Transcript & Slides: Vocational Fitness

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Vocational Fitness
By David Feddes

Vocation literally means "calling"—the thing that you're called to do. For Christians, that means the things that God has called you to do. Vocation often refers to our work or our career or the things that we're paid to do, but vocation involves a lot more than just your paid employment, though it certainly does include that as well.

So let's think together about vocational fitness and about the whole world of work. When we think about work, there are three major realities. One is that work is good and glorious because work is part of the original creation—the way that God designed things to be. Another reality of work is that work is hard and frustrating because humanity fell into sin, and that broke and messed up a lot of things, including the world of work. And a third reality of work is that work is transformed in Christ, because Jesus has come, and his work of redemption is transforming everything, including the world of work. So, as with many things, Christians think in a framework of creation, fall, and redemption. When we apply that to the world of work, we see the goodness of work, the difficulties of work, and the transformation of work in our Lord Jesus Christ.

At the creation, work was part of God's design for us. The Bible says that God created man in his own image; male and female he created them, and he said, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Genesis 1:28). The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15). So from the very beginning, we were created in God’s image.

What’s involved in being in God’s image? One thing it may mean is that we resemble God in certain ways—in abilities and capacities we have or in character that God gives us. But it also refers in particular to the fact that we rule on God’s behalf. In the ancient Near East—who were the first readers of the book of Genesis—they knew that when kings put an image in a certain area, it meant the king was putting his claim on that area as the ruler of that area. When God put humanity in his image on the earth, it meant that God was saying that he's the ruler of the earth and that he was going to rule the earth through us.

To fill the earth and to have dominion over it is what's called the "cultural mandate." God put people in the Garden of Eden. Now again, in the ancient Near East, a garden wasn't just a little place to grow some veggies and fruit. Very often a garden was also associated with the worship of the divine, and a garden was closely associated with a temple. So people who were placed in the Garden of Eden were actually tending God’s home or God’s temple. Part of the design of that was that they would expand—and keep expanding—that garden throughout the whole earth as they multiplied and subdued the rest of the earth, and turned it into a garden-temple for God to enjoy and for God’s people to enjoy.

All of that means that God appoints humans to cultivate creation and to develop culture. The original creation, in one sense, was perfect—it was made without sin and flaw—but in another sense, it wasn’t perfect in that it wasn’t fully matured yet. It was meant to become more than it was, for its potential to be brought out. Humans were appointed to do that—to cultivate the creation and make it more and more what it was meant to be, and to develop culture, and to develop various ways of doing things to bring out the potentials that God had placed in the creation and placed in humanity. Work was meant to do that: to cultivate and to develop culture.

Creation then involved being made in God’s image, as his rulers over creation—to cultivate it, to make the whole earth into a beautiful garden-temple for God. So work is glorious. Our Maker is a worker. God the Creator worked six days and rested and enjoyed the work that he had done (Genesis 2:2–3), and he designed us to be like him in that respect. Already in the Garden of Eden, before any sin had entered the world or anything had gone wrong, humans were working. So work is not just a necessary evil. Work is a good thing. In fact, work is a calling from God. When God blessed humanity and told us to rule, he gave us work to do. Our talents, our abilities come from God, and we use them for God's glory when we do the kind of work that he has assigned us to do.

If you read the Bible, you find that again and again it praises hard work, and it has some very tough words for lazybones and sluggards and people who don’t want to do any work (Proverbs 6:6–11; Proverbs 10:4–5; Proverbs 13:4). Work helps other people, and in helping others, as we help one another, we build our ties with each other. That’s another of the glorious purposes of work. So when we think of creation—of the original design—we know that work was a big part of it. And so we can say that work is, in fact, glorious.

But that’s not the whole story. Work is under a curse. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, God said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life... By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:17,19). And God said to Eve that her calling to bear children would also be very painful (Genesis 3:16). So pain and difficulty came into the creation through the fall of humanity into sin. Humanity’s sin brought a curse on the creation and made work painful in a lot of different ways. It made people a pain in the neck to work with. It made the ground something hard to work on. The original garden that God had made would have been a joy and quite easy to manage and to make good things come of. But now there’s a lot of sweat. There’s a lot of hardship.

