Lecture

Calling and Authority

I want to talk for a few minutes about calling and authority. In our culture, we often think it’s just “me and God,” but the Bible is clear that there’s an accountability piece to our calling and living out our calling. Just as we are responsible for stewarding our leadership, calling is also a gift, and we are accountable for what we do with it. We will be accountable to God, but also accountable to human beings for that. And so, each of us needs to determine to whom besides God we are accountable.

Some of these might be assumed or easy to identify. It could be a supervisor. You’re accountable to them for how you do your work or your position. But beyond those in positional authority, which people in life are impacted by your decisions? It could be family, it could be close friends, it could be people under your leadership, those people who are in your influence as we talked about the nature of leadership.

And then to whom will you give permission, to whom are you giving authority to speak into your life regarding how or whether you are using your calling? In my life, I have kind of a personal board of people that I use for accountability. I, for a long time, worked as sort of a free agent in ministry. I was doing writing and speaking and teaching. And so, I was accountable in some way to those event leaders or, you know, the school I was teaching for that time, but not in general through my ministry. So, I developed a personal accountability board who could say, how are you doing? How are you doing with your calling? How are you doing personally? And are you, you know, tending to your life with Christ and following Him first? Are you tending to your duties and your responsibilities? Now, I’m accountable to my boss here at Denver Seminary and to the larger system that I work within. I have some accountability with my husband about our life and our ministry. And there’s a mutual accountability there. In some ways I’m accountable, I’m accountable to a publisher, I’m responsible. I have asked people to speak into my life. So, who are you, to whom are you accountable and to whom have you given authority to speak into your life?

And then accountability stems from biblical principles of stewardship on the one hand and community on the other. So, the stewardship principle, not just to whom are we accountable, but for what are we accountable? And in a word, we are accountable to God for everything: our marriage, our relationships, our kids, our health, our wealth, our material resources and possessions, our friendships, our job, our influence, and as I mentioned, our calling. So, we are responsible for what we do with it. And so that’s part of the response piece and a stewardship piece. We have a responsibility for what God has given us, what God has asked us to do and invited us to do. Will you ignore it? Will you deny it? Will you muffle it? Will you misuse it? Or will you be a steward of it where instead of burying it, will you use what God has given and be a steward and take care of this gift that God has given to you?

And then the other biblical principle is community, and community influences both the process and the practice of our calling. This is something that I think we’ve gotten away from in the current church in evangelicalism. Throughout church history, a person’s calling was affirmed in the context of community, specifically within a local church. I mentioned the idea of a clearness committee, a lot of denominations still, for vocational ministry, they’ll have a calling is discerned by a committee within the denominational structure or by the congregation. And they say, yes, we affirm you.

I know a friend at a church locally in a particular denomination—when they invited a new pastor, it was mutual. That person felt confirmed by God, it felt confirmed by the community. And the community said, we will sit under your leadership. And he said, I will lead you and be a good steward of this calling that God has given us. So that was within the context of that community. So, some denominations still do this, but it should not be limited to a particular denomination or just to clergy.

I believe that all of us, whatever this calling and influence and leadership and ministry God has called and invited us to, we should be talking with others and having this system of checks and balances of living in community, affirming one another’s calling, supporting and encouraging another, instead of going it alone, as we so often do. The Bible gives us more than 31 “anothers” that speak to the importance of community and of living in close relationship with others. And so, as we’re talking about living out our calling and discerning our calling, these principles, we need to keep these in mind of accountability and community and stewardship, which are all under that larger umbrella of authority.

Bottom line, the process of weighing and living out a calling cannot be a solo activity. So, a few takeaways—we need to submit to and even seek accountability, commit to community and to the stewardship, with integrity of the things God has entrusted to us.

