“When did you feel called to missions?”

This question often gets posed to current and former missionaries. For me, a particular ministry opportunity quickly turned into a call. I was studying and training for ministry and had an interest in cross-cultural work, but it only hit home when a professor said, “I have a friend in Ukraine who could use someone to teach the things we are learning in this class. Are any of you interested?” That need fit me, and my heart quickly grew toward God’s work there.

Are You Called?

A lot of people, however, feel confused about the term “called.” One person may believe his call places him outside the reach of evaluation — as if my sense of divine call obligates other people to treat me in a special way. A call to missions can sometimes seem to validate someone’s Christian faith, as if I am incomplete as a Christian unless God gives me the significance of cross-cultural ministry. Or we may say we are called when what we mean is that we feel drawn toward the spiritual and physical needs of people in a certain place. These interpretations tend to make the call an internal experience more interested in how I feel than with God’s purposes in the world.

The missionary call can also be expanded so widely that it stirs up improper guilt. The passionate singer-songwriter Keith Green gave this missions exhortation in 1982:

[Jesus] commands you to go. . . . “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 KJV). That’s right. . . . YOU ARE CALLED! In fact, if you don’t go, you need a specific calling from God to stay home.

And by “go,” Green did not mean just to a next-door neighbor. This was a call to cross-cultural evangelism in light of the overwhelming number of people who have never heard the gospel. Green wanted his listeners to feel guilty for not crossing cultures as missionaries. Such an exhortation cuts through the process of discernment about whether someone is called to missions and simply concludes that we are all called.

All Are Sent, Some Are Called

Green’s words remind us that the whole church is sent. Jesus sends the apostles in John 20:21 and tells them they will be his “witnesses” all over the world (Acts 1:8). The Great Commission addresses all of Jesus’s disciples with its charge to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). Peter makes clear that this sense of mission applies to everyone in the church when he calls his readers “a holy nation.” You were chosen, he says, “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

But the whole church fulfills that mission by setting apart particular people to bring the saving gospel to new groups in different cultures. Instead of saying, “You are all called to cross-cultural missions,” we can announce to the church, “You are sent!” without specifying exactly where and how each person participates in that mission.

To help clarify how the church uses these terms, I propose that we reserve a missionary “calling” to people who have both an internal desire to be involved in this ministry and also the affirmation of the church, the institution that Jesus Christ has authorized and sent. A “call” to missions announces that a particular person will join the church’s mission in this particular task — crossing cultures in order to proclaim the gospel and establish the church.

Missionary Calling in the New Testament

God certainly directs his people into specific ministry assignments, but the New Testament does not emphasize the internal sense of calling to the degree that we often do. The apostles received distinctive divine calls — whether through the incarnate Lord saying, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18–22), or, as with Paul, through an appearance of the risen Christ speaking directly to him (Acts 9:1–19). But these were extraordinary callings for extraordinary tasks. When we look at how the other missionaries were chosen in the book of Acts, we find a variety of means.

“Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision.”

In the examples of Silas, Timothy, and John Mark, they each seem to have joined a missionary team through a combination of desire, need, and opportunity. Paul needed a partner and so looked to Silas (Acts 15:40). Barnabas needed a partner and recruited John Mark back onto the team (Acts 15:37–39). Timothy “was well spoken of,” and Paul recruited him (Acts 16:1–3). These examples show us that while the whole church is sent to make disciples, individuals join particular branches of that task through a combination of factors.

That is not to say that the idea of a calling or vocation is without biblical evidence. “Calling” in the New Testament Epistles always refers in some way back to one’s conversion, the time God called one into his family (1 Corinthians 1:26). But in at least one text, 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul also views our life circumstances as part of our calling. He writes, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Paul means that when God calls you into his family, he calls you specifically, with all the relationships, positions, and history that you have. Were you married when he called you (that is, when you were converted)? Then God means to make you his child in that state of marriage.

It is from this text that Christians have developed the idea of one’s “calling” or “vocation” in life. Since God is sovereign over the events in our life, whatever he gives us to do can be a part of our particular path of discipleship. God means to make us Christians in whatever circumstances he gives us. That call may include caring for an elderly parent, or raising a child with special needs, or — if you happen to be born as the eldest son of a monarch — serving as a prince and king.

