1. Our Vocation and the Kingdom of
God
Matthew 25:14-19; 1 Thess 4:11-12

2. Employed Canadians 2012
● 36.6 hours per week at week (136 hrs in WK, 50 for
sleeping)
● Gender - Men 39.6; Women 33.2
● Age - 15 to 24 spent least working 28.3
● Regions -35.4 in Quebec and 39.0 in Alberta.
● 2012 about 10% total time devoted to paid work.

3. "If God is the creator of all things,
and through Christ all things are
made new, that process of
restoration must include our work."
-Timothy Keller

4. A vocation (Latin vocātiō - a call, summons[1]) is an
occupation to which a person is specially
drawn or for which he or she is suited,
trained, or qualified. Though now often used
in non-religious contexts, the meanings of
the term originated in Christianity.

5. Romans 12:1-2 MSG
Here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take
your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating,
going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it
before God as an offering. Embracing what God does
for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t
become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit
into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention
on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily
recognize what he wants from you, and quickly
respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always
dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God
brings the best out of you, develops well-formed
maturity in you.

6. ● Dorothy Sayers
(1893-1957
● British author
● Detective novels
● Oxford-educated,
contemporary of G.
K.Chesterton
● Essay Why Work
"Work is not primarily, a thing one does to live, but the
thing one lives to do."

7. Timothy Keller we must ask:
● What cultural practices are ‘common
grace’ and can be embraced
● what practices are antithetical [against]
to the gospel and must be rejected
● what practices can be adapted/revised for
use by believers.

8. 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
New International Version (NIV)
11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You
should mind your own business and work with your
hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life
may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will
not be dependent on anybody.

9. Dorothy Sayers says also;
"Let the Church remember this: that every maker and
worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade –
not outside it. The Apostles complained rightly when they
said it was not good they should leave the word of God and
serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the
person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully
might with equal justice protest: It is not good for us to
leave the service of our tables to preach the word."

10. ● We love our neighbour best when we
realize each of us is called to our
occupation by God.
● Gene Edward Veith "For when we realize
that the "mundane" activities that
consume most of our time are "God's
hiding places," our perspective
changes."

11. Timothy Keller we must ask:
● What cultural practices are ‘common grace’ and can
be embraced
●
what practices are antithetical [against] to the
gospel and must be rejected
● what practices can be adapted/revised for use by
believers.