Christian, live a life worthy of your calling, your vocation, to which the Lord your God has called you. You have that life, not of yourself, but from Him. You are not an independent “free agent,” you are the Lord’s own child and heir. So, live according to the Wisdom of His Word and Will.
Your life is not a contest or a competition. The goal and purpose of your God-given life is not to see how much you can grab for yourself and keep from your neighbor. Not at all. If you work and strive and compete for food that perishes, you’ll come up empty in the end, sooner or later. You cannot get life for yourself, and in any case it’s not a contest. Your brothers and sisters are not your enemies, competitors, or rivals. They really aren’t. Don’t live as though they were.
Your vocation and your life are gracious gifts of God, who is your own dear Father in Christ Jesus. And the life to which He has called you — the life He gives to you by grace — it is a divine, eternal life. It does not wear out, fade away, or perish. On the contrary, the more you live that life by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, the more it grows and thrives and bears good fruits. That is to live in love for both God and your neighbors, especially for those of the household of faith.
God does not call you to accomplish and achieve great things for yourself, to build a tower to the heavens, or to be a raving success. He has called you to be His beloved child, to bear His Name, and to receive all good things from His generous hand. You receive this life because He bestows it upon you graciously in love, even as He has called you His own and adopted you in Christ Jesus.
To be and to live as His beloved child is your primary vocation. Each of you has other vocations in this body and life. Some of you are husbands and fathers, some of you are wives and mothers. All of you are children of some parents. You have brothers and sisters, if not according to the flesh, then within the Body of Christ. But your chief calling is the one you were given by the Word and Spirit of God in Holy Baptism. That is where the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ called you by name and made you His own dearly-beloved and well-pleasing child. There He called you by your own name, to be sure, but there He also named you His own divine and Holy Name! Everything else that you are and do in life derives its value, its purpose, and its meaning from that.
So, think about the particular place and station in life that God has given to you, whether it be as a husband, a father, a wife, a mother, a son, a daughter, a teacher or a student, a worker or retired — wherever the Lord your God has stationed you in relation to your neighbors — understand that the gifts that He has given you are not your own, just as you are not your own but His. Your entire life is a free and gracious gift from God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And all of the many and various gifts and talents that He bestows upon you are a sacred stewardship of His grace, not only for your benefit and joy, because He loves you, but also for the benefit and blessing of others.
Whatever your gifts may be — whatever it is that God has given you, and whatever work He has given you to do — it is all for the purpose of exercising your faith in Him and living in love for your neighbors, not least of all by serving and supporting the Church and Ministry of His Gospel.
You have the gifts that God has given you in order that you might live from His hand, and trust in Him, and be content with what you have; because everything you have, and everything that your neighbor has, comes from the Lord your God and depends entirely on Him. Don’t try to measure yourself according to where you stack up alongside the people next to you. Understand that you are who you are, and you have what you have, because God in His wisdom — and in His love for both you and your neighbor — has given you these things, to the praise and glory of His grace.
He has likewise given you work to do, whatever your own job and station in life might be. So, for example, six days a week the people were to go out and gather the manna. On Friday God provided enough for two days, because on the Sabbath they were to rest, to do no work at all, because God would serve them. But He did give them work to do throughout the week, and He has given work to you, as well: Not to make a life for yourself, but as an exercise of holy faith and holy love.
Everyone who went out to gather the manna ended up with exactly as much as they needed. They couldn’t get more than that, because it would spoil and rot. And none of them got too little or not enough, either. It wasn’t that God redistributed the wealth by taking it from some and giving it to others. He rather lavished His good gifts upon them all, so that everyone ate and was filled.
Their work in gathering the manna was a way of living by faith. It was a daily and weekly test to see whether they would live according to the Word of God or depend upon themselves instead.
And at the end of every week, God demonstrated again that their lives did not depend upon their own efforts, but upon Him. On the Sabbath they were not to work at all, but to rest in His work and listen to His Word. They were to receive what only God could give. And that is your life, too.
Use your gifts and do your work for this reason and purpose — to receive the good gifts of God, and then to use them in service to your family, your friends, and your other neighbors in the world. Do it in the peace and confidence of the Gospel, that is, by faith in the Cross and Resurrection of your dear Lord Jesus Christ, in His forgiveness of all of your sins, and in His good gift of Life.
That is the peace and confidence in which you live. All of your sins are taken away! There is no condemnation against you. God loves you. He is your Father, and He cares for you. Christ is your Bridegroom, and He serves you with His very Life. There is nothing lacking. You are well cared for by God Himself. So, be at peace, and gladly do the work that He has given you to do in love.
