Considering Ministry?

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 NIV).

All of us have secret ambitions. Things we would like to do or accomplish. At times we may even find ourselves daydreaming over them. Generally those dreams have to do with recognition and fame. What a surprise then to find the king of Israel daydreaming about being able to spend all of his days in temple service! Look at our text again. David isn’t praying about eternity, he is praying about his life today. How do we know that? The qualifying phrase that his desire is to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” The king of Israel daydreams about being a priest in Israel! Amazing. We looked at this yesterday. Today I want to look at the second application.

Some of you reading this thought are considering the possibility of ministry as a career. Today’s thought is specifically for you. David was king of Israel, but his hearts desire was to serve in the temple. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, “If God calls you to preach, don’t stoop to become king.” David was the king, but his hearts desire was to be in the temple full-time. Did David want to be a priest? Perhaps, but anything we say here is speculation. My speculation is that this musician/song writer wanted to serve in the music ministry of the temple. All this is speculation. What is not speculation is that his desire is to “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” Now, remember as we work through this thought today that David is described as “A man after God’s own heart.” Certainly one would think that such a man should be tapped for full-time ministerial service. Such thinking is a grave mistake. Certainly such a man would be tapped for full time service to the Lord, but, as in David’s case, that service is where God can use him best not necessarily in what we call full time service today, and by that we mean generally the ministry.

Every Christian is called to full time service for the Lord. It doesn’t matter if you are a pastor, missionary, youth worker, sales-man, politician, physician, lawyer, factory worker, or garbage collector. If you are a Christian, you are in full time service. The Bible says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24 NIV). Personally, I think one of the reasons that David was a man after God’s own heart was because he didn’t allow his desires to hinder his occupation. He didn’t allow the daydream to cloud his call, which was to be king not priest.

So, you who are considering full time ministry as your career, how do you know if your desire is really a call? There is, as we see in David’s case, a difference. Allow me a moment to answer this question from my experience which I believe to be based upon biblical principles.

First, any call of God to ministry should be definite. I do not believe God calls people through nebulous desires. Nine out of ten people who enter my office seeking guidance about going into Christian ministry have noble desires but cannot pinpoint a definite call. Take it from one who has been in the ministry since 1968 (that’s when I began part-time Christian service), if you don’t have a definite call, you will become discouraged and quit. There are easier ways to die. Someone once said that ministers have to have “the heart of a child, the mind of a scholar and the hide of a rhinoceros.” There is more truth to that then you know. Your call must be incontrovertible.

Second, those called to service must be qualified. David was a man after God’s own heart, but that did not qualify him to serve in the temple. Only those of the tribe of Levi were qualified to serve in the temple. From this example I think it is safe to say that God has made it plain that those who desire to serve Him in ministry must meet certain requirements. Most of these are listed in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1. In our culture there are educational requirements as well (as there should be. Even the Levites who were called to temple service were not permitted to serve in certain areas until they reached the age of 30. Why? They had to be tested, proved and prepared. That is what theological education accomplishes today.)

Third, those who are called must be recognized by the church. Even though my call to the ministry was definite, I did not realize it until after the church began to say to me, “God has His hand on you.” There was in my experience numerous times when God’s people came to me encouraging me to pursue service when I didn’t think I had anything to offer. I did not go to the church and ask them to recognize me, they came to me and said, “we recognize that God has placed something in you and we want to encourage you to pursue it.” Too often I find young men getting the process backward. They go to the church and demand recognition instead of submitting to God and waiting for the church’s conformation. Desire, no matter how great, does not constitute a call from God. One man once confidently approached a minister and declared, “God has called me to preach.” When the minister inquired as to the nature of that call, the man replied, “I was out in my field and looked up into the sky and saw in the clouds G-P-C--Go preach Christ.” To which the minister replied, “How do you know that wasn’t “Go plow corn?” God uses prepared people. Here’s what I know: if you are not willing to submit to the requirements of effective ministry (specifically higher theological education) you are not called to ministry.