Renewing Your Commitment to Christ’s Call

I thank Him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He judged me faithful, appointing me to His service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life (1 Tim. 1:12-16).

As with Paul, your life overflowing with His love breaks into spontaneous doxology:

To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (v. 17)

When your vocation becomes doxology, your renewal is complete, but I have one final word to describe what I see in this text to explain the process of renewing your commitment to Christ's calling on your life:

4. Re-entry

For immediately after this ethereal experience, this hopeful renewal and restoration of Simon to the ministry, after reflection, recognition and reassessment, we see glimpses of the old Peter once again:

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to Him and had said, "Lord, who is it that is going to betray You?" When Peter saw Him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" (John 21:20-21).

Peter had been told that ministry would lead him to death. I might have said the same thing: "What about him?" In Bonheoffer's The Cost of Discipleship, his assessment of the call to follow Jesus is always true:

When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther's, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.

Peter was renewed, but his renewal brought him on a pathway of growth in that renewal. There would be lapses into the old ways, and face-to-face admonitions by Paul. There would be revelations about the gospel and the Gentiles; but in the end there would be the man of God, the fatherly pastor, writing to the "elect exiles" these words from his letter from "a Birmingham prison": "This is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it" (1 Pet. 5:12).

What is at stake? Your family. Your ministry. Your own sanctification. Your example to your children and to the children of God who look to us. Still, the reflection of our calling, recognition of His voice, reassessment of our love and re-entry into the ups and downs of His calling on our life always leads to His passion being dispersed to others. He could have done it through angels. He could have done it through a single cosmic fiat that brought about a new heavens and a new earth.

"But when He ascended on high … He gave gifts to men" (Eph. 4:8).

"And He gave some to be pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry" (Eph. 4:11b-12a).

One of those pastors, a giant man of 6'8", the Episcopal rector of Trinity Church, Pa., never was married except to his calling. It is remembered by some of his people that he kept toys in his study in order to connect with the children of his church, the only children he claimed as his own.

Yet ministry can be draining. As a single man with a large parish and mundane burdens of Sunday after Sunday bearing down on his large frame and larger heart, this man must have said, "I am going fishing," and he went to Bethlehem.

In 1865, as he worshipped on Christmas Eve at the site where Jesus was born, he obviously came to hear a voice on the shore if not in the crib. It was a voice that led to a hymn we sing each Christmas, a hymn almost all of us have sung. The final stanza of Bishop Phillip Brooks' carol has special meaning when think of our callings before Christ:

"O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.

"Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.

"We hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell.

"Oh come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!"

May we, too, hear that call now in our hearts—the simple call Jesus gave to Peter in this passage, the beautiful call you heard so long ago, the call He still gives to all who will dive in and swim to Him this day: "Follow Me."