Lent Midweek 4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As we've examined Lutheran spirituality, we've noted God's gracious working in how He justifies us, delivers His grace to us through means, and is present with us in our afflictions. God is also with us in our everyday life. God is at work in ordinary routines, waking up, making the bed, shopping, meals, conversations, and careers. This is how God provides for his creation through you and through others. Forgiveness is a free gift. Ephesians 2, 8 through 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Sometimes those a bit snarky to our teaching of grace alone and faith alone say that we purposefully leave out verse 10, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. But we don't purposefully leave that out. While we're sinners and cannot please God with our works or earn our own salvation through them, within our vocations the Most High God works through us for his creation. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Thus our everyday lives are transfigured in the teaching of vocation. To be clear, your vocation isn't simply your job, though a job is a vocation. There are also the vocations of spouse, parent, child, sibling, student, citizen, just to name a few. These might not come with a paycheck, but they are high callings in the family, community, and country. In Lutheran theology we talk of two kingdoms or spheres, the spiritual and the earthly. God rules over both but in different ways. He's active in working through means in both realms. In the church through his means of grace to justify sinners, impart and sustain faith. In the civil realm, his means are vocations family, government, school, work. Yet you'll notice that these aren't entities apart from people like you. When we pray, give us this day our daily bread, we're asking this from God, that God would give this to us. Yet when we pause and think this through, we realize that realize that God uses a host of people to provide for you your slice of toast in the morning. Farmers, seed stores, farming equipment, manufacturing, the fuel, oil, and engineers behind John Deere and Harvester, etc., and the petroleum companies. The transport vehicles, processing facilities, bakers, delivery trucks and drivers, grocery store employees, the people who made the shopping carts, the people who made the plastic little baggies at the bread's in, the financial sector behind the green paper or the credit card and its value. The government and military providing the peace necessary for commerce. While you can still trace it back to God providing sun, rain, soil, and seed, we also see God's providing through all these other means as well. And that's just for toast. We didn't even mention the butter or the jelly. Another example, does God heal the sick? Yes. Can he do so through miracles? Absolutely. Have we read the scriptures? He can also do so through surgeries, therapists, and medications. Does God punish the evildoer and promote peace? Yes. He does so through the military, as well as legislators, police, judges, and attorneys. God educates through teachers and pastors. God doesn't form every man from soil, nor every woman from a rib. Instead, He uses natural means. God establishes the holy offices within a family. God is busy at work for His creation in our vocations. He cares for His people and has us relying on His work through one another. Vocation builds into God's order the love of the neighbor and love for the neighbor. God provides our daily bread by his grace through these means for all of his creation, believer and unbeliever alike. Even in the civil realm, the Lord would have us note our need for his grace and mercy as he works outside of us for our benefit. The thing about vocation is that it manifests how God uses us and works through us, bestowing gifts, skills, and abilities into us for the sake of our neighbor. The purpose of vocation is to serve others for God. Well, does he need your works? No. It's to serve others because your neighbor does need your works. Too often we jump to, I've got to go serve God, serve God, serve God, serve God, and we fail to see God as we serve our neighbor. When you consider God and what he has done for us, saving us by grace alone through faith alone, apart from our works, when you consider that, then you see how vocation, serving others, is truly a godly way of life. For that's what God has done for you. While you are yet sinners, Christ died for you. And while others are out there who maybe don't appreciate your work, and maybe there are some who do, well, serve. Go be Christlike. It's helping somebody else, not yourself. It's laying down your life for the benefit of others. This is where we see lowly vocations exalted and dignified. The mother wiping the baby's bottom, the nurse emptying bedpans, the garbage man taking away rotten filth that would breed disease. And the list could go on and on and on of those who help others in the lowliest of ways. It reminds us of how Christ was viewed on the cross and how faith views him. That's vocation. That's seeing God work in the most humble and humiliating way for the sake of others. This is where we should address that even in our godly vocations, there's sin. There will be selfishness. We don't want to serve selflessly, but are bent towards serving for our own ends. We