Let's say that we have a calling from the Lord, we have gifts,
natural gifts, and then there's character.
What's the one that you have to have in order to move forward?
Welcome to the Uncut Podcast.
I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast,
where we have honest and uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry.
We're here on a beautiful Tuesday. Tuesday.
Yeah, it's not a normal recording day, so it feels like, oh my gosh,
is it actually later in the week than it actually is?
Dear Lord, please, let's not make it Thursday.
Yeah, we did a lot of calendaring and looking forward and planning and stuff, and so we're,
I'm sure our heads are running a gazillion different directions,
but we wanted to sit down and talk about, pick up some of the conversation that
we left off from last week. Last week.
We kind of started out by talking about preaching, and we kind of ran ourselves
around to talking about calling in the ministry, so...
Yeah, Cameron, did you have any thoughts about where you wanted to kind of start
in that conversation? Because it's a pretty big one.
It is, and I think we mentioned a little bit of it last week,
in that typically when we talk about when Christians use the term calling,
they are usually referring to occupational ministry.
Jared Poline Yeah. A lot of times. Paul Sherman A lot of times.
What you would do, what I do, what other ministry leaders would do.
Jared Poline We are on staff at a church. Paul Sherman We're on staff at a church, right?
And that's typically what people think of, I think, at least in my experience,
when you talk about, are you called into ministry?
I get that, I understand why.
But I think if we, when we take a look at Scripture, the New Testament in particular,
well, not even the New Testament, the whole Bible, the whole Scripture,
the example that we see is that, yeah, there are people who are called,
occupationally in ministry. They have gifts that are associated with that calling,
which is one of the things that I want to talk about. Does gifts equal calling?
But then there is, so yeah, I'm called to ministry, I have gifts,
does that mean I have to work in a church?
So there's that type of calling, but then scripture is pretty clear also that
there's occupational ministry, but there's also that there really is not anyone
one who is in Christ who is not called.
So, I think first, when we talk about calling in ministry, we have to understand
that it's a pretty comprehensive conversation.
That it's not relegated to simply those who are, may or may not earn a living from it.
And how those things are different, or if they're different or not.
So would you say, are you of the opinion then that everyone has a calling from
the Lord, it's just a question as to what that calling is? Oh,
yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
I think the scriptures declare that too. Okay. You know, I think that there is a, you know,
In the timeline of human history and people's relationship with the Lord,
like the recorded relationship with the Lord, the occupational ministry is relatively
new in the grand timeline.
I don't know. I suppose in the first couple centuries, you know,
people began to make their living, their occupational living.
From, you know, the, from well, being a leader in the church or in the Christian community.
Well, could you, I mean, could you make an argument that Paul was occupational?
I mean, he certainly did some tent building. Yeah, no, I like,
yeah, for certain, for certain.
He was supported by, you know, he was a mission, Paul was a missionary. Right, yeah.
You know, and like, maybe that's not even really a fair statement,
because even like going back to the Levites, they were certainly occupational.
You know, the nation of Israel supported their occupational ministry, so...
The modern conception of occupational ministry in which that,
like, this isn't true for most Christian denominations is that the pastors,
largely apart from working at a church.
Can kind of blend into society.
There was a point at which occupational ministry or calling into ministry meant
you were a monk or a priest and... Or a nun.
Or a nun, or you were somehow sequestered from the rest of society in a unique fashion.
And you wore a collar, you wore certain clothes everywhere you went,
like you lived in a certain place.
Oh, parsonage. The practice of parsonages, which if you're not familiar is...
A lot of churches still have these.
It's less common, but many churches in denomination still practice having parsonages,
which is a house that's typically near, if not next to, the church property,
in which the pastor and his family live, or just the pastor or whatever.
And so it's a property owned by the church, provided for the pastor to live in.
But that's probably some of the most unique ways in which we're set apart.
But largely, you and I walk through town, and if people don't know us personally,
there's no... Yeah, unless you have a collar on or something like that,
clerical collar. Yeah, there's no distinction.
