Future Church Brisbane
Join Luke Kennedy and friends at Future Church in Brisbane, Australia.
Talks from our gatherings as well as deeper discussions and Application panels around the practicals of Following Jesus.
Future Church Brisbane
Work as Vocation - The Call to Work
What if your job is more than just a way to pay the bills? Could it be a divine calling that shapes your identity and purpose? This episode kicks off our transformative series on understanding work as a vocation through a biblical perspective. We'll explore the concept of the Imago Dei from Genesis 1:28, discussing how our daily roles reflect God’s responsibility and care. The inspiring life of Florence Nightingale serves as a powerful example of faith-driven dedication, showcasing how one person's commitment can revolutionize an entire field.
Imagine approaching your work, not just as a job, but as a calling from God. Drawing wisdom from Colossians 3:23 and the Reformation teachings of Martin Luther, we emphasize that all vocations are equally valuable in God's eyes. By integrating faith into every aspect of our daily tasks, we align our work with a higher purpose, breaking down the secular-spiritual divide. We'll also consider how living in blessed societies like Australia provides unique opportunities to approach our work with gratitude and a heart full of purpose.
Finally, let’s dream big together! We dive into the importance of meaningful conversations that inspire change and growth, rather than just passing time with gossip. I’ll share personal experiences on how discussing and strategizing with friends about planting healthy churches has made a significant impact. We'll talk about practical steps to discover your unique gifts and sense of calling, and conclude with a heartfelt prayer for divine guidance. Let this episode ignite your passion to bring heaven to earth through your work, making a transformative impact on the world.
--------------------------------
Future Church Brisbane Website // https://www.futurechurch.io
Future Church Brisbane INSTAGRAM // https://www.instagram.com/futurechurchbrisbane
Today we are going to endeavor on a new series, a new spiritual practice, and that is around work as vocation. I really want to encourage us to see biblically our role at work, or our life at work, and I really believe this is going to be an encouraging series to us. It's going to be both theological but also very practical. You can get notes. We have notes. There's a QR code right there so if you get your phone out, you can get notes for all of this series. You might miss a week, but you can still get the notes. Yeah, that's good. You can get your phone out. Does it work? Is it working? Yeah, it is working. Okay, so if you use that, the guys will send you notes and questions. We're doing in our community groups. We'll be discussing some of these things, so you can also get deep, deeper into that as well. We're going to be interviewing some people of different industries who are really doing this really well. So look forward to the next couple of months we're going to spend in talking about your work and I think it's going to be really encouraging to you.
Speaker 1:So I think you know, when I grew up in Japan, we had a real work culture where you basically slave drive yourself with the company and, almost like you, sacrifice yourself for the sake of the workplace. That was kind of a normal kind of an extreme where you would really be detrimental to yourself for the sake of a company. Now I think what's being sold to the next generation in Australia is your work is all about you. You are the centre of your work, your desires, your passions, your goals, your career goals, your likes and dislikes. If anyone corrects you, they're wrong. It's all about you at your workplace. That is also another extreme. That also I hope that we can bring some balance to through the Scriptures of what actually work and productive work from the Scriptures actually looks like, because the Bible has an amazing framework of what it looks like to actually work.
Speaker 1:We're using a few books during this series as well. Recommend reading. If you would like to jump in a little more, you can maybe take a photo of this. It's also on socials, you can see it. But we've used these three books as kind of like a foundation, a base for some of the content that we're using and well worth a read. I think if you want to jump into that, you could definitely do that.
Speaker 1:All right, okay, question have you ever wondered is there more to work than just earning a paycheck? Surely there's got to be more to it than just giving me enough money to pay the bills, to pay the mortgage if you're lucky enough to get one and go through life. Surely there's got to be more to what I do throughout the week. Surely it's not just something I can get through so that I can get to the weekend, so that finally we can earn a bit of a party at the weekend and maybe come to church and have a happy time before we're dreading going back to work on Monday. Surely there's more to it than that.
