Is My Career in Marketing Vain?

00:00:00.000 | Is my career in marketing vain?

00:00:07.840 | It's a great question and it comes to us frequently.

00:00:11.080 | What we're going to address today is often reflected in emails that we get from Christians

00:00:15.360 | who work not only in marketing, but also in the clothing industry and in all facets of

00:00:21.960 | the fashion world as well.

00:00:24.560 | Here's the question, it's from a young man.

00:00:26.080 | Pastor John, hello, I'm a long-time listener of yours and appreciate the podcast.

00:00:30.680 | I work at Nike and have often wrestled with my position at the company being that my job

00:00:36.400 | is in marketing.

00:00:38.240 | I sell luxury goods to people who don't need them and often who cannot afford them.

00:00:44.360 | On the other hand, the company gives away millions of dollars as well as shoes and clothing.

00:00:49.040 | I want to be excellent in my work in glorifying God.

00:00:51.560 | I also want to honor my managers as those in authority over me.

00:00:56.400 | But I'm against the consumerist ways of America, and yet I feel I'm in some ways contributing

00:01:02.040 | to them.

00:01:03.320 | How do I balance these tensions and continue to work hard with my hands so that I'm not

00:01:08.160 | a burden to anyone?

00:01:09.920 | Can the products of a humanist company like mine be at all redeemed by the God-glorifying

00:01:14.920 | work done by their Christian employees, or is a career change needed?

00:01:22.240 | If I worked in marketing, I would ask myself these five questions, at least.

00:01:30.680 | First, am I always telling the truth?

00:01:36.000 | God is a God of truth.

00:01:37.360 | He commanded us to bear witness in the truth, that is, not to bear false witness.

00:01:44.120 | He told us in Ephesians to speak the truth to one another.

00:01:47.920 | His apostles said they could do nothing against the truth.

00:01:53.240 | Christians are radically truth-driven people.

00:01:57.520 | We really believe there is such a thing as truth, so we should ask regularly, "Is my

00:02:03.120 | messaging always truthful?"

00:02:06.680 | Second, if I succeed in my marketing efforts, am I helping people?

00:02:13.560 | Am I doing them good?

00:02:15.440 | Jesus said that whoever would be great must be the servant of all, which means we seek

00:02:21.760 | their good.

00:02:23.120 | Paul said, "Let everything be done in love."

00:02:26.480 | And he added that love does no wrong to a neighbor.

00:02:30.320 | So I must ask, "Is my service or is my product doing good for people or hurting them or confirming

00:02:37.960 | them in some hurtful pattern of behavior or thinking?"

00:02:41.760 | Third, am I in a position to significantly change the way my company does business so

00:02:49.320 | that people will be helped rather than hurt by what we do and the way we do it?

00:02:55.400 | Or is that an unrealistic expectation that given the position I have, I could significantly

00:03:01.480 | alter things for the good of this company and what it does?

00:03:07.160 | Fourth, are my professional efforts and successes magnifying Christ?

00:03:15.920 | That is, are what I do and the way I do it and its outcomes showing more clearly that

00:03:22.920 | Christ is supremely valuable, more valuable than anything?

00:03:26.760 | Paul said that was his life's goal—to magnify Christ in his body, whether by life

00:03:32.040 | or by death.

00:03:33.600 | He said that he counted everything as loss compared to Christ.

00:03:41.680 | I don't mean to claim that it is simple or easy in any job to show that Christ is

00:03:49.200 | more valuable than the job or the salary or the esteem or the benefits or the relationships.

00:03:56.040 | I don't claim that any of that is easy or obvious, but I do claim that we should ask

00:04:03.920 | that question.

00:04:05.680 | And I do think that in asking it, God will help us get a read on whether we are doing

00:04:12.720 | his revealed will in our job.

00:04:15.440 | Here's the last question, the fifth question.

00:04:19.120 | Is a different career path or a different vocation open to me where my gifts could be

00:04:26.720 | used and these questions could be answered in a more satisfying way?

00:04:32.160 | I pose this question because I don't want to give the impression that an employee is

00:04:38.680 | responsible for all the misdeeds of the company he works for.

00:04:44.080 | The more he knows, the more responsible he is; the more power he has, the more responsible

00:04:50.280 | he is.

00:04:51.280 | But I don't think it is automatic that one must leave a job because there is sin in the

00:04:57.160 | company.

00:04:58.360 | In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says that remaining in the position where we were called to Christ

00:05:04.680 | is the Christian norm.

00:05:06.560 | We are to remain there, it says, with God, with God.

00:05:11.560 | And that would change a lot of things, but it doesn't necessarily mean you leave the

00:05:16.680 | position.

00:05:17.880 | But he also says if the door is open for a change, and you can and you should, then go

00:05:24.120 | ahead, seek it.

00:05:26.240 | So those are my five questions that I would ask myself if I were in marketing.

00:05:30.720 | Now let's get more specific.

00:05:32.480 | Our friend writes and says two things are troubling him, and they should.

00:05:39.760 | He says, "I sell luxury goods to people who don't need them and often can't afford them."

00:05:46.840 | And the second thing he says is, "I am against the consumerist ways of America, and yet I

00:05:53.640 | feel I'm in some ways contributing to them."

00:05:58.440 | So there are two issues here.

00:05:59.960 | One is the objective fact that his marketing effectiveness is confirming people in a sinful

00:06:08.380 | mindset with regard to money and possessions, so it seems, and the other is that he's aware

00:06:15.000 | of it and feels bad about it.

00:06:17.880 | Now both of those are a problem.

00:06:19.560 | The second one is a conscience problem.

