So, You Want to Be a Preacher: . . . Called to Preach. . . (Acts 16:10)

By Francis Vlok

The contents focus on the four important aspects of the man who has God’s calling on his life to be a preacher, namely, the Man, the Ministry, the Message, and the Mission. It explains God’s calling, God’s choosing, and God’s election of the man whom God wants to place in the ministry. It also explains the five-fold ministries and their specific functioning in the body of Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669837077

Francis Vlok

Francis Vlok is an ordained minister for more than forty years in The Christian Fellowship. He was led by the Lord to establish a church in South Africa and since immigrating to the United States, he was again led to establish a church in Pachuta, MS. He has lectured at the School of Ministry in South Africa and served as the Vice-president of the Fellowship. He has written the book The Perfect Will of God, and now, under the instruction of the Holy Spirit, completed this doctrinal volume.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Francis Vlok.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/11/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

844411

CONTENTS

Preface

Three Gross Errors

About the Author

INTRODUCTION: CHRIST’S CHURCH

Chapter 1     Whose Authority

Reason for the Church in the Dispensation of Grace

Chapter 2     Structure According to the Word

Kingdom of God and the Church

Great Commission to All Believers

PART 1: MAN

Chapter 3     If you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, you must be the servant of all.

God’s Man

Called Man

Chosen Man

Elected Man

Summary

Chapter 4     Blessed is the Man You Choose. . . Psalm 65:4

Revelation

Spiritual Life

Spiritual Covering and Mentoring

Summary

PART 2: MESSAGE

Chapter 5     Word-based Message

Compelling Focus: Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

Chapter 6     Homiletics

Preaching, Teaching, Exhorting, Convincing, Rebuking

Chapter 7     Sound Doctrine

PART 3: MINISTRY

Chapter 8     Ministerial Gifts from Jesus Christ

How the Preacher is Called

Apostles

Prophets

Teachers

Evangelists

Pastors

Chapter 9     Process of the Calling

Divine Commission

Lifetime Status

PART 4: MISSION

Chapter 10   Call to Go into All the World

Mission Fields

God’s Equipment for the Mission

Bibliography

PREFACE

SO, YOU WANT TO BE A PREACHER

I f you think you can be a preacher and will make a difference, you cannot.

The choice to become a preacher is not left up to the individual; this is a God-thing, and God calls him to preach which makes it a heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1).

If you think you might have a calling to be a preacher, you cannot.

There is never any doubt when God calls a man to preach. It is a clear and holy calling from: Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began (2 Timothy 1:9 NKJV).

If others tell you that they think you can be a preacher, you cannot.

It is God who calls the man to preach, not someone else. This calling to preach is revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets (Ephesians 3:5 NKJV). Another person cannot think you are called; it is revealed by the Holy Spirit and is without contradiction.

If you think your education level and graduate studies are enough qualification for you to be a preacher, you cannot.

God is not concerned with how much you know; rather, He is concerned with how committed you will be to your calling: be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58 NKJV).

If you think that you are a good orator and engage audiences and that will be sufficient for you to become a preacher, you cannot.

God is not interested in how effective you are; He is interested in how available you are. All you need to say is Lord, what do You want me to do? (Acts 9:6 NKJV).

If you think your years of experience as a Christian are sufficient for you to become a preacher, you cannot.

Matthew explains why in saying, For many are called, but few are chosen (22:14 NKJV).

If you believe preaching is a rewarding job and you will be good at it and, therefore, choose to become a preacher, you cannot.

Apostle Paul states that there are sacrifices that must be made when entering the ministry: For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8 NKJV).

If you are driven with the desire to save the lost and you personally choose to be a gospel preacher, you cannot.

This is God’s calling, and your desires should be driven by the Holy Spirit’s leading; you can’t do your own thing; For he must have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which [He] will yet reveal to you (Acts 26:16 NKJV).

If you believe you are financially sound and need no support from anyone else and that will allow you to be a preacher, you cannot.

God is not interested in what you can bring to the ministry; He is interested in what you will give spiritually to Him and in your trust of Him to supply all your need as the Word clarifies, Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me (Luke 18:22 NKJV), and as Apostle Paul endorses, My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19 NKJV).

If you think you can stay focused on your family first and then your calling as a preacher, you cannot.

The Lord Jesus explains this: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:26 NKJV).

____________________________________

At a recently held annual ministers conference of a large church denomination, the ministers were asked this question, If you could leave the ministry, would you? The response was a staggering sixty-five percent who said they would leave if they could.

This response reflects many things that influence men to enter and stay in the ministry.

The greatest misconception that men have when they enter the ministry is that they see their ministry as a fulltime career and not as a calling from God. In fact, men who are called by God to preach the gospel do not choose to enter the ministry; they are called by God, and He elects them to proclaim His Word.

In considering the dilemma so many ministers face simply because they made the choice of becoming a minister instead of being called by God, one can only be saddened by the false start they made. If they choose to enter the ministry and think that it is a vibrant and rewarding vocation, they will be sorely disappointed. The very outset of the call, choosing, and election by God should be like a raging, purifying fire in a man’s heart that produces a life encased in humbleness, submission, and personal sacrifice.

God’s calling interrupts a man’s journey through life. The calling is made with the clarity of a trumpet blast, and it is without ambiguity. This is not a soulish conviction nor a suggestion from others. It is God the Holy Spirit who calls the man, and it is Spirit to spirit.

Before the man can consider the road ahead, after he hears God’s call, he must be in total submission to the Master. Once the man submits to the call, he will then obediently surrender his life to the call, abandon all his personal inventory (talents and secular education), and allow the Holy Spirit to begin the work to make [him] a minister.

