The Pastor
A sermon series
A sermon series
No fluff, all testimony.
On this last message I felt the need to go all testimony on you.
OK, I wasn't going to for this message, but I can't resist...
Definition of TESTIMONY
1 a (1) : the tablets inscribed with the Mosaic law
(2) : the ark containing the tablets
b : a divine decree attested in the Scriptures
2 a : firsthand authentication of a fact : evidence
b : an outward sign
c :
a solemn declaration usually made orally by a witness under oath in
response to interrogation by a lawyer or authorized public official
3 a : an open acknowledgment
b : a public profession of religious experience
There we go. I seek to bring you "firsthand authentication" today.
I want to talk to you about two things. Christ coming into my life. And, my calling into ministry.
There is great need to separate the two.
During a class on evangelism with Dr. Randy Stearns at MTSO, we talked about our testimonies.
I think we even had to write something out and turn it in to him.
He cautioned us after returning them to us, stating that we needed "to make a clear distinction between our salvation experience and our calling into ministry, so that people do not get confused - thinking that 'getting saved' also means getting 'called into ministry. Because, not everybody is called to do this thing we are doing." (He said something to that effect...)
SO, let me tell you about Christ being in my life.
I grew up in church. Church was all I knew from as early as I can remember.
I remember sitting in the same pew every Sunday, all my family gathered around.
I went through church membership class when I was 13 or 14.
There was a trip down to Kentucky to a bible college.
We came back and I was baptized on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday.
(Can't remember how old I was or what Sunday it was...)
But this one thing I do remember. How I felt.
After our class was baptized, one by one, we stood down front as a class and the pastor went down the row, asking us the all important question, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God?"
Now, another thing I can't remember is what we discussed in any of those classes after school.
We met once a week for several months. We met at the church in the fellowship room.
We had these green workbooks. Wish I could find that thing.
Jesus was a name I heard again and again, but at that moment I could not explain who he was.
Son of the Living God? What did that mean?
But, as I am standing there I am looking up into the balcony at one of the stained glass window murals.
The scene of the empty tomb is there and the sunlight is pouring through brightly.
If you're asking me at this moment...Yes. "Yes", I replied and shook the pastor's hand.
Life was somehow different after that moment.
I began to read the bible more. I felt different about church and my life.
But, if you had asked me what was different or why I felt like I did, I could not have answered you.
I did not yet have that understanding in my soul.
It would not be until several years later.
Without that understand about who Jesus is, I drifted.
After turning 18, I pulled myself out of church.
I had enough of boring messages that meant nothing and wasting my Sundays.
I could have been working, making time and a half on the job.
After leaving home and getting my own place, life took me to a low spot.
I lost my job (my own fault), couldn't pay my rent (don't know how I never got kicked out), selling nearly all of my belongings to just to buy food (living on a steady diet of air-popped popcorn and 33cent boxes of mac & cheese).
Looking back, I can only think that God was watching the whole time.
I can't tell my own story without telling a bit of my best friend's.
Matt Holcomb graduated high school with me. We were two of the scrawniest kids in our class.
SO, I was a bit shocked to hear that Matt had gone to try out for the marine corp.
I don't know all his details, but Matt came back home. From what I do know, it was very hard.
The one thing Matt found while he was there is Jesus.
And, he came home on fire.
Now, Matt had been one of my best friends since the 7th grade. We bowled together.
We drank together. We got in trouble together. But, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go to church together.
Matt kept coming around. I even moved at one point to another apartment, thinking maybe I had given him the slip. A couple weeks went by and then suddenly there he was.
He showed up with his bible. I remember he sat down and just started reading one day.
I can't describe what was going on inside of me. I broke down and went to church with him a few times. I must have retained something from all those years growing up in church. Scriptures and answers and feelings began to flood my mind as I was exposed more and more to church & Matt.
I had found work again. Third shift at a grocery store.
It was hard to sleep during the day and get up for work at night.
One day I had all of this rolling around in my head and I just could not sleep.
