Good evening, everyone. You hear me okay? Yeah? Okay.
We’ve really been looking forward to this. Just recounting and thinking through the years of how faithful the Lord has been at this conference, we’re really looking forward and anticipating what He is going to do this week.
It’s been shared already: the theme for this year is Called, Chosen, and Faithful. Alistair read this verse just earlier, but let’s turn to it one more time: Revelation 17:14.
These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings;
and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.
Let’s have a word of prayer.
Lord, we thank You for calling each one of us here. Lord, we thank You for bringing each one of us here, and we know that You’ve brought us here for a purpose. Lord, we know that You are also faithful to see this through.
Lord, we just look to You to work in our hearts this week. Lord, we pray that even right now, tonight, Your Holy Spirit would really touch us. Lord, we pray for this real encounter with You, even as Your Word is ministered.
Lord, we just commit this time to Your hands. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I do have a confession to make, to be very honest. The Toronto brothers and sisters can tell you I fought tooth and nail not to be up here.
And not only that—the thought of having to share—but also the theme: called and chosen and faithful, from which book? Revelation, of all books.
I mean, this matter of called and chosen and faithful points to the overcomers in the last times, and I’m having trouble overcoming the fear of being up here, and yet I’ve been asked to share about the overcomers.
But thank the Lord that He showed me something even as I looked into this verse. If we look at it, it says:
These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings;
and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.
Do we see the place of the called and chosen and faithful in this verse? It’s at the end. It’s almost, at least in reference to the victory here, that the Lamb has won. The Lamb is the One who is the overcomer. The called and chosen and faithful—it’s almost an afterthought.
Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it’s really the Lamb’s victory. It’s really He who has gone before us, and it’s His victory that we stand on. That’s really where I think we need to start tonight, even as we look at this verse and this theme: this matter of the called and chosen and faithful.
This first word here, called, is really important. Just as the Lamb’s victory is His, and He is the One who has initiated this whole thing, He is the One who calls us.
To be an overcomer is not something that we just do. It’s not something that we add to our New Year’s resolutions. It’s not something that we can just volunteer for. This is something that the Lord Himself has started.
He is the One who has called us, and this is really important to know, because it’s not out of our own strength. It’s not our own merits. It’s not what we can do or what qualifications we have, but it is He who has called us.
Since He is the One who has called us and the One who has initiated, that is the only reason why we can come.
The second word here is chosen. This was the part that I really struggled with when I was thinking about the theme. What does it mean to be chosen?
Yes, there is this matter of the Lord’s sovereignty and His divine election. I’m not challenging or saying anything contrary to that. But I think that here, in “called and chosen,” this word chosen reminded me of a passage in Matthew 22.
The Lord Jesus told the story of how a king had prepared a wedding for his son, and he had invited guests to come. All these guests had already known that they had been invited. So the king sent servants out to call them in to come to the wedding feast.
Yet they didn’t come. They were not only busy; they not only had excuses, but they really rejected that invitation.
The end of that passage says, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” I think this matter of being chosen here, and in our theme for this year, has much to do with our response.
The call has come. The Lord has made it all possible for us to be here, and He is calling to us. Are we going to choose to be those who are chosen? Are we going to choose to respond to Him?
This last word here is faithful. Our calling doesn’t just come as a one-time thing. It’s not as though there was only that first experience where He called us out of our sin, out of our guilt. He called us out of darkness into His light.
But as we continue to walk with Him, we find that He continues to call us. He continues to call us to know Him in a deeper way, to surrender more completely. He continues to call us, and if we continue to respond, we are counted among those who are faithful.
But that’s not really what I wanted to share tonight. What I think the Lord really burdened me with was: Who is this that has called us? What is our heavenly Father like? Who is this One who has called us? What does He look like?
For that, let’s turn to Luke 15. The Lord tells three stories here in this chapter. He tells these stories after the Pharisees had been grumbling and complaining about how the Lord was eating with the wrong people and hanging out with the wrong crowd.
The story that really stood out to me was the story of the prodigal son. Let’s take a look at that passage, starting from Luke 15:11.
A certain man had two sons.
And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.”
And he divided his wealth between them.
Before we keep going, this story is about two sons. The younger one went to his father and basically asked for his inheritance. I think essentially what he was saying was, “Look, Father, I don’t like this life that You’ve set out for me. I don’t think that it’s the best there is for me.”
