Vocation

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0:00 Okay, what's something unbelievable that you heard recently? Something that you heard recently in time to believe. Unbelievable. I remember, I shared it a couple of weeks ago, but I saw on the news that this mass of lady bugs was messing up, uh, weather, guys, stopler radar in Southern California, because it looked like a cloud, but it wasn't a cloud. It was like eight miles wide, it's like, migrating lady bugs in the sky, and in California, it's

0:36 kind of hard to believe. What else have you heard recently in the target of the week? We're running on sand. Running on sand? Yeah. Oh, that's sand. How did we run on the sand? What do we need? It just takes them from the ocean. What's the big deal? We're running out of doing, too?

1:08 Wait, what was that? No. They closed a third of all-party city stores, because there was not enough people in it. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. That's unbelievable. I think that would come up in the story of Scripture a little bit this morning, things

1:40 that are unbelievable, but before we do that, I want to give us some space to move through our call to worship. The call to worship is intended to be a minor demarcation. It says the next hour issue is set apart or something different. It's a different time from the week or from the time before and the time after. And so the call to worship is going to have demarcation. It says the next hour is set apart to connect with God. It's meant to be something that starts us looking in that direction. The call to worship for this morning is Psalm 99.

2:13 It says this. The Lord reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim, so let the earth quake. The Lord is great and Zion. He is exalted over all the people. Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is He. The king in his might loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed justice and righteousness and Jacob.

2:46 Exalt the Lord our God. Worship at his footstool. Footstool. Holy is He. Moses and Aaron were among his priests. Samuel also was among those who called upon his name. They called the Lord in the answer then. In the pillar of the cloud, he spoke to them. They kept his testimonies and the statue that he gave them. Oh Lord our God, you answered them. You were a forgiving God to them, but in the avenger of their wrongdoings.

3:20 Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain. For the Lord our God is holy. And we thank you that you are unique and set apart for the purpose of giving life. Redemption and salvation. Give life to us this morning. We be must and save us this morning. And Lord having saved us would you also set us to work.

3:52 That is satisfying and fulfilling. In Jesus and we pray. So we've been thinking about like an extended reflection on the ramifications of the resurrection. So Jesus we celebrated the resurrection at Eastern. And that we had a whole season of looking at what it means that we live in a world where Jesus has inaugurated a new reign or a new kingdom.

4:28 And then that celebration of the resurrection culminated with Pentecost where we look at Jesus didn't stay on earth and his resurrected body but ascended and he told his followers that he was ascending in order that together with the Father he could send the Spirit again. And the story of the Spirit in the scriptures is really compelling. The Spirit is but howers over the waters of creation. The Spirit is what's breathed into the first ones to animate the bodies up out of the dust.

5:02 The Spirit at very specific times the Spirit comes upon people in the Old Testament or the Jewish Bible for specific purposes. David needs to be anointed in order to be able to be king. Moses it comes upon Moses in order to go and deliver the people. Deborah in order to be a judge married with Spirit overshadows married in order to incarnate the person of God in the flesh of Jesus. But we saw in Pentecost that great original Spirit is released again in this permanent anoint God's people young and old men and women.

5:40 Everybody gets the Spirit of God and the question coming out of Pentecost has been what are we intended to do? What are we made to do now that we have this original life-giving, salvific spirit? And I think like the short answer is that God gives us the Spirit in order that light Adam and Eve we might be able to live.

6:10 Live well and full. But the question of what does it need to live well? How then do we live well? It's a legitimate question because we have a lot of options on how we might live. I was thinking about that a little bit earlier this week because I was telling the story of this first trip that I took down to Guatemala to meet the folks we were reading by Coffee from Fulfrito.

6:46 They live in a very remote situation. A lot of times the roads up out of the mountains where they are washed out so much that you can't get up there. It was about nine years ago that I went down there and they were still coming out of civil war. There's very little infrastructure up there so there's very little to know police force. It's kind of vigilante government. And everybody, you're just really brutally opposed to somebody who tries to steal or break the law.

