1 Corinthians 7:17
I’m going to switch things up a bit this morning. I’m going to disagree with and take a different angle from chapter 8 in Experiencing God. One of the groups I visited last week was doing a bit of what I would call, “dialoging with the chapter by disagreeing with parts of it.” I encouraged them to do so, and by doing so, caught the bug. As I read chapter 8, I found there was a lot I was “dialoguing” with.
The premise of the chapter is, “Doing things God’s way is always best” (pg. 95). There’s nothing wrong with that premise. That’s what we are about as God’s people. I think we’d all agree on that.
The question, then, is, “How do we know what God’s way is?” I think there are several answers to that question. One of my problems with this chapter in the book is that the examples given by the author of the people in the Old Testament who exhibited knowing God’s way don’t fit with the rest of us and our ordinary, everyday lives.
People like Noah, who was told very clearly what he was supposed to do (build an ark big enough for a few people and every species of life), even to the point of being given the measurements for the ark.
People like Moses, to whom God showed up in a burning bush that wasn’t burnt up, and told exactly what to do to free the slaves from Egypt. And got a cool magic staff in the process.
People like Abraham, who was going to be made the father of the Israelite nation. Not only that, he was so faithful, he was willing to sacrifice his own son in order to show God how far he—Abraham—was willing to go with God.
Here’s my problem. These are great people. They certainly have been held up and revered as God-fearing, faithful people who did absolutely everything God asked. And God was very clear with them about what He wanted done and how they were to do it. They are a model for all people of faith. Yes? But how many of us are asked by God to be a Noah, a Moses, an Abraham? These men, and more, were asked by God to do world moving tasks. They were asked to be part of a world-wide pandemic that God would use to purge evil from the earth. They were asked to free a whole nation of people, and get that nation established in the Holy Land.
But there’s a whole lot of the rest of us, who are never asked by God to do something even close to that, who have not been talked to by God through a burning bush, or any other kind of plant life, to do something so world shaping. We are just the normal people trying to muddle through life, making decisions about our everyday life, and hoping everything works out for the best. We pray about stuff, and God seems silent. We end up feeling unimportant to God and the larger scheme of God’s history, so we just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as faithfully as we know how.
The title of this chapter is, “God’s Invitation To Join Him In His Work.” But with the examples (Moses, Noah, and Abraham) the author uses, it makes us feel that that invitation is going to be some huge world changing task. And that we have to know exactly what God wants or we’re going to blow it.
What I want to explore with you this morning is the premise that God does invite us to join him in his work, but does so in an entirely different way than what this chapter describes. And it’s a more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way than Blackaby would be comfortable with. Blackaby wants us all to be absolutely clear what God wants us to do in every circumstance, before we do it, or we’re going to mess things up. My thought is that if we knew all that, we’d be God. But we aren’t. We’re a bunch of human beings who are ambling around trying to do the best we can with very little information. Even from God, sometimes.
What I want to talk about is living out our lives according to a theology or doctrine of vocation, rather than always thinking we have to, and can get, explicit plans from God about life choices that lay before us, as Blackaby states.
The most important doctrine that came out of the Reformation was “justification by faith alone.” But the second most important was the “doctrine of vocation.” We hear a ton in churches about the first, and nothing about the second. So it is that doctrine of vocation I want you us to think about this week and talk about in your groups, as opposed to sitting around waiting for God to tell you exactly what to do.
First, this is what a theology of vocation is NOT. A theology of vocation has to do with a "calling," but not in the sense that you hear God's voice summoning you to do a great work for God--like building an ark. The theology of vocation is not some kind of "occupationalism" with a particular focus on your job. The doctrine of vocation isn't about evangelizing on the job. Nor does the theology of vocation mean that everyone is a minister.
The doctrine of vocation is about the priesthood of all believers. The theology of vocation is about God's glory at the expense of our own. The doctrine of vocation is primarily about living the Christian life and developing eyes and a heart for seeing where God is hidden even in the mundane activities of our everyday lives. How do we see the glory in the seemingly inglorious?
