Study the Word

Guest (Male): There's something that can be missed in discerning the call of God. Here's Pastor Thom Keller.

Pastor Thom Keller: Now don't lose the progression here. The burden came first, and then the call. The burden drove the call. And this burden turned into a prayer, and the prayer turned into a vision, and the vision turned into an opportunity, and the opportunity turned into a plan.

Guest (Male): No doubt you've heard the saying, "some went, but weren't sent." So you want to make sure you're called. How do you do that? Well, at least two things are involved: a burden and surrender. And we'll learn about both of them on today's Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller. With today's lesson from Philippians chapter three in a message entitled Discerning God's Call for Your Life, here's Pastor Thom.

Pastor Thom Keller: There's a poster in a church in France that says this: "When you enter this church, it is possible that you may hear the call of God. However, it is not likely that he will call you on your cell phone. Please turn your cell phone off and sit quietly to talk with God. If you want to see God, text him while driving your car." And our prayer today is that you might actually hear God calling you today.

Philippians 3:14 says, "I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Now, the main idea we said last week: keep your eyes on the prize. Keep your eyes on heaven. Remember, all journeys are planned with a destination in mind. As Blaise Pascal said, "Define life backwards and live it forward." And that is why so many people today live such aimless lives because they live their lives with no destination in mind.

But for Christians, for you, with heaven as your destination and planning your life backward, viewing your life yet ahead of you from your perch in heaven looking back on your life, ask yourself this question: what does God want me to do with my life here that will impact eternity? And the answer is really quite simple. With heaven as your journey's destination, the things that will count the most in life are those things that you will do that touch heaven, those things that affect heaven, those things that will make a difference in heaven.

So with that said, what is God calling you to do that will impact people's lives that will last on into heaven? Or asked another way, what is God's call on your life? Well, the first overarching truth to remember is this: that a call to full-time pastoral ministry or full-time missionary is not a higher or more worthy calling that pleases God more than a person who is called to minister to serve him in a secular employment.

Folks, that is a lie from the pit of hell. It causes many people to go through life feeling that they've never really done anything of significance because "I've never been a missionary, I've never been a pastor." Listen, God needs people in all positions in life. He needs godly nurses, teachers, policemen and women, factory workers.

I remember someone decades ago saying this: they said there are millions of people in this country who will not darken the doorway of a church except for funerals and weddings, but they all have to work. They all go into a work setting, and that's where Christians can have that impact, where you can have that impact if that's where you're working.

And in talking about secular jobs versus full-time ministry, I had 10 times the chances to witness one-on-one to unsaved people when I worked at the dealership than what I have now as a full-time pastor. Does that surprise you? Practically all the people I work with now are saved ones. Now, I don't mean that—I love you and I love working with you—but I really miss that. Sue would know that. I used to love coming home and telling her people that I met.

R. G. LeTourneau was a businessman who had a large, successful business and got radically saved. He went to his pastor one day and said, "Pastor, I've given my life to Christ and I want to serve him, but I've got this business to run. What do I do?" And his pastor very wisely said, "R. G., God needs businessmen too." To which R. G. replied, "Then I will be the best businessman I can be for God." He gave 90% of all that he made to the Lord. He said, "The tithe is backwards. I should keep 10, he should get 90." That was R. G.

You might say, "But what can I really accomplish in a full-time job doing ministry?" Consider the Apostle Paul. He was a tentmaker. Or maybe you don't think he pulled much off in his ministry years. So how do I discover what God's call is for my life? Or how do I know what God wants me to do and where he wants me to go to do it? Well, let's first look at what God's call is not. It is not about you making the decision to quit your secular job and go work full-time for a church or head off to Africa as a missionary.

Now, it could be about that, but that will be more the exception than the rule, just by virtue of sheer numbers. A church of 200 can't have 200 employees. Just doesn't work. Remember the word minister means to serve. So your responding to God's call to serve is simply you expressing your desire to serve God where he calls you. And by definition, everyone called to minister is called to serve. It's the only way.

When people tell me they want to serve God, sometimes I can tell they mean they want to serve God like they want to bring him his bedroom slippers or get him his coffee in the morning. They want to serve him. If you think about it, you can't serve God without serving other people. That's what service is all about. Christians are called to serve the Lord by showing his love to others—him through that.

And even if you don't like the job that you're at, now please don't assume that God wants you to be a missionary because you hate your job. Maybe, maybe, but to me, it's more likely that he still has some lessons for you to learn where you are. So how do I discern God's specific call on my life? Well, I believe there are two components to this question. The first involves surrender and the second involves burden.

First, surrender. I don't believe you should ever expect to hear God call you to ministry unless you are first surrendered to go, surrendered to go anywhere and do anything he calls you to do. Why? Well, answer this question: would God call you to do something if he knew by way of foreknowledge you would say no to? I have often said when I was in the car business, if I had foreknowledge and I knew what you were going to do before you knew, and you came into the car dealership to buy a car, but I knew you would never buy a car from me, why would I try to sell you a car? I might talk to you, but I wouldn't try to sell you a car because I know you're not going to buy it.