7:23 You carry guns. You grow your corn and beans and eat that and then try and grow enough coffee to sell that to buy the things that you can't grow. It's like subsistence living, right? Rural Guatemala. And I was there with a friend of mine who was trying to be a counselor. And we were riding a bag of kiddo truck watching little kids carry the corn down inside the mountain.

7:53 And I was like, I feel like there's not a lot of counselors here. People are not, they don't have time to consider their kind of existential crises or to deal with their depression. They're like worried about making sure they have enough food. And I think a version of that is something that I encounter a lot with myself and with friends. A lot of our life-based needs are kind of covered like so that a lot of times we have a lot of space

8:27 to ponder the question, what am I really called to do? What do I really, like what is my purpose or we have a lot of space to consider that? And I think that's like this great luxury, but sometimes that turns into a thing where we're just like over analyzing our every kind of intuition and emotion trying to discern what the ultimate answer for our life is. Like somehow we'll have, there's a preferred system of choices.

9:02 If our life is a path of force, there's a successive choice of different forks that will lead us to exactly the right place where we're supposed to be in life. And the luxury of being able to imagine that creates kind of anxiety for us. And it was at a particular point in my life, shortly before I made that trip to Guatemala where I was like kind of sitting in that space like, oh man, I am not satisfied or particularly fulfilled.

9:35 I'm more frustrated than satisfied with my life and I'm trying to figure out which set of choices will give me to a life that I'm satisfied and away from a life that is frustrating. And I was trying to like, I came up with this phrase, I was trying to micro-manage my future. I was trying to like imagine, like if life were a chesting, I was predicting all of the moves in order to get me to the checkmate of satisfaction.

10:06 As if I were capable of controlling my future. As if I could chart a course that no circumstance could interrupt. And it was somewhere in that, like in that, where I was like trying to predict my move and then how the world would respond and then how my next move would be in the world.

10:36 It was somewhere in that where I like that little phrase, it's in the scriptures, trust me, we can look it up at another time. So I'm talking to my head, tomorrow has enough evil for itself. Who of you by worrying can add even a single hour to your life to the span of your life? Tomorrow has enough evil for itself to worry about today. And that's when I was like, why am I like thinking that I could micro-manage my future?

11:09 If I were instead of doing all of the gates on myself to discern the ultimate calling that will lead the satisfaction, if I were instead of taking the energy that's looking inward, deeply trying to imagine my unique calling in life, if I were to take, instead of putting my energy to that, if I were to take seriously the callings that need no introspection, the callings that are sticking me in the face,

11:43 if I were to take seriously those callings and move toward them with intent and purpose, maybe God can handle my future and I'll try and handle today. And that's when I started stacking what really is my location, what really am I called to? That's what we've been looking at last several weeks. If you want to know what to do with a life that is imbibed with the primordial spirit of God, start first by the leveling in a way that creates family around you.

12:27 That there's something about familial love that is a solid ground for people to stand on. When you know that you are in a family that loves you, it is standing firmly upon the ground and being able to move confidently to the life. You have been given the original spirit of God in order that you would love families into existence around you. And then having an avid family, considering seriously the calling to love that family well or cultivate a family around you,

13:07 then know that God is giving you the opportunity to glimpse his ultimate and infinite care. Today, like in churches, we take those families and we put them in the churches. I thought that passage that we looked at a couple of weeks ago was in Ephesians, it was like kind of crazy. Because it said that Azam is giving you his spirit in order that you could put up with people in churches around you.

13:43 Because it would take that. We are all messed up and broken. We have blind spots and shortcomings. And this is a pretty tight knit group. The church broadly is really messed up. And if we were to give up on the reign of God because of its broken people, then we are the ones that miss out.

14:17 And Paul said in Ephesians that God has given you his spirit in order that you could put up with one another and begin to glimpse the reign of God in his people, the kingdom of God, the people of God. We have part of the people who have gotten now this side of the grave. So what should we do with ourselves? Love in families. Take those families in the churches. And lastly, we looked at this idea that we have been put into cities that Jesus cares about the welfare of people, not because he has to, but because he is someone who from his core cares about people.