When you’re on a job, plan on difficulties. Plan on things being a pain at times. “What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest” (Ecclesiastes 2:22–23). Or as an old country and western song put it, “Work your fingers to the bone—what do you get? Bony fingers.”

When you’re doing your work, you may be tempted to think that if things are really hard, or if some of the people that you’re with aren’t very pleasant to be around, you’re in the wrong position—you’ve got to find a place where the people are always fun and where the work is always enjoyable and successful. Well, good luck with that, because no matter where you work, you’re going to be working with some people who are hard to get along with—and you’re going to be one of them. You’re going to be doing work that isn’t always fun. So there may be times when you need to move on or to find a different kind of work or calling. But the fact of the matter is, any work that you do in this sin-ruined world is going to involve some difficulties and some hardship with the people you work with.

So let’s be realistic about that. Part of vocational fitness is knowing that we’re in a creation that has been affected by the curse, and so we’re going to have to be realistic about what a pain it is sometimes to be a worker. But we need to know beyond that too the further impact that we experience in our jobs.

Sometimes, when you work, you feel like a slave. It’s a nightmare job. In fact, the worst effects of the fall into sin that they've had on work came in slavery. Slavery is a situation where your boss treats you like property—he owns you. You feel like a slave. If you’re in a nightmare job, you may not actually be a slave, but you feel like that’s the way the boss treats you. Your tasks are tiresome and useless. They’re not fun. They don’t seem like they’re accomplishing anything. It feels like you’re wasting your time and getting tired in the process.

In slavery, the pay is low. You’re always broke. You can never seem to get ahead. And in a nightmare job, you never get promoted. There’s no way of moving up, and you’re stuck. You wish you could work somewhere else, but you can’t get a different position, and so you’re stuck with it. That’s what a nightmare job is like, and you feel like a slave.

Now what if you could have a dream job? Well, if you could have a dream job, you’d feel like royalty. If you could have a boss who is perfect and loves you—wouldn’t that be wonderful? The tasks are exciting and important in a dream job. The pay is high, and you ultimately end up sharing the company or sharing everything. The promotions are unlimited. You may start low, but you keep moving up and up and up. And it’s a great job, and you can’t lose it—you’ve got job security. Now isn’t that a dream job?

Well, the Bible says that a nightmare job can become a dream job through the redemption and through belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because when you belong to Jesus, you may have an earthly boss, but your real boss is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he’s perfect and he loves you. And whatever job you’re doing—whatever the tasks are—you have purposes in it that come from God, and they are exciting and important purposes. And we’re going to see more of that.

The Bible says that when you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, he shares all that he has—he shares his joy with you. The promotions are unlimited. Christ says, “You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things” (Matthew 25:21). In some of his parables, he speaks of people who took care of a sum of money being put in charge of entire cities (Luke 19:17). And the Bible says that God’s people in the future are going to reign even over the angels (1 Corinthians 6:3), and they will have perfect security. When we belong to Christ, nothing can separate us from his love or keep us from the destiny he’s appointed for us (Romans 8:38–39).

So we can talk about nightmare jobs, we can talk about dream jobs—and when we do that, we need to realize that your nightmare job can become your dream job. A new view of your work can turn a nightmare job into a dream job. How do you get that new view? When you get a new boss—the Lord Jesus Christ—and a new you—when you’re born again, when Christ lives in you. If your new boss is Jesus, then you can work heartily and you can count on his reward. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23–24).

It’s a tremendous thing to have this sense of calling, of belonging to God, and of doing your work because you belong to the Lord Jesus. So those are realities of work—it's good and glorious, it’s hard and frustrating at times, and it’s transformed in Christ.

Let’s talk about how work is transformed in Christ in a little more detail. We work for Christ. “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17). And here the apostle Paul was writing to people who were slaves. And he’s saying—even if you’re slaves—whatever you do, do it for Jesus. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23–24). That’s the key to it all: we work for Christ.

And, equally important, Christ works in us. When you’re working and you belong to Christ, it’s not just you—it’s Jesus in you. The same Christ lives and reigns in all believers by the same Holy Spirit. And Christ is so richly glorious that he can’t be fully expressed in any one of us. But more and more of him can be expressed through all of us. Christ displays himself in believers with different personalities, different abilities and talents, and different domains—areas where they’re working or areas where they have influence. And as that happens—Jesus is showing different facets of his glory and reign. So many, many different people who belong to Christ in very different areas of life are all showing different things about the one Christ’s glory and reign. We work for Christ, and Christ works in us. That makes a difference in the way we view our work and in the way we do it.

