Vocation - Latin word that means voice

Genesis 1:1 (NIV): the beginning God created…

Genesis 1:26–27 (NIV): Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them.

“The Imago Dei designates the …calling of human beings as God’s representatives and agents in the world, granted authorizing power to share in God’s rule or administration of the earth’s resources and creatures.”—J. Richard Middleton

“On Work” - a book by Derek Thompson

“The decline of traditional faith in America has coincided with an explosion of new atheisms. Everybody worships something. And works is among the most potent of the new religions competing for congregants. The belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose. Our desks were never meant to be our altars. The modern labor force evolved to serve the needs of consumers and capitalists, not to satisfy tens of millions of people seeking transcendence at the office.”—Derek Thompson

Genesis 3:17–19 NIV Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Colossians 3:23 NIV Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.

How we tend to see vocation:1) Compare and Strive2) Struggle and Succeed3) Arrive at “Vocation”

But vocation for followers of Jesus reverses the order ––

1) Receive the gift of Vocation2) Struggle and surrender3) Bear your soul and Give it away

Work is not primarily a thing ones does to live, but the thing ones lives to do. It is the medium in which we offer ourselves to God.—Dorothy Sayers

When we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” And he does give us our daily bread. He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, and the person who prepared our meal.—Martin Luther

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God creating. God making.

Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

Work begins with God. He delights in work. He is working.

God designed work for our good and His glory.

Genesis 2:7-9; 15 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the manwhom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord Godmade to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of thegarden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 15.The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Ephesians 6:5-7 perform your jobs, “with a sincere heart, just as you would obey Christ…serve with a good will as to the Lord and not to man.”

Genesis 3:16-19 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.

2 Thorns of Work

1. The Idolatry of Work

Genesis 1:26 God created man and woman.

Luke 4:8 – “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

Luke 18:18-29 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” 21 And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, forhe was extremely rich. 24 Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom ofGod.”

2) Idleness in Work

“You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you.”—Saint Augustine