It makes sense, then, to refer to the task of cross-cultural missions as a calling, just as pastoral ministry, motherhood, running a farm, and simply living as the persons we are in the place God has given us are callings from God.

Learning from the Pastoral Call

That said, a pastoral calling works in a special way that would be helpful for missionaries to learn from. Protestant churches have long recognized that a man does not possess the authority of a pastor unless a church recognizes the God-given gifts that accompany that position. Many churches and denominations require that ordination be “to a definite work” (as the PCA’s Book of Church Order puts it). This is a “call,” a specific affirmation of someone’s gifts and of his fit for a particular task with recognized status and responsibility in the church. A man may feel called to preach the gospel, but he is only truly called to pastoral ministry when the church affirms that desire and gives him some responsibility.

In his handbook for future pastors, Bobby Jamieson prefers to say that a man “aspires” to become a pastor rather than “is called.” “Calling asks you to picture yourself at the end of the trail. Aspiration points out the path and tells you to take a step” (The Path to Being a Pastor, 30). An aspiring pastor asks the church to help him take the next step toward affirmation and responsibility.

Because pastoral ministry includes a specific authority to preach God’s word to God’s assembled people and to participate in the oversight of a local church, it requires definite and fairly high qualifications. But because missions can represent a variety of ministries, some of which are only tangentially related to spiritual authority in the church, we can easily dilute the calling. A person’s desire alone can be mistaken for a calling to a particular work.

If we adopted the careful language of a pastoral call for missionaries, we would clarify where someone is on the path to becoming a missionary. A subjective calling to cross-cultural ministry will be confirmed if and when God arranges it so that this person is actually engaged in that definite work.

Rather than speaking confidently of our calling to missions (and may the Lord call out many more!), we might be wise to say, “I desire to be a missionary,” or “I am preparing to be a missionary,” or “I aspire to be a missionary.” Since our knowledge of God’s call is tentative and aspirational, we can have a missionary burden, a desire for missions, an exploration of a call, or a sense that we might be called.

Opening Ourselves to God’s Leading

Aspiration announces that we are on a path. It says to the church around us, “Please help me discern the next step God would have me take.” It opens us up to evaluation and input, and places our desire for ministry within the appropriate context of the church’s mission. Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling also saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision. If we aspire, then we do not announce confidently that we already have the call. And if we aspire, we are asking for the church’s affirmation rather than for a unique divine sign.

“Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed” (Acts 15:39–40). Did Silas receive a missionary call? Silas was certainly a well-respected church leader. He had been chosen, along with Paul and Barnabas, to bring the letter from the Jerusalem council back to Antioch (Acts 15:22). But Paul’s invitation here was enough to have him join the missionary team. God may have moved in a hundred ways before that day to prepare him for this call. But the crucial moment came when Paul said, “Why don’t you join me?” and Silas heard and accepted that call.

Instead of waiting for a miraculous sign, Christians can seek opportunities for ministry and use discernment to ask, “Would this ministry fit how God has made me?” Instead of boldly announcing that one is “called” to missions, Christians can ask for input from other mature believers. “I would like to be called as a cross-cultural missionary. How could I prepare for and pursue that calling?”

A call to missions is confirmed when the church sends someone who is willing, capable, and tested to proclaim the gospel and establish the church in another culture. When that happens, a missionary can be confident in God’s direction not only because of his subjective desire, but also because of the affirmation of God’s people in the church.

God planted the first vineyard, and God engineered the first grape. He knew precisely what would happen when that little unassuming ball was harvested, crushed, fermented, stirred, and pressed. He knew how it would make man feel — glad (Psalm 104:14–15). He knew he would serve it — not water, not milk, not just juice — in the church’s most important meals together (Matthew 26:27).

Before sounding the warnings, it’s good to remember that God loves good wine and still pours it for his children to enjoy, but his love is not young and naïve. His prophet warns, “Wine is a traitor” — notice, not excessive wine, but wine, the everyday alcohol of the day — “Wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples” (Habakkuk 2:5). As arrogant and ruthless as Hitler and as greedy as death, have we reckoned with the tyrant many of us thoughtlessly sip between bites?

Who Suffers Without Cause?

While it’s harder than we might expect to find encouragement toward alcohol in Scripture, it’s not at all hard to find warnings about its abuses.