Calling and Seasons Of Life

Today, let’s look at following your calling in different seasons of life. The bottom line is whatever your life stage or season of life affects our calling and how we live it out. Let’s start by looking at what the Bible says. The Bible is clear that God uses people of all ages. We see that Samuel from the time he was a toddler and then to ages eleven and twelve, and through his life as a prophet, I mean from very young, God gave him a calling and an invitation on his life. Noah, on the other hand, was six hundred when he was commanded to build the ark. Abraham fathered a son when he was one hundred and his wife, Sarah, was ninety. And then Jesus was only thirty when He began His earthly ministry. And Paul said to Timothy, don’t let anyone look down on your youthfulness. So, the Bible is clear, no matter what your age, God can use you and give you a calling and invite you to join His work in the world.

In Scripture, we also see the theme of seasons. Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There’s a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” And we look at the verses that follow. He talks about a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, and on and on. There are seasons through the theme of Scripture.

We see there’s, in the Bible, talks about different seasons of life. The Bible talks about girls and boys. They talk about young men and women, old men and women. The Bible talks about singleness and marriage and individuals who are a widow or a widower. And there are examples of men and women who followed God in each of these seasons. So, age and life stage are not qualifiers or disqualifiers for receiving a call from God, but they do affect the working out of that call.

So, let’s look at what those seasons are. We’re going to focus on adult life here primarily. So young adulthood, that’s late teens to early 30s. During those years, most people have more physical energy, but generally fewer financial resources. They may have a little more autonomy over their time, especially if not married or don’t have kids. That is often a season of discerning and learning.

So, me, in my mid-20s, in one year, I got married, I graduated from Denver Seminary here, I started paying back student loans—so I got like real financial obligations—bought a car, Dave and I moved one thousand miles to a new city and church. We rented an apartment, then bought a house and we got a dog. So, adulthood got real in a hurry. And I remember writing our Christmas letter and looking at those tests that measure stress factors and saying we should have been dead by all the points we had accumulated during that year.

So, it’s a season of a lot of growing, a lot of new exploration and freedom and discovery. There are some key tasks for each life stage. And for this season of life, the key tasks are one, cultivate an ear for the Holy Spirit. That’s when we’re often still learning how God speaks to us and how to hear Him in our life. Also cultivate authentic deep relationships. Going back to what we talked about, about calling and living that out in community, cultivate those relationships and those real people who can speak deeply to you. And then experiment—if something doesn’t work out, don’t view it as a failure, view it as a learning experience. You have plenty of time to try a bunch of new things.

The next season is middle age and for most people that’s characterized by kind of the forties to the mid-sixties now. So, when social security was first enacted in the United States, the life expectancy was sixty-one years old. And so now middle age goes beyond when the life expectancy used to be. Sixty really is the new forty in a lot of ways. This era of life, and that’s what I’m in the middle of right now, is often marked by tremendous productivity. Perhaps you’re raising children, being productive at work, getting some success, your career is developing, you’re maybe involved in community activities. You’re becoming recognized, establishing yourself. Often, but not always, there’s some greater financial stability or at least some predictability to that. There are deeper relationships or the potential for deeper relationships as you live together over time and go through those things.

But there’s also greater pain and loss. So, there’s body decline. I joke that the warranty runs out at age forty. You have children, you may also be dealing with aging parents, so both ends of the spectrum at once. You may have empty nest things that you’re dealing with the loss of that or some, you know, disability or death within your family or those close to you. So, you start seeing the limitations of life and looking toward the end of life. Marriages often take a lot of lumps, not all of them survive. At this season of life, your dreams may be shattered. Maybe it’s you never married. Maybe it’s a failed marriage. Maybe it was the reality of not having children or something not going right in your church or your work or relationships. So, you start having your share of losses and failures.

Some people have more time at this season of life. Some people have less because they may have added responsibilities to their life. Less than ten years ago, I had four living parents and in-laws, two kids in the thick of activities in middle school and high school. Now we have one parent who is ninety-one years old, we have no kids at home, and we’ve made a major life move. So, we’re in a very different season of life from forties to now in our fifties.

