So what I wanted to do this morning for the Sunday School is kind of a topical message. And it's something that I've preached on this before, but I haven't heard many other sermons on this subject. And so I hope it'll be something that'll be beneficial to all of us. So the subject that I've got for this Sunday School class is glorifying God through your vocation, through your vocation. And what prompted me to think about this subject, several years ago we went to the fellowship conference up in Denton, which is coming up here in a couple weeks. Are any of you guys going to be attending? No? A couple? Okay, great. Alright, well it's always been a blessing. And one of the things that I appreciate about the conference, those of you who have gone, is they have a tremendous books, a book table, there's literature, just really great, you know, solid books that you can buy and they're books on, you know, biographies and, you know, Christian living and evangelism and all kinds of different books. In fact, I have to try to usually show a little restraint, and maybe help my wife also, excuse me, when buying the books, because we usually have a stack of books that we bought last year that we haven't quite read yet. But one of the things, though, there was a book several years ago when we attended that caught my eye, and it just almost seemed like out of place. And so it caught my attention for three reasons. One is the author of the book is a man by the name of Wayne Grudem. So I'm sure some of you will recognize his name. Very well-respected author and a seminary professor. And he's written a very good systematic theology that's been helpful to a lot of people that I've appreciated also. And so that was one reason. The other reason was the title of this book. It was a small book. The title of the book was called Business for the Glory of God, The Bible's Teaching on the Moral Goodness of Business. and so that caught my attention and then the third thing was that again it was a relatively short book it's only about ninety pages And so, you know, it's about as long as a couple of his chapters in a systematic theology, if you've read that, right? So I thought, well, this is something I could read fairly easily. And then he does say in the preface to the book that he was working on a larger treatment of the subject. I don't know if he ever, you know, published that or finished that or not. So, but basically the premise of the book is that most aspects of business things like ownership of property uh... productivity employment profit money competition although they they can carry many temptations to misuse into sin but these things they're not just morally neutral but he argues they are fundamentally good things that god has given to the human race and they provide many opportunities for us to give glory to god and so uh... And another reason that I thought about this subject is that most of us, most Christians, are gonna spend our lives engaged in some form of secular business or vocation, right? And we all spend a great deal of time working in our jobs, right? I don't know what all you guys, men and ladies do up here, but you could be a teacher or an engineer or an architect or a banker or an electrician, or you could own a business, work with cell phones and repair them, you could be a lawyer, you can be a mechanic, a dentist, you know, all these different occupations, right, that many of us are engaged in. You know, maybe, I don't see any young people here, but you might have some students that are in school, or maybe they're training, preparing themselves for some future career, an occupation. You know, for a lot of women, their vocation is what? Being a mother and a homemaker, right? Which is, you know, more than a full-time job, okay? And so, you know, we spend so much of our lives working in our various vocations, it just seems, you know, wise to consider how can we redeem the time and to give as much glory to God as possible. And so, and then the last thing that kind of got me thinking about this subject a couple years ago is I read a book to my sons, who are teenagers, almost one's a teenager, the other one is almost a teenager, but a couple years ago, a book by a man, his name is Mark Chansky, he's a pastor of a church up in Michigan, a reformed Baptist church, and he wrote a book titled Manly Dominion in a Passive Purple Four Ball World. And so we've known him probably about 20 years, my brother, met his wife at that church about 20 years ago in Holland, Michigan. And so we were up there a couple years ago, a couple summers ago, and he gave me a copy of this book. And so I read it to my sons. And so this is what the synopsis of this book says. It says, in billiards, the four ball is passive. It's the one that gets knocked around by other balls. Christian man, is that you? Are you knocked around by your environment rather than taking your God-given assignment to lead? This book is a clarion call to all Christian men to face life's challenges with manly dominion. And he's got chapters in the book. These are some of the titles of the chapters. Manly Dominion in Vocational Laboring, Career Choosing, Vocational Training, Job Hunting, Hardworking, and Financial Earning, among others. And so I really highly recommend this book, especially if you're a young man, a relatively young man, or if you have maybe sons. that are growing up into young men. But I think anybody can benefit from the book. And so that book also got me thinking about this whole subject of glorifying God through our vocation. So, that's my introduction. So let me just pray quickly and we'll ask God to help us. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank You for this opportunity to meet together, to gather together, to study Your Word and to learn from You. And I pray that You'd help me to speak Your Word accurately, Lord. I pray that You'd help everyone here to listen and to receive these truths. And I pray that, Lord, You would bless them to our hearts and that we would We would learn more about you and learn to love you more and be more conformed to the image of your son. Father, I want to pray for Tawfiq this morning. We ask that you be with him and help him to get home safely soon. And we pray that he would recover from the sickness and that you just bless him and be with him and his family. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so vocation. We're talking about glorifying God through your vocation. So what is a vocation? So let me define that word for you. So a lot of times, you know, when you hear that word vocation, you may think, you know, kind of in a narrow sense, maybe you think of like a vocational school, right, where someone might go to get some, you know, specific training in a particular skill, like, you know, maybe carpentry or to become an electrician, right? But the word vocation has a much broader meaning. This is what the dictionary says about the word vocation. One definition is, a particular occupation, business, or profession, a calling. Another definition is, a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career. And this third one is, a function or station in life to which one is called by God. For example, the vocation of marriage. And this is a definition from Webster's old 1828 dictionary. It says this, vocation is an employment, calling, occupation, trade, a word that includes professions as well as mechanical occupations. Let every divine, every physician, every lawyer, and every mechanic be faithful and diligent in his vocation. Alright and so the origin of the word vocation, it comes from a Latin word vocare which means a call, a summons or a calling. So the idea of a vocation is being called to do something or to engage in some occupation. And, you know, now some Christians are called to full-time Christian service, right? You know, either as pastors, or a missionary, or maybe as an evangelist, or maybe as an itinerant preacher, or maybe teaching in a Christian school, maybe serving as a missionary pilot, or, you know, some other capacity, right? And, you know, we should be grateful for this and we should pray that God would raise up more laborers to advance the gospel in this manner, right? Jesus instructed his disciples to pray for this in Matthew 9, 37 and 38. It's a familiar passage. If you want to turn to the UKenna, I'll just read Matthew 9, 37 and 38. This is Jesus. He says, then he said to his disciples matthew nine thirty seven thirty eight then he said to his disciples the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few therefore pray earnestly to the lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest and so and that's something that we should be we should be doing right we should be praying that god would raise up men and women to go out and serve as you know full-time workers in the harvest field as missionaries. Our church supports missionaries in a number of places, in Nepal, in Lebanon, in Mexico, in Central America, Poland, Indonesia, other countries. And there are great needs for more laborers in these countries and other places where Christ is not known. And so we want to be encouraging men, in particular, to consider pursuing pastoral work, and then brothers and sisters to consider some form of mission work, right? So that's something that we should certainly be doing as Christians. But the truth of the matter is, not every Christian is gifted or called by God to do this. And, you know, or some people might be gifted and they might sense God's calling to go to serve. They have a real burden to go serve overseas somewhere as a missionary and maybe they have some gifts and abilities, but they might be providentially hindered from doing that. For example, maybe someone is married and his wife's health is very poor, and so it would make it unadvisable to go overseas to serve on the mission field. Or somebody else might have a burden and a gift to do that, and yet maybe earlier in life they accumulated a lot of debt, a lot of student loans, or made some bad financial decisions, and so that would preclude him or her from doing this, right? So, but the majority of Christians then, really, are not called by God to some form of full-time Christian ministry, right? And so, and instead, we're called by God to serve in some other vocation. Well, what should be our attitude towards that vocation, right? That's the question. And so, well, our attitude should be, Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10, 31, 1 Corinthians 10 31. He says, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. In