Bi Vocational
Luke 5:1-11
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.
God uses networks of people (networks, see the fishing net up here), God uses networks of people that are there is the right time and the right place to ctach us up into God’s saving purpose. Think for a moment of why you are here today. You’re here because of people you met along the way who influenced you for Christ. When I think of who can I blame for being here, I think of the first line of people, my Sunday School teachers and church camp counselors. I remember Steve Cox, one of the best storytellers and pastors I have ever encountered. I remember in particular Mary Montello who taught a 3 year survey of the Bible for Sopmores through juniors and ran the class like a drill sergeant. She bent the rules and allowed me to start my freshman year. I think of the leaders of the Happening, a weekend spiritual retreat for high schoolers, who approached me to serve on staff and eventually become the rector of a Happening #12. I remember Craig Maughn, my high school principle and Christian who saw in me the gift of leadership and encouraged me to run for Student Body President. I remember the head of the Philosophy Department of Newcomb College who taught me 1 on 1 for an entire semester in advanced religious philosophy in preparation for seminary. I remember Blaine Frierson who mentored me on staff when I was an intern pastor at Boston Avenue UMC. All of these people were a part of God’s network and were there in my life at just the right time and the right place.
God’s strategy is to send missionaries who are bi-vocational into the world to use their networks to influence people toward Jesus and His saving purpose for their life. So Christians bring a different perspective to work. We work not for wealth, money or power. We work to honor and glorify God and to do His saving work in the lives of others by influencing them for Jesus. Our mission at work is to extend God’s influence in the world. So we go to work to be a vehicle of influence for God’s purpose in the lives of others.
Second, you can serve God at your work, no matter what it is. Remember the story of Daniel and the lion’s den? Daniel was one of the Jewish leaders carried away to captivity in Babylon, taken from Jerusalem where people were commtted to the same faith and same Godd. But now he is in a totally pagan environment in Babylon. As time passed, King Nebuchadnezzar appointed him a government official. He became a government bureaucrat in pagan land which is about as far away from God as you can get. But as Daniel worked in his government office doing all his government duties, and he was able to serve God. And King Nebuchadnezzar respected Daniel’s faithfulness to God and Daniel rose higher and higher among the leaders of the country. Daniel worked in a pagan environment, in a pagan office and for a pagan king yet, the one thing that pagan king knew about Daniel was that Daniel served God continually.
No matter what you do, you can serve God. Carroll Cotton is a United Methodist in Baton Rouge. He was working for one of the casinos in town and began to have second thoughts about it because of his fatih. He went to his pastor and began to discuss the dilemma with him when the pastor finally said, “Caroll, if you leave your job, whose going to be there to represent Jesus and do his work in the midst of that casino?” And so he stayed on and began to be a representative of Jesus and allow Jesus to use him as he saw fit in the lives of those who worked at the casino. It doesn’t mater what you do, you can serve God at your work. You can be his representative. You can be his instrument to accomplish his will. It’s more than about money. Your work is the vehicle through which God serves His purpose. God delights in taking ordinary people determined to be faithful to God and infusing them with extra-ordinary power to do extra-ordinary things in the lives of others. And when that happens, God always is glorified.
Third, through your work, people get a better perspective of God. Through your work, how people see you and Christ in you, they will have a better perspective of the real Jesus.. There are four characteristics that we see in disciple’s work that make God more visible to the people around them. These become our witness. First is excellence. We need to be motivated to give God, not the company or our boss or our co-workers but God our very best. There is nothing worse than one who professes faith in Jesus but then demonstrates mediocre work. The first thing that other people need to see in our lives as Christians is excellence. Second, go the extra mile. When Jesus had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything." What they were saying is, “We’re off the clock. We’ve punched out. We’ve cleaned the nets. We’re done for the day.” Ever had someone come to you just as you were leaving work and asked you to do one more thing? Some of the best work for God you’ll ever do is pro bono work which means something done without compensation for the good of another and that’s usually after hours. Christians go the extra mile. Third is perseverance. These guys had worked all night. They had had no results and it seemed hopeless. They were exhausted but they were willing to do it again. They didn’t quit! As a follower of Jesus, you can’t quit, even when there is no fruit. Fourth is selfless servanthood. Even though they had cleaned their nets and were ready to go home, they saw the Master’s need and sought to meet it. Christians always put the needs of others ahead of their own. Frank Ishmel was making more as a sales person that the President of the company. He sells touch screens and heat capaciters to engineering companies. He was making a call on an engineering firm and was ready to close a deal worth 100’s of 1000’s of dollars and as he was looking over the plans, he said to his customer: “I’ll tell you what. Our competitor’s component will serve you better than ours for what you want to accomplish.” He just sold his competitor’s product. Why? Because he lives by “Do unto others what they would have them do unto you.” He helped that man. When asked why he said, Can you imagine what would happen to this man if my product had failed down the line? Followers of Jesus work to serve other people. And guess who that man’s going to call the next time he has a deal to make, the one who had his back.
Fifth is their fruit. When they had excellence, went the extra mile, persevered, and were servants of other, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. When you do these things, your fruit is going to be different and people will take notice. And they will come and ask you a question: “Why?” You haven’t mentioned God for one moment but now you have the opportunity. Wherever you work, people are going to look at your life and ask and then you have the opportunity to tell them that it’s Jesus that floats your boat. There’s nothing worse than those Christians who tell you what you need. Jesus method was simply to invite people he worked with to participate in what God is doing in the world. It’s more than teaching or welding or selling or whatever you do, it’s about inviting people to participate in what God’s mission.
Your job is a gift. Why? Because you have the opportunity to influence others for the mission of God. Through our work, the redemptive purpose of God is accomplished. The whole purpose of why God has you in place where you are is this: “from now on you will catch men." You are in the right place in the right time for God to use you to catch some people around you up into God’s saving purpose. You may not even be aware of who those people are right now, but God will use you. All you have to do is look at your job not as a way to pay the bills or attain a better life but as God’s instrument to accomplish his will in your area of influence.
Here’s the two keys, if you get nothing else, get this today: first, Simon realizes he is a sinner and thus unworthy of the calling laid upon him. But Jesus chooses him anyway and gives him a greater purpose in life: catching people up into God’s saving purpose. And God can use you too. Jesus would go on to say to him, Peter, I know you are week like a reed (that’s what Simon, his original name, means) but he says I know you’re going to be solid like a rock. God is aying the same to you. Second, it’s all a matter of perspective. Most of you will never leave your profession, you just need to change your picture of your work and your purpose and realize you’re not working for money but you are working to have influence for God’s mission right where you are.