15:02 So that when he sees brokenness in the towns and cities where he lives, he moves towards them and loves them in a way that they would receive. And it occurs to me that we have the capacity to be like that. That we have the capacity to be folks who increase the welfare of the cities that we live, not because we have to, but because we can't not do it. Because we see brokenness, we see things that are messed up, we see inequity and injustice, we see greed as opposed to mercy, and we can't not do what we can.

15:39 You are the people who increase welfare of cities because you have the capacity to love well, to care authentically. So when I was trying to micromanage my future and I realized that as a fool's errand, I started to take seriously how do I love the family well? How do I, how am I fully present in my own church?

16:09 And how do I work for the welfare of the city? Well, still paying my bills. Well, still paying my bills. That's where it's like, it's a fun, a kind of academic exercise. Let's look at what vocation is, and then Monday I got to go to work. So I want to look at Roman Chapter 12 with you.

16:41 You see that text. Thank you. Don't care about that. Roman Chapter 12. You know, because we said it here before, Paul's a genius. Paul, who, the first kind of, the apostle to the Gentiles. Started so much of the church, wrote a bunch of letters. Roman is like his magnificence.

17:11 It's like his great treatise. They call it Paul's gospel. The really fun thing to think about is Paul's, Paul understood the system of first-century Judaism as well as anyone in the world. Why he was so zealous to stamp out the way of Jesus until Jesus himself came down and appeared on the road to Damascus. But what's really fun for me to think about is that after that appearance to Saul and read in the end of the Paul, he goes to Damascus and waits there for three years.

17:48 After he meets Jesus, he's hanging out with the Christians and in about three years. Some theologians have written about what Paul was doing for those three years. Paul's a genius. He understood first-century Judaism. My thought is, and several theologians, I don't know how I can reach my thought, I believe in several people. He was working backwards from the appearance of Jesus on Damascus and the trickulating the knowledge of who Jesus Christ was in with his understanding of first-century Judaism and building a notion of the gospel based on those two things that then powered the first-century church, especially in the Roman Empire.

18:42 That we could say that his letter to the Romans is the culmination of three years of exploration, marrying the bodily visitation of Jesus with the extreme knowledge of first-century Judaism to come up with an encapsulated product. This is the good news that will enliven the world until Christ's return. And he writes all in Romans, which is why Romans is long and dense but beautiful, every bit of it. And Romans 12 at the beginning is a section that's quoted a lot, but I want us to think about it a little bit here more deeply than just looking at the language because it is beautiful.

19:21 But the beginning of Romans 12, it says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. I think there's a lot of ways that we could think about this, but one way I'd invite you to think about it today, having like stacked up all of these notions of vocation, the priesthood of believers, the family, the church, the city, but I've got to get up and go to work on the morning in Monday

19:56 and what is my future look like. I'm pretty anxious about that. One thing Paul says right away is just present your whole self as a living sacrifice to God, but I don't know what the future holds and I'm okay with that. I can't control where I'll end up tomorrow, let alone 20 years from now.

20:27 And I'm okay with you going and me not. The work of that happens in all of the themes we build for security. I'm not inviting you to be irresponsible. I'm inviting you to think to change the way that you think about how you're setting up your investments. What room you're making with your career choices. What future is your plan for your kids. I'm not telling you to stop doing those things. I'm telling you to stop to change the way that you think about those things.

21:06 So the future of those is in the hands of God and your scope of your responsibility shrinks down to faithful choices today. Today I will take seriously that power in your priest in the world. That you have given me the capacity to love in a way that substantiates families. That you have invited me to participate in your nation on earth as it exists in the church.

21:36 That you put me in a city in order that welfare would increase. I'm streaking the scope of my faithfulness today and I am trusting you with my future. Here's what faithfulness today looks like. I'm presenting my whole self to you. How will you love and serve and build and create today? Paul says part of the gospel is to present your whole self as a living sacrifice.

