The Calling of God:
-A calling means a life work for which one has been specially chosen or fitted.
-Today I will talk about the call to the ministry.
-This is when a man perceives and acknowledges the distinct call of God in his life to be a preacher.
-Also a calling refers to a general call to be saved, live godly and do God’s will for your life.
I Tim. 2:12
-The call of God refers only to men and not women.
-There are no women preachers in the Bible, because God only calls men.
-If you have a woman preacher at your church, you need to leave that church and find a real church because God opposes your organization.
Luke 10:2
-It is the responsibility of the church members to pray for laborers in the ministry.
-This would include praying for God to call men to be preachers, evangelists and missionaries.
II Thess. 3:1
-It is also the responsibility of the church members to pray for those who are currently serving as preachers, evangelists and missionaries.
Rom. 12:1
-God calls all the Christians to serve and minister for the glory of God.
-No one is exempt and everyone has a job to do whether they are called to preach or not.
Rom. 12:7
-Now some Christians will be called to preach and some will called to teach.
-This is why the new testament church has Sunday school teachers.
-The church is divided up by age groups and a teacher is assigned a class.
-Anyone can teach a Sunday school class whether a man or a woman.
-However, a woman can’t teach a class with men twenty years or older because the age of twenty is the beginning of manhood and a woman is not supposed to teach a man.
I Tim. 1:12
-God puts people into the ministry. A qualification to be in the ministry is faithfulness.
-This means that God can count on you to live godly, be available when needed and not give up when the going gets tough.
-God enables or provides for the one He called to complete the task he was called to do.
-Unfortunately today, churches get caught up in big offerings, church attendance and the praise of men.
-As a result, peer pressure is used to get men into the ministry.
-Hence the church and not God is calling men into the ministry.
-To back up this fake calling, the church funds the men that do what the church says and not what God says.
-This is why you have church organizations that are huge but operate contrary to the Bible.
-How many ministries teach salvation by works.
-They teach salvation by faith alone without requiring a person to repent.
-They teach that the Old King James Bible is not perfect as written or don’t require that
their workers to practice holiness and live godly.
-Even worse, when you have a godly man who is properly called to preach, that particular ministry that teaches false doctrine rejects him because he won’t go along with their false religious teachings.
-If your church doesn’t teach salvation by faith alone apart from any work and doesn’t believe that the Old King James Bible is the word of God, then you need to get out of that God forsaken church and go attend another one that does believe it.
Jude :3
-The faith refers to the Bible where the Christian doctrines and teachings are found on what to believe and how to live for God.
Acts 8:1, 3
-God doesn’t divide Christians into classes, such as the preachers or non-preachers.
-You are not better or worse than someone else based on whether God called you to preach or not.
-The will of God for every Christian is to find out what God wants you to do and do it.
-Regardless of what God tells you to do, he wants every Christian actively involved in the work of the new testament church.
-Now for more information on what a new testament church is, just go to my website at Newlifelafayette.com and download my teaching on the church.
God’s General Call:
Matt. 9:13
-The ministry of Jesus was to call sinners to repentance.
-Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood to pay for the sins of mankind.
-A sinner is someone who breaks God’s law or disobeys the commandment of the Bible.
-The Bibles says in Prov. 24:9 that the thought of foolishness is sin.
-In Exod. 20:16 it says that lying is a sin. Rom. 3:23 says that all have sinned.
-A lost sinner must put his faith alone in the blood of Jesus alone for the forgiveness of all of his sins past, present and future.
In II Pet. 3:9, that the Lord doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but that all of mankind would come to repentance.
-Repentance means that you realize that God is right and you are wrong about your sin and you want to change.
-Repentance towards God and faith towards the blood of Jesus produces salvation or being born again of the Holy Ghost.
-If you have not been born again of the Holy Ghost when you believed, you didn’t get saved.
II Thess. 2:13-14
-Salvation is through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ or the belief of the truth.
-You can’t be saved through other religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, or the New Age church or other such foolishness invented by man or the Devil.
-Sanctification means to be set apart. When the blood of Jesus cleanses your soul, the Holy Spirit enters your body and you are saved or set apart for salvation.
-The problem today is that we have so many bogus churches who don’t emphasize the truths about salvation, that man is a sinner who deserves to burn in hell.
-He needs to put his faith alone in the blood of Jesus.
Col. 1:15
-Every man who ever lived that got saved is called by the grace of God.