Speaker 1:I want to have a look at the creation mandate, which is a concept from Genesis 1. Genesis 1, at the very beginning, verse 28. God blessed them this is Adam and Eve and said to them be fruitful and increase in number. We have been doing that ever since Fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. This sounds like I mean.
Speaker 1:I think if some people hear this and say, oh man, I'm meant to be like um, maybe punishing or hurting, or like at the top of a hierarchy of creatures created. It's very different than that. This is a responsibility. God gives responsibility to humans to take care of every animal, all of creation. It's a big job and it's almost like God delegates his authority. God delegates his care to us to actually make a difference in the world. John Mark Coleman put it like this Work is not just a means to an end.
Speaker 1:Work is an expression of our identity as image bearers of God. We were made in the image of God. We are not God, let's not get that confused. We will never be God. We were made in the image of God. We are not God, let's not get that confused. We will never be God. But we have something of the Spirit of God in us and on us that is a reflection of God in the world. The closer we are to Jesus the perfect representation of God, the fullness of the representation of God that's Jesus the closer we become to Jesus. We are representing God to the world in everything that we're doing. This is the original mandate that God had for us. In the Bible it's called the Imago Dei. The Imago Dei just means the imaging of God. So wherever you go, it's like there's a piece of God going with you and wherever you go, it's meant to be blessed and cared for and managed and built up wherever you go. So how does this really look? The Imago Dei concept?
Speaker 1:Florence Nightingale was a nurse and a social reformer in the 1800s in Italy and she was a follower of Jesus. She was considered the founder of modern-day nursing. She was born into a wealthy, connected British family and, despite the expectations of her social class, she felt a calling to serve other people. She believed it was like a divine mission from God. She made massive contributions to nursing and healthcare in the world. Her famous contributions came during the Crimean War in the 1800s and the 1853 kind of range. She organised the care of wounded soldiers in Turkey and her innovations around caring for people in a sanitary way actually increased the survival rate by like two-thirds like an incredible contribution. And her faith played a really central role in what she did. She really believed that her caring for other people was a way that she expressed the imagago Dei of God, meaning that when she cared for a wounded soldier, what she was actually doing was taking something of God and giving it to them and showing them who God was through her care. It was so selfless, particularly those who were suffering in need. She often quoted the Bible and prayed for people as she gave them care. It did an incredible effort. Then she went on after this, in 1860, to establish the Nightingale School of Training for Nurses at St Thomas Hospital in London. Her observations and statistical analysis led to significant reforms in the practices of hospitals, which are now standard practices in hospitals today. This was in 1860.
Speaker 1:A woman inspired by God, who saw her imago Dei responsibility to actually give something of God to the world, has influenced the world in dramatic ways. One woman doing something for God. She saw her life, her vocation, as more than just a job to do, a paycheck to collect or a box to tick. She saw her vocation as a calling from God to do something in the world. That's the kind of life I want to live. Is that the kind of life you want to live? I don't want to just get through the week, I want to do something in the world that's going to make a difference.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about work as a calling, not just as a job. Work as a calling, not just as a job. Work as a calling. Colossians 3, verse 23 puts it like this Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart, as if you're working for God, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is Christ that you are serving.
Speaker 1:Some of us need to put this on our mirrors before we go to work or in the morning, right, because not everyone has the amazing, the best boss in the world. Yeah, we don't all have right now the dream boss and, let's be fair, the bosses in the room. We're not all the dream boss either. We're all growing, we're all on a journey, right? Nobody is perfect, but I think something very important to remember is I'm not working for my boss, I'm working for God. Right, and that changes things, because if I'm only working for my boss, I work hard while my boss is working or watching, and then, when he's not watching, I'm going to take, as a great Australian pastor, I just take a bit of a chill and maybe 4.30 in the afternoon, I start packing up, packing up in the office and I'm waiting, counting down the clock, because the boss is maybe not watching.
Speaker 1:But if I'm working for God, it's a much different mindset than this. If I'm working for God. God is always watching and I want to bring glory to God. I want God to be pleased with the work that I'm doing. I see work as a calling and as worship to him. I want to do a great job and I think this should set Christians apart in the way that we approach our job.