The key tasks for this season of life, one is to do your emotional work - work through the grief, work through the loss, lament those things that haven’t happened, celebrate those that are of course, but work through that, don’t put those things in a box or box yourself in by not working through those things. And continue moving toward complete surrender to Christ. We learn a lot about what we can and can’t control. And there’s a lot of things we can’t control that we learn in that season. And then give back—you begin thinking in terms of how much time you have left instead of, and that becomes very real. It becomes a shortening runway, I guess, but you still have potentially many years of impact ahead of you—ten, twenty, thirty, maybe even forty or fifty years of impact. Even though our lifespan is now, well into late seventies or eighties, many people living into their nineties, we still sometimes have the mindset that productivity stops at fifty or sixty, you know, around sixties, and that’s just not true anymore. So, recognize you have many years of impact ahead of you.

Then the third season of life of adulthood is the senior years. And so that’s approximately mid-sixties to end of life, could be eighties, nineties, or beyond. And so even the physical and mental health can decline. There’s definitely a decline in that age. There’s no reason spiritual growth and ministry impact need to decline as well. And many people are still in very good health and for many years, a few maybe more corrective things. You have a hearing aid, you have to walk with some assistance, but it can actually be a time of unparalleled influence and productivity and impact at that time.

So, the key tasks, this is when we need your wisdom, keep serving. Don’t let the world shut you out, keep serving. Don’t just hand it off and delegate to say, well, it’s other people’s time now. Yes, but we need you, finish well. The world and the church and the context around you, we need your voice. We need your experience and your wisdom.

So those are three major seasons of life. Now there’s a parenthesis with this of calling and parenthood. Not everyone experiences this, and this doesn’t correspond neatly to age. Someone in their 40s could be a grandparent and another could be just starting a family. So, it doesn’t correspond to that. And not everybody has it, but for those of you who are parents and in various seasons of parenting, embrace each season of life of parenting with your kids. Your children may not be your only calling, but they are your first responsibility and an important, critical piece of your calling. Others can do your other work. You are uniquely positioned to parent your kids. I talked with a friend who said, you know, at the end of life, God’s not going to say, well, you neglected your kids, but you did this really cool thing over here for the Kingdom. Your ministry to your children and to your family is one of your first primary responsibilities in your call to follow Christ.

And then for parents, embrace the tension. Calling and seasons of life don’t always neatly fit together. I’ve experienced that as I’ve worked in youth ministry with little kids at home, and then did my PhD while I had elementary school kids. And then for a season, stepped out of more full-time stuff. And just really stepped back from writing and leading and doing any of that hands on stuff to focus on launching my teen children, and now I’ve got college young adult kids, and I have suddenly a tremendous amount of freedom and flexibility that I didn’t have. So, there’s tensions in each of those seasons and embrace those tensions.

So that’s just an overview of the seasons of life and what it looks like and the opportunities and key tasks for each of those seasons of life and parenting.

Calling and Money

In this session, we’re going to look at the relationship between calling and money. When my husband and I graduated from Denver Seminary twenty-five years ago, we were thrilled that Dave was offered a pastoral position paying just about $30,000 a year. For us, that was a princely sum, it’s the first time we were gainfully employed full-time in vocational church ministry and doing what we had prepared to do while we were here at the seminary.

But then as we figured in our expenses, suddenly that didn’t seem to be quite as much money as we had thought. As I mentioned before, we had rent and we were in a big city, we then bought a house. We had grown up things like insurance and a car to take care of and student loans. So, we joke that Dave and I . . . we didn’t go into ministry for the money and so far, that’s worked out really well for us.

So, the reality, though, is money impacts our calling and is very much related to our calling and how we live that out and can get tricky. And when you look at money in Scripture, the Bible talks about money more than any other topic. And the dominant theme with money is actually relationship—our relationship to money and how we use money in relationship to others.

So, when it comes to our relationship to money, there’s several key principles. One is, don’t set your heart on it. King David talks about that, the Psalms talk about that. And then Proverbs is very clear. Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. So, our relationship to money, which should be one that . . . it’s not a master that we serve. We do not wear ourselves out. We do not live for money.