22:08 The freedom of life on this side of the resurrection and enterprise is that that is possible for you. God has dispatched his Holy Spirit into your heart and mind in order that you could be the type of person that offers your whole self as a living sacrifice to him today. Paul says I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God, by the mercies of God, by his generosity and gift.

22:41 Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Verse 2 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Paul locates the work of presenting your body as a living sacrifice to God as changing the way that you think.

23:15 What does it take to trust someone besides yourself with your future? There is a mode of operation in the world that says your bank account is your security. Best financial practice. Very first set up a rainy day fund or an emergency fund.

23:45 Get that set up first. It should be the next number of months of your salary. Get that set aside first. Boom. Pay off your small credit card first. Take your next credit card, get your security tied to your dog. Do that first. Your money is where your security lies. Your career path is where your worth in life runs. There is a way of thinking in the world that you will have to renew and change.

24:19 If you are going to fully present your body as a living sacrifice, if you are going to trust, not that you will be responsible the moment, but that you will change the way that you think about those things. Set up a rainy day fund. That seems smart. But that may go away tomorrow too. And if your security is in the rainy day fund, you have set up your failed invitation of Christ, that you would not be set up to fail. That you would locate your security in the God who bought you and saved you. You are going to have to renew the way that you think about who you are in the world and what you are up to.

24:54 Loving and substantiating families, participating in his nation on earth and the church, increasing the welfare of the city. You are going to have to renew the way that you think about things. You will not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God was good, acceptable, perfect. For me, this looks like taking seriously these invitations and putting action to them.

25:25 Like, okay, I would like to increase the welfare of the city. How would I do that? The thing that popped into my head is to find somebody to serve. Okay, cool. So then I have Google search, serve Orlando. How do I serve in Orlando? Just put it in Google and start going through the options that come up.

25:57 I am talking about taking that literally. Why not? Go to the family and say how like, go to the family or your version of that. Whether that's the close friends that you spend most of your time with, the people who are in the house that you, the family of origin that you came from, and ask them how loved do you feel by me. In what way could I demonstrate deeper love to you?

26:31 And ask for genuine answers back that give you things to do. Here's why I see that with turn-to-face or an act of turn-to-face you may become Romans 12, verse 3. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than any other thing, but to think with Joe sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

27:03 What, what taking the vocation that seriously forced me to do, what like Google searching, how do I serve Orlando or taking seriously to call, how do I love my family? A forced me for a few minutes to abandon my steam to the future. There were other things I could not do because I was going to do this thing. And I had, and then said, look, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned me.

27:34 When I go to the search, how do I serve Orlando? I like, wait until there was something that I actually cared about. I went through the list of very valuable things that I ought to care about that I actually did not care at all about. I didn't have to tell anyone because it was just me and the spring. Google might like watch what I put down or something, but they're not going to meet that against me just to show me stuff, right? So there was no one else that had to be embarrassed about.

28:04 I could skip over the things that I didn't care. I don't care about that. I don't care about this. I don't care about this. That's when I started working with the Boys and Girls Club. They were at the time the only Boys and Girls Club inside the Coalition for the, inside a Coalition for the Homeless in the country. I thought, man, these kids do not have a choice. They're staying at the Coalition for the Homeless. And they're just there and there. So I went in and said, Hey, how can I help? I'm not great with kids. Most kids I don't really like.

28:39 I'm not very good with kids. I said, but I have some kids and so the fact that you're, so I said, I like my kids, right? But don't tell me how I can help us spend an hour a week when you're kids. I'm not very good at that. I know it gave me something to plan for you. Because I'm good. I can plan things. I can make a new strategy and get something done. And I can on to some people to come help and organize something for you. That's what I'm good at.

