LIVING THE CALL

Mark 1:1-8
¹The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
² As it is written in the Prophets:
“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.”
³ “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’”
⁴ John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. ⁵ Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷ And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. ⁸ I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

This passage in Mark talks about John the Baptist, from whom we can learn how to live the call of God upon our lives.

He had a calling.

In Mark 1:2, the calling of John the Baptist is made clear - he was to be a messenger, a forerunner of Christ. He was called to prepare the way of the Lord. His ministry was intended to prepare the hearts of the people for Jesus’ coming. Also, all the scriptures about his calling pointed to the fact that he was not the Christ but instead, he's a servant of the Christ.

Just like John the Baptist, every single one of us has a specific calling upon our lives that was ordained by God. Our callings in God are not merely by chance. They were so well-planned that His plans upon our lives were formed even before we were conceived, not just when we were born nor just when we were in our mothers' wombs.

In Luke 1:13-17, we know that this is true for John the Baptist as it speaks of God's call on his life even before he was conceived.

Luke 1:13-17
¹³ But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. ¹⁴ And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. ¹⁵ For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

John the Baptist did not choose what he will become. He was called of God. It was the choice of God. He was merely living out the calling God gave him. And yet, while God may have a calling for each one of us, men can still live out callings they've made for themselves. God gives us that free will to choose to live according to His plans or according to our own plans or somebody else's plans for us.

It should be an encouragement to us that we are serving a God who not only knew us even before we were yet formed but He also has good and beautiful plans for our lives as Psalm 139 says:

Psalm 139:13-18
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
¹⁷ How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand…”
What is most astounding in this Scripture is that God has so many precious thoughts towards each of us. He did such an excellent work and plan for our lives that we owe it Him to live out that call.

And living out our call starts with seeking it out.  When judgment day comes, the Lord will make us accountable to the call He has for us. We will never be given rewards for things God has not called us to do.

If we are still at that point where we have yet to know what we are called to be, may we be encouraged by the truth that we do not have to figure out our lives. Rather, we can seek the One who has it all written down, whose thoughts towards us are precious.

He had a message.

The Scriptures also tell us that John the Baptist preached. What did he preach? He preached a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

This tells us that everyone has a calling and everyone has a message. God gives you a calling so that you can deliver the message of God. For John the Baptist, the message was repentance - for people to turn to God, ask for forgiveness, and be changed. While it is true that everyone of us has a general calling to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ, beyond that, we also have individual specific messages that God is forming in our lives. What's God's message through your life?

We need to be faithful to the message just like John the Baptist who declared God's message even when it meant going against the king.

Luke 3:19-20
¹⁹ But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, and for all the evils which Herod had done, ²⁰ also added this, above all, that he shut John up in prison.

There will be times when God would test us by giving us opportunities to share that message to those who will not accept it. Today, there is a wave of pressure on Christians to declare the true and complete message of God. Remember, we are not called to declare a message that people will accept. We are called to deliver the message of truth. May we choose to be like John the Baptist who declared the message of God faithfully to the end.

He had a place – wilderness.

For anyone who has a message from God, you will also have a place. You cannot simply try to live out your calling wherever you want. We have to live it out where God appointed us. And for John the Baptist, his place was the wilderness.

Mark 1:4-5
⁴ John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. ⁵ Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

The wilderness may not seem to be the most convenient nor the most attractive place to do one’s ministry. With the kind of calling he had, it may have been easier for him to engage crowds if he went to synagogues or the temple or to Jerusalem where there are people. It may have also been more prestigious to do ministry there because it was the religious center of the nation.

Instead, he was found in the wilderness, a place that seemed to be an unlikely place to do ministry. For people to listen to John or be ministered unto by John meant they had to go out of their places of comfort and go to the wilderness. Yet, people still came. The passage says that all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were baptized by him. People left the comforts of the city to listen to him. Because John did what God called him to do in the exact place God called him to be in, he was fruitful.

There are times when we look at the place of our calling, whether it’s our places of work, community, or the country where we are in, and we find dissatisfaction. We are discouraged by the terrain, maybe because the place is dry or fruitless, and we begin to wish God called us where it will be easier to fulfill our call. Yet, if God can transform the dry and inconvenient wilderness to a place where people will flock to hear about Him, He certainly can do the same where He has called us to be because it's not the place that makes a person fruitful, it's the capacity to obey right down to the last letter.