So I think that has maybe... The occupation of pastor and ministry is,
in that kind of sense, a relatively new thing, but as far as something that
you do in a practically full -time capacity,
I think that's probably very, very, very old in some form. Yeah, I agree.
I recant my original statement. It is not new.
In fact, I was just trying to remember the reference, but 1 Timothy,
Paul was writing to 1 Timothy, you know, hey, do not, you know,
do not muzzle the ox whilst treading the grain,
which was a reference essentially to the way in which agrarian societies when
they were using oxen to crush grain to use for baking,
some of them would sometimes,
put a muzzle, a little muzzle on the ox so that as it was walking it did not
eat the grain that it was crushing, right?
And the idea there was, hey, listen, and the ox is doing the work,
let him take a bite. It should eat a little bit, right?
Paul says that to Timothy, I think it's in 1 Timothy chapter five,
but it's not original to Paul.
It's original to Deuteronomy, which is early, early, early, you know,
in the, in Jewish history.
So yeah, so, you know, maybe occupational ministry always has been,
but certainly in a, you know, the way in which it shows up in life now It's
a little bit different than everything else.
But to answer the original question, yeah, I do believe that everyone has a calling.
Not all is occupational. In fact, if we go to like, I had the Bible flipped
over in here and we were reading a little bit before we turned on the mics,
but in Ephesians chapter four, Paul,
essentially says the same thing, that
there is both, it appears to be both occupational and non -occupational,
ministry, because he's not writing a letter here to the church in Ephesus that is.
That is, they're not all professional Christians here, they're not all pastors,
they're just lay people, right?
So the context is he's talking to lay people, okay? So in Ephesians chapter
four, he says this, as a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life
worthy of the calling that you have received.
So right from the get, Paul's like, you have received a calling,
don't squander it. Live a life that's worthy of it.
And so, okay, what is the calling then? I think that it goes on to explain what the calling is.
Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
There's one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
But to each one of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. That would be like.
A way of saying like everyone is called to each one of us grace has been given,
as Christ has apportioned it.
And then it goes on in verse 11 to say, so Christ himself gave some to be apostles,
some to be prophets, some to be evangelists,
some to be pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so
that the body of Christ may be built up until we will all reach unity in faith
and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature,
attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. He goes on and on and on and on.
But I think what Paul goes on to communicate there is that every single one of us,
those who are Christian, I would say, have been called by the Lord,
and the calling is not on our occupation, the calling is on our character.
Like, he has called us to be humble and gentle.
He has called us to be unified in the Spirit.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.
And this is where, how I usually try to describe to people how to begin to discern a call, is that,
and it's the same kind of thing where like we're trying to discern in a situation
what God's will is for our life.
God's will for our lives is that we would be conformed to the image and likeness of his son, Jesus.
That the righteousness that belongs to Jesus would become our righteousness through faith in him.
And that is the ultimate will of God. And by extension, I think,
using Paul's language, that is the ultimate call of God. That is a calling on
our character, not necessarily on our occupation.
Unless, or I should say, in addition to,
if the grace apportioned to us by Christ calls us into occupational ministry,
apostles, prophets, teachers, evangelists,
whose work it is to build up and equip others others to fulfill their calling,
to be obedient to the character of Christ in their lives.
So,
It's a both and, Paul's not advocating for one over the other,
nor is he saying the only calling that exists is occupational ministry,
nor is he saying the only calling that exists is non -occupational ministry.
It's both, and they work in concert with one another. Right.
So it makes me think of a lot of conversations around spiritual gifts, right?
Like this, everyone... I feel like this was really vogue, you know, a decade or more ago.
I felt like every church was doing like a spiritual gift inventory and stuff.
It was just like a thing that we're talking a lot about.
And that's not dissing that.
You should be discerning about what are the gifts that God has specifically
given you and how those are meant to be used in the body for Christ.
