1. What is Vocation? What are we doing here?

2. Vocation Defined Mark 12:30 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all you mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all you mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:31 “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31 “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

3. Vocation Defined “A Christian’s main vocation is to become a prime citizen of the kingdom of God—and this is true of every Christian…” Plantinga, p 110. “A Christian’s main vocation is to become a prime citizen of the kingdom of God—and this is true of every Christian…” Plantinga, p 110. “Our entire lives shaped around the mold that God wants us to be.” Nate Kamerman “Our entire lives shaped around the mold that God wants us to be.” Nate Kamerman “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3. “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3.

4. Past and Vocation “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3. “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3. Jesus’ disciples… Jesus’ disciples… Examples… Examples… Hotel Rwanda Hotel Rwanda Montana Montana

5. Present and Vocation “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3. “A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation.” Lewis, Learning in Wartime, p 3. Calvin College Calvin College World Events World Events September 11 th September 11 th War War Christianity Christianity

6. Vocation is…Painful “No doubt Pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.” Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p 83, 2 Timothy 1:8, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God…” (italics mine)

7. Vocation is…Joyful Philippians 4:4-5, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.” “God cannot give happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” Lewis

8. Vocation is…Shaping “We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love… It is not that we shall be asked to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it.” Lewis, The Four Loves. “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and you our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” Isaiah 64: 8

9. Vocation is…Mysterious Jeremiah 29:11-12, “ ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.’ ”

10. Vocation is…All-Encompassing I Corinthians 10:31, “Whether, then you at or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God…” “We try, when we wake, to lay the new day at God’s feet; before we have finished shaving, it becomes our day and God’s share in it is felt as a tribute which we must pay out of ‘our own’ pocket, a deduction from the time ought, we feel, to be ‘our own’.A man starts a new job with a sense of vocation and, perhaps, for the first week still keeps the discharge of the vocation as his end, taking the plasures and pains from God’s hand, as they come as ‘accidents’…” Lewis, The Problem of Pain, p 63.

11. Vocation is…Difficult “When humans should have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.” Lewis, The Weight of Glory Philippians 4:12-13, “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

12. Vocation is…Worship Vocation is…Worship This is the pattern which man was made to imitate— which Paradisal man did imitate—and whatever the will conferred back in delighted and delighting obedience by the creature, there, most undoubtedly, is Heaven, and there the Holy Ghost proceeds.” Lewis, Problem of Pain, p 79. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me bless His holy name.” Psalm 103:1. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses buy completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms.

13. Vocation is…a Community Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one bady and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. “God uses the Christian church and her ‘means of grace’ (preaching and sacraments, for instance) to spread the news about Jesus and the kingdom and to help people take the news to heart. Of all the ways that we can express our citizenship in the kingdom of God, none is more obvious than becoming an active member of our local church.” Plantinga, 110-111.

14. Vocation is…a Blessing Philippians 4: 6-7, 9 “Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. …The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” It is good to give thanks to the Lord And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And your faithfulness by night Psalm 92: 1-2

15. ….and find your own conclusion!