And it's the same thing with God. We shouldn't expect to hear that call unless we are first surrendered to go anywhere and to do anything. I like this next picture: the real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will. And yet many people get left behind right at this point because they're afraid that God will make them do something they really don't want to do. And if this is you, why do you fear this? I can tell you why. Because you don't trust in God's love enough yet. You haven't figured out that you can trust God with your future, and he can do a better job of handling your future than you can. And he can bring you into a life of fulfillment and joy using your gifts and abilities that you don't even know you may have. That's what gets released when you trust in his will.

So that's the first pass. The first pass: surrender. If you're not willing to go anywhere or do anything, I wouldn't expect the call. So the first component requires surrender. The second involves burden. Many Christians make the mistake of associating the term calling with the term position. They will say something like this: "I believe that God is calling me to be a pastor. I believe that God is calling me to be a missionary. I believe God is calling me to be a Sunday school teacher." And what they really mean is, "I believe God is calling me to the position of a pastor, to the position of a missionary, to the position of a Sunday school teacher."

You ask, "Well, what's so wrong about that?" Well, let's apply that idea to the field of medical care. You would not enroll in medical school just because you wanted the title doctor as a prefix to your name. How foolish would that be? But the calling to be a medical doctor is the result of having a burden to help people who have medical needs. And you discover that based upon your gifts and abilities, that you can best fulfill that burden by becoming a medical doctor.

The same is true in ministry. What will predict your ministry is what your heart is burdened for. The position will only become clear to you once the burden has become clear to you. In preparing for this teaching, I read an article written by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a famous preacher, and he said this about preaching: "Listen, if there's anything else a man can do other than preach, he ought to do it. The pulpit is no place for him. A God-called man would rather die than live without preaching."

Now, I tell you, when I read that, it spun me. It messed with my head. Why? Because as my wife well knows, I never wanted to be a pastor or a preacher. I never in my life said, "I must be a pastor or die, I must be a preacher or die." You see, it brings us back to the question of position versus burden. Would a nurse say, "I must have the position of a nurse or die, I must have that prefix DR in front of my name or die"? No. What they would say is, "My burden—I believe the call that I have in my life is to care for those who have medical needs. That's my burden." And that burden then will result in me wanting to be trained to do that very thing.

And the same is true for me. My burden—I believe the call on my life is to care for, to love, to teach, and sometimes even feed and clothe this little part of God's sheepfold. And this flock—help this flock to grow spiritually through the study of God's word and to help these new maturing sheep to help them bring other sheep into the sheepfold as well. But I started out doing this as a small group Bible study leader one night a week in our home for years, working full-time at the dealership. And so one night a week, I would teach his sheep and try to love on them and affirm them and believe in them and pray for them. And over time, God moved me, that exact same guy with that exact same burden, to the position of a pastor, which allowed me to do more of that on a full-time basis.

And the same is true for all of us. The burden will come first, and the position will develop out of the burden. And once you discover your burden, your passion, it will become your work and will define your position. Consider Nehemiah. Nehemiah went to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. Now, how was he called? Did he look at the employment ads and go down through them and say, "Hmm, oh, stonemason wanted. I think I might like to do stonework"? No. That's not how he got to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall.

How did it begin? Nehemiah 1:1: A burden. "The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani, one of the brethren, came with men from Judah; and I asked them—so these men come back from Jerusalem—and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, 'The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.' So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept—this is his burden—I sat down and wept and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said: 'I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments...' and then at the end of that prayer, he says, 'O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant, let me, Nehemiah, prosper this day, I pray, and grant him, Nehemiah, mercy in the sight of this man the king.' For I was a king's cupbearer."

So Nehemiah discovered by way of a traveler that the Jews in Jerusalem were afflicted, discouraged, the walls torn down, and the gates burned. And when he hears this, he sits down and mourns and fasts and prays for days. Now, don't lose the progression here. The burden came first, and then the call. The burden drove the call. Nehemiah didn't think to himself, "Now I wonder what God's five-year plan for ministry for me is." No. He was burdened. He was torn up inside because of this need that he saw that no one was addressing. And this burden turned into a prayer, and the prayer turned into a vision, and the vision turned into an opportunity, and the opportunity turned into a plan. And it's not surprising: who did God call to address that need back in Jerusalem? The one with the burden, Nehemiah. Why? Because it was God who placed that burden on Nehemiah's heart in the first place.

Nehemiah's burden just wouldn't go away. It just wouldn't go away. And I was teaching fifth and sixth-grade Sunday school that I felt a burden to teach senior high instead. I never put my hand up. I thought, "I'm just going to wait until God calls me to that position." And I said, "Should I have done that, or should I have put my hand up and said I'm interested in maybe doing this?" The answer is, I believe, is I should have gone to leadership and put my hand up. I should have said, "I have an interest in this." Now, if I wasn't ready, they could put the brakes on me, and that would have been fine. I wouldn't have fought that. But I should have given them that opportunity to speak into my life.