The testimony of Apostle Paul is the perfect example men should follow when they hear God’s call. Paul testifies that the moment he recognizes Jesus and submits to Him, he asks, Lord, what do you want me to do? (Acts 9:6 NKJV).

The all-embracing answer comes without hesitation from the Master who says, [R]ise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you (Acts 26:16 NKJV).

First, Paul had to rise and stand on [his] feet. This was an instruction from his new Master. He was in the dust and dirt; Jesus told him to get up, and he obeyed the Lord and stood up. Up to that point in his career, Paul had always given the commands; now it was totally different. Paul recognized that it was Jesus because he heard Him say, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting (Acts 9:5 NKJV).

Until that moment, Paul assumed Jesus was still buried in the tomb. He had scoffed at the Christians’ belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul’s mission was to eradicate the so-called faith in the resurrected Christ and destroy the church’s beliefs. However, when he lay in the Damascus dust, he could not escape the personal encounter with Jesus; he did not anticipate meeting the Savior. Paul knew without doubt who it was that called his name.

The instruction to rise and stand on your feet is not an unusual instruction from God; for God called the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel saying, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you (Ezekiel 2:1). Jesus told Paul to stand up for a specific purpose which Paul could not do while lying in the dust.

Second, Jesus told him what the purpose was for him to stand up. Jesus told Paul that He had called him to make [him] a minister. The word minister is the most misunderstood word in the church today. Men whom God calls have this vain idea that they are being elevated to a lofty position that affords them authority and power in the church. There is nothing farther from the truth. The Greek word huperetes, when correctly translated, means an under-oarsman or galley-oarsman. Simply put, the one called into the ministry is a lowly servant of God who does everything according to Jesus’ instructions and operates to the beat of His drum. Warren Wiersbe in his book The Bible Exposition Commentary clarifies this when he explains, "The word minister means an ‘under-rower’ and refers to a lowly servant on a galley ship. Paul had been accustomed to being an honored leader, but after his conversion he became a subordinate worker, and Jesus Christ became his Master."

What a difference this is from the puffed-up arrogance so many ministers of the gospel have today! Paul was a highly educated and ranking Pharisee who received executive authority and power from high-ranking officials of the Jewish religious leadership, and now he was lying in the dirt and told that he was to become an underling and serve like a galley-oarsman in the bowels of a ship as he ministered according to Jesus’ instructions. And Paul submitted to Jesus.

More importantly, Paul was told that he would witness about God, whom he already knew, and then receive further revelation directly from Jesus which [Jesus] would yet reveal to [him].

Paul abandoned his current mission, authority, and responsibilities as the persecutor of the Christian church and humbled himself. He never forgot from where Jesus called him, the Damascus dirt and dust.

Third, Paul’s responsibilities, after he obeyed Jesus, were to focus on witnessing to the Gentiles to whom Jesus would send him to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in [Jesus] (Acts 26:18 NKJV).

With this understanding of how Paul was called; of what the purpose is of being chosen, called, elected; and from whom men receive permission to share the gospel, the foundation is laid for a born-again man to hear the call of God and obediently submit to the call and do what Apostle Paul did.

How many men will abandon their position, status, and recognition in society to become a galley-oarsman for Jesus? How many will surrender themselves to Christ and become a living sacrifice (Romans 12:2) and be led by the Holy Spirit into the spiritual warehouse where God’s olive press is housed and there allow the Holy Spirit to crush them under the weight of God’s will, nature, and character? Will any man submit to the constant pressing and purifying process of the Holy Spirit that will break him of all the attributes of his old nature, strip him of his personal desires, and crush him under God’s pressure, transforming him from a solid olive, into pulp and finally into a stream of life-giving oil that flows from the obliterated olive into a river of hope, love, and abiding faith in the One who decimated his old nature and sinful character, and then flows all the way into a lost sinner’s heart?

Unless the man is prepared to forgo his ego, personal ambitions, status, and recognition, he will inevitably be aligned with the sixty-five percent of the ministers who declared in a ministers’ conference that, if it were possible, they would rather leave the ministry than stay in it.

Many who acknowledge that they have recognized the call on their life, understand what Apostle Paul means when he says, I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me (Philippians 3:12 NKJV). The preacher must know he did not choose his calling, God called him. He must not resist the hold God has laid on him and turn aside to the right hand or to the left (Deuteronomy 5:32).

The role of the preacher is God-ordained, and he preaches what God gives him, not what the people want to hear. He never tries to change or shift in the position God has gripped him; he doesn’t wiggle around to make himself comfortable but stays faithful and obedient in the position God has laid on him. He needs to be aware of God’s standards He requires from a man called to be a preacher for Christ Jesus’ sake.

It is hoped that men who have recognized God’s call on their lives will examine themselves as to whether they are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5), will obediently forsake all and follow Jesus (Luke 5:11), and then will declare, Lord, to whom shall [I] go? Thou hast the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

With the Lord’s guidance, the contents of this book will help men understand the fullness of being a minister and a preacher of God’s holy Word.

Grateful Thanks and Appreciation

Special thanks and appreciation to the president of The Christian Fellowship, Apostle Cyril Wilson who spent many hours guiding the author through the manuscript. His insight and spiritual understanding of men called into the ministry is unparalleled in the body of Christ.

THREE GROSS ERRORS

SAP

These are Self-Appointed Preachers who think they have a ministry.

MAP

These are Man-Appointed Preachers who are in the ministry by popular vote.

GAP

These are God-Appointed Preachers who have shunned the call and bowed to the peoples’ demands and compromised the Word and will of God.

_______________________________________