That's an important thing. But if that's maybe a more helpful framework for
some people is to say, like, you know, you've got a...
If you've ever, like, identified a spiritual gift that you have,
well, you're called to be a minister of that spiritual gift inside of the body
in which you belong, you know.
As you were reading, I was thinking about 1 Peter talks about, uses this language.
Talks about in chapter 2 here, verse 4, it says, as you come to Him,
the living stone, talking about Jesus,
rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him, you also are like
living stones being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual,
sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
And that's a pretty big, it's a pretty big category shift in the New Testament
from the Old Testament, right?
Shifting from there being, well, you couldn't go into the Holy of Holies,
you couldn't go into certain parts of the temple and do certain things unless you were a priest.
And so in the New Testament, to call all believers, everyone who follows Christ,
as belonging in part of a royal priesthood, that's like a... It's a big shift.
But as I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering, Cameron, do you think that we've
maybe... Do you think we've lost that a little bit with the professionalization
of ministry? Oh, for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we have. We...
We have outsourced our callings to the professionals.
And part of that is my fault, part of that is your fault, right?
Because if we don't stand down hard on our calling as equippers of the saints
to do the work of ministry,
as Paul says in Ephesians four, Or then we just promulgate that with our own professionalism.
And we have a vested interest in that.
We've gone to school to study it. We give our lives to it. That doesn't mean
that any of that's wrong or that we shouldn't do that.
It just means that we often, the professionals among us often don't help to
change the culture of professional occupational ministry being the way in which
ministry gets done, right?
And so, yeah, I think we have gotten away from that.
Every believer is a priest type of... Sainthood of believers is the way I would
put it. Priesthood of believers, the sainthood of believers, yeah.
And so that's one of the reasons why I think it's so critical for us to talk
more about the calling of character.
Because the calling of character is what ultimately,
I should put it like this, where there is know, like, where you don't embrace
the calling of the character of Christ in you,
I don't believe God is going to call you or promote you to the calling of professionalism.
Or, if there is a calling to professional ministry, you will rise to the level of your character.
Like, that will be the ceiling. You will never surpass. You will never surpass
the level of your character.
You will always fall to the level of your character.
I think we could all say that the calling of God on our lives is much higher
than we probably could even ever imagine.
And that it's my, I'll say I hold this belief loosely, right,
and I'll hold on to it tightly.
It can be talked out of it, I think, but that our character,
the character of Christ in us
often determines the extent to which our professional calling increases.
What do you mean by that? When you say professional calling increases,
do you mean like the success of our professional calling or like the level to
which our professional calling should be?
Like, I'm curious what you, cause I'm like, in one way, like,
I I think about that, and I'm like, yeah, I know lots of, like there's,
we've talked about it here, right?
Like the continual year after year churn of people who have big ministry,
but seem to have failures of character and stuff like that, who had massive
influential ministry and impactful,
but like, you know, and like you said, like they're not disproving your point
necessarily Because at the end of the day they do fall to the level of their character,
but they definitely certainly saw a lot of Worldly success worldly success and
there's even people out there who.
I don't know. We try not to overly judge people who we don't know,
but from just afar, we're just like, why does that ministry seem to...
Or that person's platform seem to be so big, but we see other things where we're
like, that seems really concerning. You know?
Yeah, I suppose I'm maybe showing my... an unfair bias a little bit towards bigger ministries.
Ministry, or bigger ministries, I'm not like, I'm certainly not biased towards them.
And I don't know if really thinking it out or if I'm pushed on it,
that I would say that people with big platforms have great character,
people with small platforms have little character.
That's not true. I know I don't believe that.
But I think that there is, I don't know, I feel like I need to hold in tension
even for my own belief that there is a system of reaping and sowing that happens
in the calling of ministry,
that we cannot sow to please our fleshly desires and then reap in the Spirit.
You don't reap spiritual blessing from sowing in the flesh, you don't.
There's also, you know, like, I'm thinking about, you know, scriptural axioms
and spiritual principles of, like.