a literal translation of that verse, 1 Corinthians 10 31 says, whether then you eat or drink or do anything, do all to the glory of God. I'm sure you're familiar with John Piper. John Piper wrote an article, short article, many years ago, and the title of his article was, How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God. Okay, and based on this verse. I don't know if anybody's read that, it's a short article. But he says, we do that by having a heart full of faith and gratitude for God's good gifts, even the gift of oranges that produce orange juice. All right, so if we are to give glory to God in whatever we do, right? This verse makes it very clear. Well, that certainly must include our vocations that we spend so much of our lifetime doing. So, but how can we do that? How can we glorify God through our vocations? Well, let me look at, first of all, we'll look at some of the other ways that, you know, when we typically think about glorifying God, we normally think about things that are related in some way to the church, right? So, for example, we would say we glorify God Well, first of all, what does it mean to glorify God? Let me, just a brief definite. To glorify means to magnify and to honor in worship or to praise, to honor, to extol. All right? And so when you think, when you hear the phrase glory, giving glory to God or glorifying God, you might think of things like this. Okay, well, how about worship? We're gonna gather here today to worship God, right? We're gonna sing praises to Him, right? And we're gonna give thanks to Him, right? So, and we should, that's right and well, and we should do that. Psalm 50, verse 23. Psalm 50, verse 23 says this. You can just listen to this if you want, or you can turn there. The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me. To one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God. Okay, so we offer thanksgiving to God, that gives glory to Him. That's one way that we can glorify God, right? And so we do that, you know, we do that individually or we can do it corporately when we gather together on Sundays like we're doing today or for a midweek prayer meeting or a midweek Bible study, we can give thanks and praise to God and that's one way that we give Him glory, we glorify Him. How about, another way, how about evangelism? How about glorifying God by telling others about him and about his son Jesus and about the way of salvation, okay? In order that they might be saved, right? And then thus they might be able to praise God and give glory to God, right? And so evangelism is certainly a way that we can glorify God. And we're gonna talk a little more about that in the next hour. How about maybe the idea of giving? Okay, we glorify God by contributing money for evangelism, for the building up of the church, for the support of pastors, missionaries, and for meeting benevolent needs, right? So certainly giving is a way that we can give glory to God. Or how about, you might think of maybe holy living, right? Acting in a way that honors, living in a way that honors God. Colossians 1, verses 9 and 10. says this, Colossians 1, verses 9 and 10. The Apostle Paul writes, and he says, And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding." Okay, and then he's going to give the reason. Why does he pray for the Colossians? That they might be filled with the knowledge of God's will and have spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him. bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Alright? So living a holy lifestyle, living a lifestyle that is consistent with what we profess, gives glory to God. That glorifies God, right? I mean, that certainly, that proclaims to the world that this is genuine, right? That, you know, the things that we say we believe are actually real, and we want to honor God with our lifestyle. So that's a way that we can glorify God. Another way we can glorify God, I'm just looking at the ways that, you know, I think we typically maybe think about when we think, you know, how do we glorify God? How about living a life of faith, depending on God in prayer and trusting Him to meet our needs? I mean, that certainly gives glory to God when we're dependent on Him and we have our faith is strengthened and we're looking to Him to meet our needs. And how about this one? How about being supremely satisfied with God? You know, John Piper has a quote. He says, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him, right? When we find our greatest pleasure and satisfaction and delight in Him, then that gives glory to Him. So these are all ways that we can glorify God and ways that we should. So worship, evangelism, giving, holy living, and faith are certainly very appropriate means for us to glorify God. But there's another way that we can glorify God that I think is often overlooked. Okay, and it's the key to understanding why God gave us the moral commandments that he did, and it's the key to understanding why people have an instinctive drive to work, to be productive, to be creative, to earn, and to save, and to give money, and to do the many hundreds of activities that fill our daily lives, all right? And this additional way that we can glorify God is by imitation, by imitating the attributes of God, all right? And so let me give you