Martin Luther once spoke of “masks of God,” and I’ll explain a little more what that involves. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time” (Psalm 145:15). Well, how does God give us food? When we sit down at the table and give God thanks for food, do we expect food to magically appear on the table? No. We get it from the fridge, we cook it, and so on—and then it’s placed on the table. And yet, we thank God for it, because it ultimately comes from God—not just when we got it from the fridge, but where it originated.

Luther said, “God milks cows through the vocation of the milkmaids. These are the masks of God behind which he wants to remain concealed and do all things.” So God disguises himself as a milkmaid and gets those cows milked. Then once the dairy workers have gotten the cows milked, that milk goes into a tank—these days—that somebody manufactured. And it goes from that tank into a truck. And the truck driver hauls that milk—and he’s still wearing a mask of God—and he hauls that milk, and the milk ends up being distributed by a distributor. It goes to the grocery stores, where the various store owners and managers and store clerks and stockers get it on the shelves. And the checkout clerks help people to purchase the milk. And they drive it home in cars that somebody built. They put it on a table that somebody built. They’re sitting in a chair that somebody built. They’re drinking from a glass that somebody made.

And in all of that, the people who made all those things and did all those things were wearing God’s mask—or God’s uniform—as God was providing that glass of milk. And the same could be said for all kinds of things—that when we do work, God is wearing a mask, or God is wearing the uniform or the clothing we’re wearing, and God is making sure these things happen. Because he’s the one who gives food in due season (Psalm 104:27). He’s the one who gives clothes in due season. The people who make those clothes are doing God’s work. God is the one who cleans out your garbage—and he does it through the garbage people who come by with their trucks. God is the one who fixes your broken car—and he does it through that person wearing the mask of a mechanic, and the uniform of a mechanic. But really, God is at work behind all of that.

That’s how Luther saw the world of work—that all the workers doing things that are needed by other people are actually God in disguise, God concealed and doing all things through those people. So that’s a fantastic way to look at your work: to realize that God’s at work in you blessing others. And it’s a good way to look at other people’s work—so many different people doing so many different things that benefit each one of us. And we thank God for those things—but let’s also appreciate the people through whom God does those things.

The Bible speaks of the priesthood of all believers. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus has made us “a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father” (Revelation 1:6). The priesthood is not something that is held by a few high officials in a church body. The Bible says that all of us are God’s priests. In fact, Adam and Eve were priests in the garden. Gardening was the original priestly act, because they were taking care of that garden, which was meant to be God’s dwelling place and God’s temple, and to expand it throughout all the earth.

And still today, it is not just a small group of people who are ordained to a certain office of the church who are God’s priests. All believers are his priests. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). Not just the church or this or that area—but the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.

And when we have that view of the earth, and this biblical view of work, then Luther says the whole world could be filled with the service of God—not just the churches, but the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop, and the fields.

Brother Lawrence was a man who wrote a book called The Practice of the Presence of God, and his main job was actually working in the kitchen. Here was a person who, working in the kitchen, experienced the presence of God and wrote about it for the benefit of many other people. God in all of life—that’s our calling, our vocation in the world of work.

As we get into the world of work, there are many purposes that can be accomplished. One of those purposes is simply to make God’s truth attractive to the people who are your co-workers or your boss. The apostle Paul said, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody” (1 Thessalonians 4:11–12). If you want to win respect, being a lazybones and a moocher and a freeloader is not the way to do it. If you're a healthy, able-bodied person, then don’t be dependent on other people. Win their respect by leading a quiet life.

Some of us want the glamour. Some of us want to seem important. The Bible says just be an ordinary, reliable, quiet person who knows how to mind your own business and get some work done. And you know what? You might win more respect than if you’re a blowhard who may be talking about the gospel, and yet you’re not pulling your own weight—you’re not providing for your own needs; you’re just living off other people. So lead a quiet life, mind your business, work with your hands, and win the respect of outsiders. Make truth attractive.