Moses once describes it as “the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps” (Deuteronomy 32:33). In Psalm 75, it’s a picture of God’s wrath (Psalm 75:8). Those who bow to their next drink will never see the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Galatians 5:21). And if anyone claims to be a brother while abusing alcohol without repentance, he’s to be cut off from the church — for the sake of his soul. “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is [a] drunkard . . . not even to eat with such a one” (1 Corinthians 5:11). The warnings are as serious as they are numerous.

One passage in particular, Proverbs 23:29–35, not only warns about the judgment that will fall on drunkenness, but about the spiritual dangers of this kind of drinking.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?     Who has strife? Who has complaining?Who has wounds without cause?     Who has redness of eyes?Those who tarry long over wine;     those who go to try mixed wine. (Proverbs 23:29–30)

The wise man goes on to explain his woes and sorrows, his wounds and miseries. A healthy, godly use of alcohol remains vigilant against at least these five great dangers of alcohol (all results of excessive drinking): confusion, perversion, instability, paralysis, and futility.

Confusion

Your eyes will see strange things. . . . (Proverbs 23:33)

The first hazard of drunkenness is confusion. Abusing alcohol will make you see strange things, robbing you of the ability to perceive reality. You will see things that are not there, or you’ll see things that are there but not as they are. Like the man on the side of the road, you won’t be able to walk straight, much less in a manner worthy of God (Colossians 1:10).

“Drunkenness blurs life-and-death distinctions and muddies the precious promises and commands of God.”

We see this danger when God says to Aaron and the priests, “Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations” (Leviticus 10:8–9). Why would God forbid the priests from drinking alcohol? Because they, more than anyone else, needed to see reality clearly enough to guard the people against danger, especially spiritual danger, and lead them to what’s true, beautiful, and holy. “You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses” (Leviticus 10:10–11).

Drunkenness, then and now, blurs life-and-death distinctions and muddies the precious promises and commands of God.

Perversion

Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. (Proverbs 23:33)

Scripture repeatedly ties drunkenness to immorality, especially sexual immorality (see Hosea 4:10–11; Joel 3:2–3). In the verses immediately before ours, the wise father says,

My son, give me your heart,     and let your eyes observe my ways.For a prostitute is a deep pit;     an adulteress is a narrow well.She lies in wait like a robber     and increases the traitors among mankind.Who has woe? Who has sorrow? . . . (Proverbs 23:26–29)

Why move so quickly, and without any transition, from prostitutes to wine glasses? Because the latter so often leads to the former. Excessive alcohol exaggerates the pleasures of sin and obscures its costs and consequences. Drunkenness makes a deadly pit look like a well, a bloodthirsty thief like a trustworthy friend, a forbidden woman like a secret stream of delight.

So what’s the warning? Alcohol draws perversity out of a man. He says things he never would have said sober. He does things he never would have done otherwise. Drunkenness undid righteous Noah after God delivered him through the flood: “He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent” (Genesis 9:21). Alcohol fooled Lot into incest (Genesis 19:32). When Nabal rejected David and left his men hungry, what fueled his foolishness? “Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk” (1 Samuel 25:36). Alcohol does not spark perversion where it is not (Matthew 15:11), but it can stoke secret sin into a raging, devastating flame.

Instability

You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast. (Proverbs 23:34)

The image here comes close to the confusion of verse 33, but carries a unique warning. If the former was the inability to discern holy from unholy, real from unreal, this picture emphasizes incapacitation. Alcohol leaves a man asleep while he lies in grave peril, in situations where his alertness really matters. He even falls asleep in the crow’s nest, where the winds and waves would be felt most. He’s utterly, dreadfully unaware of danger.

In this way, alcohol is not only a danger to a man, but to everyone who depends on him. While he sleeps in the storms at sea, he imperils everyone else in the boat — and he leaves anything he might have done to someone else. When he’s needed most, he’s unavailable. Bottle after bottle, he makes himself a burden to those for whom he’s called to protect and provide.

Worse than that, alcohol often makes a man a terror to those he loves. Another proverb says, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). This is the very antithesis of Jesus, who calmed the seas for those he loved. When the storm comes, this man creates even more chaos. He creates storms where there was none. Instead of a stable refuge, he becomes volatile, unpredictable.