The Law cannot give you life. But the Law does teach you how to live in faith toward God and in love toward your neighbor. It does of course expose your sins, because you are a sinner, but it also describes and demonstrates this way of real life in Christ Jesus: Trust in God, call upon His Name, listen to His Word, rest in His Peace. Honor your father and your mother, because God has given them to you. Be faithful to your husband or wife, as Christ is faithful to His Bride, the Church. And in all things, do no harm, but love your neighbor in the world, because God loves you — and God loves your neighbor, too.
The Law does not give you life, but the Law that Christ Jesus has fulfilled shows you what living by faith and in love looks like. Live that way. Not as a burden or an obligation. Do not live in fear. Do not live in desperation to make a life for yourself. It won’t work. Whatever you might achieve, whatever you might acquire, whatever you might accomplish will perish. It will fade away, or be stolen, or rust; sooner or later it will perish, and apart from Christ you will perish along with it.
But you are not apart from Christ, because He has drawn near to you in love, and He has called and gathered you to Himself by His Word and Holy Spirit. You don’t have to make a life for yourself (as if you ever could!), because Christ Jesus is your Life, and He is your reason for living. He’s your reason to get up each morning, and He’s your reason to do whatever it is you’re given to do.
Christ Jesus is the reason you can go to bed each night in the comfort, peace, and safety of your God and Father. Christ is your Strength and your Song, because He has given Himself for you and become your great Salvation. Trust Him. He will not fail you, nor will He ever abandon you.
He is your Life and your Salvation, and in His grace, mercy, and peace He gives Himself to you each day and night, evening and morning, sunset and dawning. Just as we have heard in regards to the Old Testament people of God: He gave them flesh in the evening and bread in the morning, and they saw the Glory of God. Right there in the wilderness!
The people were stubborn and irascible. No sooner has God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and miraculously brought them through the Red Sea, then they start grumbling and complaining: Better to die in Egypt than out here in the wilderness!
But God fed them anyway, because He did everything out of love, all for the sake of the promised Messiah, and not because they deserved it. And the same is true for you. He has also brought you out of Egypt, and He has also brought you through the water. He has given you His great and precious promises. And though you grumble and complain, and you wonder where He is and why He allows you to suffer, to go hungry, and to die, the Messiah who has come feeds you anyway.
In the evening He gives His own Flesh for the Life of the world. And in the morning He rises as the very Bread of Life, with which His entire Church on earth is nourished unto Life everlasting.
So, then, eat your Manna in the wilderness, and live! Suffer patiently, whatever Cross is laid upon you. Suffer patiently in faith, hope, and love, as Christ has suffered for you. Do not grumble and complain, but pray. Your Father hears and answers. You are His child, after all, and you are dear to Him. As He has given His Son to die for you, so does He provide you with all good things.
If and when He does allow you go hungry for awhile, well, He has taught you why He does that. It is so that you will learn to live by faith in Him, and to rely on Him alone for all that you need.
In that same confidence and hope, serve your neighbor willingly and gladly in love. And do it especially within your callings and stations in life, wherever God has stationed you. That is where and how He teaches you what you are to do in holy faith and holy love. And you can go about doing that holy work, not as a burden of obligation to somehow raise yourself up by your own bootstraps, but rather as living the life that is already yours in Christ the Crucified.
Consider that He who is your Life — the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life — He who is the Resurrection and the Life — He has given Himself for you, even unto death. You see there how He has suffered patiently, in faith and hope, and He has done so in order to serve you in love.
And He has conquered. By His death, death has been defeated and emptied of any threat. All of the sins of the whole world — and that means all of your sins, too — Jesus has atoned for. Everything is paid for. And He has thereby reconciled you to His own God and Father, who is now also your own dear God and Father in Him.
Christ Jesus has suffered in order to serve you, and He still does serve you faithfully, day by day by day, in holy love. Seek Him where He may be found. Seek Him in His Church. Hear Him in the preaching of His Gospel. Know that it is His Voice that speaks to you, that He calls you again and again back to Himself in and with His Word of forgiveness. Receive Him also in His Holy Supper.
This dear Lord Jesus Christ is Himself your Peace and Sabbath Rest. He is the end of your work week. He is the eternal Eighth Day, the neverending Sabbath that remains for the people of God. Rest yourself in Him. He does not demand or take anything from you, but He rather gives you everything by His grace. He freely forgives you all of your sins, and He feeds you with Himself.
Eating and drinking Jesus in His Word and Sacrament, you lack nothing. Which is not to say that everything in this body and life is going to go smoothly, easily, and according to all your hopes and dreams and desires. Nor does it mean that you will no longer suffer any hurts or sorrows in this poor life of labor. But as the Lord your God gives Himself and His Life to you in Christ Jesus, none of that other stuff matters (be it good or bad), because everything that matters is yours.
The one true God, who loves you, is your Life. And nothing in heaven or on earth can rob you of that. As He feeds you with Himself, He gives you everything, so that nothing can hurt you, nothing can snatch you out of His hand. His love for you remains. And His Life is yours by His grace.
In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
