Recalling the CallingDeveloping A Personal Theological

Framework for Living out Your Vocational Calling

Pastor Al Soto, MAwww.realgreatness.com

Other Sub-Titles

Don’t Be Stuck on Stupid- Narcissism is not a

Spiritual Gift! How Can I Avoid Becoming the Anti-Christ

in a Future Staff Position? Galileo was right: “You Are Not The Center

of the Universe! From the Porcelain to the Pulpit: Why

cleaning toilets today prepares you for

Fruitful Future Ministry?

Starting Point Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted[a] by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’[b]” The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’[c]”9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.10 For it is written:“‘He will command his angels concerning you    to guard you carefully;1 they will lift you up in their hands,    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[d]”12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[e]”13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

“Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.”

Principle’s

“God is concerned more with my holiness than my happiness.”

“Holiness is evidenced by Christ- like Character which allows for God’s Power to be manifested through me!”

Pride + Insecurity = Powerless Christians

Paul’s Prayer Colossians 1:9-12

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge(epiginosko – knowledge out of experience) of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,[e] 10 so that you may live a life worthy (to Honor) of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[f] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

God’s Pattern- Is our Calling is to know Him and to be Like Him!

Defining 'Calling' in America

What do you do well? (Bernard Saffran: "Follow your individual supply curve!")

Where in society are you marketable? ("Where is the opportunity?")

What do you like to do or find fulfilling? ("What do you want to be when you grow up?")

What do people around you want or need you to do? ("How will you contribute?")

Calling in Scripture

What is God’s will (not your vision)... for God’s people (not yourself)... to accomplish God’s purpose (not realize your potential)?

Sometimes those other considerations play a part (Joseph, David, Daniel, Esther), but sometimes not (Moses, Isaiah, Mary, Paul).

Why the Disconnect for today?

They had social obligations;we have social freedoms.

They were forced by circumstances;we follow opportunities.

They thought communally;we think individualistically.

And Why Else?

The Son’s mission is to glorify the Father by reconciling the world to himself.

Jesus refuses to put his own vision, interests, and goals first(as in the wilderness, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in Phil. 2:5-11).

God calls him and his followers to discipleship, mission, and salvation, not to individual or social self-realization.

What Does Christian Calling Look Like in America?

What is your gift mix?

What doors is God opening?

What gives you joy?

Where do you feel God leading you?

Hold it — these sound spiritual but look just like American questions with a Christian veneer!

Common Sanctified Myth’s We Come to Believe

What I feel about God, Myself, and Others

is accurate and congruent with the Holy

Spirit’s Leading.

Theological Reflection is only important

when I am writing a paper not for Daily

Living?

Myth’s Continued …,

My negative experiences in the Church

qualify me to be the best solution for it’s

future fruitfulness.

Because God has called me to Christian

Service I should be paid for it because I

deserve it after paying college tuition.

BIG MYTH’S

God needs me to do big things for Him

so I don’t need to serve doing manual

labor in the Church.

I can’t wait to get into a Church Staff

Position because I know I can do it better

than my Pastor and Professor’s have done

it!

Okay Some Real Big Myth’sI AM IRON MAN & I HAVE

HAIR

DC’s Justice League is Better than Marvel’s Avengers

But How Do I Get Outside That Way of Thinking?

Know, trust, and follow the story of Jesus Christ!

We can adapt a list from Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret, pp. 174ff to explore the shape of Christian life in the world:

1. We don't need to identify which subcultures, trades, or professions belong to the Lord, because all the world already belongs to Jesus.

2. We can’t assume that the goodness of created things guarantees their righteousness, because humanity keeps using God’s gifts sinfully to try to gain independence.

Personal Question for Reflection:

How much rebellion do I have left in me?

What’s the Temptation from Luke 4?

3. God exposed and met this rebellion in the story of the cross as the world’s reconciliation.

This story plays itself out again and again as people react to the good news.

Personal Question for Reflection:

Am I continuing to be Reconciled to Christ and Am I being an agent of Reconciliation?

What’s the Temptation from Luke 4?

4. Admitting that we find goodness in strangers and rebellion in disciples respects that the Holy Spirit is bringing all Christ's treasures into obedience to him (John 16:12-15).

Personal Question for Reflection:

How Much Pride do I have in my heart?

What is the Temptation from Luke 4?

5. Christian community is the sign of this work of God.

It is not a place where we live as before while paying lip service to God.

It is also not an arrangement where, say, clergy or monks pursue “the counsels of perfection” and laity merely live by “precepts.”

What is my perception of me in relation to other people? How do I broker Personal and Positional Power?

6. Christians are neither better than non-Christians nor self-sufficient.

We are all subjects of the King of all kings.

Living in genuine relationships with our neighbors opens us to how we are related and can be reconciled in Christ.

How much drama do I create around me in my relationships?

So What Might Christian Calling Really Look Like in America?

Where do you find yourself bearing fruit of the Holy Spirit?

Whom is God making your neighbor?

How do (or could) you image Jesus Christ?

Where in your world is Jesus’ lordship still obscure, and his treasures unreconciled to him or each other?

What About Making a Living etc.?

Of course! — life is the scope of Jesus' mission.

Careers, neighborhoods, and other cultural circles are objects of mission, not just fields or means of support.

One example: My son Aaron

Another example: My courses are signs of the Kingdom.

Our Work & Calling

“The great primary contrast between the artist and the ordinary worker is this: the worker works to make money, so that he may enjoy those in life which are not his work and which his work can purchase for him; but the artist makes money by his work in order that he may go on working. The artist does not say, ‘I must work in order to live’; but ‘I must contrive to make money so that I may live to work.’ For the artist there is no distinction between work and living. His work is his life, and the whole of his life—not merely the material world about him, or the colors and sounds and events that he perceives, but also all his own personality and emotions, the whole of his life—is the actual material of his work.”•—Dorothy L. Sayers, “Vocation in Work”

Ephesians 2:10

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

EPIC BIBLE COLLEGEFormation for Vocation

“Our shared conviction is that the God who calls our names and offers us life and partnership in his own redemptive purposes fits us for the call. That calling is an expression of identity, and our ultimate calling is to express that identity in losing ourselves in something greater than us. And that requires us to grow, to be transformed—to become the people God intended us to be in every life-situation.”

Indicators For the Need for Change

No Slide But Please Listen!

Discussion Questions:

1. How does your notion of calling compare and contrast with biblical calling?2. How are you on the 'frontier' of the Kingdom of God?3. How is the Spirit "taking what is Christ's [what belongs to the Father] and declaring it to you"?4. How open are you to being changed by these revelations (as Peter was changed by Cornelius' conversion)?

... and while we're at it ...

5. Where do you find yourself bearing fruit of the Holy Spirit?6. Whom is God making your neighbor?7. How do (or could) you image Jesus Christ?8. Where in your world is Jesus' lordship still obscure, and his treasures unreconciled to him or each other?

(Let your application of these questions range wide, without drifting away from the biblical stories that shape them.)