(upbeat music) - Welcome back to the podcast. Before we get started, please be praying for Pastor John, who is right now in the midst of a very busy ministry month here in January to start the year. He began January, of course, preaching at the Cross Conference in Louisville. A little later, he spoke at the G3 Conference in Atlanta, and now he prepares for the 2019 BCS Pastors Conference on Christian Joy.

That conference is here in Minneapolis. It begins on Monday and ends on Wednesday. So your prayers would be appreciated for him, for the organizers, and everyone who will be in attendance there. Hope to see you there. And with Pastor John tied up, we're joined this week by Pastor Tim Keller from New York City to talk vocation and about his really helpful book, "Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God's Work." I have a handful of questions to toss his way.

Admittedly, it's a bit scattershot. We'll talk to college graduates, we'll talk to parents, and we'll talk to Christians who feel stuck in their jobs. And I began by asking Dr. Keller, why does a biblical view of vocation seem so underdeveloped in the lives of so many Christian workers today?

- Well, I think it's probably because of the fact that the church doesn't have a uniform. There's not a consensus view on how the church is supposed to relate to culture more generally. And actually there's another book, this book "Center Church," in which I try to tackle that. I don't tackle it in the "Every Good Endeavor" book.

But basically you've got very different views on how the church should relate to the culture. It's based on very different views about common grace. It's based on somewhat different views about actually the role of the institutional church. And because of that, I think the doctrine of vocation, which everybody says, oh yeah, it's really important, really important that all work is a calling from God and that where work is important and that God has to come, you need to bring your faith and God to bear on your work.

Yep, that's important. But then the problem is it gets caught up, that doctrine of vocation gets caught up in this controversy. And then people come out, really, since there's no consensus on how to relate to the culture, there's no consensus on what vocation means. - Right, I'm thankful for the ways you clear up some of the confusion and help us work towards clarity.

In fact, early in your book, "Every Good Endeavor," you write two sentences that I think capture a major theme in the book. You write this, quote, "A job is a vocation "only if someone else calls you to do it "and you do it for them rather than for yourself.

"Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment "and self-realization slowly crushes the person "and undermines society itself." That is a powerful statement. So where does this crushing individualism in the workplace come from? Where does it originate? - Well, the basic idea, the basic secular idea is that there is no meaning in life.

We're here by accident. There's no overarching, there's no moral absolutes. There's no, we weren't put here for a purpose. But then what most of the folks say, I've seen this in many forums, they say, well, of course, there's no meaning in life. You have to create your own meaning.

So I've seen a lot of secular people and atheists say, yes, of course, there's no meaning to life, but that doesn't mean that we can't live a fruitful life and a happy life, you create your own meaning. Well, now, actually, somebody should drill down on that at some point, maybe I will, and say it's impossible to create your own meaning.

If you create your own meaning, you don't have it. But basically what they mean is you decide what is right or wrong for you, you decide what you think is important, and then you live according to that. But in that case, there's no calling. There's no sense that I am, there is something higher than me that's more important than me.

So you see, if you don't have that, then there's no such thing as sacrifice and servanthood. Everything you do is selfish. Everything you do is selfish. And there's also no real hope. There's no real hope for the future. You just basically are trying to create a little bit of happiness for yourself in this brief span of time that you have, but in the end, there's nothing but darkness.

So when you put those two things together, the idea of vocation, and the idea of hope, and the idea of servanthood, and the idea of sacrifice and unselfishness, it all actually depends on there being something more important than you, something that's already there, like God. So the whole idea of vocation's gone, and work is nothing but a way of getting ahead, and it is crushing us, I think.

- Yeah, and self-sacrifice is, of course, central to the biblical idea of vocation. And I think that that idea confronts a lot of Christians who maybe don't like their work, they don't like going to work. This is a really practical question, but if a Christian shows up for work on Monday morning, and they are irritable towards others, what's wrong?

- Well, in the book, I talk about the fact that the gospel is brought to bear on our work in a couple of different ways. One of them is the heart. One of them is the grumpiness, and the anger, and only doing what I have to do to get by, and that means it's a lack of a gospel character.

The gospel's supposed to make you grateful, supposed to make you humble, supposed to give you inner peace, it's supposed to make you generous in your spirit, and if you just don't show all those things at work, it means that the gospel hasn't really, you're not really letting the gospel change the heart the way it ought to.

And by the way, in the long run, a gospel-changed heart usually is, makes you a pretty good worker, makes people want to work with you, makes people want to be on your team, makes employers happy with your work. So in the long run, having a gospel-changed heart actually is pretty practical in the field of work.

- Yeah, for sure it is practical. And this success requires some level of diligence and focus too in the workplace, and I think for the first time I heard the phrase God of options was from Mark Dever out in D.C. He used this phrase God of options. He was talking about young pastors who take a pastorate in a local church but are always only half in, always eyeing a different church, always looking for a newer church, a better position within it.

Similarly, it seems like this temptation is for all Christians in the workforce who are half in on one particular job and so drawn to this God of options idea that they're never all in in one particular job, always looking for the next one, the next position to come along, something newer, bigger, grander.

Do you see this? - Yes, I'm being a little ironic, but what I said, just say yes, but your question was well stated, and I agree with it. I can just add this. People are looking for the more fulfilling thing. Very often they say, you know, I'd like something that is just a little bit, a job that's just a little more exciting to me, this job's a little boring to me, and better paying.

And I think the Christian understanding of vocation is if you produce a product, if you produce something that makes people's lives better, even if it's a rather boring process to do it, you're doing God's work. You're caring for God's creation. You're serving people's needs. Why does it have to be so incredibly, why does the process have to be incredibly fulfilling when you know that you are doing something that helps people?

And I do think that that's part of what I mean when I say that we've lost the idea of calling, and we are looking now at work as ways of fulfillment, and that actually in the end crushes you, so you're always half out, as you said. - Yep, well, I wanna return to this topic of what you would say to a Christian who feels stuck in their job, because I think there's more to say here, and I know there's a number of listeners who have asked questions about this over the years, and I wanna have you address that more next time.

I also want you to talk to parents about how to train their kids towards embracing diligent labor. There's a lot to cover next time with Tim Keller talking with us about his book, Every Good Endeavor, Connecting Your Work to God's Work. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

We'll see you on Friday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)