I tossed and turned thinking about this Jesus thing that Matt kept talking about.
Finally, I got up and went out to the sofa love seat and knelt. (Kneeling was not my tradition...)
I just started talking, like God would be listening or something.
"God I don't understand all this stuff, but it must be pretty great because Matt can't stop talking about it. So, if you could just give me what you gave Matt..." I can't remember what else I said.
But, I remember sleeping like a baby. I remember going to work that night with a smile on my face.
I remember feeling better than I had felt in a looooong time.
Now, I didn't have all the answers. Forgiveness for sins, the Holy Spirit, repenting, many things would come to me as I continued down this path. I simply asked Jesus to enter my life because I felt I needed him there. If you ask, if you realize you need something in your heart and soul, just ask. God is good and he will enter and make your day.
Now, I'd like to tell you about entering the ministry. The story intertwines itself with my salvation story and so I pause here to make some distinction. I want to tell you about this because sometimes there is someone who needs to hear about this. Maybe there is someone who the Lord has been speaking to about ministry and a few words about my experience might help to give that push to follow.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
I really had no idea. At the age of 13 or 14, I liked football and baseball and was playing football in 8th grade Jr High. Maybe someday I could be somebody. Then came my baptism moment. Even though I couldn't have explained to you what was going on in my heart and soul, that did not stop my feelings for this calling that would follow. I began to follow my pastor around like a little puppy dog. Every where he went I was not far behind. Reading my bible more, I started to craft some messages.
There were two big problems that became roadblocks for me. The first being college. My pastor told me time and time again that I would need to pursue some kind of college education if I planned on going forth with this ministry calling. The other was that I, in my arrogant need for attention, went to school and began to tell everybody what I was going to be when I grew up. Even though I really couldn't explain to anyone what it meant to know Jesus and I had no personal knowledge of forgiveness or repentance, I still felt this call and I was very vocal about what I wanted to do with my life. Looking back, I wish someone had been there with a big roll of duct tape. I took such a pounding mentally and emotionally. Kids can be very mean. Feelings that were very strong in 8th grade finally diminished and were extinguished by 10th grade. I had enough. The next 6 years would prove that God never gives up on a person, especially when there is a call to the ministry involved.
I tried to bury all notion of this 'calling'. But, every so often, a bit of the subject would come up somewhere. By the time I was a junior and then a senior I was working after school at the big IGA grocery store. I could have done that job for the rest of my life. I loved that place. But, as I mentioned, God is always watching. A fellow student, Kyle Spaulding, not really a friend, but we talked sometimes. He had a grandpa who was a baptist minister. Out of the blue Kyle would mention this grandpa and then, from nowhere he would ask, "Weren't you gonna be a pastor someday, Shank?" Gruffly I would bury the subject and keep stocking shelves or walk away. After losing my job at the IGA there wasn't any talk about ministry that I can remember. Even through those moments leading up to asking Jesus into my life, it was not like I had that on the back burner of the mind. In retrospect, it had been buried, never to return.
A week after I had knelt at my sofa and asked Jesus to give me what Matt had in his life, it came.
In a narcissistic way, I thought I would start reading the book similar to my name - Jeremiah. That whole week was an eye opener. The week began with this simple scripture.
Jeremiah 1:4-5
New International Version (NIV)
The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
Even as I sit here typing this, 20 years after it came to me, those words are still alive.
Now, I don't know about this "prophet to the nations" stuff. But, I already knew about being "called" and this resurrected the entire subject again. The next morning I walked down to the church I had been raised, the church I had been baptized and spoke with my pastor, Reid Miller. He was still there and he told me the same thing he had told me many times before. "Well, you know Jeremy, you're going to have to do some sort of college...blah blah blah." I walked back to my apartment with this heavy feeling. Could this be real? Are these feelings and notions really coming back after I had worked so hard to bury them? Was I really called to the ministry? The next few months would be pivotal in this time of my life.
