Permission to Pursue What You Love

My note: Struggled with getting lesson I felt good about for today. Finally settled on this lesson. Thought it would probably relate more to youth on what "vocation" they should pursue. But, figured parents could use it to help advise their children. Our youth director was out of town and one of the WhoSoEvers, Raye, was going to lead the youth in SS. To my surprise, they showed up for our class. Seems youth director had locked the door to their room and nobody could find a spare key. Coincidence - I think not! Amazing when we just get out of HIS way, what will happen!


Permission to Pursue What You Love

There are two books out that that talk about an often neglected biblical principle. It is often called the principle of "vocation" or work. The first book is Work Matters by Pastor Tom Nelson (Christ Community Church, Leewood, Kansas). The second was The Cure for the Common Life by best-selling author and pastor, Max Lucado.
While both books are different -- Nelson fully fleshes out the “theology” of work while Lucado illustrates the uniqueness of every human being created in God's image -- they both arrive at an important conclusion: God has uniquely gifted, wired, called, and shaped every human being for a specific purpose on this earth, to glorify Him.

This may seem like something we always hear in church or a tired Christian cliché. But we often do not always comprehend two powerful ideas that come out of our uniqueness: work was ordained by God and is a form of worship and that God implants in us certain unique skills, passions, and gifts that make our lives unique.

We will expand on this concept today because it is very important for us to understand our purpose. Embracing God's unique design involves pushing back against a cultural lie about ourselves and a church lie about ourselves.

The Cultural Lie
On the one hand, you have the cultural expression that "you can be whatever you want to be, whatever you set your heart to do." This has been echoed in movies, books, motivational speeches and sometimes even from the pulpit. But we all know that this isn't really true. Supposed we really wanted to play on the pro golf circuit. Maybe play as well as Tiger Woods. We could play 18 holes everyday for years but would never make it. So we can't actually be whatever we want to be, can we?

The Church Lie

But the opposite of this cultural lie is a church lie. It's a pushback against the dreams that tell us to follow our hearts. It's the equal and opposite idea that because our hearts are so wicked, we can't trust them and therefore what we like to do, what we're good at doing, what we have a passion to do -- this can't possibly be what God wants us to be. This lie might go something like this: You can't be anything you want to be. In some ways, this may be more dangerous than the first lie in the sense that lots of Christian kids grow up forced into a mold set by parents or pastors or others. Every young boy must aspire to be a pastor or in "full-time" Christian service, otherwise he's not serving God. Every girl must aspire to be a pastor's wife or in some kind of acceptable full-time ministry or she is not serving the Lord. The guilt goes like this: How can you pursue a career in law or business or entertainment when across the world people are dying and going to hell?

And so you have a lot of people who feel they are supposed to ignore their gifts, their skills, their passions and they plunge into full-time ministry when they really have no aptitude for it. And as a result, not only do they suffer, but God's people suffer. You've taken a skilled person out of the environment where they might have had the most impact (law, business, medical field, carpenter, plumber, etc) and you've placed them, like a square peg in a round hole, in ministry where the people are suffering under the leadership of someone who wasn't supposed to be there in the first place.

The Biblical Third Way

So is there an alternative to the world's false "You can be what you want to be" fantasies and the church's "Don't dream, don't trust your passions and skills" consignment to certain acceptable callings? There is and it's to dive more fully into biblical principles of work. Here's a few important points we need to consider when it comes to calling:

Every kind of work is honorable to God. This is where Tom Nelson's book, Work Matters really shines. It shines because it pushes back against pastors and missionaries and so-called full-time ministry staff elevating their callings above that of lay people. The truth is that if we believe work in it’s self is good and worthy and honorable to God as a form of worship, then we should consider the skilled plumber or the top salesman or the doctor as worthy a ministry of the gospel as a pastor or missionary. The work lay people do from Monday to Friday is important, not simply so they can be a witness in the workplace or they can make more money so they can tithe, but because the work itself is important to God.

This concept is backed up by Paul in Colossians 3:23 where he writes “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” And again in Ephesians 6:7 where he tells the church at Ephesus to “Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people”.

God has uniquely wired every single person with specific skills and gifts. Max Lucado beautifully brings out the important message of Psalm 139, where David describes the intricate design behind every human soul. You are who you are because God made you this way. The things you are gifted at, passionate about, the things others see in you as strengths -- these are given to purposely by God. Why? For a purpose. To occupy a space in His plan for His glory. You wanting to be live someone else's life is actually against God. Someone forcing you into their mold is against God. The life God wants you to live is the life of Christ lived through you in a unique expression.

A True Believer Can Trust Their Hearts. Let's look at the teachings of the Scriptures concerning our hearts. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

But something happened, right? We chose sin and sin has corrupted our hearts, thus Jeremiah 17:9 which describes the human heart as “the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked.” But in Ezekiel 36:26 God says, “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.”

And one of the most important scriptures that most of us have heard many times: “that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

So, if we are followers of Christ being transformed by His grace, we can listen to our hearts. What happens in salvation is this: God restores us (His masterpieces) from the corruption of sin. He implants in us a new heart, makes us a new person (born again). And as we die to ourselves, He reveals to us His original purpose for us. As you walk with the Lord, your calling will become clearer and clearer. But it's not because you are ignoring your gifts, your passions, your skills, but rather you are seeing them more clearly because the Holy Spirit is guiding us.

So, this means you can't be anything you "want to be" but you are free to be who you are supposed to be. What you die to in following Christ is not your skills and passions and gifts, but to the sin-soaked desires that were a distraction from God's original design of your life. You begin to enter, as Max Lucado calls it, your "sweet spot" where your gifts, your opportunities, and your impact all meet.

It is especially important for Christian young people as they survey their lives. High-school seniors and college freshman. They need to ask: What am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? Where do you think you can have the most impact in the world? What do others say you are good at?

They as well as all of us need to realize is that "Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father" (James 1:17). God equipped us with gifts of skill, not for us to show off our skills but to reflect His glory.

Gifted plumbers shouldn't preach. Gifted preachers shouldn't plumb.

No, you can't be what you want to be. But you are freed by Jesus to be what He designed you to be. And it's a whole easier to figure out what that is when we reject both cultural and church myths.