Though you have only a mean calling in this world, and so are not regarded as a man of use in the world, yet if you are a Christian, God has called you to a higher calling; your general calling is a high calling, though your particular calling is but low and mean.* There is a place for that in the chapter before my text, Philippians 3:14: 'I press towards the mark', says the Apostle, 'for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' So every Christian has a high calling of God in Christ Jesus: God has called him to the highest thing to which he has called any creature he has made. The angels in Heaven have not a higher calling than you have. You who perhaps spend your time in a poor business, in the meanest calling, if you are a dung-raker, to rake channels, or to clean places of filth, or any other thing in the world that is the meanest that can be conceived of, your general calling as a Christian advances you higher than any particular calling can advance any man in the world.
[*The Puritans taught that believers have a twofold calling: their particular calling, which was to their daily occupation and work; and their general calling, to be Christians.] (pgs. 196-197)
I thank God that I am not a "dung-raker", yet even if I was, as a child of God I have a higher calling than that of any world leader, celebrity, or dignitary. How can I, a child of the King, murmur or complain when I have a calling higher than the angels?
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