The Call of the Church

Who has not been somewhere and suddenly been confronted with an unwelcome ring. Perhaps you are in the middle of a meeting or in the middle of a church service and the phone rings. Everyone immediately plunges into their personal belongings to find the phone. The cell phone must be stopped; the ring must be silenced.

In some ways, this seems to be happening in many quarters of the church today. A great number of people are looking to silence or have silenced the call of God upon His church. Ignoring God’s call is, of course, done to the church’s own peril. This is precisely what the apostle Paul sought to point out to the church at Corinth. Take a look at how he began his first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Cor. 1:2).

This first letter of Paul to the Corinthians was written about AD 54-56 from Ephesus during Paul’s 3rd missionary journey. He wrote to the church in Corinth, the capital city of the Roman province of Achaia. The church in Corinth had been planted only a few years earlier by Paul on his second missionary journey and, he wrote to the church in response to reports he had received about the church and in response to some of their questions.

Before addressing these concerns, he establishes a very important tone for the letter in the opening verses. It is a very serious tone that rests on a most solemn calling, the calling of God. The Christians in Corinth needed to remember that God had laid claim to their lives. The church in that ancient city was the “church of God.” Paul knew that the church belongs to God. Paul had founded the church, but it did not belong to him. This was not the church of Paul or of any other person. It was the church of God.

How local churches today need to hear that they belong to God! Who owns the church? God owns the church. We are members of it, but the church is God’s. If that is the case, then we are accountable to God for what takes place in His church. We are accountable to God for what we choose to do or leave undone. It is the will of God, not the will of the majority or the most influential, we should be seeking. So many churches today lie in a state of confusion because they have abandoned the high calling as being the people of God, the church of God. We find ourselves running here and there after every new program and strategy that comes along rather than relentlessly pursuing God’s call.

Paul goes on to say that he wrote to the church or to “those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling. . .” The word sanctified means to be set apart from the world. We are set apart or sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling. We are a holy people, a devoted or consecrated people. This is our calling as the church of God.

In fact, the word church itself carries some of this idea inherently. It means those called out. The church is called out from the world to be God’s possession. Even though the church at Corinth was composed of many different kinds of people from all levels of society, all of them were saints by calling. In Christ we are all saints. Therefore, there should be no distinctions made among us in terms of class or social standing. There is no distinction between rich or poor, black or white, for in Christ we are brothers and sisters. In Christ we are sanctified and are saints by calling.

As those who belong to God and are sanctified in Christ, we are part of a very large family. We are among those “who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” On the one hand, the call of the church speaks to our identity as the people of God. On the other hand, the call of the church speaks to what we do that is distinct from the world, and that is we call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is through calling on the name of the Lord Jesus that we are saved. When we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus we are declaring allegiance to Him. We are declaring our dependence upon Him for salvation and all things. It is this allegiance to Christ that we share with other local churches and other Christians. Christ is the Lord over all, and we are to be pursuing a relationship with Him together.

The sanctified life or holy life is not to be left to a few but is to be the life of all who are in the church, to all who call Jesus their Lord. The church has been called; every Christian has been called by God. We are called into fellowship with one another through faith in Christ. We are called into fellowship in order to labor together for Christ. We are called into fellowship as a people who belong to the God of grace and peace.

Are you pursuing a holy and sanctified life that is totally dedicated to Christ? Or have you allowed other things to get in the way and to obscure your calling? I pray that God will work among us to grow churches that are wholeheartedly committed to Him and Christians that will not relinquish their calling as saints.