some verses to support that. So Genesis 1, verse 27, Genesis 1, verse 27, we read, So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Alright, so this is pretty fundamental. We understand that we were created in God's image. What does it mean to be created in God's image? Well, it means to be like God and that Adam and Eve and humanity are to represent God on the earth. Okay, this means that God created us as humans to be more like Him than anything else in creation. And so we are His image bearers and we were created to reflect what God is like. And after God created Adam and Eve on the sixth day of creation, just a few verses down there in Genesis 1 verse 31, we read this, again these are pretty well-known verses. We read, And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. So God looked at His creation and He took delight in it, in all of it, but especially in human beings made in His image. And so this is why Paul, the Apostle Paul, commands us in Ephesians, we're jumping around a little bit, we're looking at different verses. In Ephesians 5.1 we're told this, Paul says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And you don't have to turn there, but in Ephesians 5, at the end of chapter 4, Paul had been exhorting the Ephesians to put away certain things, bitterness, wrath, anger, slander, and to put on kindness and a spirit of forgiveness. And then at the beginning of chapter 5 of Ephesians, he admonishes them as God's children to imitate God who is kind and ready to forgive. And so, you know, if you're a parent, I know we have several parents here. You know there's a special joy when one of your children imitates some of your good qualities, right? Now you can also experience grief and sorrow when one of your children or more than one of them fails to imitate those good qualities, right? So, but the joy we experience as parents is really just a faint reflection of what God feels when he sees us as his children imitating his excellent qualities, his attributes, right? And so the idea of imitating God explains many of the commandments in the Bible. For example, First John 419, you can just listen, this is a well-known, First John 419 says, we love, why? Because he first loved us. So we imitate God's attribute of love when we act in love towards him and towards others. Jesus gave his disciples the new commandment, do you remember that? In John 13, 34, he says, a new commandment I give to you. Do you remember what that was, the new commandment? A new commandment I give to you, John 13, 34, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. So we are called to imitate Christ's self-sacrificing love by loving other believers in the same way, as much as possibly we can with the help of the Holy Spirit. Now, another command is given to us in 1 Peter 1, verses 15 and 16, 1 Peter 1, verses 15 and 16, we're told this. Peter writes, but as He who called you, God, as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. Okay, so why are we to try to be holy in our lifestyles and in our living? Well, because God is holy and we are to be like Him. Jesus gave his disciples another commandment in Luke 636. Luke 636, Jesus says to his disciples, he says, be merciful even as your father is merciful. So he explains that we are to be merciful to others. Why? Because our heavenly father is merciful. That's an attributed characteristic of God and we are to be like him. We are to imitate him. Here's another one. I'm just giving you several here. These are from the New Testament. These are some commandments that are given to us. Matthew 5, 48. Matthew 5, 48. Jesus says, you therefore must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. So again, we are to be like God. We are to imitate Him and His attributes, His character. And so this idea then of imitating God's character so that He will take delight in us, it explains other moral commands given to us in the Bible also. All right, so for example, God wants us not to lie, but instead to speak the truth, right? I mean, that's a given. How do we know that? Well, it's the ninth commandment in Exodus 20, verse 16, specifically tells us not to bear false witness, not to lie, right? And we're told that in several places in the New Testament. But why? Why is it that we're told not to lie? Well, because according to Titus 1 verse 2, God is described as the God who never lies. And we are to be like Him. We are to imitate Him. He commands us, what other commandments does God give us? Well, He commands us not to commit adultery. And why is that? Because God is faithful to His covenant commitments and He delights to see His children being faithful to the covenant of marriage for those of us who are married. God commands children to do what? Honor your father and mother, right? That's the fifth commandment. It's Exodus 20, verse 12, and it's quoted in Ephesians 6, too. Children, honor your father and mother. And why is that? Well, that's a reflection of the honor that the Son gives the Father in the Trinity. So God created us in such a way that we take delight in seeing reflections of His character in our own actions and in the actions of others. And so even though this process is marred by sin, we can still see that happening to some extent. Okay, so all of that to say then that