Speaker 1:Tim Keller said it like this Everyone will be forgotten. Nothing we do will make a difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught unless there is a God. Everything we're doing is meaningless unless God is involved, unless God is real, unless God is actually working all things together for a purpose. And then suddenly even the simplest of jobs can become important. The simplest jobs become big. Vocation versus occupation this is a really big thing, I think, for us, because many of us have an occupation but we seem to struggle with the concept of vocation. Vocation is more linked to my whole of life, calling from God. My job is part of my whole life, calling and hopefully, as we go along I know some of us are starting out and we're not in our dream job, but hopefully, as we go along, our job is becoming more and more aligned with that calling and we live in a great society.
Speaker 1:Australia is a blessed country, a blessed country full of opportunity. Full of opportunity and we have the ability to change jobs in Australia you know, not every country has that luxury right where there's not as much flexibility or ability to change or ability to choose between 10 different jobs, or at least pursue 10 different jobs, maybe there's one job that you can get and that's all you've got. We are very blessed here and I want to encourage us to think and be very thankful for that and take advantage of that opportunity and that blessing that we have. You might say, well, luke, that's really great because like, of course, you think like that, because you know you're a pastor and like you're literally working for God. That's like kind of like your thing. My job is kind of different than that and I just want to push back on that a little bit because I think that is a real question.
Speaker 1:But in the 1600s, martin Luther was one of the amazing reformers of the church, challenged the Catholic Church on a lot of theology that had gone a little bit wacko and brought a real reformation with others as well. But one of the key things that he kept talking about was challenging the idea of secular versus spiritual vocations, and I think this is really important. He asserted that vocations are equally valuable in the eyes of God, whether it's a monk or a farmer or a craftsman. All are equally valuable to God. Here's his quote the work of monks and priests, however holy and arduous, arduous See, that's beautiful. I should have practiced that. I read it. Beautiful. I should have practised that. I read it, but I didn't say it out loud.
Speaker 1:They may be do not differ in the sight of God from the works of the rustic labourer in the field or the woman going about her household task, but that all works are measured before God by faith alone. What's important is the faith that you're bringing to the occupation that you have. That's what's important to God, not so much the role itself. Now, please don't take this to think that there are no occupations that are outside of the will of God, because there are some destructive occupations in the world today. This is not to say that every occupation is a good thing, but let me say this to you Whatever occupation you're in right now, the faith that you bring to it is what is important to God, the faith that you bring to it.
Speaker 1:He talked about the priesthood of all believers. This is a concept in the New Testament where we don't just have a priest who is our mediator between us and God. We have a priest whose name is Jesus who is our mediator between us and God, but every single person who is a believer in Jesus is a priest, a priesthood of all believers. We have direct access to God, no matter what you're doing, not just a pastor like me. I encourage you with that. He went on to say Every occupation has its own honour before God, as well as its own requirements and duties. He who loves his neighbour is fulfilling God's law, no matter what his occupation is.
Speaker 1:The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays, not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps, but because God loves clean floors. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but there's a truth in that. It's not because you add something Christian on top of your work. It's because we represent God wherever we go, and whatever we touch brings something of heaven to it, and I encourage you to think of your work like that. So maybe there's business owners here. Maybe you want to consider how your business can actually bring some of the imago Dei of God to the world around you, maybe through your employees or through your products or through your services. How can you represent God to others? We've got a lot of artists in this church. Instead of just following along the trend of what's cool right now, digging deeper into our faith and bringing that will actually create inspiration from God which actually will make a difference in the world. That's something to think about.
Speaker 1:People in school right now, lots of young people who are in school right now. Right now, in school, you are at the centre of God's will for your life. It's not one day when you finish school and you start something. Oh, that's when I can start making a difference. That's when things will really start happening. Right now, wherever you are, god wants to use your life to make a difference. That's when things will really start happening. Right now, wherever you are, god wants to use your life to make a difference around you. If you would bring faith to your school. I went to school. I was not a great student and I often felt like I just can't wait to finish school so I can start life, and I remember my youth pastors challenging me and saying no, right now is the time for you to make a difference in your life, and that really challenged me.