00:06:21.760 | The Bible is very serious about not acting against our conscience.

00:06:26.160 | It's also clear that a conscience can be distorted or needs to be recalibrated according to God's

00:06:33.240 | revealed will.

00:06:34.620 | It might be too loose or it might be too tight, and God's word needs to shape the conscience.

00:06:39.860 | But while it's being shaped, while it's being calibrated according to God's word, it should

00:06:44.960 | also in general be followed.

00:06:48.080 | To go against your conscience is to say to God, "I don't mind risking displeasing you."

00:06:55.200 | That's a very dangerous thing to say.

00:06:56.760 | We ought not say that.

00:06:58.080 | We ought not act that way.

00:07:00.160 | Now the other issue, the first one, is more objective and needs to be tested by Scripture.

00:07:06.760 | Is my marketing effectiveness really confirming people in a sinful mindset with regard to

00:07:12.860 | money and possessions?

00:07:15.340 | And here's what I have found over the years as I've tried to think of my own life, the

00:07:19.500 | people I minister to, all the different ways we handle money.

00:07:25.820 | I have found that the most helpful thing in providing guidance and putting a governor

00:07:32.600 | on the love of money, my love of money, my love of comfort, my love of ease, one of the

00:07:39.060 | most effective things to put a proper biblical governor on that is not simply to take isolated

00:07:47.660 | texts here and there and try to figure out precise applications from those texts, which

00:07:56.160 | seems to almost never work because you always come up with some scenario where those texts

00:08:01.940 | might not be valid here, rather to let the relentless stream of New Testament texts about

00:08:11.220 | money wash over me.

00:08:13.380 | That has a very salutary effect.

00:08:16.900 | The New Testament is relentless in pushing us toward a wartime simplicity and economy

00:08:26.660 | for the sake of the kingdom and away from luxury and away from affluence and away from

00:08:32.660 | finery and opulence.

00:08:36.220 | Here are some of the passages.

00:08:37.660 | So here's a little bit of the waterfall, the stream that I'm talking about that needs to

00:08:45.340 | wash over us.

00:08:46.340 | Luke 6, 20, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.

00:08:51.780 | Woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation."

00:08:55.660 | Luke 8, 14, "They are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life."

00:09:02.700 | Luke 9, 58, "The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

00:09:07.460 | Come follow me."

00:09:08.780 | Luke 12, 15, "A person's life does not consist in his possessions."

00:09:15.220 | Matthew 6, 19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but in heaven."

00:09:20.660 | Luke 12, 20, "To the bigger barn builder, fool, this night your soul be required of

00:09:27.620 | you.

00:09:28.700 | So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God."

00:09:33.580 | Luke 12, 33, "Sell your possessions, give alms, provide yourselves with purses in heaven."

00:09:38.980 | Luke 14, 33, "Whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."

00:09:45.060 | Luke 18, 24, "How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter into the kingdom

00:09:50.540 | of heaven."

00:09:51.540 | 2 Corinthians 8, 2, "In a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their

00:09:58.060 | extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of liberality."

00:10:02.980 | 1 Timothy 6, 7, "We brought nothing into the world.

00:10:06.540 | We can't take anything out of the world, but if we have food and clothing with these,

00:10:11.020 | we will be content."

00:10:12.780 | Hebrews 13, 5, "Keep your life free from the love of money."

00:10:18.420 | And the list could go on and on.

00:10:21.760 | And the point of all those texts, I think, is to pose the question, is what we do and

00:10:30.780 | say about money communicating that Christ is more precious than money?

00:10:38.240 | His security is better than the security of money.

00:10:41.060 | His power is better than the power of money.

00:10:44.000 | His preciousness is better than the preciousness of money.

00:10:49.660 | That's what our life is supposed to say to the world, supposed to communicate.

00:10:54.980 | Samuel Grafton once said, "A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you

00:11:04.660 | hold it close enough to your eye."

00:11:08.140 | So for ourselves and for others, we should ask very seriously, are we putting the penny

00:11:17.260 | so close to our eye and to their eye that the star of God's worth is made harder to

00:11:25.740 | see?

00:11:27.300 | So important to hear this, and I know this episode will speak to a lot of listeners in

00:11:31.140 | their given fields of employment who are wrestling with trying to find a career that appeases

00:11:36.700 | the market and also one that serves very real and tangible needs in the lives of their neighbors.

00:11:45.580 | It's no small challenge.

00:11:46.580 | Thank you, Pastor John, for addressing this.

00:11:49.100 | And thanks for listening.

00:11:50.100 | If you want new episodes of this podcast delivered to you, subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your

00:11:53.500 | favorite podcast app on Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.

00:11:58.020 | And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us of your own,

00:12:01.420 | do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:07.060 | Well, how should we respond when we feel unappreciated?

00:12:11.220 | It's a question that we all face.

00:12:12.580 | We all want to excel and we all want to be noticed.

00:12:16.440 | We all want to be thanked.

00:12:17.780 | We want our efforts to be valued.

00:12:19.780 | That's only natural.

00:12:21.700 | And yet instead of telling us to get used to being unappreciated, God actually gives

00:12:25.900 | us some incredible promises that we are being appreciated in ways we may have never, ever

00:12:33.620 | expected.

00:12:34.620 | Pastor John will explain how next time on Wednesday.

00:12:37.820 | I'm Tony Reinke.

00:12:38.820 | We'll see you then.

00:12:39.620 | Bye.

00:12:41.120 | Bye.

00:12:42.620 | Bye.

00:12:43.120 | Bye.

00:12:45.120 | Bye.

00:12:46.120 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is My Career in Marketing Vain?

Chapters