another way we can glorify God in our lives in our vocations is by imitating God and specifically imitating God's productivity. Before sin came into the world, God put Adam in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. Genesis 2 verse 15. Work was part of God's original plan for Adam and Eve even in their sinless state. Okay? It was not a consequence of the fall. And I heard one time a commentator on Christian radio station say that work came as a result of the fall. But that is mistaken. Okay? Now, it may have become more difficult and toilsome for Adam, right? Because God cursed the ground in Genesis 3, 17 after the fall. But Adam was given the task to work and to keep the garden before sin ever entered the world. Now, God also told both Adam and Eve, again, before there was sin in Genesis 1, 28, back there in Genesis 1, 28, God said this, and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. All right, so they were told to subdue the earth and have dominion. Now that word that's translated subdue, the Hebrew word subdue, it implies that Adam and Eve should make the resources of the earth useful for their own benefit. And this implies that God intended them to develop the earth so that they could come to own agricultural products and animals and then works of craftsmanship and housing and eventually means of transportation and cities and all sorts of inventions. So now, God did not have to create us with a need for material things or a need for the services of other people. For example, think about the angels. So the angels apparently don't need material things or the services of other angels. But in God's wisdom, He chose to create man in such a way that we do need material things and we need the services of others. And so it could be that God created us with such needs because He knew that in the process of productive work, there would be many opportunities to glorify Him. So, when we work to produce something, whether it's a manufactured product or a service, we can imitate God, His attributes of, for example, His wisdom, His knowledge, His skill, creativity, strength, appreciation of beauty and sovereignty. So, and when we do this to meet the needs of others through our work, through our vocation, whatever that is, we can also demonstrate a love for others, a wisdom in understanding their needs, and interdependence and interpersonal cooperation, which are a reflection of the relationships that exist between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. So, if we do this while working heartily unto the Lord, As Paul says in Colossians 3, verse 23, Colossians 3, 23, Paul says, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Okay, so if we do that, we work heartily unto the Lord with joy and thanksgiving to God, in whatever our vocation is, whatever we've been called to do, then God will delight to see his excellent character reflected to some degree in our lives. And others will see something of God's character in us as well. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 16, Matthew 5, 16, he said, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. And so I was thinking about some men that we have in our church who have a lot of skills you know, with their hands. They're very skilled at fixing things and repairing things and building things, working with wood in particular. And so, you know, we had a situation once that we had some wood rot on a door frame in our house and it was kind of at the bottom. I think the rain had come in and so the frame was just rotting and it looked ugly and it was getting worse. And I don't have any skills at all to do anything to fix something like that. But we have a couple guys in our church, so I called one of the guys and he came over and he You know, he had to cut out the piece of wood and then he had to cut another piece of wood to get it to fit just right and cut it at an angle. And so he did that and replaced this piece of wood and then he painted over it and so now you can't even tell that it was ever damaged or what happened to it. And I was thinking, you know, this is just like God who takes things that are, you know, rotting and decaying and ugly and of no value or purpose right, like fallen sinners, and He restores and redeems them through Christ and He gives them value and purpose and beauty. And so, that's why God made us with a desire to be productive, to make or do things that are useful for other people. And so, these desires to be productive, they're not That's not instead of being, you know greedy or materialistic or evil They actually represent God-given desires to accomplish and achieve and solve problems And so they represent desires that God has given us to exercise dominion over the earth and to exercise faithful stewardship so that we and others can enjoy the resources of the earth that God has made for us to use and for our enjoyment. And, you know, we saw earlier that word subdue, when Adam and Eve are told to subdue the earth, that implies doing productive work to make the resources of the earth useful for themselves and others. And so that's what God wanted Adam and Eve to do, and that's one of the things that he wants us to do as well. So, therefore, in contrast to, you know, some people's attitude toward work today, Productive