Speaker 1:Let me talk about the third thing the meaning of work. What is the meaning of work? Ecclesiastes 3.22 says this. It's a little bit of a downer scripture, right, there's a context to it. Ecclesiastes is basically a summary of how things really are. The good, the bad and the ugly okay and you can kind of put these in context with Proverbs is how things should be if we were doing things God's way. Ecclesiastes is kind of more like how things are happening right now and just some reality checks for us, so you can kind of read them in tandem.
Speaker 1:So I saw that there's nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot For who can bring, and them to see what will happen to them after. Meaning this you don't know what the future is. I do not know what the future is Future church we do not know what the future is, but what we have is right now and you can bring your best to your workplace. Right now you can bring your best, not save it for some other time when things are perfect, but right now you can bring your best and you can bring faith to what you are doing, even if you are job hunting. Bring faith to your job hunting, whatever it is. That's our encouragement to you.
Speaker 1:So there is intrinsic value to work. It's an important thing. The idea that one day in the future no one's going to work it's an important thing. The idea that one day in the future no one's going to work is not a biblical concept. We were created to work. Work is important to what it means to be a human, because God has a mission to renew the whole world and he's included us to be part of that work. And, guys, it is going to take a lot of work to be a part of building a whole new world in the image of God. It really will, and we are part of that. We are all part of that.
Speaker 1:Two things I think could be helpful to us right now. A couple of thoughts think could be helpful to us right now. A couple of thoughts that would be helpful. Some facets of work are about shaping culture Shaping culture. Other facets of work are about caring for creation. Both of these things are very important and you may have a very different motivation or inkling to come towards one or the other, or maybe a little bit of both, but maybe your job is more leaning towards one or the other. These are both good things.
Speaker 1:Adam was called to both work, so cultivate, build and care for, maintain, keep, preserve the Garden of Eden. Listen to what it says Genesis 2, verse 15. The Lord, god, took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. It's a little different but helpful distinction in certain fields that maybe you feel like your job doesn't really make a big difference in the world. This is helpful to think about and there's probably a little bit of both in a lot of jobs. For example, maybe you're in food or health or agriculture or customer service, and these jobs often take what there is and care for it, love it, protect it, grow it. Or maybe you're in a place that's more about shaping or changing the way things are, and that's also a calling. Maybe you know things like educational, science or engineering or construction or design or something that is about doing something that hasn't been done before New expansion. Both of these things are extremely important to God, so I would encourage you whatever you're doing, see it as valuable, and you may not realize this, but what you're doing is bigger than you think.
Speaker 1:I heard this amazing story recently from a friend in the States. They were supporting a group of people in Russia who were taking stones from the gulags like the worst jails in the world worst jails in the world and they were building churches from the stones in the gulags. Pretty amazing as they were going through the rubbles of stones they found a canister which opened and it had a letter inside of it. It was a letter written by prisoners who were in the gulags and it says we were forced to smash down our churches and build prisons from our church stones which we are now locked in. But we have a prayer that one day again that these stones will be used as building blocks for the church Decades later. Their prayers were being answered. Isn't that beautiful. Isn't that just how God would work? God would take the prayer of a few righteous people who were put in a jail, made from their church, and then flip that all around and build churches again out of those same stones. That is the heart of God. It's incredible. You never know what seems sometimes like a step backwards in career or a step backwards in what you seem like is the call of God. Could be God preparing backwards in what you seem like is the call of God. Could be God preparing for something incredible that you could never really imagine by yourself. But God is working and God is preparing. That's how God works.