Slaves were told to make truth attractive: “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:9–10). If you were a slave, the Scripture was saying to you: don’t go around just feeling sorry for yourself or resenting your master. If you are a slave who knows Jesus Christ and you have a master who doesn’t, you’re far better off than your master is. So try to make the teaching about God our Savior attractive to your master, so that your master can come to know the Lord Jesus as Savior just as you do.

Slaves were secret agents. They were secret agents for God—secret agents for the gospel. And Christian slaves could win people over. I love the story told by a famous Hollywood actor, who tells how once he decided that he needed to hire a maid. So he was interviewing some people, and a maid came—English was not her first language—and she said she wanted to work for him. He said, “Well, why do you want to work for me?” And she said, “Because I want to lead you to the Lord Jesus Christ.” Well, that actor was far, far from being a Christian, and he just laughed. But he found her an interesting person, thought she would be reliable and would do the job, so he hired her. And sure enough, this woman—who was a lowly maid, who only knew English as her second language, who did menial work around the house—led this rich, famous man to know the Lord Jesus Christ. She made truth attractive. And somebody who supposedly was much more important and rich and famous than she was, was influenced by her to come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s what the apostle Paul’s talking about. In this world of work, you can make truth attractive—even from the very lowliest position—by showing yourself to be a trustworthy person: somebody who doesn’t steal, somebody who doesn’t talk back, somebody who’s working hard to please your employer. You can make the truth attractive. That is one of the purposes to pursue in your work and in your calling and vocation: be godly, share the gospel, make the truth attractive.

It’s not the only purpose. These are some purposes that Tim Keller mentions in his book Every Good Endeavor, and we can’t say that one purpose is the only important one. They’re all quite important, and they’re complementary to each other. In some tasks and jobs, you can fulfill one or more of these purposes better than in another task or job, perhaps. But you can be godly and share the gospel. Just doing skillful, excellent work is a valuable purpose to pursue.

And of course, it’s very important. If you’re a surgeon, please do skillful, excellent work—or I might die. If you’re an airplane manufacturer or a pilot—please, please, please do your work well, or we’re going down. So it is a tremendous blessing just to have people who do skillful, excellent work in those occupations where your life depends on it. But also, we want farmers who raise nutritious food and don’t take a lot of shortcuts, who produce healthy food. We want people to do the best they can in every calling. And if you’re somebody who makes sandwiches as your job—make good ones. If you’re a person who takes away the garbage—take it away and clean everything out well. You are blessing other people and you are honoring God. That’s another purpose of work: you’re glorifying God by the way you do your work if you do it honorably and do it well.

Not only glorifying God, but sometimes shaping culture is one of the purposes of work. This is certainly true of entertainment and the arts—the kinds of stories you tell, the kind of movies you make, the kinds of books you write. Those kinds of occupations can really have a culture-shaping influence. People who are in political leadership can sometimes shape cultural things. But also just the way you live in your ordinary life, your ordinary quiet way of going about your job, can have a powerful influence on people.

You help society to flourish and be fair. Again, in some occupations, that’s almost your job. If you’re a policeman, your job is to restrain those who do evil and to protect those who are living rightly. If you’re a judge, you need to be fair and to implement justice. If you’re somebody who is a banker or a fund manager or a financier—somebody who deals with lots of money—you can help your society be more fair and to flourish better in the ways that you handle affairs of justice and of economics and of wealth.

Another element of pursuing purposes is just: what is work doing in your own life? If you’re joyful, work has it. We’ve already seen—it’s got its created good aspects; it’s got the curse aspect of sin. So there are going to be ups and downs. And when you have a career, or when you’re involved in various kinds of work—not just your paid career, but maybe your calling as a homemaker, or your calling to be a volunteer in various ways—there are going to be ups and downs. And as you go through those over time, it’s not just the work that you do, but what your work does to you. It shapes you. You go through those ups and downs with a joyful attitude, walking with the Lord, and you become stronger, you become more mature, and your work itself is shaping you to be God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10).

Another element or purpose of work is to pursue your heart’s passions. Sometimes God puts in you a desire to do something, and you see a task or a job or a calling where you can really throw your heart’s passion into that work. And you are a blessed person if you’re actually doing something for a living that you love to do. And for some of us, we do have that joy and that blessing. So a great purpose is just to express yourself and to reach your potential as a person by pursuing your heart’s passions.

