CHRIS: Hi, Pastor John, my name is Chris. JOHN: Hi, Chris. CHRIS: I know that you’ve spent a large
portion of your ministry and even your life to training men for the ministry. I think the building right to my left is a
testament of that. So I have a two-part question for you. First of all, what would you say to a young
man who was aspiring to be in full-time ministry, who strongly desired it but wasn’t quite
sure that he was called by God? And secondly, what are some major pit falls
that same young man should be looking out for. JOHN: Sure, I think I know who that young
man is. (Laughter) That’s wonderful, Chris. Look, you’re in the same place everybody’s
in. I never had an epiphany, an angel never showed
up. I never heard a voice out of heaven. When I looked at my own life and said, “What
do I want to do?” There were no supernatural events. There were NO supernatural events. All I could look at was a desire. And I think that fits perfectly the New Testament
pattern. First Timothy 3, “If a man desires the office
of an overseer, or pastor, he desires a noble work.” The assumption there is that this is the normal
way that God indicates the calling through desire...through desire. And as that desire flourishes and strengthens,
it becomes a singular desire. All I can tell you is there were times in
my life when I thought I would be a preacher. Then there were times in my life when I hoped
I would be a preacher. Then there were times in the progression of
that when I knew I would be a preacher. Then there were times when I knew I couldn’t
be anything other than a preacher or a pastor. And I think it’s that desire that grows
and develops. And what grew it in me was not so much the
nature of ministry itself, but my undying passion for the book. When I went to college, I’m not going to
give you a whole lot of useless information about my past, but my whole life I got notes
that I had to take home about how bad I did in school. And “Johnny could do better” notes, you
know? My mother was always saying to me, “We know
you can do better...” And I was always trying to convince her, “No,
no, this is it, I’m maxed out (Laughter). I’m giving it my best shot, that’s all
I can do.” “No, you can do better...you can do better.” And the teachers would say Johnny could do
better. The point is, I was no scholar. I was no academic. That was true all the way through high school. And in college, I didn’t let my books get
in the way of my education either. I went through college from one event to another
event, student life, athletics, every sport...I played every sport in my college days. I was involved in all kinds of activities. As I got toward the end of my college years,
I think it was my junior-senior year, the Word of God took on a whole new depth for
me. And what it came down to was this need to
know what the Bible meant. That’s what drives me, by the way. It’s not you that drive me, it’s this
that drives me. I really became a preacher of the Word of
God because I didn’t want to do anything in my whole life but that because I wanted
to know it and I wanted to share its glorious truths with others. And so, it just kept developing in my heart. And I remember when I went to seminary, remember
now, I had convinced my mom that I had maxed out with, you know, Cees and Bees, and I went
to seminary and I remember the first time I showed her my first semester report card. She just...”I knew you hadn’t been telling
me the truth all these years.” I went through seminary and I did so well
and I graduated with honors and all of that. And there was one driving reason, I was doing
what I really loved and the passion was there. The other components of that, the desire,
the growing explosive desire in your heart that eliminates anything else, the next thing
that comes along was confirmation from the people who were saying, “You want to teach? Let’s hear you teach.” And that’s fine as far as it goes. But if you say I’m called to teach and everybody
says, “Oh no you’re not,” maybe you ought to think about that. But where there’s affirmation of your giftedness
and where there’s confirmation by the leadership of the church that your character and your
giftedness fits this, so you have the laying on of hands like in the case of Timothy. But all the way along, sure there’s a certain
sense of “Is this what I really what I ought to do.” Why, because there’s this nagging unworthiness,
there’s this reality that how am I going to survive? How am I going to be faithful? You just take it a day at a time. I will tell you, it is the greatest joy, continues
to be the greatest joy of my life. But it continues also to be more important
than it ever has been in the past, it’s a growing joy that I have. So there’s a certain sense in which it’s
a desire, a flourishing, developing desire. Eventually you can’t do anything but that
because that begins to completely capture your heart. Then you have to look at your giftedness,
response, affirmation from spiritual leaders around you, set aside your fallenness because
the only kind of people the Lord can use are broken vessels, because that’s all there
are. Okay? And when it comes to that, and I tell young
guys this all the time, all ministry, all ministry comes back to this book, all of it...all
of it is informed by this book. So when you want to get trained, get the tools
to understand this book. And then when you’ve gotten that foundation,
you can go take whatever field you want, whether you want to teach, whether you want to be
in a university, what do you want to teach in a seminary, pastor a church, or be a missionary. But the end of the day, all ministry is a
dissemination of divine truth, right? And that’s what you want to make sure you
grasp. If you’re young enough, if you still have
a little bit of doubt about whether this is what you ought to do, and I can honestly say
I had no idea when I went to seminary what I was going to do, I just was driven to dig
into the Word of God and I loved it. I don’t think I even knew till I finally
got to my third year where I would go. But I think you can start there and if the
Lord continues to make that desire flourish that you’re going to find that you’re
in the right spot. My guess is, if that’s already a passion
for you, that’s the work of the Lord in your heart.
