Calling is a term that is often difficult to understand. However, there are many examples in the Bible of God clearly calling people. Discerning the call of the Spirit of God is important for followers of Christ. In this video, Pastor David Platt introduces a series of calling that considers four distinct calls that the Bible offers.
- Missionaries Called in Acts 13
- Paul Called Away in Acts 16
- Paul Called to Jerusalem in Acts 20
If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, let me invite you to find with me Acts chapter 13. So we’re walking through this series of messages on key terms and their definitions when it comes to mission in the world, our mission as followers of Christ. So this is not just for missionaries around the world, this is for every single one of us. And we’ve looked at key terms like the gospel and evangelism and conversion and disciple, what it means to make disciples.
The term I want us to dive into in the next few minutes is calling, and this is an area where I think there is a pretty significant amount of confusion and curiosity when it comes to how God calls us to do different things, how God leads us in different ways. So the reason I have you in Acts chapter 13 is, I want us to get a feel from the very beginning of just the mystery that surrounds the way God calls and leads and guides our lives.
How Do You Know God Is Calling You?
Some people ask, well, how do I know if God is calling me to be a missionary? How do I know if God is calling me to be a pastor? How do I know if God is calling me to be married? How do I know if God is calling me to marry this person or that person in particular? How do I know if God is calling me to be a parent? How do I know if God’s calling … and so the questions can go on and on and on. How do you know when the spirit of God is leading you to do this or that, and this way or that way?
Calling In The Bible
And when you get to Acts chapter 13, you see a picture of God calling missionaries Paul and Barnabas out from the church at Antioch. And listen to what it says, Acts chapter 13 verse one says, they were in the church at Antioch, prophets and teachers, and it lists their names, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord in fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I’ve called them.” Then after fasting and praying their hands on them, they sent them off. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
I read that story, and you hear that story and you think, how did that happen? Clearly, the word calling is in there, the spirit called Barnabas and Saul to leave Antioch and to go elsewhere as missionaries. And says the spirit said this, but how did the spirit say this? Was this an audible voice? When they were worshiping the Lord gathered together, was there an audible voice? Just everybody got quiet and all you heard was, “set apart from me Barnabas and Saul all for the work to which I’ve called them.”
That had made it pretty easy to discern, but even then, if it was an audible voice, how do we know where he was calling them to go or what he was calling them to do exactly? Or if it wasn’t an audible voice, then what was it? Was it some sense that people had, and who had that sense? Was it all of the people who were in this gathering? Was it just Barnabas and Saul and they came and said, “I think the Lord’s called us to do this?” Or how did they come to the conclusion, the Spirit is leading them to go?
And so then you turn a few pages over to the right, go to Acts chapter 16, look at Acts chapter 16 verse six. So this is Paul actually on his second missionary journey, and so he’s going from place to place, and in verse six tells us this, says, they went throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them, so passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. So I’m reading that and I’m thinking, how did that happen? Like they went throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia being forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. So how did the spirit of God forbid them from speaking the word in Asia? How did it stop them from going to Asia?
Paul says, “we attempted to go up into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow us.” So how did the spirit of Jesus say, “no, not Bithynia?” Obviously, we know it wasn’t just because there were some obstacles or challenges in going to Bithynia, Paul faced obstacles and challenges pretty much everywhere he went, and he still went to a lot of those places. So why not Bithynia? How did the spirit of Jesus say, “don’t go to Bithynia?
God Calls Us to Share the Gospel
And this was huge, right after this, a vision appeared to Paul in the night, men of Macedonia saying, “come over to Macedonia and help us.” When Paul saw the vision, “immediately we sought to go into Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel there to those people.” So God made it clear through a vision that he was supposed to go to Macedonia, and this was a huge geographic turning point in the book of Acts, basically, Paul was headed toward India, the spirit of Jesus said no and sent him toward Western Europe, toward Rome eventually. So how did God lead? How did God call, lead, guide in this situation?
Then you get a few chapters over, Acts chapter 20, look at Acts chapter 20 verse 22, Paul is in Ephesus spending time with some of the pastors there, he’s headed to Jerusalem and listen to what he says, how he describes why he is going to Jerusalem. He says in verse 22 of Acts chapter 20, “now behold, I’m going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me, in every city, imprisonment and afflictions await me.” But I don’t account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I’ve received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
In verse 22, Paul said, “I’m going to Jerusalem because the Spirit is constraining me to go to Jerusalem.” So how did the spirit constrain him? Was it just a feeling he had? Had he received another vision at some point? How did he know he was supposed to go to Jerusalem? Especially when you get to chapter 21, you find out that people are trying to talk Paul out of going to Jerusalem, they’re saying, “if you go there, you’re going to face difficulty and challenge and you’ll be bound up.” And Paul says, “I’m going anyway because the spirit is leading me to go there.”
The Spirit Of God Calls Us
These are just a few examples in the New Testament of how the Spirit of God leads, guides, calls people to do certain things at certain times in certain ways. But it all leads to the question, well, how do you know when the spirit is calling you to do something? Is it just a feeling you get? If it’s just a feeling, how do you know when to trust that feeling? Because we probably get feelings for all kinds of different things at different points.
This issue of calling, I’m convinced it’s huge. So I see this from certainly my perspective as people discern whether or not they’re called to be a missionary, they’re called to do what Paul and Barnabas were doing, going out from Antioch, is God calling them to go out to another place? And we have a whole process that we walk people through to help them discern, how is the Lord calling you? But it’s not just for missionaries, this is for every follower of Christ, when it comes to jobs we have, when it comes to decisions we make, major decisions in our lives, and trust me, we want to follow the leadership of the Spirit. So as disciples of Jesus who are making disciples of Jesus, how do we understand calling? And that’s what I want us to think about biblically.
Four Categories Of Biblical Calling
Again, there’s a document that fleshes this out in more detail with all kinds of scriptures and footnotes, so you can go to it, radical.net. But what I want to do is, I want us to think together about calling for the next few minutes, and we’re going to be in some different places in scripture. Well, I want us to think about calling in four different categories, so when we think about calling, I think our minds automatically go to, what job has God called me to have? Or what has God call me to do, and this or that and my family, or whatever area of our life like that? And that’s where I want us I to see that that’s important.
But far before we get to those decisions, scripture talks about calling in some foundational ways that affect those decisions, that if we just jump to thinking about calling in that category, well, actually we’ll miss what God has designed for us to understand about calling far before we get to specific decisions that we need to make in our-
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
