The Basis for Our Calling

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Last week I started a series with you on ministry and I kept saying over and over as I’ve said over and over in other messages and you’ve probably heard from other preachers over and over that every Christian is called to ministry. And I believe that. I believe that.

But I don’t always feel that way. You ever have those moments where you know it’s true, you know that we’ve been called to ministry, but you don’t always feel like you’ve been called. Sometimes we just have those moments where we’re down and we put ourselves down and we think, what could I possibly do?

Even somebody like me who serves in vocational ministry, I think from time to time, what am I actually accomplishing here? I look in the mirror all the time and say, God, what were you thinking? There are so many people better suited, better equipped that you could have called for this particular work.

We get to this point where we put ourselves down and we feel like we’re just not particularly good at anything and particularly useful in ministry. If you’re not feeling that way, it’s probably because you hadn’t spent much time thinking about the call to ministry. But we all have it.

We just don’t always feel like we have it. But your feelings will lie to you. Just because we feel something doesn’t always mean it’s true.

I’ve had this conversation many times with my wife and with my children. I told my wife one time in a very, I wouldn’t say heated discussion, but a very intense discussion, facts don’t care about your feelings. Men, that’s not the time to make that statement, all right?

Find a more tactful way to say that. It’s true, but not necessarily helpful to anything you want. But I have to remind myself of that also.

What is fact and what are my feelings do not always line up. and fact is more important. For example, I felt this morning like it would be a good idea somebody who rarely eats sugar felt like it would be a great idea to have pancakes for breakfast knowing that I was going to come in and have some kind of dessert with my children in their Sunday school class and then go have donuts with everybody else in the fellowship hall.

And already my stomach and my blood supply, everything is telling me that is fake news, all right? That was not, my feeling was entirely incorrect on that. What we feel and what are true are not necessarily the same thing.

So we think sometimes, sure, I understand in a general way, everybody’s called to ministry, but that can’t possibly include me. God didn’t take into account how worthless I am. No, just because we feel that way doesn’t mean that it’s true.

We need to say, what did the Scripture say? Because I threw that out last week, again, that we’re all called to ministry. And then I got to thinking this week, where do we see that in Scripture?

I’ve heard it all my life, but where do we see it in Scripture? There are a number of places we see it in Scripture, but I want to look at one of them together this morning that indicates where the basis of our calling is. It’s not in what we feel we’re good at.

It’s not in what we feel we’re good for. It’s in something very clear and very objective. Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m saying your specific call is very clear and very objective.

Like I can identify with pinpoint accuracy what God wants you to do. That’s something you have to work out with Him. But your calling to ministry, your calling to serve others in the name of Jesus as a believer in Christ is based on something very clear and very objective.

And 1 Corinthians chapter 12 bears this out. If you would turn with me there this morning to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. If you don’t have your Bible with you this morning, it’ll be on the screen.

You can also find it through our bulletin. You can click on the link if you want to look at it on your phone. But 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word this morning.

1 Corinthians chapter 12, starting in verse 1, and we’re going to read through verse 11 this morning. It says, Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols.

However, you were led. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit. to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

And you may be seated. So Paul was writing here to a group of people in Corinth who had come from a pagan background. He talks about their attachment to these dumb idols.

He’s not just calling these idols stupid, although that was true. He’s not just saying that their false gods were stupid. As he says that they are dumb, he’s indicating here an inability to speak.

We would say now probably mute. He said, you were attached to these idols who could not speak to you. They could not direct you.

They could not do anything meaningful in your life or in anybody’s life. And you just went wherever you felt led And if it’s not the idol that was actually leading them, it was nothing more than their feelings and their emotions that were getting the better of them. He said, you were led about by these idols.

They were powerless, they were lifeless, they couldn’t speak or empower anything, so you’re just operating off of your own fleshly emotion. He says in verse 3 though, but now the Spirit of the living God lives inside of you. You’re no longer attached to some lifeless piece of wood or stone or metal. You are now indwelled by the very Holy Spirit of the living God.

He lives inside of you, and you’re not just empowered by your flesh. You’re not just driven by emotion. You are driven by that Spirit who lives inside of you.