-Just remember the acronym for grace. (G)od’s (R)iches (A)t (C)hrist’s (E)xpense.
-By the grace of my dad I was born into the Johnson family through the Johnson blood.
-That is why my last name is Johnson.
-However, I was born again the second time by the grace of God into the family of God through the blood of Jesus.
-That is why I am called a son of God.
Matt. 22:14
-In this life many get saved or are called.
-However a few of them are chosen to be pastors, evangelists and missionaries.
I Pet. 2:9
-The lost person is called out of the darkness of sin onto the light of salvation.
-The Christian is called to be holy or live godly. To be holy you must forsake your sinful habits and desire to do God’s will.
-Holiness is keeping the commandments of God in the power of the Holy Ghost.
I Cor. 1:9
-The purpose of the life of the Christian, is to have fellowshipor have a relationship with God or Jesus.
-When I was growing up, my dad and I would do things together.
-We had fun spending time together and growing older together.
-I enjoyed my dad and he enjoyed me. When I obeyed my dad’s commandments and was right with my dad, the fellowship was great.
-It is the same way when you fellowship with God or Jesus.
-When I am doing the will of Jesus in my life and I am doing what Jesus says the fellowship with Jesus is great.
Col. 3:12
-Christians are called the elect of God, because God chose or elected to save all who put their faith in His Son Jesus.
Rom. 1:7
-A saint is someone who is saved by the blood of Jesus.
-It is not referring to catholic saints. Remember that Catholics are trusting in the sacraments and their good works to get saved and to stay saved.
-Hence, all Catholics that believe such foolishness are just a bunch of hell-bound sinners.
-In general, Catholics are lost people who need to get saved.
-Hence, Catholics can’t be saints.
Eph. 4:1
-A vocation is something you do for a living.
-It is your profession or something you have made a special commitment to.
-E.g. I have a Ph. D. in Statistics and at the time of this writing, I have over 15 years of work experience. It took ten years of college to get my Ph. D.
-I took it seriously. I worked hard every step of the way.
-If I wouldn’t have taken my undergraduate studies seriously, I wouldn’t have gotten to graduate school.
-Every year of school has built upon the previous year. Also, every year of work experience has built upon the previous year of work experience.
-In the same way, every year walking with God will build on the previous one, if you are living for God.
-I have been saved for over twenty years and have read my Bible over 40 times at the time of this writing.
-I have studied and practiced the word of God intensely.
-I didn’t learn how to write sermons and books, preach and teach on television, and start other ministries overnight. It takes time.
-However, I stuck with my spiritual vocation and got the word of God out to the multitudes.
-I have seen over 10,000 people saved and started 13 ministries in the last seven years at the time of this writing.
-By the way Christian, God can use you in similar ways, but you have to take your walk with God and your vocation seriously and stick with it through thick and thin.
-Jesus left the glories of heaven to give His all to you.
-Why not just get saved and sell out to God and give your all to Him.
-That is your spiritual vocation.
I Thess. 4:17
-God didn’t save the Christian so he could live anyway he wanted to.
-God called us to be holy or to stop sinning.
-This is why the bible says the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is holy.
-The Spirit of God lives in the Christian so he can have the power of God to live holy for God.
Gal. 5:13
-The Christian has been given the power to sin no more.
-When you are lost, you have no power to overcome sin.
-Christians are liberated from the bondage of sin.
-Christians are to use our freedom to serve other Christians, preach the gospel to the lost, etc.
-Christians are the servants who are called to serve.
-God didn’t save us so we could keep living like the Devil or live for ourselves.
-God saved us so to live for him.
John 15:14-16
-You are a friend of God if you do what God says.
-When you become God’s friend He will tell you what to do with your life.
-He will give you a deeper understanding of the Bible.
-He will give you knowledge and wisdom to help others as well as yourself.
-God has chosen the Christian to bear fruit that will remain or last.
-The fruit of the Christian is personal spiritual fruit as well as another fruit bearing Christian.
-I have worked in every phase of the ministry from preaching to the lost to training someone else how to run their ministry with the ability to train others.
-In the process of trying to help others I have had to learn to practice my Bible backwards and forwards.
-As a result my life and ministry has born much fruit for the Lord and a lot of it has remained.
I Pet. 2:21
-This is the part of serving God that gets most Christians.
-God has called us to suffer. This includes physical and financial suffering.
-When you serve the Lord, it will cost you time, money and energy.