You know, when we are given little and we treat it faithfully,
God is inclined to give us more. RL – Yeah.
PW – When we are given a little and treat it poorly, God is not inclined to give us more.
We have not proved ourselves to be faithful with what he has given to us.
But then you're right, we do see these really large ministries, large platforms,
men and women who have seemingly built extraordinarily large followings and
influence and have a voice within the,
not even just the Christian culture, but in culture in general.
And we're like, but then years down the line, we realize or come to hear or
come to find out that behind the scenes, their character was not Christ -like.
Their lives were not humble or gentle or loving or manipulative and power -hungry
and greedy and all those things.
And the ministry all comes kind of crashing down. And I have two thoughts about that.
One is like, well, is that the... Are they reaping publicly what they sowed privately?
The other thought I have about that is that, okay, does their failure negate
any positive things that came from the ministry and the process,
you know, because, like, I don't know that we could talk...
I don't know that we... If I'm, like, there's such thing as fruit of the poisonous
tree in terms of ministries are concerned.
There is a little bit, because Paul talks about... There's some concern...
I'm trying to remember the passage, but Paul is in prison, I think,
and he's writing one of the epistles, and there's some concern that he's been
made aware of, of, like, people...
Preaching more boldly about Christ because he's in prison, but they're kind
of like... Trying to make a name for themselves. Trying to make a name for themselves,
and they're kind of like dissing him a little bit along the way.
And Paul says, look, I don't care whether they're preaching the gospel for selfish
gain or not. Yeah, he says whether false motives are true, Christ is being proclaimed.
And so, woo -hoo. And so I think that there's definitely a principle shown in
the New Testament there of, like, you know...
Christ using, and we see it throughout the Old Testament, God using imperfect
people to accomplish His means.
And I think, you know, there's definitely, if you've been in Christendom and
you've read or read or watched really widely for a long period of time, you've probably read,
watched, or listened to something by some pastor at this point who is now no
longer in favor because of significant character failings.
And the question we, and we've talked about this, I think, of,
you know, what do you do with the fruit and the encouragement that you bore from that ministry?
Do we just toss it out or do we say, the Lord used somebody who is imperfect
and it's a little bit gray,
but, you know, I'm gonna thank the Lord for the fruit and then toss out what
is not. Right, yeah. Yeah.
But I... And I agree with that, I would agree with that, yeah.
But I think like what you're saying what you were you said something earlier
you were talking about bearing spiritual fruit and I think sometimes like I you know,
there's You know With so many things there's a balance right like we do want
to do things well, right?
And so we do want to care about metrics into some degree like it wouldn't be
wise to just just completely disregard, like, you know, you're like,
I'm never going to count how many people come to my church.
Well, okay, I suppose, like, if you don't want to, I guess you don't have to,
but like, you're going to lack some information.
But otherwise then, you know, so you don't want to disregard that,
but we also don't to get into a place where we just simply say,
like, fruit is the visible metric,
like, the size of your ministry and stuff like that.
We don't wanna bias ourselves that way either. No, I don't wanna do that.
If I communicated that before, it's not my heart.
I just kinda... The podcast is uncut. It is uncut.
And I know that's not your heart, because I know that we've talked about that
before here on the podcast, so... I just feel like there is,
I just feel like we can't ignore, and I don't know how it works out in heaven.
I just feel like we can't ignore the character of those who are called and the
fruit that is produced from the character.
I don't think those two things can be separated, although I'm not really sure
how it all works out in the laundry at the end of the day. Yeah,
well did this kind of you know segue into a comment?
I remember you made towards the end of last episode.
I think you were talking about people who,
I can't remember exactly how you phrased it. People who wanted to, like, have a platform,
and felt like they needed to go into ministry to get that platform,
or it was some sort of category like that of, like.
You know...
Or was it teaching?
