The Venture

January 24, 1999

1 Corinthians 1: 10-18

Psalm 27

"Follow Me, and I will make you . . ." Matthew 4:19

It was a time of change and crisis in Andrew's life, and probably in Peter's and James' and John's as well. Andrew, we know, had been a follower, a disciple, of John the Baptist. Now John was in prison, and the One John had said was the Anointed One was an Unknown Quantity.

Crisis times are opportunity times. But change is threatening. Change can be exciting, it is almost always challenging. But for certain, perhaps in our time as never before, changes are swift, and change is inevitable.

Sometimes I think I'm tempted to sympathize with the Mugwump, the legendary bird that always flew backward so it could see where it had been. But even when we bravely try to face the future, and peer ever so hard into the fog, we really can not tell what even tomorrow may bring. Except that there will be change.

We can wring our hands and wish for the good old days. (Which, by the way, weren't all that much fun then. I know. I was there.) We can hold on for dear life to what we think we know, and rail against anything we don't understand. We would have lots of company across the years:

A university professor, who was evidently in synch with the latest wave of academic sophistication just about at the dawn of the 17th century is said to have said to Galileo, who was proposing a different place in the cosmos for the earth than plunk in the center: "You have made me see this business so plainly and sensibly that, did not the text of Aristotle assert the contrary I should be constrained to confess your opinion to be true."

In 1825 the March issue of The Quarterly Review, in England, had this calculated statement: "What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?"

An American explorer, Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives, in the middle of the last century, 1857, sailed up the Colorado River to a place near what is now Las Vegas, and wrote in his diary: "Ours was the first and will doubtless be the last party of whites to visit this profitless locale."

At the turn of this century a United Brethren Bishop (who, by the way, was just about my age now!), named Milton Wright, had this to say at the suggestion that one day humans would be able to fly: "Blasphemy! Utter blasphemy! God intends only his angels to fly."

Just a few years later airplanes were flying, but one of the great military men of the western world, Marshall Ferdinand Foch of France, said, "Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value."

(It is probably overkill, but interesting, a couple more of these bold predictions of the future:)

In December 1941, four days before Pearl Harbor on December 7, Frank Knox, the Secretary of the Navy said, on December 4 of that year: "Whatever happens the U. S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."

          In 1958 the publication Business Week said: "With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U. S. market."

Crisis and change are inevitable. We can face the future with fear, or with human wisdom and optimism– OR we can seek to find a center we can trust. Like Andrew and Peter and James and John, we can bet our lives that following Jesus will be the wisest thing we can do. It has been a long time since Jesus called these men. We think they were really fortunate to hear Jesus in the flesh. And we wonder if sometimes when preachers talk about God coming by and calling us, and use these scriptures, they are just using "call" as a figure of speech. I have a couple questions, actually three:

1. Does God still call people like He did Peter, Andrew, James and John? Is it just as personal, just as real?
2. How would God get your attention if He wanted to speak to you?
3. How can we respond to a call from God in 1999?

To answer #1: ( Does God still call individual people? ]

1. My answer, in fact my 'message' is "YES!" God calling people personally, by name, in love, is a basic theme that runs through the whole of scripture. This story is true, it happened; but this story is also an example, a paradigm of how Jesus calls you and me. From Adam in the Garden, to Noah, and Abraham, and Jeremiah and Samuel, to the stories of the New Testament God's word is: DARE TO LEAVE WHATEVER WOULD HINDER YOU, AND COME WITH ME: I WILL GIVE YOU REAL LIFE!" In one way or another the Holy Spirit repeats the Savior's call and makes it personal: "Leave the prison of your self-made gods— come away from a Scripture that YOU edit and cut and pick and choose and stand in judgment over— leave the bondage of "what so-called sophisticates might think," AND STEP OUT ON A JOURNEY OF FAITH WITH ME! My official "answer" is YES!
2. My personal testimony is YES!: I know you would expect an evangelical Christian minister to answer in the affirmative. I am certain, convinced, sure, that God spoke to me when I was living selfishly and out of fellowship with Him. He spoke to me by both love and fear; by what I might call "Behold the goodness and the severity of God"(Romans 11:22)

To answer #2 [How would God get your attention if He wanted to speak to you? ]

1. To hear God speak we might just have to be listening! God can't teach us anything if we already know it all!

   Wes Tracy wrote these words in the Herald a few years ago:

         "Some who take the name of Christ seem owned by their ambitions, chained to a success formula, enslaved by the hunger for prestige– diseases they have caught from our sinful culture... Aren't you tired of trying to be a classy sophisticate who knows all about things timely— progressive education, career enhancement, political correctness, next season's fashions, and the done thing? . . . "

2. To hear God speak there must be faith; some measure of trust. The One who is speaking is all-important. We aren't simply buying into a plan or a theology. We aren't waiting until we know all the answers before we follow. When we are convinced: this is God! then we must make a decision.