We are indebted to the reformer Martin Luther and Lutheran theologians who followed Martin Luther for developing this theology of vocation. In doing so, Luther and his followers used the Lord's Prayer as a way into understanding the theology of vocation. This is how it goes.
When we pray the Lord's Prayer, one of the things we ask God to give us is our daily bread. And God does. But the way God gives us our daily bread is not by dropping a loaf out of the heavens upon our plates each time we sit down to eat. Instead, God gives us our daily bread through the vocations of farmers, millers, bakers. In our current day we might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, the lady at the checkout counter. Virtually every step of our whole economic and vocational system contributes to that piece of toast you had for breakfast. And when you thanked God for that food, you were thanking God, not just for the toast, but for all the vocations of people that God called and put in place.
God makes gifts of healing happen most often not through out-and-out miracles but by means of medical vocations. God proclaims the Word by means of vocational pastors. God teaches by means of teachers who made that vocational choice. God creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, authors, and musicians whom God has given particular talents.
Vocation is not just us doing our jobs based on our talents. Vocation is God at work. Martin Luther once said, "God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid." According to Luther, vocation is "the mask of God." God is hidden and active in vocation. We only see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor, or pastor, or artist. But, looming behind these human masks, God is genuinely present and active in what they are doing for us.
In this way, vocation is part of God's providence. Providence is a word that describes that overall carefulness that God has for the world. God is everywhere and at all times taking care of every bit of creation. Providence describes how God is intimately involved in the governance of his creation in its every detail. People, exercising their vocation, is one way God carries out that providence in the world.
Thus, whenever someone does something for you--brings your meal at a restaurant, cleans up after you, builds your house, fixes your heating and air-conditioning, teaches you something new, draws your blood--be grateful for the human beings whom God is using to bless you and praise him for his unmerited gifts expressed in their vocations.
But here’s another side of the issue I’m struggling with. Blackaby says in this chapter that you have to have absolutely clear indications from God about what you are asked to do and how you are supposed to do it. If you don’t get that, don’t do anything.
Let’s think back to your breakfast. Was the farmer who grew the grain that went into that piece of toast you had this morning a Christian? How about the author who wrote the book you just read—a book that moved you and stirred your emotions. How can you glorify God for the work of an unbeliever who didn’t wait for God to tell him to go drive his tractor and planter across the field?
The theology of vocation answers that question. In God’s rule over the world, God uses even those who do not know him, as well as those who do. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (says James 1:17). But the emphasis is on God and the gift, not the one who particularly made it happen. Certainly human beings sin in their vocations and sin against their vocations, resisting and fighting against God’s purpose.
On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of difference between a Christian farmer planting his field and a non-Christian farmer who does essentially the same thing. God can use both to bring forth daily bread, which God, in turn, distributes to Christian and non-Christian alike. Whether one simply went about his business, or one sat in his chair waiting for God to tell him exactly what to do didn’t seem to matter.
But there is a huge difference for the farmer. The Christian farmer works out of faith, and his faithfully chosen, God given vocation. The non-Christian farmer works out of unbelief, or sheer economic reasons, or whatever.
Martin Luther actually used two different words for this difference in vocation. One word was “station,” and the other word is, “calling.” Non-Christians are given a station in life, a place where God has assigned them, whether they see God’s hand in it or not. Christians, though, are those who hear God’s voice in His Word, so they understand their station in terms of God’s personal calling.
The Christians’s primary vocation is to be a child of God. But God has also stationed that Christian to live a life in the world. The Christian, in faith, now understands his or her life and what God has given them to do as a “calling” from the Lord—that God is now putting them on, using them as a mask, to live for and serve others in a hidden sort of way.
It may seem strange to think that such mundane activities as spending time with your spouse and children, going to work, and taking part in your community are part of your holy calling. The daily grind can be a spiritual adventure. But ordinary life is where God has placed most of us. Noah’s, Abraham’s, and Moses’ may be called to do some extraordinary thing. But not most of us. Most of us are just trying to get by, making our vocational decisions faithfully as we move in and out of our families, the workplace, this church, the culture, the public square—those are the places and situations where God has given us our calling and vocations, where God has asked us to be his mask so that he can go about serving the people he loves.
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