And sometimes you will pursue your heart’s passions somewhere besides your paid employment. I know someone who loved acting and was pretty good at it but never made it huge in Hollywood—never made enough money at it to live on—but did quite a bit of acting in theaters and on the stage. And at the same time, to make a living, worked as a bookkeeper and sometimes worked as a cook. Acting was the real passion, but paid the bills with some of the other kinds of work—and did that work well also. So pursuing your heart’s passion may be involved in your paid employment, or may mean making sure that you’re still following some of those passions even if you can’t make money at it.

Here’s an important purpose: earn your own living and share. Earn enough to pay your own way if you're healthy and can do it. Make more than enough so that you can help other people who aren’t as fit or as blessed or just as able to make money as you are. These are all good purposes to pursue in work. They're noble purposes, godly purposes. One job may have more of one purpose than another. But even the ones that don't seem so glamorous—or it was not your heart's passion to take out garbage, it was not your heart’s passion to make sandwiches—but you're doing it, and you're making a living, and you're able to share perhaps with others from your job, and so it is a good thing to do and a noble and honorable thing to do.

These are just some of the purposes that we can pursue in our work.

How do you find your calling? Well, let me rephrase that: how do you find your callings? Because we all have more than one calling. Sometimes we associate calling with our career or our paid employment, and certainly that’s part of it—but not all of it. I’ve already mentioned a person who loved acting and was very good at it but also had other things that he needed to do. And I could give my own example.

What’s my calling? Well, I am called to be a pastor, and I am the pastor of a church. I’m called to be president of Christian Leaders College, so that’s something that’s part of my career and something I get paid to do. But I’m also a husband—that matters, and it's an important part of my calling. I’m a father and a grandfather, and so I need to direct attention and energies to fathering and grandfathering well. I’m a coach. I sometimes coach boys in basketball, and though I shouldn’t give as much of my time and energy to that as, say, a professional coach would, it’s one thing that I can do to help boys. I remember from my own life that when I was a boy, I was influenced and still have great memories of some of my volunteer coaches. They didn’t make money at it, and yet they made an impact through doing that.

So when I say “calling,” I want to say “callings.” Look at your own life. What are the things—the domains—that God has given you? We’ll think about that in a little more detail in a minute. But you have different talents. You have different domains. You have a lot of different things going on. So don’t think that your calling is just what you’re paid to do.

Think of the apostle Paul. What was his calling? Well, if you want to think about what he was paid to do—what his employment was—the apostle Paul made tents (Acts 18:3). I trust that he made good ones, and he tried to be faithful in his work at making good, solid tents. But was that his only calling—or even his most important calling? No. He was a great missionary and ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20). And making good tents was part of his calling—it helped him pay the bills—but spreading the gospel was a big part of his calling, in fact, his main calling.

I know some people who are missionaries in other countries, and they’re not there as missionaries—they’re there as software developers, they’re there in other occupations. They pay their own way. They make their living that way. But their real reason for taking a position in those countries was because those countries were closed to missionaries. And they took up paid employment. They do something useful there, but at the same time, they’re always alert, always looking for opportunities to let somebody know the gospel of Jesus Christ, or to encourage people who are already fellow believers.

Finding your calling—how do we discern our calling? Well, first of all, ask: What are your abilities? What are your resources?

What are your abilities? Let’s say you want to be a surgeon—but you’re not a good student, you just can’t do very well in school, and you happen to have a little problem with shakiness, and you’re squeamish around blood. Okay, I don’t think you’re called to be a surgeon. Because a surgeon has to have a very steady hand, has to be able to go through a ton of school and get stellar grades. And so, you’re probably cut out for a different calling—and not that of a surgeon.

When you think about your resources—it may be that right now, you just don’t have the resources to get yourself through law school or medical school. And so for a while, at least, you might have to work at something else—pursue a different kind of calling—even if that were your eventual calling.

So look at your abilities and your resources.

What are your preferences and your personality? What do you like doing? That doesn’t determine everything, but if you hate, hate, hate doing something, try to find a job that’s different than the thing you hate—because you might be doing it for a very long time.