“I don’t really like what You prepared. I don’t like Your rules. In fact, I wish You were dead. If so, I could take the inheritance, have my own life, and do whatever I wanted.”
This is where it starts, and it continues:
And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.
Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be in need.
And he went and attached himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
And he was longing to fill his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him.
But when he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!
I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.’”
And he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet;
and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and be merry;
for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”
And they began to be merry.
We see, just from the beginning of the story, that after the son went to ask for his inheritance, the father granted him what he wished for. But can we imagine what the father might have felt like? Can we even begin to picture how painful that was and how hurt he must have been?
This younger son set out to live his life the way that he wanted and the way that he saw fit. Very soon, we see that he had squandered everything already.
We find the son here at a turning point in the middle of a pigsty. Now, he’s Jewish, so what is he doing here in a pigsty? It’s not even kosher, for one. But on top of that, he’s competing with the swine for food at this point.
I think it really shows us a picture of how the son had hit rock bottom, how he had really come to his end. As he is sitting there, he is probably thinking through how he thought he would make a better life for himself, and how that is all in shambles now.
The best thing he can think of—maybe not even the best, but his only option at this point—is to return to the father. As he thinks of going back to his father, he is thinking about how angry his father must be.
The best thing he could come up with to say to his father when he returned was:
Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
make me as one of your hired men.
He knew that he couldn’t expect to be called a son anymore. He knew that he didn’t deserve that place at all after what he had done, after what he had said to his father.
He got up and decided to come back home. As he is coming, I can just picture that he must have been thinking how disappointed and how angry his father might be. He is not coming from a position where he can really ask for anything. He is coming back just to beg to be a hired servant, working for his father, because even that would be better than what he had been living so far.
As he comes back, even in the distance, we see how the father was not nursing a grudge. He was running to see his son.
There is so much love from this father that we see here. His son had probably rehearsed the speech in his mind so many times: “Father, I have sinned against Heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
As he was rehearsing this over and over in his head, he couldn’t even get it all out. Before he could even finish, the father was busy shouting orders to have the fattened calf killed and all these preparations made for a feast—just to celebrate.
That is such an incredible picture of our Father. This is a picture of our heavenly Father as well.
I wonder if we see that face. I wonder if we see that face of our Father when we come before Him. When we’re praying, when we come before the Father, what is that face that you are picturing?
Is it the face of a stern judge, someone whom you feel that you need to make an appeal to, that you need to press your case before? Or do you know that this is the Father who loves you so much, who is so happy that you’ve come back to Him?
We can even picture this father as he was running out to see the son. He must have been grinning and sobbing at the same time, right? He was just happy that his son was back. All those other things, the father was not concerned about. He was just happy that his son was there.
I think the same thing is true not only the first time when we come back to the Father—not just the first time when we come to Him—but every time that we come, just to be before Him, just to hang out, just to spend time before Him. Do we know that this is the same face of the Father looking at us?
He loves us so much, and His desire is really only for us to come to Him.
We may have these thoughts: “Oh, but what about the past? What about these bad things that I’ve done this past year? Or what about after this conference? What’s going to happen?”
“It feels like whenever I come to a conference, I get this high, and then afterwards it seems to die away, and I don’t have that passion or that fervor anymore.”
And the Father here is saying, “Don’t worry about that. My Son’s taken care of that. I’m just glad you came. I’m just glad you’re here right now.”
This is really the Father who is calling us. This is the Father who has called us, and this is the Father whom we are to respond to.
The question is: How are we going to respond?
He’s called us. He’s made everything available. He’s prepared this feast, and He wants to have fellowship with us.
Are we going to respond and join Him? Are we going to choose to be those who are chosen?
Let’s just have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we just do want to praise You. We thank You for calling us here. Lord, we thank You for reminding us of Your tremendous love to us. We thank You for reassuring us again of how much You love us and how much You desire us to just come to You.
Lord, even as You call us, even as this call comes to our hearts, we just don’t want to withhold anything. Lord, we just do want to turn to You. We do want to respond to You. We do want to give You our hearts.
Lord, we pray that You would indeed have Your way with us this week. Lord, we pray for the times of fellowship this week. We ask that You would really meet us.
Lord, we know that You’ve prepared everything already, and all that is left to do is really for us to come. So we just want to answer that call right now. We just want to come to You, knowing that You’ve taken care of everything.
We just want to thank You and praise You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.