The Holy Spirit is there, and He’s demonstrating His power in each of their lives. That’s what this passage is about. Now, specifically, He’s talking about the diversity of gifts in chapter 12, and He’s talking about what unites us.

What unites us, even in the diversity of those gifts, is the Holy Spirit. So we come back to the Holy Spirit being at the very center. We focus on the call to ministry, we think about, well, I can’t do this because I don’t have that particular gift.

I don’t know what my gift is, so I’m just going to sit here and hang out because if I haven’t figured it out, I probably don’t have one. Listen, it’s not our job to focus on the gift. Focus on the Spirit who gives the gift.

He’ll sort all of that out. You see, the Holy Spirit equips us with gifts and a calling to do ministry. We focus far too much on the individual gift, and it becomes about me, and these qualities I have, and what I can and can’t do.

Listen, focus on the Spirit. Even as He’s talking about these gifts, He goes back to, it is the Spirit who gives you the gift. It is the Spirit who empowers you.

It’s the Spirit who directs you. It’s the Spirit who superintends this entire process. It’s all about the Spirit.

Because He says in verse 1, concerning the spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. Immediately, immediately, as he starts into this discussion of spiritual gifts, immediately he points their attention to the Holy Spirit. He says, this is who matters in this whole process is the Holy Spirit.

He begins to talk to them about the influence of the Holy Spirit. Then he goes into lifts, he begins to talk about how there are specific gifts and there are specific ministries. We all have different gifts.

We all have different ministries. We all have different activities. He talks about these things in verses 4, 5, and 6.

They’re all going to be different. My ministry does not look exactly like yours. Yours does not look exactly like the person sitting down the pew from you.

None of us are going to have exactly the same ministry or the same activities or the same specific things that we do. All those things may be a little bit different, but they all come from the same source. And it’s the source that’s important.

Because as he mentions each of these in verse 4, diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. Verse 5, differences of ministries, but the same Lord. Verse 6, diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

Even as he’s talking about the different gifts and the different ministries and the different activities, he always comes back to it being the same Holy Spirit who empowers all of these things. The Holy Spirit is the one who equips us with gifts and calling to do ministry. And then he talks about what some of these specifically were, starting in verse 7.

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all. We each get a share of the gifts so that the work gets done. He talks about for the profit of all.

So that everyone benefits. So that the whole body benefits from the gifts that each of us possess. He gives each of us something.

He empowers each of us and equips each of us with something so that when we all come together and do what the Holy Spirit has empowered us to do, the whole body benefits, not just me. So the work gets done. And he lists some of the spiritual gifts that were there in that day and time.

If you get some kind of special revelation, people that were experiencing a special message from God, he said that’s the Holy Spirit in verse 8. The Holy Spirit gave you that. Do you have this incredible faith that moves mountains?

Do you have this incredible faith that others are in awe of and say, man, I wish I had that kind of faith? The Holy Spirit did that. Are you able to heal or perform other miracles in verses 9 and 10?

He says those come from the Holy Spirit. Prophecy and discernment in verse 10, those come from the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues and interpreting tongues, those come from the Holy Spirit.

Now, I believe the Bible teaches that the sign gifts were something in the age of the apostles, something to validate their ministries, that they’re not necessarily the way God works today. listen, I don’t want to put God in a box and say he can’t do those things. He’s God and he can do what he wants to with or without my permission, right?

But I don’t think the signed gifts are the way that he normally operates today. As a matter of fact, I believe it’s 1 Corinthians talks about when that which is perfect comes, I believe he’s talking about the scriptures, some of these signed gifts would pass away. There are other brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree on that and still think God operates through speaking in tongues.

I don’t want to fight with them about it, But I believe a lot of these signed gifts, their purpose was to validate the message in the absence of a completed New Testament. But there are still spiritual gifts today. Maybe not the signed gifts, but there are still spiritual gifts.

There’s teaching. There’s shepherding. There’s evangelism.

There’s mercy. There’s service. There’s all sorts of spiritual gifts that are listed throughout the New Testament that have nothing to do with validating the message because listen, this right here is what validates the message.

