How Your Career Could Crush You
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:05.960 | Before we get started, please be praying for Pastor John,
00:00:08.720 | who is right now in the midst of a very busy ministry month
00:00:11.880 | here in January to start the year.
00:00:14.640 | He began January, of course,
00:00:16.320 | preaching at the Cross Conference in Louisville.
00:00:18.700 | A little later, he spoke at the G3 Conference in Atlanta,
00:00:21.840 | and now he prepares for the 2019
00:00:24.960 | BCS Pastors Conference on Christian Joy.
00:00:28.160 | That conference is here in Minneapolis.
00:00:30.280 | It begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday.
00:00:33.880 | So your prayers would be appreciated for him,
00:00:35.640 | for the organizers,
00:00:36.600 | and everyone who will be in attendance there.
00:00:38.440 | Hope to see you there.
00:00:39.600 | And with Pastor John tied up,
00:00:41.040 | we're joined this week by Pastor Tim Keller
00:00:42.960 | from New York City to talk vocation
00:00:45.480 | and about his really helpful book,
00:00:47.480 | "Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God's Work."
00:00:52.200 | I have a handful of questions to toss his way.
00:00:54.200 | Admittedly, it's a bit scattershot.
00:00:56.480 | We'll talk to college graduates,
00:00:58.320 | we'll talk to parents,
00:00:59.320 | and we'll talk to Christians who feel stuck in their jobs.
00:01:03.120 | And I began by asking Dr. Keller,
00:01:05.200 | why does a biblical view of vocation
00:01:07.000 | seem so underdeveloped in the lives
00:01:09.160 | of so many Christian workers today?
00:01:11.580 | - Well, I think it's probably because of the fact
00:01:16.080 | that the church doesn't have a uniform.
00:01:19.480 | There's not a consensus view on how the church
00:01:22.280 | is supposed to relate to culture more generally.
00:01:25.520 | And actually there's another book,
00:01:28.360 | this book "Center Church," in which I try to tackle that.
00:01:31.360 | I don't tackle it in the "Every Good Endeavor" book.
00:01:34.200 | But basically you've got very different views
00:01:36.440 | on how the church should relate to the culture.
00:01:39.800 | It's based on very different views about common grace.
00:01:42.800 | It's based on somewhat different views
00:01:45.440 | about actually the role of the institutional church.
00:01:49.600 | And because of that, I think the doctrine of vocation,
00:01:52.480 | which everybody says, oh yeah, it's really important,
00:01:54.640 | really important that all work is a calling from God
00:01:58.760 | and that where work is important
00:02:00.160 | and that God has to come, you need to bring your faith
00:02:04.600 | and God to bear on your work.
00:02:07.160 | Yep, that's important.
00:02:08.040 | But then the problem is it gets caught up,
00:02:10.840 | that doctrine of vocation gets caught up
00:02:12.160 | in this controversy.
00:02:13.480 | And then people come out, really,
00:02:15.320 | since there's no consensus on how to relate to the culture,
00:02:18.800 | there's no consensus on what vocation means.
00:02:21.380 | - Right, I'm thankful for the ways you clear up
00:02:23.640 | some of the confusion and help us work towards clarity.
00:02:26.160 | In fact, early in your book, "Every Good Endeavor,"
00:02:28.720 | you write two sentences that I think capture
00:02:31.560 | a major theme in the book.
00:02:33.240 | You write this, quote, "A job is a vocation
00:02:36.640 | "only if someone else calls you to do it
00:02:38.960 | "and you do it for them rather than for yourself.
00:02:43.280 | "Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment
00:02:46.200 | "and self-realization slowly crushes the person
00:02:50.220 | "and undermines society itself."
00:02:53.500 | That is a powerful statement.
00:02:55.040 | So where does this crushing individualism
00:02:58.400 | in the workplace come from?
00:02:59.520 | Where does it originate?
00:03:01.080 | - Well, the basic idea, the basic secular idea
00:03:04.000 | is that there is no meaning in life.
00:03:07.000 | We're here by accident.
00:03:08.160 | There's no overarching, there's no moral absolutes.
00:03:10.800 | There's no, we weren't put here for a purpose.
00:03:13.920 | But then what most of the folks say,
00:03:15.800 | I've seen this in many forums,
00:03:18.000 | they say, well, of course, there's no meaning in life.
00:03:19.800 | You have to create your own meaning.
00:03:21.360 | So I've seen a lot of secular people and atheists say,
00:03:25.040 | yes, of course, there's no meaning to life,
00:03:26.680 | but that doesn't mean that we can't live a fruitful life
00:03:31.280 | and a happy life, you create your own meaning.
00:03:33.740 | Well, now, actually, somebody should drill down on that
00:03:36.560 | at some point, maybe I will,
00:03:37.760 | and say it's impossible to create your own meaning.
00:03:40.120 | If you create your own meaning, you don't have it.
00:03:41.980 | But basically what they mean is
00:03:43.660 | you decide what is right or wrong for you,
00:03:45.440 | you decide what you think is important,
00:03:47.160 | and then you live according to that.
00:03:49.200 | But in that case, there's no calling.
00:03:51.220 | There's no sense that I am,
00:03:53.360 | there is something higher than me
00:03:54.720 | that's more important than me.
00:03:56.420 | So you see, if you don't have that,
00:03:57.760 | then there's no such thing as sacrifice and servanthood.
00:04:00.460 | Everything you do is selfish.
00:04:01.880 | Everything you do is selfish.
00:04:03.520 | And there's also no real hope.
00:04:05.080 | There's no real hope for the future.
00:04:06.320 | You just basically are trying to create
00:04:08.400 | a little bit of happiness for yourself
00:04:11.040 | in this brief span of time that you have,
00:04:13.060 | but in the end, there's nothing but darkness.