Paralysis

“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it.” (Proverbs 23:35)

Of the five, this may be the most frightening. Drunkenness numbs a man to reality, and specifically to all that threatens him. His senses have been so dulled that he cannot even feel when someone beats him. He’s hurt but cannot feel hurt, which means he cannot detect danger anymore.

That’s what pain does — it alerts us to some threat and calls us to act. If we’re drunk, we sleep through the alarm. “Watch yourselves,” Jesus warns, “lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap” (Luke 21:34). He teaches the lesson with far more horrifying pictures. He says that when the wicked servant drinks with drunkards,

the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:50–51)

The horror is in how quickly they’ll fall from the comforts of drunkenness into the agony of judgment. If proverbs will not sober them, the weeping will.

Futility

“When shall I awake? I must have another drink.” (Proverbs 23:35)

Does any single picture better portray the futility and insanity of drunkenness? The drunk person looks for satisfaction in his glass, but searches and searches and never finds the bottom. No matter how much he drinks, his thirst is never quenched. Consumption consumes him.

“The drunk person looks for satisfaction in his glass, but searches and searches and never finds the bottom.”

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes was well-acquainted with strong drink. “I searched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine. . . . Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:3–11). No amount of alcohol could quench the craving inside of him. And yet millions keep pouring, keep binging, keep striving after wind.

The prophet Isaiah had seen alcohol ruin souls. He says of Israel’s leaders, “They are shepherds who have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his own gain, one and all. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let me get wine; let us fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be like this day, great beyond measure’” (Isaiah 56:11–12). They ask life of wine because they’re fools, because they stubbornly drink at dry wells. And they’re parched souls burned any who followed them. Drunkenness is a well without water, a marathon without a finish line, a curse that will not lift.

Drinking on Empty

None of this, of course, negates the profound and spiritual goodness of wine. Again, the Lord’s Supper teaches us that this is not a drink for the shadows, but for the rooftops. Like so many of the best gifts of God, though, wine is all the more dangerous for having been infused with so much potential for good.

And, as is also true about the best gifts, wisdom over the glass will mean more than heeding warnings. It will mean being so satisfied at another, deeper well that we can enjoy wine without becoming its slaves. “Do not get drunk with wine,” the apostle Paul warns, “for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). In other words, if you do decide to drink, don’t drink on an empty soul. The best way to guard against the serious dangers of alcohol is to fill ourselves with God — to drink daily and deeply from his words, to entrust him with our fears and burdens through prayer, to thank him for the new and unique expressions of his kindness, to bury our lives and gifts and joys among his people, to sing together of our love for him. In hearts like these, drunkenness can’t get in the front door, much less find a seat at the bar.

Ironically, people who live like this, whose lives are gladly and regularly soaked in God, not only avoid the awful and destructive curses of drunkenness, but they also might get to actually and more fully enjoy some good wine.

Audio Transcript

On this day after Christmas, Pastor John, we have a question from Hope, a listener who wants to know how we should get praised rightly. That’s a great question. “Pastor John, hello! My question focuses on my struggle with needing to feel important by those in my church body. The Bible teaches that we should seek approval from God, not from man (Galatians 1:10). It also teaches that we should encourage one another in spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:11), and praise those who fear the Lord (Proverbs 31:30). I feel a strong desire within myself to hear words of affirmation from my ministry: to feel loved, valued, regarded, and needed. But these desires don’t feel holy. It feels like a need-to-be-seen rather than humbly giving Jesus the spotlight. How do I begin to put to death my need for recognition and cultivate a spirit of humble servitude? Can we distinguish between need for man’s approval and desiring brotherly encouragement?”

One of the benefits of this question is that it gives us a chance to lay out some of the paradoxes of Scripture that people sometimes stumble over, which I think is what’s happening in this question. And then I think we can see a single key that goes a long way to navigating these paradoxes without being double-minded or contradicting ourselves.

Four Paradoxes

So here are four of the paradoxes I’m talking about. And what I mean by paradox — in case anybody wonders, “What are you talking about?” — is that two things (in this case two things in the Bible), sound like they don’t fit together, like they might be contradictory. But they really aren’t contradictory. They really do fit together if we just had the key to unlock the pathway that honors both sides of the paradox.

So here are four examples, quickly, from the Bible.

1. This is Jesus: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). The paradox on the other side is this: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Shall we want to be seen or not want to be seen?