Not the opinion of the preacher, not the position of the church. The Word of God is what validates the message. But there are other spiritual gifts that have not to do with validating the message, but with actually going out and serving and bringing glory to Jesus Christ. And we are each equipped with these spiritual gifts.

These spiritual gifts today, just like these sign gifts he’s talking about, they come from the Holy Spirit. Wherever we see spiritual gifts at work, it’s because the Holy Spirit is there working. when you look at somebody and you say they have this incredible gift gee I wish I was gifted like that why don’t I have that incredible gift why don’t I have that incredible ability why don’t I have that incredible ministry listen the same holy spirit that empowers that is empowering you if you’re a believer in jesus christ your ministry may not look exactly the same but don’t get don’t get the idea that you’re some kind of second class minister in the kingdom of god because you didn’t get this gift over here.

You may not have gotten this gift over here, but you’ve got the same Holy Spirit that gave that gift. And He gives what He wants and needs us to have to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. So it’s the Holy Spirit.

Instead of focusing on the individual gifts, we need to focus on the Spirit who gives those gifts because He’s the one who equips us. He’s the one who works in us. And this is important to understand, the Holy Spirit lives and works within every believer.

You need to understand that because we can understand, yeah, the Holy Spirit works, that’s great. He’s working in Jeff, and he’s working in Kim, and he’s working in Tommy, and he’s working in Jimmy Ann, but I’m just over here doing my thing. No, no, if you’re a believer, you have the same Holy Spirit.

Don’t think that the Holy Spirit only works in the others. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives and works in you. So throughout this passage, the Holy Spirit is given credit for a wide influence.

As you read this passage, he’s talking about all these ministries taking place everywhere, all these gifts going out everywhere, and it’s the Holy Spirit just everywhere, all throughout the church, doing the work, doing the ministry, working in the life of every believer. And all the ministry they are doing, all the ministry that was going on in the church at Corinth was because of the work of the Holy Spirit. He wasn’t just in a few.

He wasn’t just in the leadership of the church at Corinth. He was working within the entire church. That’s why he said in verse 4, there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

And in verse 11 he says, but one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. He said the Holy Spirit goes to each of us. He’s not just in a few of us.

He’s not even just in us as a group. He’s in each of us. He’s working in each of us.

Paul never, he never hinted here or elsewhere that the Holy Spirit was just at work within some of them. As we read through this passage, and really everywhere where he talks about the spiritual gifts and talks about the calling to ministry, it’s just assumed that the Holy Spirit is there working within everybody. I think this is important to understand because this is one of these areas where facts and feelings don’t always line up.

Listen, you may not feel like the Holy Spirit is at work within you, but whether you feel it or not, God’s Word is clear. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives within you. He dwells within you.

There may be moments, there may be days when you don’t feel like it, but that doesn’t mean that He’s left you. That doesn’t mean that God has begun to neglect His promises. As a matter of fact, Paul wrote elsewhere in Romans chapter 8 that if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

He says you can’t be a believer and not have the Holy Spirit living within you. If you’ve believed, if you are his, then the Holy Spirit is there, period. End of story.

Jesus himself said in John 14, and I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. Jesus said to his followers, he’s there, he will be there, he’s with you forever.

It’s the promise of God. The father is sending him, I’m sending him, he’s going to be there. God’s word is clear.

If you’re a born again believer in Jesus Christ, then you have the Holy Spirit. Now sometimes we don’t feel the presence of the Holy Spirit because we’re not listening. Sometimes we don’t feel the presence of the Holy Spirit because we’re too busy actively ignoring Him and disobeying Him.

But folks, He’s there. You don’t have to take my word for it. He inspired the Apostle Paul to tell us that.

And Jesus Himself gave the promise that the Holy Spirit would be with us. If you’re a born-again believer in Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit, and He brings with Him all the gifts that you need in order to do ministry, and He brings you the calling along with those gifts to do ministry. And he does all of this for a very specific reason.

