Sermon Central
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Bi Vocational Series
Contributed by Tim Smith on Oct 20, 2010 (message contributor)
Summary: One of our problems in life is that we divide everything into the sacred and secular. We are great at compartmentalizing things: over here is the secular, and over there is the sacred. The reality is that we spend the majority of our hours every day in th
Bi Vocational
On Sunday afternoon, Tommy Grace and I were hanging out and he said, “Tomorrow’s Monday isn’t it?” Yep, I said. “I hate Mondays.” And I said to Tommy, “I was thinking something entirely different:. I can’t wait to get to work tomorrow.” What about you? "Do you like your job? How many of you look forward to going to work on Monday mornings? How many of you can hardly wait to get back to work?" Now if you answered "Yes" to any of those questions, then you’re in the minority. Surveys reveal that 65% of American workers are unhappy with their jobs. Many of them go to work simply because they have no other choice because they’ve got bills to pay. They would probably tell you that they are unhappy with what they do because it is the same old routine day after day, and their life seems to be a meaningless merry-go-round with no real purpose to it. What if we could change all of that? It may not be so much an issue of changing our job as changing our perception of our work.
One of our problems in life is that we divide everything into the sacred and secular. We are great at compartmentalizing things: over here is the secular, and over there is the sacred. The reality is that we spend the majority of our hours every day in the secular world. We’d really like to serve God, but we have to spend so much time on our secular job. So we give God an hour or two on Sunday morning and that’s about it for alot of people. You can see that sacred and secular pattern in the Old Testament which says, "Over here is the sacred temple with its priests, and everything else is secular." But the New Testament teaches that we’re all priests, our body is a temple, God’s Holy Spirit lives in us, every day is holy and God can be a part of everything we do.
The second problem is that we have come to believe that the work of God is for professionals. We believe the institutional church hires a few professional ministers to do all the work, ministry and evangelism of the church and the rest of the people in the pews are passive participants. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus didn’t die so the church could hire a few professionals to get people into the church. He died so he could get the church, that’s you and me, into the world. So God’s strategy to catch up people into his saving purpose is to send missionaries who are bi-vocational in into the world. Tell the person next to you your profession.
That’s your vocation. The word “vocation” literally means calling. It was the great church reformer Martin Luther in the 16th century, who expanded the understanding of vocation from a special calling to religious life as a priest or a monk to the life and work of all Christians in response to God’s call. Luther insisted that every occupation has its own honor before God, as well as its own requirements and duties. So what if we began to look at the work of God and our work as one in the same? With this in mind, I want you to see three things this morning.
First, your work can serve God’s purpose. Verse 1-3. Now picture for a moment the scene of today’s scripture. There is a crowd of people and they are growing to such large numbers that they are straining to hear the word of God. What we need to understand is that everyone around us hungers for an experience of the presence of God. They can’t identify that hunger within them as such but God has created every human being with a vacuum in their heart that can’t be filled with anything else other than his presence through the person of Jesus Christ. Everyone has that hunger within them.
Now Jesus turns around and sees two boats behind him that belong to fisherman. Notice what Jesus says to these fishermen: I need your boat. I need that with which you do your work. I want you to hear this: Jesus is saying, “I need your job which becomes the vehicle of God’s entrance into your world and the world of the people around you.” Your real worship is not the hour you spend in these walls. Your worship is your life and everything you do with it. And that includes what you do with the majority of your life each week: your work. Your work can become your worship of God. It can become the vehicle of God’s influence. How can God use you as a vehicle of his influence? The answer is simple: networks.