Speaker 1:I'm going to finish soon, but let me give you this story from one of my favourite stories from JR Tolkien and CS Lewis and the Inklings. Have you guys heard of these guys before? This would be Narnia from CS Lewis, amazing children's stories and Lord of the Rings, and all of those stories from these guys were great friends, okay, and they used to sit. They formed this little group, okay, it was called the Inklings, and the Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford. The group met regularly for readings and discussions about their work in progress, often at the Eagle and the Child Pub known as the Bird and the Baby. So they met at this little pub for a beer and discussion around their work on writing these stories. Four friends literally reshaped literature in the 20th century by creating worlds that brought a whole generation's imagination to life. You probably read some of them to your children, and these four guys made an incredible difference in the world through their writing.
Speaker 1:I wonder how you or me and my three friends, what we're discussing together when we get around the fire pit Gossiping, or are we dreaming to change the world together? Are we dreaming about doing something significant? And maybe, if it's the gossip circle, maybe I need some new friends or maybe we need to say let's change, let's start dreaming. I was running with Mike yesterday just a little bit, I was running like 100 metres at a time at Run Club and we were talking about we need a band of dreamers together. We need small bands of dreamers that are going to get together and dream about changing the world together in industries and in ways of doing things. I have a group of friends and when we get together, all we talk about is planting new churches. That's what we talk about, that's what we dream about, that's what we strategize about healthy churches that are going to make a difference in communities that they're in, not necessarily you know future church or their church or whatever, but just great churches in new local communities. It's inspiring, it's uplifting and I often walk away from those conversations and I can't sleep at night because I'm still thinking about how are we going to make a difference in the world. How are we going to turn around the decline of the Australian church? How are we going to do that?
Speaker 1:It's a calling, it's a vocation. It's more than just a job. So where is my calling of work? Here's some reflections. How can you find your calling of work Get very practical, and then we're done.
Speaker 1:Here's three things to think about. What are the needs around me? I might not be passionate about them, but they are there and I can do something to help. What's the need that is close to you right now? What is the gifting within me Meaning? What can I do? Well, you all have gifting. It's not humble to say I don't have gifting. That's not humble. Okay, you do have gifting from God. Part of God's creative genius, part of it, is inside of you in some way. Okay, you may need some friends to help you discover that or pull that out Hopefully you can in our church. And fulfillment, a sense of God's calling, meaning like I feel that God has called me. Don't underestimate the power of that. That is definitely a part of finding your calling is a sense of feeling that, yes, I feel that this is right. That's the Holy Spirit leading you. There is part of that that. Yes, I feel that this is right. That's the Holy Spirit leading you. There is part of that that's really important.
Speaker 1:So here's some practical steps for upcoming week. I just have one thought for us this week. If you want to have a takeaway for this week, why don't you get a group of friends together and start dreaming about what the Imago Dei could look like in your lives? What could we do together? What could we dream about? What does it mean to be the Imago Dei in our industry, whether I'm a teacher or a nurse or an artist or whatever we are doing? What does it look like in our lives to bring something of God to whatever we are doing? Start dreaming together and I believe that God can start speaking. Over the next number of weeks we're going to get very practical and deep into this, and this has been a bit of an introduction. I hope it's encouraging to you. You're inspired to go on this journey together to see work as a spiritual practice, not as separate from our spiritual lives, but integrated. That God is with us in our work. So let me pray for us and we'll be done.
Speaker 1:God, we thank you that you have called us to work, that you have put the Imago Dei inside of us, the representation of you to the world.
Speaker 1:So, god, I just pray that we would represent you well and faithfully, whatever we're doing to care for creation right now, to care for what you are building and also to expand it and to dream about changing the world together in a way that makes heaven come to earth. The kingdom of God be the normal around us. God, we know that's going to take so much. It's going to take a generation and generations to come. But, god, I pray that our hearts would be set on fire to be part of that vision, to join you in what you are doing to change the world. We just humbly and boldly step into that today and I pray for those, god, who don't really know you yet, god, today in their lives. I pray, god, that you would also speak to them, show them that you're real, show them how much you love them and that they too are also part of this vision to change the world through you. And we love you, god, open our hearts to you, speak to us, god, lead us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen, amen, you.