   In every purely human decision we consider very carefully all the factors and then we decide which way to go. And that is only common sense. But when it comes to the deep satisfaction of the heart, and we hear God begin speaking, we have to choose— make a decision— on whether or not Jesus will be at the very center of our lives.

   These fisher men did not know, certainly, where that decision to leave their boats and follow Jesus would take them. Something inside them convinced them Jesus was no ordinary preacher. They trusted HIM!

   The "common sense" thing would seem to be to say, "God— let me see what You have in mind, then I'll say yes or no–" And that certainly works for everything and everyone except God. But Romans 12: 1,2 says "Present yourselves to God for His service and then He will let you know what is his good and acceptable and perfect will!" So to really hear God speak is a matter of trust!

3. To hear God speak we may well have to go against the current of what is accepted as Christian by many evangelicals. We have to choose to take SELF off the throne, and seek God's face for Himself alone!

Spirituality is MORE than self-fulfillment. God's way is what we are made for— but it is a way of spiritual discipline that does not have happiness or deliverance or becoming fully human as its final goal— though these may well be by-products. Spiritual fulfillment begins when we realize GOD ALMIGHTY WANTS US TO COME AND WALK WITH HIM ON A JOURNEY WHERE ONLY HE KNOWS THE WAY!

Responding to #3 [How can we respond to a call from God in 1999?]

WE HAVE TO CHOOSE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN OUR LIVES. I BELIEVE GOD CAN AND WILL LEAD 'STEP-BY-STEP' THOSE WHO WANT TO BE LED.

A few years ago one morning I opened my Bible to read and get ready to pray. The passage was I Kings 3, and I got as far as verse five (5) where God is speaking to the newly crowned Solomon. He, God, tells Solomon "Ask for whatever you want me to give you."

I stopped. I thought. Honestly, now, what one thing would I ask of God if I knew for certain that He would grant me that one thing, and I did not know if He would grant me anything else. What one thing is most important to me?

First I thought "You, Lord, You tell me! You decide for me!" That sounds very pious, but somehow it did not let me off the hook. I felt prodded. No— what really is the most important thing?

I was pleased that I didn't think about big bucks, or a palatial retirement home or material things— at least not "up front," but only after a long reflection— reflection that these were "way down the list."

I confess I did think of things like not ever wanting to come down to old age and be a burden to myself and others. I thought of what a pleasure it would be to be able to write and speak and teach for years to come.

Do you know what I finally decided was most important? What would YOU say?

Conclusion

WHAT DID FOLLOWING JESUS "DO" FOR ANDREW, PETER, JAMES AND JOHN?

It certainly didn't make them rich. I suppose they are famous now, but they never knew it. But they have made thousands and even millions rich as a result of their decision to go where Jesus led them.

They didn't get to by-pass hard places and pain and even death. But the fact is whether or not you follow Jesus, whether or not you are a Christian, life has hard places and pain and death. And Christians are never alone in their hard places, although at times they forget and feel alone.

But they did find great joy. Peter could write years later, "Even when tribulations come, children, count it all joy!" They did find the love and fellowship of Christ and his church. John as an old man wrote, "My little children, love one another!" And they did meet the massive changes of their generations without being swept away. Their lives were resilient. Change does not need to intimidate and destroy us.

Bishop Milton Wright (,the man I spoke about at the turn of the last century who said flying would be "blasphemy" for humans,) had two sons. Their names were Wilbur and Orville. ( Last spring Helen and I drove around Kitty Hawk and saw the big dunes where these two men on December 17, 1903, became the first humans to fly with a powered plane.) Some years later, in 1910, Orville took his dad, Bishop Wright for his first ride in an airplane, back in Ohio. The old man, at 81 years of age, could be heard shouting above the roar of the engines: " Higher Orville, higher!"

Change is exciting. Change can be threatening. Change is one thing we cannot avoid. All too often we can't easily tell which way to go. But it is possible to hear Jesus, and respond to Him. In our personal lives, in our families, in our church life, we can listen and pray and obey and follow Jesus step-by-step. We can help heal hurts we know about. We can be gentle in spirit and try to reflect the love of Jesus. On this Sunday when many churches are emphasizing the epistle lesson that speaks about unity we can pray to God for a love for all who call Jesus Lord in a depth we haven't known before, perhaps.

That epistle lesson says that if we follow Jesus and proclaim His gospel it will be foolishness to a lot of people, but the promise is that the Gospel will be the very power of God at work through us if we can dare to say no to our fears, and SAY YES! To the One who is calling us. To be very honest with you, some of the changes that loom out in front of me seem staggering in their proportions. I am tempted to be as negative as that "old" (68-year-old) bishop who said "Man will never fly!!" Somehow I believe as we follow God our spirits will soar with something like the old bishop's words: "Higher, Orville, higher!"

Prayer: Thank you, Father, that You still call us by your Spirit, to follow your Son. Father, make us what Jesus calls us to be; make us reflectors of Your love in Christ. Help us to find the blessing of a closer walk with you.

Hymn: #541 JESUS CALLS US