Follow your calling

John 1:43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, "Follow me." ⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote-- Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." ⁴⁶ "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. "Come and see," said Philip. ⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false." ⁴⁸ "How do you know me?" Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, "I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you." ⁴⁹ Then Nathanael declared, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel." ⁵⁰ Jesus said, "You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that." ⁵¹ He then added, "I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."

Do you like your job? Do you enjoy going to work every day? Do you see your job as your vocation?

I love my job. I love being able to share God’s Word with you in the pulpit and open the Scriptures to you in a Bible class. I enjoy talking with our teachers after school, our shut-ins in our visits and members before and after service. There is nothing I appreciate more in my role as pastor than beautifying our worship and church, preaching for a saint’s funeral, or baptizing a baby and communing a new confirmand. And I have fun in my work. I had fun working with Sue and Sarah and now Rod in the office – although I remind Rod that if he’s doing a good job I’ll call him the office manager; if he’s not doing a good job that day he’s the church secretary.

But I also love my other roles as a father to my children and a husband to my wife. Spending time in the stands for basketball, coaching the girls in soccer, helping with homework, going on a vacation, fixing something around the house – or really having Scott come over and fix it and handing him tools.

Those are my jobs, the roles God has given me to do here on earth – husband, father, pastor. They are also my vocations.

Do you see your job as your vocation? The term vocation in popular language is a person’s work, profession or trade. However, Scripture defines vocation as God’s call to be who we are in whatever we do. With God, your job becomes your vocation. But without God there is no vocation, only work.

By His grace, Jesus has called you to follow Him in faith. Like Philip and Nathanael, Jesus has entered your life and called you to something greater. This call to faith invites you to believe the impossible – that God’s own Son came to live and walk on this earth, then die to pay for mankind’s sins and then rise again to give eternal life to all who believe this. This amazing call invites you to believe that on account of what Jesus did for you, sinners are made saints, beggars are placed on thrones and heaven replaced hell in mankind’s future.

That is your call to faith. Now Jesus invites you to follow Him in your calling. Jesus extended a calling to Philip and Nathanael. Their calling was to become disciples of the Lord Jesus – to follow Him wherever they went. Listen to Him. Learn from Him. Follow His example. See that everything they said and did was to be done to God’s glory and in service to others. When they did this, then their job of disciples became their vocation and their calling as disciples.

Since Jesus has called you to faith, He now extends to you a calling. Your calling is your vocation. Find satisfaction and contentment in serving God and serving others in your respective vocations. Whether that vocation is catching speeders on the bypass in Burlington (where they’ve caught me), catching touchdown passes thrown by Aaron Rodgers or wiping your toddler’s nose after she caught a cold at Day Care. Follow your calling.

Men are Like Waffles – Women are Like Spaghetti was a popular book a few years ago about the relationships of men and women. It explained why a man is like a waffle (because each element of his life is in a separate box), and why a woman is like spaghetti (because everything in her life touches everything else.) Not only do men compartmentalize, like waffles, but we Christians have somehow confined God and faith and actions to church and school, and so have left much of God’s Word and teachings in the parking lot. That’s why Joe can justify or ignore his potty-mouth at work, while at the same time faithfully coming to Bible study. Or why Jill can feel it is fine for her to gossip and complain during a women’s meeting at church.

It is truly fantastic when members of the Holy Christian Church are going out into the schools, playgrounds and businesses of our nation. It is tragic that they are capable of forgetting who they are once they get there. This is compartmentalization.

It is all too easy and tempting for Christians to crowd their faith out of their work, home and daily life. Take Jesus with you wherever you go. Not in your lunch pail or coffee cup, just to take out whenever you feel malnourished or need a quick caffeine shot of Jesus. But, just as you daily wear your work clothes – business suit, overalls or apron – so daily to put on Christ as a garment of salvation.

We, as Christians in our various vocations, need to be spaghetti – letting God, His Word and His Spirit-given faith flow through and intermingle with everything we do. Trusting Christ makes as much sense in the church pew and the hospital bed as it does while changing the baby’s dirty diaper or closing a million dollar business deal. Like it was stated earlier, a job is just a job, but when God is involved, the Christian’s job becomes a vocation, a higher calling of service.

For those of us who like to compartmentalize church and work, we need to be reminded that sin committed in the workplace is still a sin. On the other hand, Christ’s forgiveness and mercy are just as available at the office as they are in the church pew.

Because we are members of one Body (1 Corinthians 12:12-27; Romans 12:4,5), we must never lose our connection to Christ, who is our Head. When we compartmentalize our faith away from what we do on a daily basis, it is as if we are cutting off parts of our Body. When we leave Christ at home, only to use for Sunday mornings and evening prayers, it is as if we are removing the Head of the Body for the rest of the week. Why would we not want to take Jesus’ love, forgiveness and holiness with us wherever we go and with whatever we do?