It’s not to glorify ourselves. It’s not to show off our talents. Sometimes somebody will be really talented at something and we think, oh, it must be a spiritual gift.

Listen, the point of the spiritual gifts is not to bring attention to ourselves. It’s not to show people how talented we are. That can happen.

But folks, the point of the spiritual gifts really is not even to bring attention to the Holy Spirit. Jesus talked about how the Holy Spirit would do all of His work to bring attention to Jesus. And Paul says the same thing here in verse 3.

He says, therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus a curse, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us to bring glory to Jesus. It’s not about our talents and what we’re good at.

It’s about how the Holy Spirit intends to work in us to bring glory to Jesus Christ, to the one who truly deserves all the glory that we could ever give Him. It’s His influence. It’s by the influence of the Holy Spirit that we’re able to say Jesus is Lord.

It’s by the influence of the Holy Spirit that we are able to proclaim Jesus Christ and His glory and His salvation to a dying world. And he says that nobody being led by the Spirit can say a word against Jesus. Where the Holy Spirit is at work, it’s going to bring glory to Jesus.

And he says, anybody that comes to you saying, we’re doing this in the name of the Holy Spirit, we’re doing it, and they preach against Jesus, he said, they’re not telling you the truth. Because nobody can say by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is accursed. The Holy Spirit can do nothing but bring glory to Jesus Christ. Now, to be very clear, the Holy Spirit is a person.

I don’t mean a human being, but I mean a person. There are three things that differentiate a person from a non-person. See if I can remember them off the top of my head here.

Emotion and affection are one. Cognition and intellect are another. And volition or will.

So what separates a person from a non-person, that’s not my original idea, that comes from John MacArthur reading something that he’s written about the Holy Spirit right now. What separates a person from a non-person is will, intellect, and emotion. The reason I point this out is because there are people out there who teach that the Holy Spirit is just sort of an act of force.

I’ve heard some people even describe the Holy Spirit as being like radio waves. Just kind of an impersonal force out there like radio waves or radar that accomplish something when they’re sent out by somebody else. Listen, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit feels.

The Bible talks about the Holy Spirit loving and being grieved and being provoked. The Holy Spirit has a will. Talks about Him striving with sinners.

The Holy Spirit has intellect and has cognition. He was able to inspire the Scriptures. Jesus said He would teach.

He would bring things to remembrance. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is God the Holy Spirit.

And He works in concert with the other two members of the Trinity to accomplish the purposes of God. He was sent by the Father to bring glory to Jesus Christ, to point us to Jesus Christ for salvation. And so where the Holy Spirit, not as some kind of impersonal force, but as the third person of the Godhead, takes up residence within you and begins to work within you, He is there to empower you to serve, to call you, to gift you to serve, so that you can go out and glorify Jesus Christ. That’s the purpose in what He’s doing.

Now the reason I bring all of this up this morning is because as we’re talking about ministry it’s important to realize that where sometimes we don’t feel called to ministry or we don’t feel gifted for ministry it’s important to realize that our giftedness and our calling is not in what we feel but in what God says about the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives This is one of those places where I have to remind myself that facts don’t care about my feelings You see, the Corinthians were used to acting on how they felt. They would work themselves up into a frenzy worshiping these powerless idols, but Paul pointed them away from that subjective experience that was driven by their feelings, and he pointed them instead to the objective fact that the Holy Spirit lived within them. All of this is tied to the presence of the Holy Spirit.

So if you want to know if you’ve been gifted and called to ministry, here’s the test this morning. Because sometimes you won’t feel like it. You might wake up tomorrow and say, I feel like I’m no good in the kingdom.

God couldn’t possibly have any calling on my life. He couldn’t possibly have any work for me to do. Here’s the test. If you want to know if you’ve been gifted and called to ministry, the question is not, do I feel gifted and called?

The question is, does God’s Holy Spirit live within me? That’s the question you’ve got to ask yourself. Does God’s Holy Spirit live within me?

Because if He does, if you are a believer, If you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit lives within you. And if the Holy Spirit lives within you, then He is working to bring glory to Jesus Christ. And His plan to do that is to give you the gifts and set you loose to use them. So rest assured, if His Holy Spirit is there, you have gifts and a calling whether you feel like it or not.