2. Galatians 1:10: “Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” First Corinthians 10:33: “I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.” Well, Paul, do we try to please people, or do we not care about pleasing people?

3. Proverbs 22:1: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.” Or Luke 6:26: “Woe to you, when people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” Well, do we seek a good reputation, or should we be wary of it?

4. Proverbs 31:30: “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” — by people. Romans 2:29: “A [true] Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” Well, should we be glad when we’re praised by man, or should we consider that a dangerous sign?

So here they are, again, these four paradoxes, and we’re trying to steer a way through them that honors the intention on both sides:

Desiring that your good works be seen, or desiring that they not be seen?
Aiming to please people, or indifference to pleasing people?
Desiring a good reputation, or being indifferent to our reputation?
Glad when we are praised for some good, or concerned that gladness might be a signal of sin in us?

Navigational Key

Now, I think there’s a key to navigating these paradoxes — a key that keeps us from rejecting the truth of either side of the paradox. And that key is experiencing such a change of our natural pride and selfishness that God himself — all that he is for us in Christ — becomes our supremely enjoyed, supremely treasured Savior and King and shepherd and Father and friend. Or to say it another way, when God is treasured more than the sinful possibilities of either side of these paradoxes, we will be protected from that sin and led in the right use of both sides of the paradoxes.

Recognition

For example, if God is supremely satisfying to us, then we won’t crave the ego satisfaction of being seen for our good works. God is our greatest reward, not the praise of man. And if we think rightly that some good deed should be seen by others, then that will be motivated, not for our praise, but so that others can see that these deeds flowed from a heart satisfied in God. God will be glorified because we were so satisfied in him that the joy of knowing him overflowed in generosity. That’s spelled out in 2 Corinthians 8:2.

People-Pleasing

Or what about pleasing people? Paul said he doesn’t do it, and he said he does do it. Now, I think what he means is this: When people-pleasing is a way of manipulating a situation to satisfy your craving for human approval, you’re sending a message that God is not your treasure — human approval is your treasure. That’s the message you send.

“If God is supremely satisfying to us, then we won’t crave the ego satisfaction of being seen for our good works.”

But on the other hand, if you go through life or pursue your ministry thumbing your nose at other people’s feelings and hopes and expectations, with no concern at all about how other people may be offended by what you do or say, or how many unnecessary stumbling blocks you put in the way of the gospel, then you’re sending the message that it’s not God’s mercy and patience that has satisfied your soul and made you eager to win people rather than push people away. You’re just on an ego trip of exalting yourself. God is not in you creating the loving desire to draw people into the sweetness of your walk with him.

Reputation

Or what about caring about a good reputation, or the danger of others speaking well of us? If we are living to magnify the worth of God by being satisfied in him, then we will sense the difference between wanting a good reputation for ego gratification or for getting rich versus a good reputation for the sake of showing the all-sufficiency of God in our lives. We will sense the difference between cowardly avoidance of people’s criticism, on the one hand, and courageous willingness to live and speak in a way that brings down the reproach of unbelievers, on the other hand.

And the key in both cases will be the condition of our own hearts. Is God the supreme treasure, or am I just pushing him aside because of how good it feels to have a good reputation and less criticism because of my biblical Christianity?

Praise

And finally, what about receiving worthy praise, like the woman in Proverbs 31 who fears the Lord, versus living for the praise of man rather than the praise of God in Romans 2:29? And I think the key again is this: When it says she fears the Lord, what that means is that she fears treasuring anything in this world more than God. God has become her greatest treasure, her greatest joy, and the only fearful thing in the presence of such a God is insulting him by treasuring anything above him. So when the woman is praised for her fear of God, it’s God who’s being praised, God himself who is praised overall. That’s not something to be rejected.

“The only fearful thing in the presence of such a God is insulting him by treasuring anything above him.”

The difference between that and Romans 2:29 is that Romans 2:29 underlines the fact that if there’s something in us that is praiseworthy about God, what matters most is that God see it and that God approve of it, not that man see it and approve of it. Above all, we want God to be pleased that he is supremely pleasing to us. If man finds this worthy of praise, so be it. That’s good. But it is quite secondary to God’s approval.

My answer to the question we were asked — “How do I put to death my need for recognition and cultivate a spirit of humble servitude?” — is this: devote the rest of your life to knowing God and all that he is for you in Christ, and seek to be supremely satisfied in him.