What Does God Call You?

 

Occasionally, and for any number of reasons, a mother sheep will give birth to a lamb and reject it. If the shepherd tries to return the lamb to its mother, it may even kick its baby away. Once a ewe rejects one of her lambs, she never changes her mind. These lambs are called, ‘Bummer Lambs.” To look at one it will seem its spirit is broken, and unless the shepherd intervenes, the lamb will die.

 

So, the shepherd takes the bummer lamb into his home, hand-feeds it, keeps it warm, and holds it to his chest so the lamb can hear his heartbeat. Once the lamb is strong enough, the shepherd places it back with the rest of the flock, but that sheep never forgets how the shepherd cared for him when his mother rejected him. When the shepherd calls for the flock, the bummer lamb is the first to run to him.

 

Which segues us into today’s primary text in which the Good Shepherd Jesus tells all humanity – the lonely, the content, the frightened, the lost, the sick, the healthy – all humanity: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. . . . .I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me.” (John 10:1-3, 11,14)

 

Have you heard His voice? And in hearing it, are you following the Shepherd?

 

I’ve preached this message in the past, and I thought it good to bring the message again to remind us of God’s great compassion for all men and women, including all who are ‘bummer sheep’ – rejected by others but called alongside of the Good Shepherd. And so, the title of this message is:  What Does God Call You?

 

What does God call all who are His own sheep because of their obedient faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus the Christ? Well He calls us many things and we don’t have time today to cover but only a few. So let’s begin:

 

First, and not necessarily in order of importance, God calls us by our name.

 

Think about that for a moment. Among the most important words in any language is a person’s name. And of the several BILLIONS of people on this planet, God knows YOUR name. And mine.

 

The devil will whisper in your ear from time to time – or maybe all the time – God doesn’t know you. Or if He HAD at one time known you, He’s forgotten you because of your sins. But the devil is only doing what he does best: Lie.  And he is bold-faced lying when he says God doesn’t know you or He’s forgotten you because of your sins. But the truth is, God never forgets His own children. To do so would be contrary to His very nature.

 

I recently saw a church marquee on the 141 as I was driving home. It read, “Satan knows you by your sin. God knows you by your name.”  In other words, Satan calls you “Drunkard” or “Drug Addict” or “Adulterer” or “Thief” or ‘Liar’ or ‘whatever.’ But God calls you by your given name. He calls you John, or Barabara, or Cheryl, or Paul, or whomever. He calls me ‘Richard.’ I’ve heard Him in my thoughts many times, perhaps especially when I’m confused and seeking His guidance, or unhappy and seeking His comfort.

 

There is in the Old Testament an easily missed detail regarding the High Priest’s clothing. Whenever he entered the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle to minister on behalf of the nation, he wore a chest covering on which were the names of the 12 Tribes of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Asher, Dan, and so forth. (See Exodus 28:29). In other words, the High Priest brought the NAMES of each of the Tribes as a memorial before the Lord.

 

But that was only a picture of a much greater memorial our Great High Priest Jesus would do in the eternal tabernacle in heaven. Listen to this text in Isaiah: (Isaiah 49:15-16): Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands . . .”

 

Think a moment about that. Jesus has YOUR NAME inscribed – not tattooed, but engraved – with those Roman spikes, engraved into His hands to forever serve as a reminder of our covenantal relationship with Him each time He looks at His hands, and each time He appears as our high priest before the Father.

 

Yes, Jesus is our great High Priest. We find that reference throughout the New Testament book of Hebrews.  Here are only two examples: “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:13-15 

 

Hebrews 9:11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

 

Your High Priest knows your name! Remember what the Lord Jesus told us: “He who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep . . . and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. . . . I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. . . . .I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me.”

 

Do you ever hear Him speak your name, especially while in prayer? If you’re His sheep by obedient faith, and you haven’t heard Him call your name, then you’re not listening quietly enough. If you belong to God through faith in His Son, God talks to you by His Holy Spirit all the time.

 

You may remember the story of Elijah in the cave, hiding from Jezebel. You can find it in 1 Kings 18-19. What happened to that great prophet has direct relevance to the likely reason we so often do not hear God speak to us, even when He speaks our name:

 

19:11 “[God] said [to Elijah], “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

 

What are you doing, Elijah? Did you get that? In the quietness of the gentle blowing, Elijah heard God call his name!

 

It’s difficult – I wonder if it is even possible – to hear God speak when we’re so busy with noise around us and noise in our minds. That’s why we must often get alone and quiet with God. 

 

God calls you by name. What else does He call the true Christian? He calls us ‘Forgiven.’