-You will have to sacrifice your desires and conveniences to serve God.
-I have known many a missionary that has suffered physical hardship because they went to a foreign country where the health care was below American standards.
-As a result, missionaries get sick more often and die earlier.
-A Christian may have to forsake a good financial career to serve the Lord.
-As a result of serving God, a Christian will get persecuted.
-Your family may reject you, you may lose friends, people may threaten you, etc.
-However, the Christian is called to suffer for Jesus.
-Jesus suffered unto death. Suffering is part of the Christian walk.
God’s Specific Call:
-God gives a man a specific call to the ministry to preach as a pastor, missionary, or evangelist.
-The pastor runs the new testament church in his own country.
-The missionary starts churches in foreign countries and the evangelist goes from church to church to encourage the brethren as well as preach the word to the multitudes.
-God also has given a commission that applies to all of the church members.
-This is to preach the word of God to the lost, see people get saved, then water baptized and then to be trained to do the same as well as live godly.
Acts 9:6
-After Saul got saved he asked the Lord what he should do and the Lord responded.
-Christian, if you want to know what God’s will is for your life, ask Him in prayer and wait for an answer.
-If there is a clear command in scripture to do or not to do something, you don’t need a response from God, you just need to do it.
-E.g. I don’t need to ask God if I should go to church or witness to others.
-However, I need to ask God on where I should go to church and what witnessing ministry God wants me to be a part of.
-I don’t need to ask God if I should practice holiness I should just do it.
Acts 9:15
-Jesus revealed to Ananias that Saul was called of God.
-When I was called to preach, God made my calling clear to others and in church.
-I had the wisdom and power of God in my teachings and sermons as well as having an effective ministry.
Acts 9:20
-After Saul, later called the Apostle Paul, was called to preach, he started preaching.
-After a Christian is called to preach, he needs to get involved in the ministry as well as receive training to develop his calling.
-This will include hands on experience as well as intense bible training.
-In my case, I took two years of bible correspondence school.
-While I was doing this I was soul winning about six hours a week, teaching Sunday school class and teaching in junior church.
-I was actively learningand practicing what I learned.
-A year later I started my own ministry and the rest is history.
-Regardless whether God calls you as a child, teenage, or an adult, you need to live for God and prepare your life for when God puts you into a specific ministry.
I Tim. 1:12-13
-After the Apostle Paul was put into the ministry, God enabled him or provided for his personal needs so he could preach.
-In Paul’s case, we see in the book of Acts that God sometimes provided for him through others and sometimes God provided for him through his occupation of tent making.
-It is the same way with the preacher today. God may provide through others or through the occupation of the preacher.
Acts 13:1-3
-At the new testament church at Antioch, the leaders were fasting and ministering to the Lord.
-In the process the Holy Ghost called Barnabas and Saul to be missionaries.
-As a result, Saul and Barnabas were ordained by the leaders of the church and sent out.
-Ordination is done through the laying on off hands by those of the new testament church who are already ordained.
-The laying on off hands is a symbol of the Holy Ghost descending on a man to enable him to preach the word for his particular calling.
-Remember that after Jesus was water baptized, the Holy Ghost descended on Him and God the Father spoke from heaven saying this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
-This is why I say that if you are called to preach, God will tell you and others will see and will give the power of the Holy Ghost on your ministry.
Acts 16:6, 9
-In Paul case, God wanted him to go to Macedonia and not to Asia.
-This didn’t mean that God didn’t care about Asia, it just wasn’t where God was sending Paul.
-As we all know, a person can only be in one place at one time.
-When God sends you, he wants you to go to a specific place for a specific period of time.
-The preacher just needs to wait on God and trust him for his specific spiritual direction.
Rom. 11:29
-God created every preacher as a unique individual, with a unique purpose and with unique gifts.
-This way every preacher is important.
-Regardless of a man’s obedience to God, he can’t change his spiritual calling or gifts.
-God didn’t call clones, with cloned callings and with cloned spiritual gifts.
-Beware of church organizations that have a good old preacher boy’s spiritual hierarchy.
-These organizations will have false doctrines, like their pastors are always right and the only preachers doing anything for God are preachers in their organization.
-These organizations will be big on church offerings, church attendance and prestige with others at the expense of the individual and the truth.
-They will use their physical resources as well as use emotion and coercion tocall men into their ministries.
-These organizations will teach their members to honor their leaders and their teachings over the authority of the bible.