work is not evil or undesirable in itself, or it's not something to be avoided. Being productive in whatever it is, if you're a student, or if you're a homemaker, or whatever your vocation is, being productive is not something bad, but it's something that is inherently good. In fact, you probably know that the Bible doesn't speak positively about the idea of retiring from your job early and, you know, sitting around and going to Florida and collecting seashells for 40 years and not working at anything again, right? Instead, work in itself is something that is fundamentally good and God-given because it was something God commanded Adam and Eve to do before there was sin in the world, alright? So now, if you've ever been, especially as a man, if you've ever been unemployed for any length of time, you can appreciate this. I remember when we, you know, just in my lifetime, there have been a number of times in my life where I've been, you know, either unemployed or underemployed. And it's not a very happy experience. And I remember when we moved to Texas, this has been about 15 years, but I had to, my secular job. I'm an attorney and so I had to take the bar exam in Texas and then I had to wait several months to get the results and the whole process just took a lot longer than I anticipated to actually be able to find a job. And so I can remember not having much to do and I remember looking forward to Fridays because at least I could take the garbage out, you know, and I felt I was being productive. I was doing something, right? So what are some applications of this idea of seeking to glorify God through your vocation? Okay, let me try to make some applications from this. okay one one is what we have to we need to reject the mindset that says or that thinks, maybe it doesn't say it, but thinks, my work is a necessary evil that I have to do in order to pay my bills. Okay? And I think some people, maybe even some Christians, have this kind of mindset, right? So the idea is, well, I'm just going to do the bare minimum at my place of employment, whatever it is, just to get by, so that I can leave as quickly as possible to do some spiritual work for the Lord, right? Like, I'm going to go attend a Bible study or do some evangelism or go to a theology class, okay? Well, that's an unbiblical attitude. Right? And so we sometimes make this false dichotomy between our spiritual life and our secular life. But, you know, as Paul reminded us earlier in that verse we looked at in 1 Corinthians 10 31, he says, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And so, so in some sense, according to that verse, every part of our lives is spiritual and should be lived with a view to glorifying God in that. All right. So that's one one application. We need to not have that mindset. Now, another thing that we have to mindset we need to reject is the thought that says, well, in order to most fully glorify God, I must become a pastor or a missionary or a full-time Christian worker. Okay? And so some people might think that. Sometimes you even actually, you know, you might hear that. You know, and it is, again, we want to encourage people to become pastors and missionaries, right? And to go out into the harvest field and, you know, and we want to pray for that. But It's important to pray about and determine what your gifts and your calling are, and to be faithful to serve God within that calling, whatever that calling is. I remember one of the last times, there's a pastor by the name of Bob Jennings. I don't know if some of you know Bob Jennings. He died about seven or eight years ago. A really very dear man. And he would speak at the fellowship conference regularly. But he came to San Antonio one time, I think the last time he preached for us, and he made a comment. He said, you don't need to cross the ocean to go to a jungle. He says, there's a jungle right here in San Antonio, right? And I'm sure there's a jungle of unconverted people right here in, I guess we're in Round Rock, right? Round Rock in Austin, right? But this idea, though, that somehow if you're going to be really serious about serving God, you need to quit your job, go to the mission field, right? When I was a young Christian, I was converted through an organization that was a parachurch organization active in college campuses. It's called The Navigators. and so we did a lot of uh... you know bible study and scripture memory and and you know one-on-one training and so it was it was very helpful as a young christian i learned a lot of things i studied memorize a lot of scripture but one of the things that i think was a weakness in this organization was there was kind of a uh... unspoken truth that if you were a really serious Christian, when you graduated from college, you would pursue some kind of full-time Christian ministry. And in that context, that meant you would go on staff with this organization and you would work for this organization, like at another college campus, trying to reach students. And then if you weren't quite so serious about serving God, well, then you'd just go get a job, you know, and pursue a career, right? And this book that I mentioned earlier by Mark Chansky, that, you know, Manly Dominion, that I really, I do highly recommend it, he says he had the same