 

Many of you know the name, Sandi Patty. She’s been singing about Jesus for decades. But what some of you might not know, a few years after marrying her first husband, Sandi committed adultery against him, which ultimately led to their divorce.

 

In time and through confession of her sin to God, Sandi found forgiveness at the foot of the cross, forgiveness at the foot of the cross which every soul on earth must find if they hope to receive eternal life, and with it, a new start.

 

Sandi’s history of adultery makes the lyrics of a song she wrote and performed years later even more powerful. Let it serve as a reminder to all of us of God’s mercy and forgiveness – despite our failures, as serious as some of them have been:

“I hear You calling out my name as only You can do
Your voice it covers all my shame, the old You turned to new
No matter how things look to me
You see a destiny, a perfect promise

 

“You call me beautiful, You call me righteous
You call me worthy of Your Son's own precious blood
You call me holy, You call me strong at my weakest
Forgiven and pure, You call me Yours

 

Some might think what Sandi sang here is wishful thinking that God could forgive her with her simple confession and repentance – heartfelt as it was.

 

But ask St. Peter who denied his Lord with a curse if God forgives the penitent. Ask St. Paul, who viciously murdered Christians, even travelling to distant cities to carry out his horrific persecutions against the faithful – ask him if God forgives the penitent. Ask the formerly demon-possessed, Mary Magdelene, now known as St. Mary Magdalene if God forgives the penitent. Or the unnamed harlot at the well in Samaria. Or the millions of Christians throughout the last two thousand years who brought their sins to the foot of Calvary. And ask ME, guilty as I was of the grievous sins in my past.

 

And, with the lyrics of Sandi’s song still in our thoughts, another thing God calls us is Beautiful.  The Song of Solomon has been long understood by theologians across the two millennia as a picture of Christ and His Bride, the Church. Listen to these words that remind me of the Good Shepherd calling His sheep home with Him:

 

The Bride says, “My beloved [i.e. Christ] responded and said to me, ‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. ‘The flowers have already appeared in the land; The time has arrived for pruning the vines, And the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. ‘The fig tree has ripened its figs, And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along! (Song of Solomon 2:10-13)

 

Oh, why does anyone delay coming alongside Him when He invites us so lovingly to do so? How does a person come alongside? By faith. By trusting that Jesus is longingly waiting for you to bring yourself and all your needs, all your doubts, all your remorse, all your sorrow for your sins, bring them all to Him. Just do it by faith. Ask Him to forgive you and simply tell Him, “Jesus I Come to Thee.”

 

Some of you might even know the words to this old hymn:

 

Out of my shameful failure and loss, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross, Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm, Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm, Out of distress to jubilant psalm, Jesus, I come to Thee.

 

Oh come. If you’ve come before, come again.  Come often. And if you’ve never come, come now. Just come!

 

What does God call you? He calls you by your name. He calls you Forgiven. He calls you beautiful. What else does God call you? He calls you a precious son or daughter.

 

Listen to Paul write to the Christians at Galatia: “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a child; and if a child, then an heir through God.” Galatians 4:4-7)

 

When the Lord Jesus taught us the “Our Father’ prayer, the word, ‘Father’ is not just a fill-in word, something to make the prayer sound homey and encouraging. No, Jesus taught us to pray to our Father because He gave birth to us through the blood of His only begotten Son. We have been born again, or as St. John tells us in the third chapter of His gospel, we have been born ‘from above.”  

 

Every true Christian has a new ‘heritage, a new spiritual DNA. He tells us it’s so through Paul in his letter to the Christians in Corinth: (2 Corinthians 5:17) “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

 

As far as God is concerned, you are not the same person you used to be before you gave yourself to Jesus. Before your commitment to Christ, you were NOT a child of God. Those are not my words. Those are the words of Scripture. Many of you know them: (John 1:10-13) “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

 

But now as a child of God your record of sins has been forever bleached clean. Because of your faith in Jesus, you are now and forever will be a child of God.

 

So, as I bring this message to a close, I will ask you this all-important question: What does God call you?  Today we looked briefly at four things He calls every Christian: He calls us by name. He calls us forgiven. He calls us beautiful. He calls us His precious son or daughter.

 

There are so many people – even perhaps in this chapel – so many of us have been bummer lambs, rejected and broken. Ahh! But the Good Shepherd has taken us to Himself, holds us tightly to Himself, and feeds us from His own hand.

 

I close with God’s beautiful promise through Isaiah: “Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead those with young.”

 

And with the lyrics of another song of promise:

Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows?
Are you tired of spinning round and round?
Wrap up all those shattered dreams of your life
And at the feet of Jesus, lay them down.

Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus
Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, and broken toys.
Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus
And He will turn your sorrows into joy.

 

Amen