Were we talking about teaching people who just feel like they really want,
like, a lot of people to listen to them and teach, and they feel like they need
to become pastors because of that? And you were like, like, please don't. 15. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, we were talking about it in terms of like,
when you talk about ministry calling and you,
a lot of times what people think about when ministry calling is they think about
occupational ministries and pastors, okay, what do pastors do? Oh, pastors preach.
Cause that's probably, that's usually one of the most visible things that a pastor does.
And what I will say is that, yes, that is true, but it is also one of the easiest
parts of being a pastor and a relatively small part.
In the grand scheme of things, I preach for an hour a week.
I work for 40 to 60 hours a week, depending on the week. It can be more than that even.
So there is... What is visible is not always the reality of what is actually present. Yeah.
You can take that and apply it into like a character and fruit as well.
But,
what I would want to tell people around calling, around preaching,
around platforms, around.
Is, and maybe this is what I wanted to say, maybe this is what I wanted to say
earlier and kind of fumbled it, is that if you focus on the calling of your character,
God will provide the necessary and proportional calling for your ministry.
Like, if my focus becomes the calling of my platform, just call me to teach,
call me to preach, I gotta get up there, I gotta get in front of people. Yeah.
If my focus is my platform or my calling or my position, professional position, then my...
It will like... It's backwards.
Focus on the calling to... Focus on the calling to be conformed to the image
and likeness of Jesus and then the platform or the position will come as it
becomes necessary unto the Lord.
And so, I think it's a really important distinction to make and understand,
not just what you're being called to but what it entails.
And as we've talked about many times here.
As we've talked about many times in other mediums and other places and other
times and all that, is that.
Callings for the Lord are callings to die to yourself.
Callings to die to yourself. They're not, when we talk about like,
oh, some be called to be apostles, some called to be teachers and preachers,
some called to be prophets and evangelists, like,
recognize that at least according to scripture, scriptural evidence,
or the scriptural account, all of those significant callings ended up in someone's
surrender to their own life, sometimes their actual physical life.
And we've talked about this before in terms of being a prophet.
The office of prophet is that people will, all, oh, I'm a, you know,
like, call me prophet so -and -so, call me prophet so -and -so.
I speak as one of, who is speaking the words of the Lord.
One, you better be damn sure.
Yeah, literally. Yes, that you are, that the Lord is telling you to speak,
because when you declare, thus saith the Lord, or this is what the Lord is saying.
You put yourself in a very, very
precarious position, you better not be wrong, you better not be wrong.
And number two is that, I don't know, all of the prophets that we see in scripture
died because they were prophets.
They were, or at the very least, they were like pushed to the absolute outskirts
of society. They were not given the big platforms.
They were not given the big stages. They were not given the microphones.
They were not given the book deals. They were not given the titles.
They were crazy.
They were hated. Even by the religious people, they were hated.
Did, and their message was so countercultural to the world that they were often killed because of it.
The Old Testament and minor prophets, I think it's probably Jeremiah or,
I don't know, it's probably multiple prophets, but they talk about the prophets
that people collect for themselves who say what they wanna hear.
Their itching ears. Their itching ears. They gather around them teachers who
give them what their itching ears wanna hear. Right.
Right. That happened, that happened in the Old Testament, happens in the New
Testament, happens now.
And so, you know, not many of you should desire to be teachers because of like
the increased level of judgment, expectation, and all of that.
Yeah, the Epistle of James.
Right, so not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers and sisters,
because we know that those who teach will be judged more strictly.
So would you like to be held to a higher standard of character in front of the
Lord than everyone else?
It is a demand for higher character, is it not? Right.
It has to be. I don't know how else you would parse that out than to say,
and oh, I wanna be a pastor. are you sure?
I want to teach. Are you sure?
Well, and there's other, like, let's segue it, like, I think that's a really
important point is that, like, I think too often there are people who are really eager.
This is the thing that I, not, there should be some desire to be in ministry,
but if that desire is outpaced by,
let me say it this way, is outpaced significantly by patience and maturity and
a willing to submit to authority,
then that's just like, that's the leader I'm like scared of.
