God issues three basic calls to people, each of which resonates deeply in the hearts of those who love him. Each call draws us into a deeper experience of God’s love and to a new level of commitment reflected in three baptisms. Each is tied firmly to God’s eternal purpose to glorify his Son through us, and each is a doorway into personal joy and fulfillment. Each is an integral part of the gospel.
Jesus combined all three calls in one beautiful sentence.
...“Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” Matthew 4:19 (NLT)
Come… Follow… Fish. Each of the three calls invites us into a deeper relationship with God, and each has a higher personal cost associated with it. Many are called, but few embrace all three.
Come: The Call to Know Jesus as Savior
And you... have been called to belong to Jesus Christ. Romans 1:6 (NLT)
The initial call we receive from God is the call to come to him to be loved, forgiven, reconciled, and become part of God’s family through the new birth.
Because sin alienated us from God and broke our spiritual lifeline, before we hear and respond to this call, our biggest problem, deepest fear, and loneliest prospect is a life and an eternity separated from God. We were spiritual orphans in the universe. Here is how Paul put it.
In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. Ephesians 2:12 (NLT)
Father God looked upon our lost condition with great compassion and sent his only Son to suffer the judgment our sins deserved so that we might be fully restored to him.
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NLT)
God’s loving call to come to Christ the Savior and belong to his family satisfies our deepest longing and answers our identity question, making us children of God.
Becoming part of God’s family through the new birth automatically makes us belong to everyone else in the family, too. The Holy Spirit spiritually baptizes or immerses us into the body of Christ.
Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 (NLT)
Father God must open our spiritual understanding and give us the ability to hear this call. Our Lord personally issued this call to belong to all who can receive it.
...“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)
The first and most fundamental call anyone can receive from God is the gospel call to know Jesus as Savior and become sons and daughters of God through the new birth.
When we put our faith and allegiance in Christ, Jesus shares his relationship with Abba Father with us.
And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” 7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. Galatians 4:6–7 (NLT)
If you have never done so before, now is the time to respond to the gospel call to become a child of God. Jesus did the hard part on the cross, but we have our own responsibility in the matter. His hand is extended to offer us the gift of life. Our part is to reach out and receive that gift and rest in the knowledge that we are loved.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13 (ESV)
Follow: The Call to Know Jesus as Lord
Being loved and part of God’s family is deeply satisfying but it is not all there is. Jesus knew the joy of doing the things that pleased his Father.
but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here. John 14:31 (NASB95)
The second call from God is the call to love and obey Jesus the Lord. It challenges us to return the love God poured out on us through being faithful and dedicated to his beloved Son.
Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.” John 14:21 (NLT)
When we respond to this call to show allegiance to Jesus, it will fulfill another fundamental desire we all have – to experience the joy of doing what pleases God.
We must first discover who we are through the new birth before we can move forward to learning to please God through our thoughts, words, and deeds. As important as resting in God’s love is, our Lord did not create us merely to exist. He also intends for us to properly represent him to the world through doing good works of faith and love.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10 (NASB)
We cannot earn God’s approval and favor, which are gifts. Our approval by God is first and foremost based on Christ’s performance on our behalf. He kept the law of God perfectly and served his Abba Father without deviation all the way to the cross. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, his right standing with God and the approval attached to his perfect obedience are credited to our spiritual “bank account”. This is called justification, the judicial act of God’s imputing or crediting Christ’s righteousness to those who believe.
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Ephesians 2:8–9 (NLT)
Because we are new creations in Christ, who have been given a right standing with God and his approval, we (super)naturally desire to do good works. The indwelling Holy Spirit inspires and enables us to carry them out.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. Philippians 2:13 (NLT)
The Holy Spirit works inside us so that we can begin to act in agreement with what he did inside us through justification.
He works to translate our inner identity into outward performance.
Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Galatians 5:25 (NLT)
In other words, through what is called sanctification or transformation we start to think and act more like who we are, new creations in Christ. We participate in this process by consecrating, dedicating, or surrendering ourselves to Christ’s lordship and the inner work of God’s Spirit. This is a “work” of faith on our part.
When some of his disciples asked Jesus what works God wanted them to do, here is what our Lord said.
..."This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." John 6:29 (NASB)
The Greek verb pisteuo, which is translated “believe,” also carries the fundamental idea of allegiance. It is a lot more than mere agreement with a set of doctrines or belief that Jesus lived, died, and rose again. Faith or belief in Jesus that does not include faithfulness or allegiance to him and his Word is mere lip service and is not biblical faith. Jesus’ call to follow him is a call to show allegiance to him above all else.
This requires us to surrender our will to him.
The Holy Spirit helps us to enter an experience of Christ’s allegiance to his heavenly Father.
By coming into alignment with Christ’s obedience through the Spirit’s help, we gain a deeper experience of God’s approval that previously was simply a gift to us. In other words, God imputes (credits to our account) Christ’s righteousness, but he also wants us to experience living out that righteousness. Some say this is when what was imputed becomes imparted.
Our allegiance to Christ is also demonstrated when we declare his lordship publicly before others.
Following Jesus means we attach ourselves to him personally and follow his teachings. It means we seek to be continually “led by the Spirit.” It means we no longer belong to ourselves: we belong to God.
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NLT)
This is much different from merely being a “Christian” or a “church goer.” It means we seriously commit ourselves to Christ and are not ashamed to be known as one of his disciples.
Water baptism is a formal public declaration of allegiance to Jesus. In it we lay aside our past self-directed way of living and launch ourselves into a life on mission.
Receiving Jesus as Savior can be done privately, but the call to follow requires a public identification with our Lord. He wants us to unashamedly declare our allegiance to him.
