Afshin Ziafat: Pastor, Your Calling Comes from God

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Afshin Ziafat
Paul says, Paul a servant, a slave of Jesus Christ. And Paul could have said, Man, I’m an apostle. I saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. He came at me with a glorious light. I’ve planted churches in the Gentile world all over. He didn’t say any of that. He says, I’m a slave of Jesus Christ. And there’s such freedom that man, my ministry or my church’s success doesn’t identify my worth and my value.

Afshin Ziafat
Well, my favorite thing about being a pastor is being able to see something build and grow over time. I came out of a ministry where I was an evangelist, I was an itinerant minister, and so for me, it was kind of, I pop in and preach a message, preach the gospel, see the Lord move but then I’d move on. What’s cool about being a pastor is the goal isn’t just to put on a good event, like a lot of times in the itinerant world, that that is the goal, but the goal is to disciple and make disciples who make disciples. And so my goal at Providence is what Paul says in Colossians when he says that he labors to present everybody mature in Christ. And so for me, that’s what I’m fighting for, is to what does it look like to help someone take another step in their in their maturity? And so for that, it’s it’s fun, it’s fun to see people grow and over years, See them overcome things, and see them actually minister and use their gifts. Well, I was first of all called to Jesus out of a Muslim background, and so I became a Christian upon reading a New Testament as a 17 year old that I received 10 years prior. And so went through a whole season of really running from confronting my dad with this truth and just kind of hiding it from him. And finally, one day, I was able able, by God’s strength, to be able to share it with him, and he disowned me for being a Christian. And really the defining moment of my life was when I, after that read in Matthew chapter 10, where Jesus says, Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. And that, you know, ultimately, he’s come to turn a man against his father, and even that relationship with a father would not be as important as you following Christ. And so for me, I was following Jesus for a period of time without my father and his blessing, but then he took me back, as long as I would go and be a doctor and make him proud. And that was the plan. Is I was going to take over his medical practice. He was going to pay for my entire medical degree. And so when the Lord started calling me into ministry, the hardest thing for me was, man, I had already crossed this bridge with my dad to be a Christian. I don’t want to have to go through this again with my career as well. And so I ran from it. And then my sister, who was also obviously former Muslim, had become a Christian, wrote me a letter. And in a letter, she says, you’re running from God to please Dad. And then she said, a Christian out of God’s will is like a fish out of water. He will struggle until he’s put back in the water. And she quoted First John 217 which says the world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. And so for me, it was a period of running, but I sensed my call to ministry, because really, everybody around me was affirming it in my the ministry I was involved in in college, and then in the church I was going to and so I always encourage people and say, Hey, your calling is really found in community. It’s not found in isolation. In Acts 13, they were gathering and praying and fasting and worshiping when God said, set aside for me, Paul and Barnabas, to the ministry that I’ve called them. And so it was for me that people were kept affirming it. Kept affirming it, until finally, I knew that I had to stop my running, and I went to my father and broke the news. And again, we had a kind of a breaking of a relationship. But that’s really how God pursued me and confirmed my calling. I think the biggest mistake I made as a new pastor was, maybe early on, feeling like I had to have all the answers, and I had to know, you know, be the best or the most knowledgeable and everything. And something, someone told me that was so helpful, was me, actually, you have to really wrestle to the ground. What is the reason that you are the pastor of Providence church? Because, if your answer is man, because I’m smart theologically, or because I’m a good preacher, or I’m a good leader, all these things. And what happens when someone comes that maybe knows more than you or is. Smarter than you, or maybe even more eloquent than you, but you have to understand, ultimately, you’re a pastor because God assigned you to be the pastor. It’s only by God’s grace that you are where you are and when you really embrace that you just have a freedom to then surround yourself with people who are more gifted than you, and you should more gifted than you in ways that you know maybe are your weaknesses, and allow them to flourish. And I think for me to really get over that hurdle and be comfortable in my own skin and put people around me that that were more gifted than me was one of the greatest things. If you’re a pastor, and you’re going through a very difficult or dark season, I just want to encourage you that, first of all, I think that this is normal for any leader, any pastor, to go through those things and to see it as even though it’s so hard to see it this way in the middle of it, but that you’re going to look back one day and See it as a gift of God. I remember walking into a pastor’s home and seeing a painting that had four different scenes that were similar, but slightly different. The scene starts with a man in a boat headed down a waterway, and he is kind of opening his eyes, and everything is glorious. In the second scene, he’s at the front of the boat with his chest out in the horizon. He’s about to go and conquer the world. The third scene, it’s dark and it’s rocky waters and choppy waters, and he’s in dread with on his face praying in the middle of the boat. And then the last scene, he’s kind of leaning against the mast and looking out, and it’s calm again, and it’s glorious out in the horizon. And I asked this pastor, man, what is that painting? And he said, Man, I think that’s what God takes us through as leaders, often before he can really, truly use us. And I found that to be true in my life. They’ve been some seasons where I had to just, I remember just actually weeping, which I’m not very weepy of a person. But I weeped in front of my assistant because I was about to fizzle out. My elders came around me, gave me a season away. And there have been times where I really feel like I was under spiritual attack and and I had to cling and go back to, I would say, just the foundations of my faith. One of the things I would encourage you to remember is that you are, first and foremost, a child of God. You are not pastor of that church. That’s not your primary identity. You might be a pastor today, but your foundational identity is that you’re a child of God. My first sermon I preached at the church that I pastored was Philippians, one where Paul says, Paul a servant, a slave of Jesus Christ. And Paul could have said, Man, I’m an apostle. I saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. He came at me with a glorious light. I’ve planted churches in the Gentile world all over. He didn’t say any of that. He says, I’m a slave of Jesus Christ. And there’s such freedom that man, my ministry or my church’s success doesn’t identify my worth and my value, and everything in my life isn’t writing on that. And I think that I would just go back to the foundations. And for me, in a very difficult period of time, I had to go back to the root of my faith, and the Lord led me to a passage I’d love to encourage you with in first Peter 510 when it says, after you’ve suffered a little while, the God of all grace will himself restore and confirm and establish you. That God allows us to go through suffering, and sometimes that suffering is meant to root out things and to re establish us. And for me, I found that to be true, and I just want to encourage you to keep on, because it will be glorious after the rocky waters. I think my counsel to a new pastor would be focus on the main things, especially if you’re going into a church that maybe has existed before you, you’re not planning the church I wouldn’t go in with, like, Hey, here’s my 10 changes that I’m gonna make on the front end for a new pastor. I mean, ultimately, your role is a shepherd, and a shepherd is to know the sheep, is to lead the sheep, protect the sheep and feed the sheep. And so for me, I would spend my first year to two years, just getting to know the members of the church and preaching the word of God faithfully. I just want to give a steady diet of God’s word every Sunday. And if people ask me, What’s your vision? What’s your 10 year vision? Hey, what are we going to do about missions or Sunday school, I would just be very honest and say, You know what we’re praying, and we’re going to just see wait for the Lord to show us those things. But to really, I would encourage a new pastor to focus on those two main things of knowing the sheep and preaching the word of God, and wait on making any big changes.