Like, when we talked, you mentioned earlier, does gifting equal calling?
No. No. Like, it doesn't... I don't care how good of a speaker you are or even
how good of an exegete you are if you don't love Christ and you don't love Christ's...
Yeah, if you don't love Christ's bride. And if you're just going to just be
a hammer in the pulpit, I don't care how many people love to listen to you talk.
If it doesn't seem that Christ is being manifest in you, you should not be doing that yet.
And if you're not willing to submit, learn, and grow, and wait,
then you probably just shouldn't be attempting to do this at all. Yeah.
It's tantamount to the old phrase that it's the difference between loving the
gift and loving the giver. Like, the gift is the calling, the giver is the focus.
But...
And like you said, I'm not trying to call any... I'm not trying to talk anyone out. No.
We need more pastors. We do. There's... the seminaries are getting small.
We need more people to like... there are less and there are more pastors retiring
and more pastors quitting every year than there are pastors starting.
Well, and most pastors, well, not say most, a lot of pastors are starting either
bivocationally, later in life, or even in retirement.
They're... Because there's a lack of young people who are willing to pursue this. Right.
I gotta kinda catch myself, because I'm like, I'm gonna be getting into the
season of life where I'm not young anymore.
I think I still am.
Relatively. Relatively. It's a bell curve. Yeah, relatively speaking to the
majority of pastors in the United States, I'm on the younger side,
and I've been doing it for 20 years.
So imagine how old that makes the average pastor. Yeah.
So...
Yeah, I think the question or the statement about like, does gifting equal calling
or does calling equal gifting or however you wanna talk about it is an important
one because you can have gifts...
And lack calling. And lack calling. You can have gifts and have calling,
but lack character, and that's kind of the dynamic, I guess,
that we were already talking about, is that you have the gifting.
You have been called, the Lord wants you to move,
but that your character has not developed, you have not developed the character
of Christ in you, the hope of glory, and so now you're operating only on your calling,
you're operating only on your gifting, and your character is not there, and so it's like a...
You're gonna have to... It's a two -legged table. Yeah. And you're gonna...
Like, you can... If you can submit, if you can wait and be patient in the forming
of the Lord, God can use you.
I think, unfortunately, people who fit into that category of calling and gift
usually, Not always but a lot of times are very impatient and don't always aren't
always willing to wait for character,
but like the person who has.
Character and calling can work on gifts in My opinion I would rather take somebody
who has character and calling than somebody who has,
calling and gifts.
Because not every pastor is perfectly... What would you say is the foundation to those three?
What do you mean?
I think this is an interesting conversation. I think this is a cool conversation, actually.
Let's say there's three things. Yeah. Let's say that we have a calling from the Lord. Yep.
We have gifts, natural gifts. Yep. And then there's character. Yeah.
And you can have them at any proportion, any percentage.
Yep. Right, and those are static. It's not like you're gonna only have that
percentage forever, right? They can be grown.
Yep. They can be diminished Yes, what's the one?
What's the one that you have to have in order to move forward?
Hmm if you could only have one no, what's the one that starts the train moving forward?
Hmm I'm debating between calling and character, okay.
Because like... Here's a question that I would ask for clarification.
Yeah. Is which one could be developed, calling or character?
Character. Character can be developed, calling can't, right?
You're either called or you're not. Yeah.
In terms of occupational. Yes. Right, so you can have gifts.
Or not have gifts. You don't have any gifts, but you're called, you have character.
Gifts can be developed. If you have gifting and you're called,
but your character is low, Jesus can transform you,
and you can be discipled into having character. If you have great character
and you are gifted, but you are not called, then you shall not pass.
You should do something else. You should do something else, right? So.
Even something adjacent, maybe something not in the church. Yeah,
work for a parachurch, work for...
Be a teacher in a different capacity other than a local church ministry.
Ghosts go sort two by fours at Home Depot. Yeah, that's my ultimate My ultimate
example of something else to do.
