Two Calls

I absolutely love it when what I am currently reading in the Scriptures lines up with what one of my devotionals is talking about. Reading through Ephesians in the last week has been somewhere between encouraging and overwhelming, wrestling through ideas of thanksgiving, the Lord's will, and being absolutely ruined at the truth of how caught up in the flesh I am. So, you can imagine that upon getting to the second chapter's concepts of being saved by grace through faith, I am swimming somewhere between "dazed" and "confused".

John Piper puts different application to the fifth verse of chapter two, focusing on the inability of men to do "missionary work" outside of the work of God. I love what Piper writes, especially as he compares our inability to God's sovereign ability to save souls and change lives. He writes, "the great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God Himself does what man cannot do - He creates the faith that saves". God's call "raises the dead" and "creates spiritual life".

As men, "we can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God's call can summon into being things that are not".

"...as it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." Romans 4:17

God's call is one that our own "call" cannot even comprehend; one that raises the dead, gives new hope, re-routes lives, and saves the lost. 

I want to cling to that, and never, ever forget it. 

When I watch friends stumble and fall, slamming their figurative heads and hearts against a wall for months, if not years, at a time, I want to remember that God's call is what can waken them from their stupor. 

When days and weeks of trying to coax young boys off of the street and teenage girls out of the dance bars seem to be unfruitful, I want to hold fast to the fact that God's call can overcome all resistance. 

When there are days that I quickly forget how faithful God has been in this life, I want to remember that God's call in my life, summoned into being things that were not. 

Trust in the call of the Lord, friends, for His call and His grace are the sole things that can raise the dead, re-route the lost, and provide hope for the weary. 

P.S. Nepal this summer? I'll keep you updated (:

(Below is Piper's devotional for October 24th.)

"Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:5

"What missionary has not looked on his work and said, 'It's impossible!'? To which Jesus agrees, 'Yes, with man it is impossible.' No mere human being can liberate another human being from the enslaving power of the love of money. 

The rich young ruler went away sorrowful because the bondage to things cannot be broken by man. With man it is impossible! And therefore missionary work, which is simply liberating the human heart from bondage to allegiances other than Christ, is impossible - with men! 

If God were not in charge in this affair, doing the humanly impossible, the missionary task would be hopeless. Who but God can raise the spiritually dead and give them an ear for the gospel? 'Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ' (Ephesians 2:5). 

The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God Himself does what man cannot do - He creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can't. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb. 'Come forth!' (John 11:43). 

We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God's call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God's call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God's purpose - so much so that Paul can say, 'Those whom [God] called he also justified' (Romans 8:30). 

In other words, God's call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly secures the faith that justifies. 

This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows His sheep by name. 

He calls them and they follow (John 10:3-4, 14). The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, is the great missionary hope."

-Desiring God, Multnomah Books (Colorado Springs, CO), pages 234-235