I tell you the truth, everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, the Son of Man will also acknowledge in the presence of God’s angels. 9 But anyone who denies me here on earth will be denied before God’s angels. Luke 12:8-9 (NLT)
Water baptism is the perfect setting for us to do this. We should encourage any new convert to publicly declare allegiance to Christ by being baptized in water.
Fish: The Call to Know Jesus as the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit
No matter what our mission or job in life has been up to this point, Jesus gives his followers a new one – fishing for people.
Jesus’ mission was multi-faceted. He was and is the perfect representation of what Father God is like. He lived in an exemplary way to illustrate what a God-directed and God-glorifying life looks like. He also came to die for our sins as God’s Lamb and to rise again as the exalted Lord of Lords. Finally, as the ascended Lord of the harvest, his continuing mission is to add large numbers of people to God’s family through the church’s preaching the gospel message and making new disciples. He accomplishes this by pouring out his Spirit upon his people and sending us to keep working at what he began until the day he returns as the glorious Son of Man, who will judge the world in righteousness.
Responding to God’s first two calls, receiving our Savior’s love and demonstrating our love for him by surrendering to his lordship, propels us into the mission to love those who are currently outside of God’s family.
When we respond to the call to know Jesus as Savior, we experience what it means to belong to God and his family. When we obey the call to serve Jesus the Lord, we experience the joy of acknowledging him publicly and serving him wholeheartedly.
The call to become fishers of men is a call to experience the joy of being an important and significant representative of Christ.
When God the Father told people to listen to Jesus, he let everyone know that his Son is supremely significant. We participate in Christ’s significance through being actively on mission with him.
God created Adam and Eve to love him and fellowship with him and gave them a job to do – to be fruitful and multiply and rule over his creation. The church has the same mandate. Our mission is not simply to go to church and eventually get to heaven. In between being born again and the death of our bodies, we have a responsibility – to go and make disciples.
Most missional activity takes place outside the church building and is a 24/7 calling.
The call to make disciples provokes us to look on our neighbors and community with new eyes, those of a compassionate shepherd.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. 38 So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” Matthew 9:36–38 (NLT)
Being on mission challenges us to be alert to the prompting of the Spirit, who is always on mission, and the needs of those living around us, in the expectation that God will open doors of opportunity for us to meet and influence people toward God’s kingdom every day. God gave us new life so we can join him in his worldwide mission to fish for, catch, and disciple people.
Jesus formally announced the call to mission just before he ascended into heaven, when he gave his disciples and us what we now call the Great Commission.
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20 (NASB)
The call to belong to God’s family is relatively pain free for us, but it cost Jesus everything. For us, it is mainly about discovering how much God loves us. The greatest number of people who call themselves Christians respond to this call. The call to loyally follow Christ introduces the cost associated with identifying with our Lord publicly and keeping his commandments, and fewer accept this call. It is an invitation to die to ourselves and live for our Lord and God’s glory. There usually are more people who identify themselves as Christians than as loyal followers of Christ.
The call to mission is the costliest of all, and fewer still embrace a Great Commission lifestyle. The call to mission invites us to expend ourselves for others for Jesus’ sake, those who are currently God’s enemies in many cases. It is also our call to have great and lasting significance.
Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever. Daniel 12:3 (NLT)
Because Jesus was God’s own son, and because he always did what pleased his Father, he was most significant. His words are to be heeded, just as the Father said when he spoke from heaven.
He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Matthew 17:5 (ESV)
When we share the good news of the Gospel, we become extremely significant, too. People should listen to us because we speak for God.
The devil will resist our responding to the gospel’s call to belong because he wants you and me to be eternally lost. He will also resist our responding to the call to surrender our lives to Jesus’ lordship because he knows that will make us dangerous people with respect to his kingdom of darkness. He most firmly and fiercely resists any person or group who commits to being on mission because he knows that such a commitment will bring many others into the kingdom of God.
One of the first steps to embracing the call to mission is to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which equips and empowers us to proclaim the Gospel boldly with signs following.
…he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” ... 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:4-8 (NLT)
If you have never asked for this gift, right now is the perfect time. Like all of God’s gifts, it is received by faith. It is for all his children, and its purpose is to enable and empower us to fulfill the Great Commission. When we share the gospel, we should tell our hearers that as disciples they are called to be on mission and invite them to receive the baptism in the Spirit.
Calling for a Proper Response
As any good salesman knows, closing is critical. A great presentation means nothing without a sale.
We should never try to coerce or manipulate our hearers into a response, but we should give them an opportunity to make one.
It is a good idea to communicate the urgency to respond since no one is guaranteed a tomorrow. Procrastination could decide their eternity in a very negative way. Paul said that today is the right time to respond to the gospel.
For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2 (NLT)
We should remind our hearers that one day we will all stand in judgment before God. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will be safe and not suffer God’s wrath against the world’s sinful rebellion against his rule.
And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15 (NLT)
We should urge them to save themselves from this perverse generation that is hurtling toward the abyss. In conclusion, let’s give our hearers specific steps to take, just as Peter did on Pentecost when he said the following.
Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 "For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." Acts 2:38-39 (NASB)
- Repent – The Spirit works in us to convict us of our root sin of trying to be the lord of our own lives. True repentance takes place when we acknowledge our sins, turn away from them, ask for and receive forgiveness, and surrender to Christ’s lordship. Faith is required for us to repent. We are not simply sorry for our sins. Rather we receive God’s amazing provision for us in Christ and commit to a lifetime of service to his Lordship.
- Be Water Baptized – Water baptism is a public demonstration of our repentance, faith, surrender to Christ, and our commitment to serve him for the rest of our lives.
- Receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit – This baptism equips Christ’s followers to fulfill the Great Commission. We cannot adequately serve the Lord of the harvest without it.