That was around June of 1992. By February 1993, I was in Matt's church on the other side of town and I had a better grip on this Jesus thing. I was working third shift at a small grocery store on the north side of town. Matt was a manger at a Pizza Hut on the other side of town. He would stop in quite often after he got down closing up. I went to work this day with subject of ministry and college and the whole things really heavy on my mind. I didn't know how I was going to pay for it and what the acceptance process was all about. What kind of ministry would I do? Was I really called to a pastor? Like, up front talking every Sunday kind of pastor? I didn't know what to do.
In walks Matt this night and I could tell he had something on his mind, but I was also trapped in my own thoughts about what I had been mulling over. Matt just looked like he wanted to ask me something. Finally, he spit it out. "The pastor is going to school this spring to continue his studies for the ordination and I'm going to go with him. I was wondering if maybe you might might want to go with me and the pastor." I think the words that came out of my mouth were, "Are you kidding me?"
"I have been thinking about this all day long and here you come in here asking me about school?"
I, or course, thought God was in it. How could I not? If He really had called me to do this and here I am wondering about how to get it done and then here comes Matt with this offer...had to be.
In the next week I would sit down with the pastor at Matt's church. In the coming months I would find myself on this path moving towards preaching and ministry. When God calls a person to do ministry, pastoral or anything else, and you are really feeling this notion or calling to do that thing, He will never leave you alone about it. Because, the calling is not about YOU, it is about HIM. He wants to reach people with his forgiveness and love and he needs people who are willing and available to do that work, to share that love and forgiveness in a variety of ways. He can call anybody to do anything. All he asks is that you make yourself available to Him. He'll lead the way. He' ll provide the way. He'll put you right where you need to be.
You don't have to understand it all to get started.
All you have to do is say "Here I am".
Now, I don't know about this "prophet to the nations" stuff. But, I already knew about being "called" and this resurrected the entire subject again. The next morning I walked down to the church I had been raised, the church I had been baptized and spoke with my pastor, Reid Miller. He was still there and he told me the same thing he had told me many times before. "Well, you know Jeremy, you're going to have to do some sort of college...blah blah blah." I walked back to my apartment with this heavy feeling. Could this be real? Are these feelings and notions really coming back after I had worked so hard to bury them? Was I really called to the ministry? The next few months would be pivotal in this time of my life.
That was around June of 1992. By February 1993, I was in Matt's church on the other side of town and I had a better grip on this Jesus thing. I was working third shift at a small grocery store on the north side of town. Matt was a manger at a Pizza Hut on the other side of town. He would stop in quite often after he got down closing up. I went to work this day with subject of ministry and college and the whole things really heavy on my mind. I didn't know how I was going to pay for it and what the acceptance process was all about. What kind of ministry would I do? Was I really called to a pastor? Like, up front talking every Sunday kind of pastor? I didn't know what to do.
In walks Matt this night and I could tell he had something on his mind, but I was also trapped in my own thoughts about what I had been mulling over. Matt just looked like he wanted to ask me something. Finally, he spit it out. "The pastor is going to school this spring to continue his studies for the ordination and I'm going to go with him. I was wondering if maybe you might might want to go with me and the pastor." I think the words that came out of my mouth were, "Are you kidding me?"
"I have been thinking about this all day long and here you come in here asking me about school?"
I, or course, thought God was in it. How could I not? If He really had called me to do this and here I am wondering about how to get it done and then here comes Matt with this offer...had to be.
In the next week I would sit down with the pastor at Matt's church. In the coming months I would find myself on this path moving towards preaching and ministry. When God calls a person to do ministry, pastoral or anything else, and you are really feeling this notion or calling to do that thing, He will never leave you alone about it. Because, the calling is not about YOU, it is about HIM. He wants to reach people with his forgiveness and love and he needs people who are willing and available to do that work, to share that love and forgiveness in a variety of ways. He can call anybody to do anything. All he asks is that you make yourself available to Him. He'll lead the way. He' ll provide the way. He'll put you right where you need to be.
You don't have to understand it all to get started.
All you have to do is say "Here I am".