But then there’s also the component of money in relationship to others. Money impacts our relationship with God. The Bible says trust in God, not in money. It impacts our relationship with authority. And so, the Bible says pay what is owed to the government and to those authorities. And then money in relationship to others in general. The Bible says, we should give generously. We should not steal or cheat anyone. Don’t oppress the poor. Don’t be burdened by debt. So, the Bible talks more about money, and it affects our relationships. It impacts our relationships.

But there are several principles we can take from Scripture about money. One that is clear throughout Scripture is that there’s the promise of God’s provision. God promises to provide for us and for our needs. And finances are a piece of that, but, the other hand, money is temporal or fleeting and it never fully satisfies. The Bible is very clear that if you put your trust in money, there is a Proverb that says, put your trust in money and down you go.

Another theme we see in Scripture is generosity. The Bible says Christians should give quietly, habitually, proportionately, intentionally, willingly, cheerfully, sacrificially, with love, and as an act of worship. So, generosity is a theme woven throughout the Bible, commanded of Scripture. And so is contentment. We should be satisfied with what we have been given. Another Proverb says, “Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil.”

The Bible then talks about responsibility—the responsibility that comes with money and with finances, with wealth. There’s a responsibility of employers to their workers. There’s a responsibility of borrowers to debtors and . . . to those who hold our debts. And also, to those who hold debts toward the borrowers that have that debt. There’s a responsibility for parents and grandparents to provide for their households. And then there’s responsibilities to be wise and to take precautions against danger.

So how does money complicate our calling? We are called to live in community, yet we are also called to be set apart as followers of Christ and in our calling and to not follow the patterns of the world. So, this I found can create a tension. Living in community and the world’s standards of money are different from the biblical principles about money. Do we pay for travel or kids’ activities that our culture says are necessary or of high value when others don’t have enough to eat? What are our true needs versus merely wants? You know, what do our practices communicate to our friends and neighbors? And so, our pastoral ministry and leadership over these many years, my husband and I know that people watch what we do with our money and what we do with our money is one way of influencing and leading our congregation and those others that we have relationship with and influence over. And so how we steward our money is another piece of our calling and following our calling.

Money also can color our leadership and our influence. We may be less willing to speak truth if it will impact us financially. I know from experience in church ministry, there are people I know, and the temptation for us ourselves, to not speak up or to talk to someone. We may guess who the givers are, or we can’t say this from the pulpit. I’ve heard people say, we can’t say that, or so-and-so might be upset. And so, it can create this, it can control us and our ability or willingness to speak freely and to speak honestly, because of that tension.

There are just no easy answers. And these are things we need to wrestle with, but we need to be aware of the impact that money has in our lives. So, for example, a number of examples: is a student loan God’s provision, is it God’s provision that God’s called you to seminary and He has provided a loan, or is it a trap and a burden and a debt that you need to not take on? I think it can be both. I don’t know that there’s one clear answer. The Bible’s clear about the burden of debt, but also there, you know, with the cost of education or there’s things that it can do, possibly within reason and wisdom that can be a tool.

What does providing for your family mean? The Bible is clear. We need to provide for our family, be a good steward, food and shelter, sure. But what kind of food, what kind of shelter, is there a line between extravagance there or, you know, how do you know? Is a fully funded college fund—is that providing for your family? Is that a need or is that a cultural demand or is that wisdom and stewardship?

What is the difference between stepping out in faith and acting in foolishness? Are there times where we may have nothing and God is saying go forward anyway, or are there times where we say, no, we can’t, you know, take that next step, unless we have some financial provision for that. My husband and I wrestled through that as we were feeling God’s call to come out to Denver before I had the job at the seminary, and he now has a pastoral position. And so, we felt God leading us to Denver, but we felt that to be fiscally good stewards we needed at least one income. And then God did provide, in the form of Denver Seminary, but we were not ready to make that move without, but He could have said go, you know, like He did to Abram, go to the land, I’ll show you, and I’m going to provide for you along the way. I’ve heard many people who God has done that for as well.