You have gifts and a calling on the days when you’re on top of the world and feel like you could take on hell with a water pistol. And you have gifts and a calling on the days when you’re down in the depths of the valley and you feel like you’re no use to God or man. If the Holy Spirit is there, then you have gifts and a calling.

And the big question becomes whether or not and how you plan to be obedient to that calling. If His Holy Spirit lives within you, you have a calling and you have gifts. And the question is whether you’re going to use them to be obedient or not and how you’re going to use them.

Now, if the Holy Spirit is not living within you, maybe you’re thinking, this Holy Spirit stuff, I’ve never heard this before. I don’t have the Holy Spirit. It’s all connected to a relationship with Jesus Christ. And maybe you don’t have that relationship this morning.

See, this connection with the Holy Spirit begins with understanding that we have sinned against God. That idea of sin sounds really complicated, but it’s not. It just means that we’ve disobeyed God, that we’ve fallen short of His standards.

and I guarantee you not because I know you but because I know what the Bible says I guarantee you that you have disobeyed God oh I try to be a good person listen even within the best of us there’s this heart that lives in rebellion against God even when we’re good outwardly by the way you can’t you can’t go a day I’m sure without sinning outwardly in your behavior but there’s also sin in our hearts, in our thoughts, and in our attitudes, I know it’s there because I live a pretty quiet life. Pretty sure there are no surprises. None that I can think of.

Alright? But I also know what’s in my heart. There have been days recently in traffic when I’ve had to pray and said, Lord, I’ve just realized I’m not necessarily the nicest person in the world.

As a matter of fact, I am what your word says I am. I’m a sinner. See, we have hearts that are filled with sin and rebellion against God.

even religious people even moral people even people who try to do right outwardly jesus looked at the pharisees who were the most religious most moral people of his day and he told the people around them that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you’re not getting into the kingdom of god he said look at the most religious people you know the people who are doing all the right things and checking all the right boxes outwardly And unless you’re better than that, you’re not getting in. What chance do the rest of us have? See, we have to recognize we’ve sinned against God, and our sin separates us from God.

It’s not that God is mean, it’s not that God is harsh, but God is perfect and holy and sinless, and every time we disobey Him, we’re not just rejecting His ways, we are rejecting Him. And so God looks at that, and it is offensive to God. Our sin separates us from Him, not only in this life, but in the world to come.

We will spend eternity separated from God in a place called hell because of our sin. And yet God, in His love and in His mercy, looked at us and said, I love you in spite of what you are and what you’ve become, and where you and I could never do enough good to undo the wrong that we’ve done, that sin had to be paid for. And so God the Father sent His Son, sent Jesus Christ, to bear full responsibility for my sin and for yours.

He had no sin of His own, so He could take responsibility for ours. And He was nailed to the cross, and He shed His blood, and He died there to pay for our sins in full. Listen, not just to pay for part of it.

Not just to pay for the big things so we could work off the little things. It doesn’t work that way. Not just so that He could forgive the things we’ve already done, and then it’s up to us to keep it.

No, He paid for our sins in full because we could never do enough good to erase any of the wrong that we’ve done. He paid for our sins in full so that we could be forgiven. He died there on the cross, and He rose again three days later to prove it.

And this morning, your relationship with God starts with recognizing that you’ve sinned and need a Savior, believing that Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins in full so you could be forgiven. believing that He proved it by rising again the third day and then asking God for that forgiveness. When you do that, listen, don’t think, don’t think, I’ve got to clean up my life and then I’ll come to Jesus, you can’t clean it up enough.

That’s the whole point of what He came to do. You come to Him and you acknowledge your sin and ask for that forgiveness. He will clean you up.

He will wipe your slate clean with God. You will be forgiven from the moment that you ask for that forgiveness. You will be forgiven.

God will give you a clean slate, and His Holy Spirit will come take up residence inside of you and do the cleaning, do the straightening up. And not only that, but He will begin then to gift you to serve God and to glorify Jesus Christ.