00:04:15.320 | So when you put those two things together,
00:04:16.920 | the idea of vocation, and the idea of hope,
00:04:20.360 | and the idea of servanthood,
00:04:21.600 | and the idea of sacrifice and unselfishness,
00:04:24.440 | it all actually depends on there being
00:04:28.840 | something more important than you,
00:04:30.320 | something that's already there, like God.
00:04:32.720 | So the whole idea of vocation's gone,
00:04:34.200 | and work is nothing but a way of getting ahead,
00:04:36.680 | and it is crushing us, I think.
00:04:39.320 | - Yeah, and self-sacrifice is, of course,
00:04:41.200 | central to the biblical idea of vocation.
00:04:43.480 | And I think that that idea confronts a lot of Christians
00:04:46.920 | who maybe don't like their work,
00:04:48.880 | they don't like going to work.
00:04:50.880 | This is a really practical question,
00:04:53.000 | but if a Christian shows up for work on Monday morning,
00:04:55.840 | and they are irritable towards others, what's wrong?
00:05:00.840 | - Well, in the book, I talk about the fact
00:05:04.400 | that the gospel is brought to bear on our work
00:05:07.440 | in a couple of different ways.
00:05:09.280 | One of them is the heart.
00:05:12.240 | One of them is the grumpiness, and the anger,
00:05:15.440 | and only doing what I have to do to get by,
00:05:18.600 | and that means it's a lack of a gospel character.
00:05:23.480 | The gospel's supposed to make you grateful,
00:05:24.920 | supposed to make you humble,
00:05:26.080 | supposed to give you inner peace,
00:05:28.040 | it's supposed to make you generous in your spirit,
00:05:32.200 | and if you just don't show all those things at work,
00:05:35.640 | it means that the gospel hasn't really,
00:05:37.320 | you're not really letting the gospel change the heart
00:05:38.760 | the way it ought to.
00:05:39.600 | And by the way, in the long run,
00:05:41.320 | a gospel-changed heart usually is,
00:05:43.880 | makes you a pretty good worker,
00:05:45.040 | makes people want to work with you,
00:05:46.600 | makes people want to be on your team,
00:05:48.280 | makes employers happy with your work.
00:05:50.600 | So in the long run, having a gospel-changed heart
00:05:53.560 | actually is pretty practical in the field of work.
00:05:57.360 | - Yeah, for sure it is practical.
00:05:58.800 | And this success requires some level of diligence
00:06:03.200 | and focus too in the workplace,
00:06:04.800 | and I think for the first time I heard the phrase
00:06:06.840 | God of options was from Mark Dever out in D.C.
00:06:10.880 | He used this phrase God of options.
00:06:12.640 | He was talking about young pastors
00:06:14.160 | who take a pastorate in a local church
00:06:16.600 | but are always only half in,
00:06:18.920 | always eyeing a different church,
00:06:21.400 | always looking for a newer church,
00:06:23.320 | a better position within it.
00:06:25.400 | Similarly, it seems like this temptation
00:06:27.400 | is for all Christians in the workforce
00:06:29.040 | who are half in on one particular job
00:06:32.960 | and so drawn to this God of options idea
00:06:35.480 | that they're never all in in one particular job,
00:06:38.920 | always looking for the next one,
00:06:40.320 | the next position to come along,
00:06:41.680 | something newer, bigger, grander.
00:06:43.600 | Do you see this?
00:06:45.120 | - Yes, I'm being a little ironic,
00:06:47.440 | but what I said, just say yes,
00:06:48.560 | but your question was well stated, and I agree with it.
00:06:52.040 | I can just add this.
00:06:53.040 | People are looking for the more fulfilling thing.
00:06:57.120 | Very often they say, you know,
00:07:00.040 | I'd like something that is just a little bit,
00:07:02.160 | a job that's just a little more exciting to me,
00:07:04.440 | this job's a little boring to me, and better paying.
00:07:08.440 | And I think the Christian understanding of vocation
00:07:11.600 | is if you produce a product, if you produce something
00:07:15.000 | that makes people's lives better,
00:07:16.400 | even if it's a rather boring process to do it,
00:07:19.200 | you're doing God's work.
00:07:20.280 | You're caring for God's creation.
00:07:22.640 | You're serving people's needs.
00:07:24.800 | Why does it have to be so incredibly,
00:07:27.160 | why does the process have to be incredibly fulfilling
00:07:29.120 | when you know that you are doing something
00:07:31.360 | that helps people?
00:07:32.720 | And I do think that that's part of what I mean
00:07:36.320 | when I say that we've lost the idea of calling,
00:07:39.360 | and we are looking now at work as ways of fulfillment,
00:07:42.280 | and that actually in the end crushes you,
00:07:44.680 | so you're always half out, as you said.
00:07:47.040 | - Yep, well, I wanna return to this topic
00:07:48.920 | of what you would say to a Christian
00:07:50.720 | who feels stuck in their job,
00:07:51.840 | because I think there's more to say here,
00:07:54.080 | and I know there's a number of listeners
00:07:55.400 | who have asked questions about this over the years,
00:07:58.080 | and I wanna have you address that more next time.
00:08:00.480 | I also want you to talk to parents
00:08:02.520 | about how to train their kids
00:08:04.040 | towards embracing diligent labor.
00:08:05.680 | There's a lot to cover next time with Tim Keller
00:08:08.320 | talking with us about his book,
00:08:09.440 | Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God's Work.
00:08:12.880 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:08:13.720 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:08:15.680 | We'll see you on Friday.
00:08:17.560 | (upbeat music)
00:08:20.140 | (upbeat music)
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