Job, Career or Calling
Colossians 3:17 (NIV):
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
We’ve been talking about a biblical and Christian worldview regarding work. Today we will talk about what it means to have a calling. My hope is that we will all walk out of here with a very strong conviction that we are indeed called to serve God full time in our places of work or in a completely new way.
I am not a pastor or a theologian. I will speak from my perspective as one who is a common person, living a common life. The only credentials I may have is that I have been working for 50 years (shocking as that may be to me.)
What is a job?
Definition: a post of employment; full-time or part-time position.
A job is composed of tasks, activities or specific units of work. One of my first jobs when I was 16 years old was collecting and pushing all of the shopping carts out of the parking lot of our local Stop & Shop. I also cleaned up messes, unloaded trucks and stocked shelves. That was my job. I did my job and I got paid.
Right from the beginning God intended for us to work.
Genesis 2:15-15 (NIV):
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. But sometimes we are lazy, and we avoid work. We have our reasons:
“Sure, I’m willing to work longer hours at work. As long as they’re lunch hours.”
“I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.”
“I got fired from the unemployment office, but still had to show up the next day.” “I became an archaeologist but before long my work was in ruins.”
I give 100% at work! 10% on Monday, 20% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday and 10% on Friday.
When I was 16 all my friends were getting jobs. I was lagging behind. While they were work ing at retail stores, I was looking for something more. I told them I wanted to find a job in a lab somewhere doing something scientific. They laughed at me and told me I was dreaming. They made me feel ashamed and so I went out and got a job at a hardware store.
Were my friends just being obnoxious or was there some truth in what they said?
Proverbs 28:19 (NIV):
Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies will have their fill of poverty.
Sometimes we are chasing fantasies and we miss opportunities.
If you are a legal working age then get a job. And learn to love it, with pray
er if necessary. Working can be very satisfying but there will always be bad days.
At times like that we need to remember that Jesus Christ had a job as a car
penter for 18 years (Six times longer than His ministry). 18 years of hard work. Cut ting wood, drilling, assembling, repairing, building, working at construction sites, making contracts, working with men who cursed and told dirty jokes and ogled good looking girls, receiving payment for His work, paying His bills, sweating, toiling, etc. etc. year after year for 18 years. If you are having problems at work you can always talk to Jesus and He will help you. There is no other God in all of the gods of this earth who can offer such assistance.
What is a career?
Definition from Dictionary.com: a field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement espe cially in public, professional, or business domains
1. Motivation starts within one’s self
2. Has momentum with trajectory or direction
3. Requires personal development and advancing skill sets
4. Has expectations for promotions, varying assignments or multiple employers. 5. Is dynamic and requires greater effort and nimbleness.
The best verse I know with career relevant wisdom is Isaiah 32:8
Isaiah 32:8-8 (NIV):
But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.
There are three things that we learn from this verse:
1. Any successful and beneficial endeavor requires some planning. Noble plans are those which are higher than just getting rich or gaining power. There is a big vision involved. 2. There is a lot of execution required (deeds) following the plans and not just talk and boast ing.
3. There will be results. You will stand.
This verse is not only a great guidance but also a promise.
What is a calling?
: a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by convic tion of divine influence
By definition, a calling is in response to an external influence. Someone called you and you re sponded. In our context it is God who calls us.
External influence (God) > Call > Reception > Response > Action
Two types:
1. Calling that requires significant change in work, objectives, purpose, direction. 2. Calling that turns existing job or career into something of greater, eternal value.
Perhaps some of you have known people whose lives were changed by a
“calling”. I have such friends. One would tell you that as a PhD student he had studied under a Nobel Prize winning scientist. This professor had also been the student of a Nobel Prize winner. My friend was well on his way to becoming a No bel Prize winner himself, but Jesus began to work in his heart and mind. As time passed, he sensed God calling him to give his life to a very specific ministry. Since those days in the 70’s and early 80’s, he and his wife have faithfully served God in a very strategic and effective minis try on a global scale. As he recently reflected on the calling of God in his life, he expressed thanks giving that God set him on a course of life which magnified God, whereas his scientific pursuits may have served for his own glorification.
This is a case that clearly demonstrates the difference between a career and a calling. Biblical cases of calling include:
⇒ Moses (Exodus 3:10):
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
⇒ Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3):
1The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
⇒ Isaiah (Isaiah 6:8):
8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
⇒ Peter & Andrew (Matthew 4:20):
20 At once they left their nets and followed him.
⇒ Paul (Acts 9:3-6):
3As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
But your work and where you live do not need to change in order to be called. And that’s the second kind of calling.
AW Tozer wrote, “The Apostle Paul teaches that every simple act of our lives may be sacramental. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” And again, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” This was extracted from a chapter entitled Sanctification of the Secular in his book Man – The dwelling place of God.
What this means is that there should be no distinction about the holiness,
spirituality or worthiness of work done by pastors, deacons, choir members, or committee members compared to work by nurses, factory workers, financial man agers, lab technicians, police officers, scientists, IT specialists, etc.
Sometimes we think our “ministry” at church is our service to God but our
work from Monday to Friday is not. We think someone who preaches is more Holy than someone who works as a landscaper. We think the one who leads the choir is serving God but the one who manages a department in a financial firm is not. Sometimes we try to find something to do in church so we can feel like we are serving God, but we forget that our work is serving God.
We are in fact serving God 24/7/365, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. No pastor or deacon or bishop has such a card. You must be the pastor for the people in your workplace.
We are all in full time ministry!
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV):
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
How can our work become our ministry to God. How can we declare the praises of Him in our daily lives and work.
1. Demonstrate the reality of God at work. [Miracles in the work place]
2. Care for colleagues (hospital visits, etc) [Story of redemption]
3. Praying for colleagues, clients, patients, managers, etc. as part of your personal time with God.
4. Speaking of God in practical ways with colleagues. [Sharing while traveling] 5. Bible studies with colleagues
6. Tithing on your income and giving to missions (e.g sponsoring Okocho children). Grow your income so you can grow your giving.
Anthony Rossi grew Tropicana into the largest fresh-chilled orange juice company in the world and donated millions to further the work of Bible schools and missionary services. He immi grated to the United States from Sicily at the age 21; unable to speak any English, without formal education, and with no money or connections to help him get started in America. Anthony Ros si went on to own many businesses and to eventually take over a small orange juice company in Bradenton, FL and through innovation, creativity and tenacity, transform it into the industry leader, Tropicana.
He began to give God the glory for the solutions to difficult problems and the development of new ideas. In turn, God took Anthony Rossi’s willing heart and developed him into a servant-leader who employed God given talents to benefit others and to be useful for God’s work in the world. His efforts to advance the Gospel through his Aurora Foundation were extraordinary; funding Christian Educational institutions and Christian missions, including the funding of a church in Anthony’s native Sicily and the creation of the Bradenton Missionary Village, a one hundred acre, $10M Florida com munity for retired missionaries. In a Town and Country Magazine in 1983, he was named one of the top ten most generous living Americans. To please God became the primary objective of Anthony Rossi.
7. Using your employment or career to live in a country where the gospel is not well represented (e.g.). “tent-making”). [Story from Dr. Christy Wil
son]
Let us not grow weary or lazy.
Isaiah 62:6b-7:
You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest and give Him no rest, till He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.
Are you called to serve the Lord in “full time ministry”?
1. Do you believe in God?
2. Do you have a relationship with God and able to listen?
3. Are you able and willing to obey?
4. Will you obey?
May7, 2023/Bro. Norm Richardson