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.In Ministry – Steve Tutoka

1 Tim 1: 12 – 20

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 10 Sep, 2006

TODAY we have a special reason for gathering, because we are farewelling Steve Tutoka for a period of ministry in Papua New Guinea, helping to build houses for people on the margins of society. He has long had a vision for doing this kind of work.

When I was a young Christian, I was on my way to work one day when God spoke to me, and I know what it is like to experience such a call on your life. Even when you might want to keep away from it, it keeps following you. Steve is doing the right thing to respond if that is the sense of call he has.

I want us to look at three aspects of being called into ministry today. We will look at God’s calling, at human recognition and at Spiritual equipping.

But before we get into calling, recognition and equipping, I want to reassure you that Steve’s calling, which he has spoken about on several occasions, is a genuine ministry. Sometimes we begin to feel that only a ministry which involves preaching is a genuine one. But that’s not how the Bible puts it.

Before we consider calling, recognition and equipping, we should just look at I Cor. 12:

1COR 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ But eagerly desire the greater gifts.

This passage is very clear. We are not all called to preaching ministries, but non-speaking ministries like helping, administering, healing – these are all very valid types of ministry, and the work of the gospel could not proceed without them.

Steve, you are confident in speaking, but I am not entirely sure that speaking is your gift. We will see. But right now you are going to New Guinea to help, maybe to do something you had never even dreamt of before. And your calling to minister is clear. That’s the main thing.

I have a friend who is quite an effective evangelist. It’s the work he loves to do.

But he was called to a country church where there were few opportunities for evangelism. It was a church which had suffered a split nearly a hundred years earlier, and, though the two congregations worked together, they didn’t work well. Memories are long in the country.

After nine years, my friend was ready to quit.

You know, he might not have been much of an evangelist in that setting, but he had survived longer than most other pastors before him. He had become well - loved in a district where people thought that only the Anglicans or the Catholics were any good, and that Baptists were next to Jehovah’s Witnesses in terms of weirdness. He had healed the split between the two churches so that they worked together now. And he had set half a dozen members on the road to being evangelists after he had gone.

When you are available to God, he will use you in ways you never anticipated. God’s calling is more about availability than about capability. God wants someone who is available, and he will do the equipping!

So, people, never fall into the trap of imagining that there are first and second class ministries. If the Lord has called you, that’s first class! If he has equipped you, it’s for ministry! If he has directed you, it’s what he did with every prophet, every evangelist, every apostle. It’s the same whether you are the greatest preacher or someone who can sit with a dying person and hold his hand.

Now, let’s get on with this calling, recognition and equipping business.

GOD’S CALLING

We start with calling. The first passage I want us to consider is a little after the one we read a little while back. Paul says in I Tim 2: 5ff,

⁵ For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, ⁶ who gave himself as a ransom for all men – the testimony given in its proper time. ⁷ And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle – I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.

One thing that Paul makes abundantly clear is that his appointment as an apostle did not come from merely human sources. He did not go to Jerusalem and be told by James or one of the others in the Jerusalem church, “Paul, now you are an apostle.” It was an appointment by Jesus himself.

Never think that that kind of calling comes only to people of Paul’s calibre. Paul was a great man, but many people receive a personal calling from the Lord.

Isaiah was in the Temple when he saw the Lord, high and lifted up, with his train filling the temple. He heard the voice of God calling,

Whom shall we send, and who will go for us?

And Isaiah answered,

Here am I: send me!

It was the call of Jesus, because, as John writes in his gospel, Isaiah saw Jesus and spoke of him.

I know a little old lady who had a great sense of calling to work with Christians across the denominations. She was afraid to do it, because she had no idea where to start. She was part of a church where lay people don’t so often initiate things. I told her, “If that calling comes from Christ, he will ensure that you can do it if you are willing to do it. Tell your minister what you feel called to do, and ask him how you can best do it.”

That worked. She has had a very important ministry ever since.

When the calling of God came to me, I was walking to work and praying in my heart.

That sense of calling wasn’t initially to a preaching ministry. I was a stammerer. I knew I would not be preaching. I could see myself in a grass hut in the jungle, with a flyswatter in one hand and a snakeswatter in the other, writing with a pen between my teeth.

But the calling was real: “Full-time ministry” was all that God said. He worked out the rest.

It hasn’t always been full time in this church, but I was equipped and appointed to minister wherever that took me.

Steve, you have a sense of calling. I remember your excitement the first time you met the Gawad Kalinga Youth, because you said, “This is what I wanted to do!”

You said you felt that the call came from God.

If he has called you, you must obey. You are under compulsion.

When Martin Luther was challenged, he said,

Hier stehe ich, ich kann nichts anders. Gott hilf mir! – Here I stand, I don’t know anything else. God help me!