experience. He went to a Christian college, and he remembers as a young Christian, hearing many chapel sessions where somebody would come and speak to the students, and they would really try to strongly encourage the students to pursue full-time Christian service. And the message was, well, if you really want to do something meaningful, something that will be sold out for God, and pleasing to God, then you're gonna dedicate your life to full-time kingdom service. And the flip side of that message was, well, if you don't do that, if you don't dedicate your life to full-time kingdom service, then you won't be doing something of eternal value, and you won't be viewed by God as being really sold out for Him. And so that's just, again, it's an example of faulty thinking that there's this sacred versus secular dichotomy that the Bible doesn't teach. Alright, so another application is we need to recognize the high calling of our various vocations and seek to glorify God as much as we can within whatever your vocation is. There's an organization, very interesting, called the High Calling. You can look this up online. It's a partnership with the Theology of Work Project. in partnership with the H.E. Butt Family Foundation. That's the founders of H.E.B. who apparently were Christians, at least the founders. And so on their website says this, this idea of our high calling. It says, honoring God in our daily work is much more than mere evangelism. Our work itself should be a testimony to our Creator. That is why we encourage each other to remember the high calling of our daily work. Okay? And that should be our attitude as well, whatever our vocation is. Another reason why this is important, if you seek to really glorify God in your vocation by imitating God, imitating His attributes, His character, imitating His productivity, that's going to greatly enhance your witness to others, your testimony to others. If you want to effectively witness to a co-worker or somebody you know, a student or whatever, someone that you're interacting with, it's not going to matter how much of the Bible you have memorized if your work ethic is bad and you're habitually tardy to work, right? And I was thinking about this when I was a young Christian. I was in the Air Force, so I was a second lieutenant in the Air Force. and i had only been saved about two years i was very zealous you know for evangelism and i wanted to reach people for you know for christ and so i'd i'd took some i had some bible verses on cards that i was working on memorizing so i took them with me to my my job i had a uh... basically desk job in the in the air force and i put them on my desk and i thought well you know that it would give me some opportunity during the day i could kind of reflect down and you know brush up on my memory and then maybe somebody will ask me about these cards and i can i can talk to him you know i can speak to them about christ right And so, but I had a friend, I met a guy who was an older, more mature Christian in my office who became a real mentor to me. And so, he took me aside and he told me that In fact, I really wasn't being a very good testimony to others in the office because I was doing this during work hours when I should have been concentrating on doing my job. And he said, if I wanted to work on memorizing verses or seeking to witness to co-workers during lunch or during a break, that would be fine. But doing that during working hours, really what I was doing, I was stealing time from my employer. So that was a good lesson for me to learn as a young, zealous Christian. Alright, so another application is, you know, especially for young men, but young ladies as well, you know, don't waste your youth. Particularly the years between about age 17 and 25. Mark Chansky in that book that I referenced, he calls those years the sweet spot of your lives. When you're between 17 and 25, we've got a couple I think might be in that range, maybe. Next month you're 17. He says don't waste those years because often what you do during that time period of your life will set the trajectory for the rest of your life. So don't waste those years. Be diligent to determine what your gifts and your vocational calling are as early as possible. Try not to bounce from job to job, you know, or from school to school. And if you have some aspirations for pursuing the ministry, well, great. Well, you can pray about that, you can seek counsel, but be faithful and content to glorify God right where you are, okay? And another example of this, we had a young man in our congregation. I don't think any of you know him, but he came to our church a couple years ago, and he seemed to have a lot of potential for ministry, okay? He liked to preach. He had some gift, some ability to preach, and so we have a nursing home ministry at our church, and he came a couple times, and I had him preach, and he began to kind of preach in different places, and he was very involved. He went to every Bible study he could go to, every theology class. He even developed friendships with pastors at other churches. I think he even developed a friendship with Steve Lawson up in Dallas, and so he would drive up to Dallas to go to a Bible study. It seemed like this guy's really on fire. But there were a couple things