But go yeah go go sort two by fours and and like Use your character and your
gifting to be like the best two by four sword Or you could possibly could be
does glory of God. Yeah, it's not a lesser calling.
No, it's not There's nothing in And I can't say that, I was gonna say that there's
nothing in scripture that elevates the calling of the professional.
Because there actually is, that those who teach the word are worthy of double honor.
That there is increased standards for those who are elders in the church.
It's not like, it's not worth in the sight of God.
It's not like, oh, a pastor is worth more in the sight of God than someone who is not.
Um, it is just like a, how would you, do you get what I'm saying?
I know exactly what you're saying. Cause like, it's... How would you describe
it? The difference there?
We're all to be pursuing Christ. And at the end of the day, laying our crowns down.
Like if, like, you know, the Bible certainly does talk about honoring like those
in vocational ministry and some of the things around that,
which is always awkward to talk about as a pastor, because you feel like...
And the reason it's awkward is because the call of Christ is to die to self,
and as pastors, we ought to be dying to ourselves.
And so if we're doing that well, we're not really going... And Paul demonstrates it a lot.
Paul doesn't often argue for his own dignity. No.
He argues for his calling at times in order to defend his proclamation of the gospel,
but he doesn't often, like the two examples, when Paul talks about arguing his
calling and how he's deserving of the unique apostleship under which he sits,
it's so that he defends his proclamation of the gospel.
In the other place where people are talking him down and and he's in prison,
he's like, oh, that's fine, they can talk about me all they want,
as long as you talk about Jesus, right? That's a very different thing.
And so, we're all part of the body of Christ.
And I had a professor once tell me, he's like, you as a pastor need to assume
that you're not the best preacher in the congregation, and that you're not the best exegete.
You're just the one that happens to be on the stage.
And you need to carry that humility with you. we're all in the body of Christ.
Whether or not it's actually true or not. Whether it's not actually true or not.
Assume that about you. Right. So that you walk in humility of that gifting.
Right. Walk in humility. And if you're not, you don't have the character and you should sit down.
Right. And so, so this, that calling to die to self makes it really, you know,
makes it kind of counterintuitive to talk about some of the honor that is given, but it's never a,
oh, what's that phrase, first among equals, right?
Somebody has to go lead.
We can't all go through the door at the same time. Someone has to go first.
And that's how leadership looks in the church, is we're all equals here at the
foot of the cross, but some of us do have to lead,
but I'm gonna lead in such a way that I serve and that I never forget that we
are on equal footing and that I am to wash your feet.
Does that kinda get at it, I guess? Yeah, I think so, yeah.
It's a really hard dynamic to kinda describe. Yeah, I'm going back to,
in Philippians, when Paul said, you know, like, I am, you know, the essentially...
In terms of being a Jew, I am faultless. I was, you know, educated under Gamaliel,
which is like the most, it's like the Harvard of the Jewish scholars at that point, right?
And then he goes, but whatever was for my profit, I now consider a loss compared
to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord and surrendering
all things that I might be found in him.
So for him, it mattered who he was, but in comparison to Christ,
it didn't at the same time. Yeah, right.
But everyone, just to kind of wrap us up here,
I know we ended up kind of talking a lot about calling into professional vocational ministry,
but But like the call of Christ is the same for everyone, right?
To die to self and figure out just exactly what it is that Christ is calling
you to do in the context in which you find yourself.
Yeah. Like... In your... Or in your character.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. What is Jesus trying to root out in me and create me to be?
Right. We're Christians, right? Christians, little Christs, right?
We're all to be emulators of Christ in some... How can I be like Christ in wherever
it is I find myself? Work.
Home, as a parent, as a wife, as a husband, at the grocery store,
in my church, all of those places, it deserves us asking, how can I be like Christ here?
All right, well, if you have any questions for us, anything that you would like
us to look at in our talk about in upcoming episodes, you can leave them in
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Music.