So, the Bible gives principles. But how those look like in practice may look different for each person. Each of us though must wrestle with our relationship with money and how it affects our calling. Dave and I continue to ask those hard questions.

So here are some guiding principles. One is that money is important. It’s a necessary part of our society. It’s very powerful, but it also complicates relationships. Our relationship with God, with others, with employers, with those around us, with ministry—it can complicate things.

It can be a tool, or it can be a burden. So, it doesn’t say that money’s the root of all evil, that the love of money is the root of all evil. And there are many ways you can use it for good or for bad. The Bible is not against having wealth, but it is very clear that we will be called to account for how we may use what God has given us. And also following our calling does require sacrifice. And some of that may be financial as well. And in all things biblical principles must take precedence.

So those are just a few things that are, it is important to wrestle with and how money complicates or can aid our calling, but we need to wrestle with what the Bible says about money because it is such a dominant topic and something that will affect how we live out our calling.

Challenges With Calling

In this session, we will look at the various challenges we might experience while we are following God’s call. The Bible never promises that following God will be easy. In fact, Jesus said that believers should expect trouble in this world. Think of the biblical examples of men and women who experienced challenges as they followed God. Abraham was asked to say goodbye to his country and to his people. Joseph was in prison for years on false charges. Moses spent forty years in the desert in exile before God called him to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Esther risked her life to ask favor for the Jewish people. Think of all the Old Testament prophets who were subject to the ridicule, rejection, physical suffering, doubt. Paul the apostle says he was often hungry, thirsty, and naked. He was beaten, whipped, shipwrecked, imprisoned, threatened. Jesus Himself was despised and rejected, a Man of sorrows acquainted with grief. In other words, following God involves hardship.

Here are some common challenges we can experience. One of those is criticism. It could be for your work or even who you are, it could be publicly, could be privately, or worse, when you’re not present. So, we can experience criticism.

Another challenge is doubt or lack of confidence. This one can spring up from inside often, as well as outside. Our response there could be fear or faith. Do we continue to fear, have lack of confidence, or do we trust what God is saying and calling us to?

Another challenge is waiting and not hearing. It may seem that God has gone silent, but His ways are higher than ours. His timetable is very different. There have been times where . . . there was a time where I was doing hands on youth ministry, and I was at a youth event. I was working a conference for a denomination. And so, I was in the big arena kind of evening rally thing. Some of you have experienced this or know what I’m talking about. And I had my radio on ‘cause I was staff and had to listen in the headset. And so, I’ve been doing hands on youth ministry for many, many years. I was at this conference and this arena is rocking and everybody’s praising and rejoicing and worshiping God. And I felt like the sound went out, just kind of one of those whooshes kind of thing. And again, heard God’s voice. And so, again, it wasn’t audible, but for me, I describe it as God almost whispering right behind my ear and God went, this isn’t you anymore. And so, I was like, what, excuse me? And God said, “this hands-on youth ministry, you’ve done it faithfully and well, but I’m calling you to something else.” And when God speaks to me it’s always accompanied by great peace. And so, I knew, I was like, “oh, okay, well then what’s next?”

And then I didn’t hear anything for three years. And so that was a season of doubt and discouragement of waiting and not hearing. God, I felt, had gone silent. I had young boys. And so, I knew I had a primary responsibility to my kids and to my family, but I also knew that God hadn’t lifted or completely removed His calling to the other things I was doing in ministry at the time. But it took a time of wrestling with God and listening and seeking Him to really . . . it was almost a renewed season of preparation for a next season of call. So, it’s important . . . I needed to remember at that time that God’s ways are higher than mine, His timetable was very different. Thankfully it was not forty years, but it was a dry season of what I call kind of a wilderness time.