that, despite all this potential, that were concerning to me. One of them was, in my experience, he only got involved with some of these ministries, like going to the nursing home, when he was asked to preach. Otherwise, he generally didn't come. He didn't seem to have a real heart to serve others. He had a willingness and a desire to kind of be in the pulpit. So that was a little bit of a concern. The second one, though, was he had a very low view of work. He went to college for one semester. He dropped out of college because he said he wanted to devote more time to studying the Bible. And so I asked him, what are you going to do for work? And he said, well, I don't know if I'd really have time to get a job. My uncle wants me to lead a Bible study at his office, and I'm going to all these classes, and I don't know if I have time. That's essentially what he said. Well, I know some people, Spurgeon preached his first sermon when he was 16 and he began pastoring when he was 18, right? But that's pretty rare. Most men are going to need to establish and improve themselves in some non-ministry vocation before they're being ready for full-time pastoral or missionary work, right? But this guy, he wanted to kind of bypass all that because it wasn't spiritual enough for him. Well, anyway, these flaws proved to be symptoms of deeper problems in his life. And so as a result, it turned out that he ended up falling into some sin. He was involved in an immoral relationship with a woman from his prior church. He was exposed as being a liar. And as a result, he was disciplined out of our church. Now thankfully, this was a couple years ago, thankfully he has been restored. He's repented and he's been restored to our church and so we're thankful for that. But his unbiblical view of work had some serious, severe consequences. Alright, and then a last application is that I thought of, glorifying God by being productive and seeking to excel in your vocation as much as possible will enable you to give as much money as possible to help support those whom God has called to full-time Christian ministry, such as your pastor. I mean, being a pastor is a full-time job and it should be the goal and desire of every church member to provide the necessary financial support to free up their pastor, especially if he's by himself, so that he can devote his time, as much of his time and energy as possible, to the work of ministry. That's another motive why we ought to seek to glorify God in our in our vocations and seek to do as much as we can and excel so that we're in a position then to be able to give more money to the church, right, and support those who are called to full-time service. All right, let me close by sharing two quotes with you. The first one is a short quote from John Wesley, and you may have heard this. This was John Wesley's perspective on having a godly attitude towards work and money. He said, very simple, make all you can, save all you can, give all you can. Pretty succinct, right? But the only way you can do that, to make all you can and save all you can so that you can give all you can, the only way you can do that is if you're diligent and you're seeking to glorify God in your vocation. And here's another quote from this book by Mark Chansky that I mentioned earlier. He says, The Lord has wonderfully equipped a large portion of the body of Christ with brilliant minds and skilled hands that they might use these talents in the business world to the end of their producing financial dividends that will support expensive kingdom endeavors. Sadly, some of these choice servants of Christ have abandoned their fields of expertise and instead have tried to force-fit themselves into ministries because misguided teachers have denigrated the importance of non-ministry vocations. Did I get that? That was a lot, but I hope you got that. Alright, so, may we not make that mistake, right? And may the Lord help all of us to glorify Him more and more by imitating Him with our lives and our lips in whatever vocation He has called us to. And so, now of course, if you're not a Christian, you can't glorify God with your life because you don't know Him, and so therefore you can't imitate Him. But Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and His imitation applies. Today, confess your sins to God, repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you'll be reconciled to God. And then you'll have the capacity to glorify God in whatever vocation He calls you to. Amen? All right. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this time together. We thank You for Your Word and what it teaches us and instructs us. Lord, help us all to be diligent in whatever vocation you've called us to, to seek to honor you, to glorify you, to imitate you, your attributes, your character, Lord. and we just ask for your help. We look to you and we thank you for sending your son, Jesus, into the world to redeem us, to enable us to have a relationship with you that we might seek to be like you and to imitate you. We bless you and we thank you. And I pray for any who are unconverted here that you would save them, Lord. I pray for some of the children, that you'd be merciful to awaken them and draw them to yourself. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.