29:09 And that was the very first thing I did. When I walked in and I said, what can I do for you? Don't say, they said, can you cook? I said, well, I mean, I didn't cook dinner. They thought that was fun. I ended up organizing the end of summer party forum and it's fantastic. I don't know if friends would do it. And I did not see where that would go. That was like 10 years ago. And it has led to friendships that illuminated my sense of who I am. It built networks in the city. It animated whole sections of my life. I could not have predicted.

29:46 That was not a chest move that I saw coming. But here's what I want you to see. It was each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. I took the size step that I had the capacity for. Literally, it was like Google search, the city. When I did a church-frame assessment, I was leaving seminary.

30:18 And by then it was looking like I was going to get a call off of my dad's church and like Mary. I knew that they would want people to start churches. And so they said, why don't you go to this little assessment? It's 14 hours over two days. It's a lot of work. But they'll say whether you have the right skillset to try and start a church. And so I went to this thing and I'm good at giving people the lightning so they're local. They gave me one slow mark. They said, this guy is very started church with one exception.

30:51 He doesn't see the point in serving the community. And they were right. They asked me, what about service? How would you get the city? I said, man, every time I've seen a church serve, it's like a baby switch thing. They're serving just enough to get people to come to their thing on Sunday morning. It's a marketing thing. And so I don't think churches, it's hard for churches to do well. Just churches shouldn't do it. So what I ended doing was serving and not mentioning the church at all.

31:23 Because I did not want to be based, which I wanted to be to the court of the measure that I had to actually care about the people around me. Not some tool to get them to come to something. When I was able to move with a little bit of measure that I had, Google search, how do I serve a city? The second little prayer. So it was first, tomorrow hasn't got to be able for itself. The next one was, he was faithful with a few things will be faithful with much.

31:53 Jesus says that in Luke chapter 16, I looked up on a prayer so you could believe in the day of 7. He was faithful with a few things will be faithful with much. When I moved towards faithfulness in the day by caring about the welfare of the city, my faith increased enough to take another step. I said, I should start a whole nonprofit around trying to service them.

32:24 Let me write a strategy. Let me invite people to a board. My faith in peace is just enough to feel, I like this working with this boys and girls club, caring about people in the city without strings attached. Let me start a nonprofit though. And then that time he was faithful with a few things will be faithful with much. My faith began to increase because the spirit inside of me is real. And he does care about my future. And the capacity to be a person who works for the welfare of the city is a real offer.

32:58 For by grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought as though you can secure your own future. As though you have the power to predict where you will be or how your life will go. But to think of himself was so judgment. Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned because his faith is a few things will be faithful with much. For as in one body we have many members, the members do not all have the same function. So we, though many, are one body and Christ and individually members of one another.

33:30 Having given the different according to the grace given us. This moves into the energy of location. So I have skill sets and capacities. And I love which then for the sake of others. Right? Gants make food because people need to eat. Period. And they ought to eat good food.

34:03 God will take care of them. Right? Like, Kirk disseminates ideas because ideas are a worth spreading. People need to hear them and God will take care of them for them. You are good at things. The opportunity, the freedom that comes with being people of God is that we do them not of compulsion as though our future depended on our success in making money and protecting our bank accounts.

34:41 We move in our gifts and skill sets because people need us to. And we care about people. Like period. This is why we work on one day. Not out of fear and compulsion, but out of like deep supernatural love and generosity.

35:14 The world eats us. The world needs you to do the thing that you're good at for some other folks. And God has lived, died, resurrected, ascended and dispatched to spirit in order that you might renew your mind today, believe it. And according to the measure of your faith, act of it.

35:48 That you would find some small place to start believing who you are today and your capacity. Because I know that as you move in little places, small steps, you will get faith to take more steps. And find again the life you are made for. Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for your gift of life.

36:22 Teach us to live well. To estimate ourselves. To think of ourselves with sober judgments. We don't have an hour of word to control our future. We see that power to you. Teach us to think of ourselves home with a capacity to live faithfully today.

36:53 But as we do, all little small steps at a time, you are the need of there and increase our faith. So we might experience the life that you brought for us on the cross. Thank you, just a minute.