There’s also this dry desert place where we feel like we have a parched soul. God may seem distant. We feel abandoned and alone, but God has not abandoned you. He’s not abandoned me. There’s work to be done, but it’s not measured by external productivity. There’s a lot of work and growth and forward progress that must be made in our heart and our soul preparing us, continuing to tune our ears to the Holy Spirit during that time.

There are other hardships, challenges could be hardship that could be physical and health issues. There could be relationship conflicts, could be abuses of power that we’ve experienced and been victim to. Organizational dysfunction may make you consider leaving a place and a major change with that. There can even be natural disasters that change the course of our life and the work that we’ve been doing and the ministry for the Kingdom.

Again, remember God is always at work and God never wastes anything through any of those hardships. I have a friend, Lindy, who has terminal cancer and she, to my amazement, views it as a gift because she said, it’s caused me to focus on God. “I have a freedom now, I just,” she said, “I go through life open handedly in a way I never did before and say, ‘God, what do you have today for me?’” So that process of releasing our grip.

Then there’s times, one of the challenges we may experience is brokenness. It could be burnout. We just come to the end of ourselves. It could be moral failure. It could be something where we just are utterly broken, unable to continue, unable even to get up, to get out of bed. I’ve experienced those times as well, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I’ve experienced times where I’ve compromised my faith and my ministry. And other times I didn’t take good care of myself or times where I’ve been wounded by others. And I couldn’t get up and continue for a time.

Those times of brokenness do not automatically disqualify us from God using us in the future, but we must take the time. You must take the time to heal and work through those root issues that led to those things, or they’re going to happen again. They’re just going to repeat themselves in a different place and maybe a little different way.

When we experience challenges we wonder, I think it’s natural to question our calling and to wonder if it’s a change of course, is this obstacle or a challenge something that is a sign for us that we should stop and turn around and go back? Or is it something that we should push through and like dealing with calling and money, there are not always clear answers to what that is.

Generally, we have three options when we experience those types of challenges or obstacles or hardship. One is to stay the course, two is to stop and wait for more instruction, three is to change course. I would say, generally, we should stay the course unless you have clear direction otherwise. I would say if there’s brokenness involved, we should stop and wait for more instruction and heal before we proceed. But just because we have hardship sometimes in following what God’s called us to do does not mean that we’re in the wrong place. It’s often a confirmation, not always, that we’re in the right place and God wants to be with us in those things.

Challenges or the lack of them are not a sign or a test of spiritual maturity or immaturity. God causes the rain to fall on the just, on the unjust, the mature, the immature. Just because we have hardship doesn’t mean we’re following or not following God. Just because we’re not having hardship doesn’t mean we’re automatically in God’s will either. And it’s important to remember with any challenges during our calling, God wants you and your heart more than what you can do for Him. He values the condition of your heart over the work of your hands. And then continue to tune your ear to the Spirit.

Like some of these other areas, there’s tensions to live through and to navigate with this. The important thing through the entire journey of calling, whether it’s the preparation, the discernment, the obedience, the living that out in different seasons of life, life stages, challenges, money, all these different areas, is to walk with God, to continue to point our compass toward Him as our guide point and to continue to grow closer, to tune our ear to be shaped into the image and likeness of Christ. And that’s part of our initial calling to follow Him. And then again, that’s the primary calling with our secondary calling of what we can do to join His work in this world.

Thank you so much for joining me for this series about calling. I hope it has given you more clarity about where God is inviting you to join Him. Perhaps you’ve been challenged by some of the topics I’m teaching and need to continue a conversation that God has started with you. I hope you work through the putting it into practice questions and that you continue to work through those, maybe journaling in prayer, talking with God and with others as you continue to discover and live out what God is inviting you to do.

It is my prayer that you continue to discover that and follow with deep gladness. And so, I want to close and leave you with a benediction from Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the United States Senate: “You go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you. Wherever you are, God has put you there. He has a purpose in you being there. Christ who indwells you has something He wants to do through you where you are. Believe this and go in His grace and love and power.” Amen. Grace and peace to you.