So what burden has God placed on your heart? How do you know? How do you know if you're doing what God wants you to be doing? Well, first question: does your current work bring satisfaction and fulfillment? Some of you say, "Oh my word, am I ever in the wrong job then. I have zero satisfaction in what I do." As we look at that, consider two points. Number one: God just might have you in your job to prepare you for the ministry he's going to call you to, but first maybe he needs to work off some rough edges in that place of employment. Possibility. Example: think about King David before he was king, fleeing from Saul in the wilderness. Or what about Joseph in Potiphar's prison? If Joe would have broken out of prison early, there'd be no story. Or consider Jacob working 14 years to earn Rachel. For all of these men, those years were not satisfying. They were not fulfilling, but they were preparatory. Those men needed those years to prepare for the ministry God was calling them to. And you know the quickest way to shorten your education time in the wilderness? Cooperate with the teacher. Learn from God what you need to learn where you're working. Be a good student. David was. Joseph was. Jacob was.

God is the architect, the financial backer, the owner, the foreman, the building crew, the editor in chief. Our part is to cooperate as he builds us. A second part about finding satisfaction in your work currently: back when I was in business, if I went a week or even a couple days without any component of ministry in my day, if I didn't take time or make time to talk to others about Jesus or pray with them or take someone out to lunch and talk about Jesus, my job was meaningless, empty. I felt I was just putting in time. I wanted to quit. But if I allowed or created opportunities for some type of ministry in the course of my day, even if it was only five or 10 minutes, maybe talking to a coworker or a customer about faith issues, or maybe praying with a customer on the phone or sharing Christ with a vendor who called on us, my days were wonderful. I had meaning and purpose.

So before you hand in your two-week notice, remember the first rule of ministry: bloom where you're planted. But back to the idea of discovering your call. I've often said God will prepare you for ministry through the study of his word and he will call you to ministry through prayer. But there are a lot of people in earnest praying, but they're not preparing. Because until you know the word of God and the life-changing biblical principles contained within this book, you really have no message to share. You see, your heart may scream yes to ministry—serve me—but it might be that your spiritual maturity, your understanding of biblical principles and doctrine need some study time in order to catch up with your zeal.

Because in reality, most times, the call to ministry is less about daydreaming and tingly feelings as it is about getting serious about discipleship, training, Bible study, serving, and being examined and affirmed by the local church as you serve. And some examples of how God might be calling you to ministry is consider just some of the examples here at Calvary who continue to work as tentmakers but have ministries on the side. Consider Tarik, the skateboard ministry—a burden, he had a burden to use skating to reach children, young people. What a dynamic ministry that is. Or Kelly, who's starting a ministry to provide a place where people with special needs can come to discover what resources are available to them, to act like a clearinghouse of sorts. Or there's a married couple who wants to advocate for those with ongoing medical issues. Or there's a man who's just contacted us—he wants to collect used wheelchairs and walkers and things like that and then distribute them to people in need.

Look, if you have a vision for ministry like that, and maybe God has given you the ability to make money, listen, don't think that that's not of God if it's used to further his kingdom. I have sat on many boards through the years and I have found that rarely did they need my vision. They already had more vision than their budget could handle. What they really needed was more money to fund the additional vision that they had. John Wesley had a famous line: he said, "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can." And it's interesting that two of the gifts that are very often connected in the same person is the gift of giving and the gift of evangelism. People that have the gift of giving have the ability typically to make money—they're good with money. Why would he give someone with the gift of giving the ability to make money also the gift of evangelism? Because he wants to fund evangelism. He wants to fund evangelism. So he gives those people, those men and women, that burden and the ability to make money and then the burden to give it to fund evangelism.

Stanley Tam is a case in point. He wrote a book called God Owns My Business, and he claimed Psalm 2:8 as his life verse for ministry. He says, "Ask of Me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession." And he applied that to funding missionaries to go into those lands to win them to Christ. Stanley Tam has given hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions of dollars, to fund worldwide evangelism. But it all begins by being willing to be prepared for ministry, to be trained for ministry, so that you can endure the rigors and challenges that come with serving Christ. Spurgeon said this: "We must be tested to see whether we can endure browbeating, weariness, slander, jeering, and hardship. I gravely question whether some of us will find that our vessels, when far out to sea, are quite as seaworthy as we think they are. Oh, my brethren, make sure work of it while you are yet in the harbor and diligently labor to fit yourselves for this high calling."

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Thom Keller on Study the Word, and he's in a study of Philippians right now. Would you like to give this a second listen? Either go to our website at ccleb.com or visit our YouTube page. Simply subscribe to our channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon, and there you can watch our services live or on-demand. That includes this series in Philippians. For those interested in a CD copy, call us at 717-273-5633. Once again, that's 717-273-5633. Teaming with Study the Word financially makes it possible to reach people all around the world. Please consider sending in a gift today. You can give online at ccleb.com or call 717-273-5633. If you prefer to write, jot down this address: Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania 17046. Hey, we also want to invite you to join us for a Sunday service, either in person or online. For more information or to watch the livestream, visit ccleb.com or again, go to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. There's much more to come in Philippians; don't miss a moment of the journey on Study the Word with Pastor Thom Keller. This program is presented by Calvary Chapel Lebanon and made possible through your generous support.