He had a lifestyle.

Mark 1:6
⁶ Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

The Gospel of Mark, short as it is, gives insights that can be rich in thought. The Gospel included this detail, that John wore camel’s hair and leather belt on his waist. He also ate locusts and honey.

Rather than wear garments that would have made him respectable in the eyes of those he ministered to, John the Baptist wore camel’s hair and a leather belt. Priests, at that time, had specific garments such as tunics and sashes and hats, among others. Exodus tells us these were for glory and beauty. In contrast, John the Baptist wore camel’s hair. How easy it would have been to write off John the Baptist by the way he looked. In discerning true ministers, we really have to go beyond the exterior and hear the message. Because God has a way of choosing the base things of the world to shame the wise.

Luke 3:1-2
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, ² while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

The passage in Luke speaks of all the political and religious leaders of that time, it ends with saying that the word of the Lord came to John, a man who was in the wilderness. It was to such a man that God spoke. The man who wore camel’s hair and not robes. The man who didn't have titles or stature.

We ought to also learn from John the Baptist and his capacity to turn away from the things of this world. One of the reasons he was so anointed in his ministry is that he had little appetite for this world. 

He had boundaries.

Mark 1:7-8
⁷ And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. ⁸ I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist's ministry was very remarkable yet he was fully aware of the limits of his call.

The ministry of John the Baptist was so great, he was drawing crowds to the wilderness. It was enough to catch the attention of the priests and the Levites. When asked who he was, he began by saying who he was not. He said he was not the Christ. He was not Elijah. He was not the Prophet. 

Then he continued by saying who he was. He said he was but a voice in the wilderness. This is revealing of the character of John the Baptist which is consistently found in the records of his life. He was not consumed by his success. 

When people are experiencing great success in their ministries and career it can be easy to get blinded and think a person is indispensable or that a person is the greatest. It is very easy to savour attention and praise and be consumed by it. 

Yet, John the Baptist was never overtaken by his success. At a time that the Messiah was not yet revealed, it would have been easy for people to think that John might be the one. And there could have been those who suggested this to him. From how much John kept denying that he was the Christ reveals the possibility that this thought was suggested to him. 

As someone who was called to be a powerful forerunner of the Lord, the enemy must have attempted to deflect John from the call by suggestions that he could be more than just a forerunner. Satan after all fell from heaven precisely because of this same issue. The worshipper, because of the power of his ministry, eventually desired to be the one worshipped. So it is highly likely, he would have taunted John to think the same as he did. Thankfully, John had such a victory against pride. He knew his boundaries.

He knew very well that he was only a forerunner not the King, the messenger not the Message, the friend of the bridegroom not the Bridegroom Himself, and the witness not the Christ.

The key to his victory is that he always pointed people back to Christ. He always lifted Jesus up. When people lift you up, lift Jesus instead.

John 3:27-30
²⁷ John answered and said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ ²⁹ He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is fulfilled. ³⁰ He must increase, but I must decrease.

He knew his place was to be the friend of the bridegroom, one who was called to assist in the preparations of the wedding, speak a good word for the bridegroom, rejoice when the match goes on and courts in proxy.

He struggled not with envy or the fear of being threatened by the success of another.

He knew that ultimately he was called to decrease and Jesus to increase. He was not affected by a declining attention. Do we battle with thoughts of not receiving enough attention or satisfaction at receiving the attention?

May we walk in the fear of the Lord carefully, ensuring that we do not draw people to ourselves but that we draw them to their Bridegroom.

John’s disciples were comparing but John rejoiced in seeing that his call was being fulfilled. The one who was called to be the messenger, declaring the “King is coming” rejoices to see that the King has indeed come. It would have been his great grief if the King did not come.

Humility had to be so much a part of who John was because he was heralding the coming of a humble King, the Lamb of God, who was meant not to lord over others but to die for others.

He could be entrusted with the revelation that Jesus is the Christ because he had no struggle with seeking satisfaction from being the first to know.

John 1:29-34
²⁹ The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰ This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ 31 I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.”
³² And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

Finally, what did Jesus say of John the Baptist? 

Luke 7:28
²⁸ For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”