resist God working through us and simply want what's to our own advantage. Greed. We work, but it's by the sweat of our brow, and the work itself is wrought with thorns and thistles of a fallen creation, and so we grumble and sometimes even curse it. Yet each godly vocation calls us to live outside of ourselves and even in spite of our sinful flesh. When you think of it, even the most unbelieving, greedy, slimy, disconnected CEO, if in a godly vocation, the person still has to manage a company, give careers to other employees, provide services that others find useful or want or find necessary, and it's for their benefit. In vocation, we see that God can and still does use lowly means to provide for his creation. Vocation mortifies the flesh. Each godly vocation exists with respect to others. A parent, well, to be a parent you must have a child. A husband, to be a husband, well, must have a wife. A worker must have work to do for others. Vocation itself calls us to crucify our sinful flesh with its desires. Beautifully, in each godly vocation, those who are most fulfilled are those who are able to see their role for others, and they want to fulfill it. A mother wants to care for her child. She isn't doing it out of threat of punishment or hell. She loves her child. Each vocation should stay in its own lane, and with the authority that's given to it by God. The government is to defend citizens and even kill enemies because of the authority God has given to it to bear the sword and punish the evildoer. It should do so justly, not indiscriminately. Likewise, a father may be called upon to protect his family and use force to do so. Conversely, when a vocation gets outside of its lane, those vocations stray from God ordained order. We can see that when a doctor aims not to heal, but to kill in supposed euthanasia or assisted suicide. A mother is to nurture her children, not kill them in the womb or abuse them. A government does not have the right to take over the raising of children from parents. A government can't tell pastors how to preach the word of God or administer the sacraments. Likewise, the church is only given the sword of the word to oppose her enemies and convert unbelievers. Lydia's having a fun time. Even if one is in a godly vocation, serving his neighbor selflessly, the cross is likely to come. Problems arise in marriages, even Christian ones. Parents may serve well as father and mother and be fine Christian examples, only to have a child rebel. A company serving others well, and not even for the sake of greed, may still go bankrupt and leave many unemployed. A pastor's congregation, whom he's called to serve and whom they're called to love, we heard the table of duties earlier. Well, that congregation may turn against him in God's word. Those thorns and thistles of a fallen creation are all over this fallen garden. The devil will work to thwart God's work for his creation. Well, it makes sense. Since God's the one working through vocation, the devil's going to be opposed to that. The most common way he can do so is to switch the sacrificial vocation, a theology of the cross, mind you, into a vocation that's a selfish one, a theology of glory. It's about you, you being most happy, more popular, prouder, wanting to be exalted instead of serving, viewing vocation solely as a way for selfish power and gain instead of service to others. Another way that the devil can do to try to thwart the purposes of God, if you will, and to tempt us is to tempt us away from a godly vocation. Now this typically involves those stations which have no paycheck. Because does it really matter if you work at Burger King vs. McDonald's so much? Not so much. The devil tempts parent to leave child, husband to leave wife and family. Just up and quit the job without any plan or thought to the loved ones that rely upon you. Give up on developing your talents and skills that God has bestowed upon you. The devil and our flesh, especially when utilizing worldly standards, tell us that our vocation is worthless or futile or only in service to you yourself. The devil will say that vocation is lowly, too lowly for the likes of you. Even in the highest offices, the ones that probably us look up to, job satisfaction is low due to the self-perceived inability to meet the demands. We often fail to see the sacrificial helping others aspect, when we fail to admit that God can and will and is using the likes of us lowly sinners to accomplish his purposes, even with our failures attached to them. The helping others aspect crucifies the old sinful self, which is exactly what we need, but it's also what's rather difficult and painful for us sinners. We are weak. God must fulfill vocation through us, and we are to trust that He is. We will call out to our God in our weakness and rely upon His power and Him alone to accomplish through us what we fail to see. I hope that you may see your everyday life transformed. You're a mask for God to others in this world. You're dependent upon God to work through you for others. This changes jobs into callings, mere things to do, into neighbors to help with the gifts that God has given you. In every aspect of your daily life, even your ho hum everyday life, God is working for you and through you. Day by day is full of meaning, and day by day God manifests His goodness and grace to us poor sinners. Amen.