Whether you agree with what Luther did or not, I am sure that we all recognise that God’s calling is like that: we are where we are because we don’t know what else to do if we are to be true to ourselves and to him.

God calls us into ministry. He rarely spells out the details.

I don’t know if you know about how Pentecostal Christianity became so strong in South America.

A big part of it was an Assemblies of God shopkeeper who developed a burning desire to bring the gospel to people in South America.

He went to his denomination, but they said that there was no chance of getting into the areas of real need down there. They wouldn’t support him.

But he knew he was called, and he couldn’t let that calling go.

He found his own support and went alone.

And everywhere he went, he preached the gospel, won people to Christ, and planted churches.

And the churches he planted were church-planting churches, so they spread everywhere.

Paul wrote that he was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. He was called. You are, too.

RECOGNITION

The second thing I want to discuss is recognition.

One of the worst mistakes we can make is to assume that a sense of calling is all that there is to it.

Even with that man who spread Pentecostal Christianity in South America, he still needed recognition. He gathered his own support group of people who recognised a gift and calling in him.

Paul wrote,

1TIM 1:18 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, ¹⁹ holding on to faith and a good conscience.

I was 17 when I first heard God’s call into ministry. I knew that God called me. But I certainly had no intention of acting on a mere subjective impression. I said, “Lord, if you want me in ministry, I will need confirmation from someone else.”

I assumed that I would hear no more of this. But, at church on Sunday morning, the pastor said, “I believe you have pastoral gifts. I want you to help me with some of the visitors to the church.”

It took me nearly 20 years to get into where I was called to be. I had just about given up hope.

One Wednesday night in October 1982, I missed the prayer meeting at our church, and one of the ladies prayed for me.

Merle had no idea that I had ever had a sense of calling into ministry. But she prayed that night, “Lord, if Peter is struggling with a call into ministry, I pray that you will lead him into the right decision.” Then she said, “That was a silly thing to pray. Why did I say that?”

Saturday afternoon and evening, God confronted me with his call into ministry. I didn’t know what Merle had prayed, but, when I told my pastor on Monday that God was telling me to go into ministry, he told me about the prayer meeting.

Someone had prophesied that Timothy would have a pastoral ministry, and Paul reminded him of that prophecy.

I don’t think that Merle was a prophet, but her prayer that night was also a prophecy, and a recognition of my calling.

John Wesley used to say that the Bible knows nothing of a solitary Christian.

You have our support, Steve. If you need us, call on us, so that we can do what we can to help you fulfil your calling. Other people might not have the support of their church or denomination, but they must not go out unless they have clear support from a Christian community.

In part that’s what Gawad Kalinga is about. It s a supportive community for people with a calling to ministry through housing and community development. They have been assessing you, Steve, and looking for God’s direction. Are you the man for the place they need someone to be? By accepting you under their banner, they are confirming that they believe you are that person.

You need your gift and calling to be recognised by others.

SPIRITUAL EQUIPPING

Finally, there is our spiritual equipping to consider.

Paul writes to Timothy in II Tim1:

2TIM 1: 5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. ⁶ For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. ⁷ For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

⁸ So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God...

One reason why I thought I would have to spend my time in a grass hut was that I was a stammerer. I was particularly bad when I had to speak in front of a group of other people. That was one reason for the difficulties I had with my French teacher at school. When I stammered in front of the class he assumed that I hadn’t prepared. So I got into trouble, so I got more uneasy in front of the class and stammered more and got into more trouble which made me uneasy in class... And so on. My German teacher was patient, and I got good marks, and I didn’t stammer so much.

When God called me, he equipped me, and my stammer toned right down very quickly.

Steve, whom God calls, he also equips.

Paul tells Timothy to fan into a flame the gift which is in him through the laying on of hands.

Paul is not one to imagine that any magical powers lay in his own hands. He uses a word here which means “to appoint” or “to ratify election.” Paul appointed and ratified Timothy in his ministry. And Paul was quite confident that the one whom God had called and he had appointed would consequently be empowered and equipped by the Spirit of God.

But it was Timothy’s task to stir that gift up, to make it reach its full potential. And that’s your task, too, Steve.

I want to say just one thing, though; and that is that not all God’s equipping gifts come easily. As the Spirit sees us through persecutions, he also equips us through sufferings as much as through joys. Don’t be afraid of today’s pain, because tomorrow you will reap!

CONCLUSION

So, Steve, it was a joy to baptise you nine months ago. Now the baby can run, and he’s ready to go to New Guinea as our missionary!

Would you like to come to the front and we will pray for you as we send you out?

If God is calling someone else to some ministry, and you want to talk to me about it, come and see me after the service, and we will make an appointment.

May God bless us all.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)