What’s your personality? Take an example. Let’s say you’re an introvert. You’re just not comfortable introducing yourself to new people or striking up conversations with strangers—it’s just super hard for you to do that. My advice is: don’t go into sales. Because in sales, you have to say hi to strangers. You have to introduce yourself. And some people are very comfortable with that—but others aren’t. Find a position that suits your personality more.

What are your domains for impact? I had an opportunity to coach a group of little boys, and before I knew it, I’d been coaching for five or six years. I had a few boys in that age group, and wound up coaching them. I had other opportunities—much bigger, more important-seeming opportunities, such as my work as a pastor and professor—but this was a valuable opportunity too, to interact with boys, including my own sons.

You may have opportunities in your own life. What are your domains for impact? Well, if you’re married, you have the domain of marriage. If you have children, you have the domain of family, and you need to pursue that calling. Remember—even a full-time homemaker, don’t say, “Oh, I don’t have a job right now. I don’t have a calling right now.” You’ve got a big job, a huge calling, a wonderful calling if you’re a full-time homemaker in leading people in the ways of the Lord.

Sometimes you feel like a slave because you’re not getting paid to do it. Sometimes the work is maybe a little dull—when you’re changing diapers or cleaning floors—but that’s an important area for making an impact, and that may be your calling, at least for a season of your life.

Another question about calling is: how can you provide for yourself and others? How can you make money? How can you make a living? Because that’s an important element of it. You may end up doing something that wasn’t your greatest desire, but it pays, and you’re able to pay the bills—and it’s honest work. So go for it. You can’t just pretend that this is an unimportant question.

Some kids, for instance, want to grow up to be famous actors. Got news for you—there are only a handful of famous actors in the world. The other billions of us aren’t. We’re not famous. We’re not going to make it big in the movies. So if you want to make a living, you better have a plan besides, “I’m going to be a famous Hollywood actor someday.”

Or a lot of kids say, “Boy, I want to be a professional athlete. I want to play basketball for a living, or football or soccer or some other sport. I’m going to be a hockey superstar.” Well, the bad news is that most of us aren’t athletic wonders. We are not these marvels that the professional athletes are. And even those who are pretty good at sports have a very low likelihood of actually becoming a professional athlete—one in a million. So don’t let becoming a professional athlete be your only goal in life, because it’s unlikely to happen—even among the very finest athletes.

Have another plan. Even those athletes who do make it in the big leagues often lose all their money because they haven’t learned to manage things well in other aspects of their life. So learn other callings besides just being an athlete. And most of the time, you won’t be a pro athlete anyway. My point is: you’re not going to be able to provide for yourself just by playing sports all day in most cases.

Closely related to that—what can you do that others want?

Jobs change. A hundred years ago or 150 years ago, many, many, many jobs were in agriculture. But with the invention of tractors and harvesters and all kinds of farming equipment, most of the jobs that were in agriculture are gone. So you’re not going to be a person who makes a living picking corn ears, probably—because a machine does that now. You’re not going to be somebody who beats on the wheat and then has the wind blow away the chaff and then you sift out the wheat. In some countries, it may still be done that way, but increasingly that’s done by mechanization.

So you need to be able to do things that are wanted by people today. In discerning “What is my job or occupation going to be?” think about: what do other people want? What would they pay me to do?

And then realize that your calling is not just what you might be doing someday. You can have goals. You can work toward a different occupation or different kinds of work than you’re doing now. But what’s your present situation? Because that’s the only thing you know for sure that you have.

Are you making the most of right now? Maybe five years from now you’ll be working in a more desirable job. Or twelve years from now, you’ll have all the education and things wrapped up and be in a great position. But right now is when you need to live.

The apostle urges us to bloom where we’re planted. Again, his advice for slaves: “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so” (1 Corinthians 7:20–21). The apostle Paul was not in favor of slavery; he was not a defender of slavery. He said, “If you can get out of it, then get out of it. Get a better position.” But if you are a slave, don’t let it wreck your life. Don’t let it trouble you, because you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. You can serve his purposes even in that kind of position.

So in short: seize better opportunities if they come, but first excel in your present situation. Because if you excel in your present situation and prove faithful there, perhaps other things are coming along.

