Your Calling Changes Everything

What You Were Created For

“I [Paul] therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Ephesians 4:1

Despite what the world tells us, self-centered happiness is not the point of our lives.

Jesus didn’t die to give us a ticket to heaven and have us keep living how we’ve been living all along.

The gospel isn’t a free pass for sin.

The gospel doesn’t promise wealth, fame, or health in this world.

The gospel is the proclamation that Christ has lifted from our weary shoulders the infinite weight of all of our sins – past, present, and future.

He bled for us on a tree that we might find true life…by dying.

Yes, dying: daily crucifying our sinful flesh, looking away from ourselves and looking to Jesus, our single passion.

And this is our awesome, eternal calling – to live a radically transformed Jesus-centered life, displaying Him in everything we do, and finding our only satisfaction in Him.

How Our Calling Transforms How We Live

“But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Ephesians 2:13

If Jesus calls us to follow Him in every area of life, what does this actually look like?

What is our response to the gospel – Jesus bleeding and dying on a cross, saving us from our sins, and rising from the grave…for us?

Worship.

A life spent glorifying God and enjoying Him forever by…

1. Desiring Him above everything else

When you wake up each morning, do you desire God? Do you hate your sin? Do you want to desire God more? And even on really difficult days, do you at least want to want to desire God more? Until we reach heaven, we’ll never perfectly desire God, but that’s our whole life as Christians: daily repenting of our sin, looking to Jesus in faith, and growing in our love for Him.

2. Enjoying the gifts He’s given

We glorify God by appropriately enjoying and thanking Him for what He’s graciously given to us: family and friends, food, water, air, music, great books and movies, writing, sports, nature, and the gift of life itself.

3. Practicing spiritual disciplines

We also glorify God through simple things like reading the Bible every morning, praying, learning more about Him, singing at church, listening to the sermon, meditating on Scripture, and even fasting on occasion.

4. Doing things well

When we do the everyday, “non-spiritual” things well and for God, we glorify Him. Whether that’s doing algebra problems, vacuuming the floor, playing soccer, listening to your parents, or practicing guitar, if we do it with all our heart (and not for ourselves), God is glorified. (Colossians 3:23)

5. Serving others

We serve Jesus even when we do as little as give a cup of cold water in His name to someone who’s thirsty, make someone smile, play on the worship team at church, help a little sister with multiplication, or help your parents with the dishes.

Above all, we love, desire, and worship God simply because he first loved us.

Before the world was created, God thought of us. He knew our hate for Him but loved us, traitors and rebels, and chose us anyway.

He died for our sins. Let us die to our sins.

As the Westminster Catechism reminds us, we exist to glorify God and enjoy Him forever! And so let us as young people strive to desire and live for God alone, boasting only in the cross forever.

“Therefore, every enjoyment in this life and the next that is not idolatry is a tribute to the infinite value of the cross of Christ – the burning center of the glory of God. And thus a cross-centered, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life-the only God-glorifying life. All others are wasted.” John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life