We are in the third week of a sermon series that I have entitled “The practical gospel,” learning to put into practice what Paul said in Philippians 2:12-13, where he told the Philippians to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” Now that you have been saved, now that you have believed the gospel, work out the implications of the gospel into every area of your life as God works in you. Not “work for your salvation,” because we are saved by the grace of God and not by anything we have done, but rather “work out the implications of your salvation.” In other words, think through how the truths of the gospel should shape the different aspects of your life and allow the transformative power of the Holy Spirit to do His work.
The past two weeks, we have looked at the implications of the gospel for our love life and for parenting and family. This week, we will look at the implications of the gospel for work. More specifically, the gospel and vocation, because work implies what you do to make money. Vocation, from the Latin “Vocare,” to call, is not a Biblical word but a theological word, defined on dictionary.com as “a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life” or “a function or station in life to which one is called by God.” The word vocation communicates the idea that there is someone else who has called you to your station in life, whether it is as a student, a homemaker, an engineer, a teacher, a grandparent, or anything else. Once again, this sermon is not about “7 tips for being the best employee ever”; this is thinking out the implications of the gospel for every area of your life. If you want to go further, I highly recommend the book “Every Good Endeavor: Connecting your work to God’s work” by Tim Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf. But for this morning, what difference does it make to your vocation that you believe the gospel?
The gospel summary statement I will be using this series is this: “We are sinners who have been saved and justified by grace, learning to live as new creations according to God’s will, trusting in a certain and glorious eternal hope and future.”
If you read that statement closely, you will recognize that it has a past, present, and future dimension. Today, we are going to use those three aspects as our framework and examine what the implications of the gospel are for your work life, for your vocation?