What did Philip and Nathanael know about following Jesus? How well trained were they in their new calling as Jesus’ disciples? They knew nothing and they had no training. But that’s why they spent so much time over the next three years following Jesus. They learned from the Master.

If you want to learn how to be a stronger supervisor, a better business person or a qualified caregiver, then follow Jesus. Learn from the Master. And that doesn’t come from one hour in worship every few weeks. It comes with quality – and quantity – time digging into the Scriptures in weekly worship, personal devotions and congregational Bible studies. And then applying those words to your life once you go back home or to work. If you want to live for Christ, you must make sure Christ is alive in you. You will only bear much fruit if you are connected to the vine (John 15:5).

Many work for money and so the weekend becomes about them. Sadly, because many Christians do not take God with them to work, they feel exhausted, worn out and weary at the end of the workweek. They think they need to get-away up north or hole-away in the house for the weekend in order to recharge. But if you understand that when you have God with you every day at work – with your daily Bible reading in the lunchroom, with your motivation on the assembly line and in your conversations in the boardroom – your “spiritual battery” isn’t being drained so dramatically and quickly. Then, since you have time for God during the week, you will make Him a priority on the weekend.

Vocation is really about humbling oneself. It is serving others. It is putting others ahead of yourself. Just as Samuel did with Eli or Paul thanking the brothers in Thessalonica. If you want to know how to serve God in your vocation, then examine how Jesus served you in His vocation. “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Jesus fulfilled His vocation that was assigned Him since before time began. Jesus served you by fitting all the divinity of the Godhead into the body of a human baby. He served you by living the perfect life for all the times you have failed as a parent, child, employer, employee, friend or church member. Jesus served you with His resurrection from the borrowed tomb so that His heavenly home would be bought and paid for – for you.

But not only did Jesus serve humanity in His incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, He also served us in the otherwise mundane events of interacting with people around Him. What did Jesus do? The same things you and I do. He washed feet (John 13:5). He settled arguments (Mark 9:34,35). He served a meal to others (John 6:11). In a way, He even cleaned house (John 2:15,26).

When it comes to vocation, consider how the Creator of the universe humbled Himself to wash filthy feet, so you can certainly wash your daughter’s dirty face. If Christ served bread to others, you can serve meatloaf to your family. If the Son of God willingly performed menial work rather than appointing someone else to do it, how can you complain about disinfecting the diaper pail?

Life has no purpose without God. But with God, all of life has a purpose, from the most noble estates to the most insignificant duties.

Follow your calling by constantly hearing Jesus whisper, “I have you. I forgive you. I lived for you. Now you live for Me.” Fulfill your daily vocation by hearing the voice of Jesus tell you just as gently as it told the adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn you.” … “Now leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).

Though you are presently in the Church Militant with dirty robes, tarnished crowns and wilted palms in the land of this world’s prince, some day you will be dressed in white robes, wearing golden crowns, holding palm branches in victory around the throne of the Lamb in the Church Triumphant (Revelation 7:9-17). Now go out and live as those victorious, white-robed saints in your various vocations.

Le Chambon is a unique town in France. Not because of its architecture or because it is the ancestral home of a great composer or artist. It is interesting because, while other towns in France handed their Jewish friends and neighbors over to the Nazis, the citizens of Le Chambon did not.

During the Holocaust in France, while the French government was collaborating with the Nazis, the villagers of Le Chambon hid 5,000 Jews, mostly children, inside the homes of 5,000 Christians – almost the entire population of this tiny mountain Huguenot village. The Christians hid the Jews in their homes for years. They provided the refugees with forged identification, provided education for the children, rations, and sent them to safety in Switzerland.

It isn’t as though the Christians had convened a town meeting and decided collectively to oppose the Nazis and hide the Jews. So why did the inhabitants of this little French village stand up during the Nazi occupation and stand out to us so many decades later that the town is now being honored in the Holocaust Memorial Museum?  Sunday after Sunday the villagers would hear sermons from Pastor Trochme. Over time they became, by habit, people who knew what to do – and they tried to do it. So when the Nazis came to town, when it came time for them to be courageous, they quietly did what was right. One elderly woman who had faked a heart attack when the Nazis came to search her house said, “Pastor always taught us that there comes a time in every life when a person is asked to do something for Jesus. When our time came, we knew what to do.”

There may not seem to be anything extraordinary in your job, whether at home or at work. But understand that since God put you there and you have Jesus with you, then that job is now your vocation. Listen, learn and follow your calling so that when the time comes, you will “just know what to do.” Amen.