sanctity and balance to all of life and living

II. I HAVE ORDAINED YOU AND CALLED YOU

1. APPOINTED: THE APPOINTMENTS OF GOD - the over-ruling alchemy that will not waste a consecrated life

   God's choice is also God's appointment: Frustration, disappointment, failure are inevitably part of the human condition; God has promised not to overlook us; He knows the way that we take and when we are tried we will come forth as gold; this may be "pie in the sky" to the outsider, but it is what God's people utterly must trust: God will not waste a consecrated life.

2. CHARGED: EVERY ONE OF US HAS THE SAME BASIC PURPOSE EVEN THOUGH WE EXPRESS OUR VOCATIONS IN UNIQUE WAYS. THE UNIVERSAL CALL IS TO BEAR FRUIT. THE LIFE OF CHRIST DEMANDS INCREASE.

   The Christ-LIFE within the Vine and reaching to the tip of every branch;

III. I HAVE PROMISED YOU SIGNIFICANCE

PERMANENCE: YOUR FRUIT TO REMAIN

Dealing in millions of dollars is impressive; dealing in eternity and infinity is the Christian's call. We are to be about the Father's business:

ENC is among the giants of education in Boston/Cambridge; like Bethlehem among the least in Judah . . . but what can be said of the Stockwells and the Merkis and the Patches and the Spangenbergs and the Harold Parrys and the Pauls and the Camerons and the Halls and on and on?

Not a passing display, but eternally significant life work. We write in lives ("You are our epistles, known and read of all men," said St. Paul to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 3:3)) What we work in, concrete and steel, will have lasting significance for decades; what we achieve, in words or sculpture, may last even for centuries, but what we write with the pen of God in human experience will endure to eternity.

This vital connection of Vine and Branches is the same today as when Jesus spoke the words. He is the Life; abide in Him! Seek after the seeking God as though the finding depends on you! But remember, in our following after Him He has already chosen us, and ordained that we should go and bear MUCH fruit, and that that fruit might remain!

Her name was Evelyn. She was a daughter of an Appalachian farmer, and she finally got to college by the merest of chances, or so it would seem.

She took an undergraduate degree at Trevecca Nazarene College, and then with her vision expanding and her obedient spirit following the Light, she passed through these halls, sat where you sit, on her way to medical school and wherever God might want her to go.

What a winding, interesting, seemingly circuitous path her life followed! How rich she became!

She was a medical doctor, first in Africa, then in Papua New Guinea, and made a life-saving contribution to scores if not hundreds of lives.

She was a preacher, and reached many hungry hearts with the simple Gospel.

She was a linguist, and will be remembered for at least a hundred years in the Southwest Pacific for her translation of scripture and commentary into pidgin.

While still an undergraduate, in April of 1945 Evelyn Ramsey wrote these words. She called her poem, "Aspiration:"

ASPIRATION

I do not know what men will say when I have gone,
Or is it vain to think they'll know I've journeyed on?
I do not know what hearts will sigh When ends my day,
Or who will take my tasks and bear Them on their way.
But this I know: that I have aimed So high, so far,
And I have stretched my soul to reach The distant star.
I've given all my life and pow'r To do my task
And this has been my burning prayer. I do not ask
To seem to men a great success If only I
May still be reaching for that star When I must die.

-Evelyn Ramsey 4/22/45