Scott Aniol, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of G3 Ministries. In addition to his role with G3, Scott is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. He lectures around the world in churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries, and he has authored several books and dozens of articles. You can find more, including publications and speaking itinerary, at www.scottaniol.com. Scott and his wife, Becky, have four children: Caleb, Kate, Christopher, and Caroline.
Well, it's really a great joy to be able to address you this afternoon from the Word of God. One of the things that has been really on my mind and heart recently is the need for us to recover a robust biblical theology of human vocation. God has certainly called men, certain men, to gospel ministry, to preach the Word, to shepherd God's people. He has called others to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, planting churches around the world. These are high callings of God.
We praise the Lord for these callings, and we ought to fervently pray that the Lord will send more laborers into his harvest. But one of my fears is that many within our churches today think that these callings, callings to be pastors and missionaries, are really the only way that we can truly serve Christ. This is full-time Christian service and other vocations. They might be necessary evils, but really they are only secondary in importance. But Colossians chapter 3 corrects this way of thinking when Paul says in verse 22, bond servants obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. When Paul says there, you are serving the Lord Christ, he is really talking about every single one of the vocations that are mentioned in the context here in Colossians chapter 3. It begins in verse 18 by speaking to wives. Wives, it says, when you do what wives are called by God to do, you are serving the Lord Christ.
He then moves on to children and to parents. He says when you fill what fulfill what God intends for children and parents to do, you are serving the Lord Christ. And then perhaps most remarkable of all, we get to this verse in verse 22 where Paul is addressing bond servants. Now perhaps we can see how wives and husbands and children and parents are all God-ordained vocations in which we can legitimately serve Christ, but bondservants? I mean, we can see how God created husbands and wives and parents and children, but bondservant is a station in life that people created.
Certainly that's got to be one of the most secular jobs of all. And when you hear bond servants here in Colossians 3 don't think someone who flips burgers at McDonald's or works at a checkout at Walmart. A bond servant at the time that Paul was writing this was one of the absolute worst bottom-of-the-barrel situations in which someone could find himself. Bond servants usually owed some kind of debt to their masters. They had to do some of the dirtiest, most menial kinds of work.
They were often paid very poorly. And yet Paul looks at these individuals whose jobs included some of the most mundane, earthly, quote-unquote secular work, and he says to them, in your job as a bondservant, you are serving the Lord Christ. What a remarkable thought. Paul is intentionally choosing the lowliest of all professions and calling it service to Christ as a way of saying all legitimate human vocations in life ought to be service to the Lord Christ. There is no legitimate profession that is somehow inferior in its ability to serve Christ than another.
In other words, being a pastor or being a missionary are high callings of God in which God-called men can serve Christ, but this is also true for a Christian who is called to be an accountant, a plumber, an engineer, or a homeschool mother. All legitimate vocations can be full-time Christian service. You can actually serve the Lord Christ in punching keys on a keyboard, balancing accounts, fixing cars, or wiping runny noses. You see, the kind of thinking that says only full-time church workers are really doing ministry was actually perpetuated during the Middle Ages. Medieval Christendom taught that only being a pastor was really a calling of God.
All other professions were simply necessary evils. And so it is in the 17th century reformers that we get some of the most helpful arguments against that way of thinking. Martin Luther was particularly brilliant in combating this way of thinking and arguing that God works through every legitimate profession. Luther used Psalm 147 verse 13, for example, to prove this. The Psalm reads, For God strengthens the bars of your gates.
How does God strengthen the bars, Luther asks? By city planners and architects, by politicians who pass good laws to protect the city. The Psalm continues, God blesses your children within you. How does God bless our children, Luther asks? Through the work of doctors and pediatricians.
The Psalm continues, God makes peace in your borders. How? By good lawyers and policemen. God fills you with the finest of wheat. How does God do that?
By farmers and factory workers and grocers. Luther went on to say this, when we pray the Lord's Prayer, we ask God, give us this day our daily bread. And he does give us our daily bread, But how does he do it? 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. God answers our prayer for daily bread through earthly human vocations.
Our legitimate professions, Luther said, are like the masks that God wears in caring for his world. You see, when you fix someone's computer problem so that they can do their job better, you are doing God's work. When you sell someone a product that will enrich their life, you are doing God's work. When you vacuum under the kitchen table for the zillionth time to keep your home clean and healthy, you are doing God's work. You can serve Christ in all of these vocations because this is what God has called you to do.
Often in Christian circles when we talk about a calling, we tend to use that term only to describe being called to be a pastor or a missionary. And God does call men to be pastors and missionaries. But again, limiting calling only to ministry positions within the church is not what Scripture teaches. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7 17, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. And what is Paul talking about in this text?
He's just finished talking about a Christian wife who is married to an unbelieving husband. He's gonna move on to discuss those who are circumcised or uncircumcised, people who are bond servants, people who are betrothed, unmarried, married, all sorts of various life situations and vocations. And so what does Paul say in verse 17 about all of these life situations? This is what the Lord has assigned you. If you are single, a wife or a husband, if you have children or don't have children, if you are a manager or a bottom-run paper pusher, rich or poor, living in a wonderful Christian marriage or struggling with an unbelieving spouse, this is the life to which God has called you.
This is your calling from the Lord, no different from a calling to be a pastor or a church worker or a church planter. This is your calling. This is your vocation, which is just a Latin word that means calling. And this is why no matter what you're calling, from being the pastor of a prominent church to being a woman who faithfully homeschools your children, you can serve the Lord Christ in your calling. And so on that basis, in Colossians chapter 3, Paul says that because the vocation God has called you to is service to the Lord Christ, do it heartily and not with mediocrity.
Do it for the Lord and not for men. Work ultimately for the inheritance of Christ, not for earthly gain. Christian bakers should bake the best bread possible. Christian bankers should invest their clients' money with the highest integrity. Christian auto mechanics should fix cars to the best of their ability because they are doing it for the Lord.
You see, God made each one of us for the purpose of serving him. There is no exception. And God has made us with special abilities to accomplish that purpose in unique ways. He has appointed certain stations of life and callings for each one of us. Oh, that we would pursue God's calling in our lives, no matter what that might be, as a way that in everything that we do we truly are serving the Lord Christ.
Amen.