FBC Morning Light – March 17, 2022

Yesterday we talked about the idea of having a vocation, a calling in life. It's important for us to recognize that the area of life that we serve on a day-to-day basis, whether it's in an office, or in a shop, or in a school, or in a home, or whatever, whatever our day-to-day function of earning a living and providing needs for ourselves and others and so forth, that that is a calling.

That God has equipped us in certain ways and directed us in certain ways. He's used our educational background, he's used the talents, the skills that we were born with, that he wired us with, and the direction of our interests, our loves, our desires, our passions, and so forth.

God uses those things to direct us in a particular vocation of life. A vocation is a calling. If you recognize that all of that background that leads you to make a career choice, if you will, is something that's been given by God, then it gives a new perspective on what you do.

We talked about that yesterday from Ezra. Today we're looking at the same general area, but from a different vantage point. The Apostle Paul is writing in 1 Corinthians 4, and he's just been addressing this problem that was going on in the church at Corinth, where people were putting up on a pedestal the different spiritual leaders that the churches had.

Some were saying Paul was the greatest, others were saying Apollos is the greatest, some were saying Peter is the greatest. He debunked that whole mentality. He said, look, it's God that gives the increase, we're just builders, we're just planters and waterers.

He used those two analogies. But then in chapter 4, he uses a different term that applies to our vocation as well. He says in verse 1, let a man consider us. Instead of considering us to be some kind of heroes that need to be worshiped, let a man so consider us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

We are simply servants of Christ, we're slaves of Christ, that's it. We're just servants. But he also says we are stewards of the mysteries of God. What Paul is recognizing is that the calling that he's received from God, and all the training and everything else that he's been given through the course of his life, and the revelation of God's truth that he has received, that all of these things comprise a stewardship.

He needs to be a good steward of these things. He goes on in the next verse, in verse 2, to say, moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful in his stewardship. I'm a pastor, and in many ways like Paul, I can say the same thing.

God has called me to be a servant of Christ and to be a steward of the mysteries of God, and I need to be faithful in that stewardship. But here's what I want us to see. I want us to broaden that understanding, and it even dovetails with the parable of the talents that Jesus shared in the Gospel of Matthew and so forth, and to realize that whatever our vocation, we're nonetheless stewards.

Maybe to help us understand this, in verse 7, he asks a couple of rhetorical questions. He says, who makes you to differ from one another? Why are you like you are, and your spouse is like he or she is?

Why are you wired one way when you grew up in the same family with some siblings that are wired in a different way? Why is it that in the local church there are no two people who are the same? We all differ from one another.

Even if you were an identical twin, you know very well you're not identical in every way. There may be a lot of things that are very much the same, but you can be an identical twin and go in two different directions in terms of vocation, calling, and even faith.

So who is it that makes you to differ from one another? That's a rhetorical question. The answer to that rhetorical question is God. God made me to be what I am like. God wired me with my wiring. Then he asks a second question.

He follows up on that, and he says, what do you have that you did not receive? I've known some people who seem to have the attitude that there's nothing. What I have, I got myself. I got my wealth. I got my education.

I'm the one that put the work in and the books to study and to get the grades I got and get the degrees I've earned. I'm the one who did all this. But Paul would ask you this question. Where'd you get the brains, man?

Where'd you get the brains? Who gave you that ability to process what you study and to be able to perform well in academic exercises? Other people have great talents in musical instruments, and they outshine the rest of us.

I took piano lessons as a kid, and I did okay. I could read the music, but I was never a pianist. I was never wired to be a skilled pianist. That just isn't my bent. I didn't receive what others have received.

Others who can sit down at a piano and just work magic with those keyboards, they can't say, I did this all by myself. No. You had people that poured into you, that trained you, that taught you, and provided you instruments, and paid for your lessons, and all the rest.

The answer to that question is, nothing really. What I have, I've received, if nothing else, ultimately from the gracious hand of God. Answering those two questions correctly not only eliminates the prospect of pride, but it helps us to understand the nature of stewardship.

What I have, I've been given by the grace of God, and the sovereignty of God, and the purposes of God. Verse 2 says, moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. That which I have received, I need to be faithful in the use of it, in the ministering of it, in the development of it even, perhaps.

I just need to be faithful. I hope that you realize your calling is that, your vocation is a calling from God, and that as such, it's a stewardship. We need to be faithful in the carrying out of it. I trust God will help us to do that.

Let's pray and ask him to do so. Our Father and our God, we do thank you today for this challenge to our lives on a very practical level. Help us as stewards of that which you've given to be faithful in the use of it and in the ministry of it, we pray in Jesus' name.

We'll have a good rest of your Thursday, and I trust God will bless you on it. Good day.