I love the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph was sold by his own brothers into slavery. And what happened? He became the best slave in the whole place and was put in charge of everything (Genesis 39:4). Then he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. So what did he do? He became the best prisoner in the prison and was soon in charge of the prison (Genesis 39:22–23). And eventually, the king of Egypt put him in charge of Egypt (Genesis 41:41).

So whatever your situation is right now—be faithful in that, and you never know what God might make of you in the future. Just excel in what you’re doing now. Take whatever callings you have, whatever domain you have right now—in your family, in your volunteer work, in your paid positions—whatever it is you do, do it to the Lord. Do it to honor him. “It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:24).

With Christ as your boss, you need to be able to do that. In this whole world of work, we’ve got these realities: that work is good and glorious; that it’s hard and frustrating; that work is transformed in Christ. And we need to live in light of those realities—with the reality of Jesus at work in us, and we working on his behalf. Because you know what? Most of your life is spent at various kinds of work or activities or tasks. And if you’re not doing that for the Lord, then you’re missing out on many of the purposes God has in your life. And if you’re not doing it for him with the joy that comes from him, you’re missing out on a lot of what you could be doing.

So vocational fitness is all about having this sense of calling, of purpose, of knowing that right now—this is where God has put me. These are the opportunities he’s given me. And I work for Christ, and Christ is working in me.

Vocational Fitness
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Realities of work

• Creation
: Work is good and glorious.
• Fall
: Work is hard and frustrating.
• Redemption
: Work is transformed in Christ.

Cultural mandate

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion… The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 1:28; 2:15)

God appoints humans to cultivate creation and develop culture.

Glorious work

• Our Maker is a worker.
• Humans worked in Eden.
• Work is a calling from God.
• Talents are abilities from God.
• Scripture praises hard work.
• Work helps others and builds our ties with each other.

Work under a curse

Cursed is the ground because of you; 
through painful toil you will eat of it 
all the days of your life… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food. (Genesis 3:17-19)

Humanity’s sin brought a curse on the creation and made work painful.

What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23)

Nightmare job: You feel like a slave!

• Boss treats you like property.
• Tasks are tiresome and useless.
• Pay is low; you’re always broke.
• Promotions are unavailable.
• Stuck with no other choice.

Dream job: You feel like royalty!

• Boss is perfect and loves you.
• Tasks are exciting and important.
• Pay leads to share of everything.
• Promotions are unlimited.
• Secure in any situation.

Your nightmare job can 
become your dream job.

• A new view of your work can turn a nightmare job into a dream job.
• This new view comes when you get a new boss and a new you.
• If your new boss is Jesus, work heartily and count on His reward.

Working for Christ

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus … Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Colossians 3:23-24)

Christ working in us

• The same Christ lives and reigns in all  believers by the same Spirit.
• Christ is so richly glorious that he cannot be fully expressed in any one of us.
• Christ displays himself in believers with different personalities and different domains, showing different facets of the one Christ’s glory and reign.

Masks of God

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. (Ps 145:16)

God milks cows through the vocation of the milk maids… These are the masks of God, behind which he wants to remain concealed and do all things. (Luther)

Priesthood of 
all believers

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. (1 Peter 2:9)

Jesus has made us a kingdom of priests for God his Father. (Revelation 1:6)

It is pure invention that pope, bishop, priests and monks are called the spiritual estate… All Christians are truly of the spiritual estate… We are all consecrated priests through baptism. (Martin Luther)

God in all of life

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. (Psalm 24:1)

The whole world could be filled with the service of God—not just the churches, but the home, the kitchen, the cellar, the workshop and the fields. (Luther)

Make truth attractive

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands ... so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. (Titus 2:9-10)

Purposes to pursue

• Be godly and share gospel.
• Do skillful, excellent work.
• Glorify God and shape culture.
• Help society flourish and be fair.
• Be joyful amid ups and downs.
• Pursue your heart’s passions.

• Earn your own living and share.

Find your calling(s)

• What are your abilities and resources?
• What are your preferences & personality?
• What are your domains for impact?
• How can you provide for self & others?
• What can you do that others want?
• What is your present situation?

Bloom where planted

Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so. (1 Corinthians 7:20-21)

Seize better opportunities if they come, but first excel in your present situation.

Realities of work

• Creation
: Work is good and glorious.
• Fall
: Work is hard and frustrating.
• Redemption
: Work is transformed in Christ.