How will I find my ministry calling? Will I find it internally like some impulse that will

lead me to start a new thing? Or will my ministry calling come from the outside? Will it

come from others telling me where I'm needed? This is a great question and it comes in today

from a listener named Caleb. Caleb references a conference that you preached at years

back, Pastor John. Here's his email. Hello, Pastor John, at a conference now many years

ago, you went to Colossians 417 to argue that God gives ministries to his children. We

don't stumble upon our ministry. Instead, he decisively throws us into them, so to speak.

Any chance you'd be willing to explain on how this works and how it has worked for you

in church and paratroche context. Thank you, Pastor John. What would you say to Caleb?

First, let me share several passages of scripture that caused me to say that we are not the

decisive cause of being in any particular ministry. God is. And then I'll step back and ask

how that divine work is experienced in our minds and in our hearts so that we can make it more

practical for people as they find their way into into ministry and church or paratroche.

Number one, Paul says to the elders who were gathered in Acts 2028, pay careful attention

to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, literally

set you or put you etheta in Greek, put you as overseers to care for the Church of God which

you obtain with this own blood. God put those elders there as elders. They did not put themselves

there. God did decisively. Number two, Ephesians 411 and 12. Paul says Christ gave

gave to the Church, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to

equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ. These ministers

of the Church are the gift of the risen Christ to his body. They're there. They are where they are

as a gift of Christ. Three, Matthew 937 and 38. Jesus says, the harvest is plentiful,

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