Live Out Your Calling!
I remember sitting in college and seminary classes diligently preparing for ministry. In the process of my preparation, I would think about the various ways and places the Lord could lead. Would the flock the Lord entrusts to me love me and see that I love them? Would I pastor a small church or a large church? Where would I be and would I be there for a long time?
I think that those questions go through every young man’s mind while preparing for ministry. Those are not bad thoughts, but almost two decades into ministry, I have found that those are not of central importance. As pastors….as servants of Jesus, we are called to simple faithfulness. This call is the same call Jesus gives to all his followers. It just so happens that one way we display our faithfulness to Jesus is in faithful shepherding of his flock.
However, we often lose our fundamental identity as individual followers of Jesus. We replace this core truth with a secondary identity of pastor or church leader. When this happens, we miss the whole point. See, your responsibility to “live out your calling” as a Christian must precede living out your secondary calling as a pastor. I would like to give you three central areas in which we can easily forget this reality:
Your Walk in Christ
Under the constant pressure of church concerns, unrealistic expectations, and navigating difficult situations, the work of ministry is often hard. I remember at one point in my ministry telling someone that I felt like I forgot who Adam, the individual, was and thought of myself only in light of my pastoral role. Of course, this was a wrong perspective. You see, ultimately, I had not forgotten who I was….I had lost sight of Jesus. I took on myself a functional identity rather than a relational one. My relationship with Jesus had taken a back seat to the pressures of the “immediate.”
No matter what our role, age, etc. our calling is to deepen our roots into Christ. Colossians 2:6-7 says,
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”
So much could be said about this passage but I want to just highlight three truths:
Our walk with Jesus is of fundamental importance, not simply helping someone else’ walk with Jesus. Are you practicing what you preach?
None of us are “taught” to neglect our walk of faith in Christ. It happens naturally unless we are on guard against it. How are you cultivating your walk of faith and setting up safeguards against coasting?
Do you find yourself “abounding in thanksgiving” or “abounding in frustration and anger”? This is often a key indicator we have lost sight of what is of first importance.
Your Walk in Love
Jesus told the questioning lawyer that the two greatest commandments were to
1) love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and
2) to love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:34-40).
Yet, in our lives and in our ministries we often neglect command one and skip straight to command two. Nowhere is there a greater tendency for this to occur than in vocational ministry. But mark it down, if we lose sight of our love for Jesus, our love for others will never endure. We learn this in the repetitious question of Jesus to Peter,
“Do you love me more than these? Feed my sheep; “Do you love me? Tend my sheep; Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”
How often, when we think of ministry, do people’s faces come to mind before the face of Jesus? We must be careful to not get caught in the trap of solely pursuing reactive ministry (responding to the real or perceived needs of people) to the detriment of engaging in proactive ministry (pursuing Jesus and pointing people to him). If our love is sourced in Jesus, there will be a limitless supply of love for others but NEVER the other way around.
Walk in Perseverance
It is often said that pastors walk around with a resignation letter in their coat pocket. That may very well be true more than we would like to admit! Yet, could a safeguard for throwing in the towel too early in our current ministry be the very things stated above? In my own life and ministry, I have had serious times of discouragement. One thing that has helped me in those times, however, is to remember that God has sovereignly chosen to do his work of sanctification in me, specifically, in the context of pastoral ministry. I think that is why Peter says in 1 Peter 5:1-4,
“Shepherd the flock of God…and when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
In other words, for a pastor, faithfulness in ministry (for as long as God places a man in that position) is a means of God completing his work of salvation in that individual’s life. For others, God is using a whole different set of circumstances to complete his work in them. I think if we view ministry and our perseverance in it (for as long as God sees fit) as a part of God’s refining us and preparing us for eternity, we can have an increased joy and purpose in the functional calling God has given us.
Conclusion
So, believer, live out your calling! Yes, you're calling in ministry or wherever God has placed you, but so much more importantly, you're calling as an individual follower of Jesus. He is the one who gave you his life so continually give him yours. Realign your focus on the one in whom you are to abide, the one without whom you can do nothing (John 15:1-5), and simply follow where he leads.
Adam Pereira
Adam served as Associate Pastor of Covington Baptist Church (Covington, PA) for 6 years before becoming senior pastor in 2014. He was born in Valparaiso, Indiana but lived the majority of his life in Florida. He was raised in a pastor's home and was saved at an early age. In junior high, Adam sensed a calling to the pastorate and pursued that calling. The focus of his ministry is that others may know the wondrous grace of God in all its fullness and for all of life. This passion is summed up by His life verse, "To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). Adam has been married since 2005 to his wife Rachel and together they have 4 children.
