The Sacred Calling of Work Part 1 (Titus 2:9-10)

What if your job is more than hours, tasks, and a paycheck? We pull back the curtain on vocatio—the ancient idea of calling—and show how recovering it can fill even the most routine task with purpose. Drawing on Paul’s words to Titus and stories from the Reformation, we explore how God hides behind ordinary work, using the hands of moms, makers, managers, and yes, milkmaids, to bless the world. Monday stops being a burden when your Supervisor is Christ.

We walk through a hard first-century reality—millions living as bondservants in Rome—and unpack Paul’s countercultural strategy. Rather than fanning revolt, he planted gospel seeds that would eventually undermine slavery itself: in Christ there is neither slave nor free, masters and servants are brothers, and a runaway named Onesimus returns as family. That heart-level revolution spills into institutions over time, changing how people treat power, pay, and each other. The result is a faith that shines brightest in ordinary places: a desk, a shop floor, a kitchen table.

From there, we turn practical with traits that can reshape any workplace. Humility accepts order without resentment, even under flawed authority. Reliability aims to be “well pleasing,” working with excellence because God sees in secret. And a non-argumentative spirit refuses to feed the office culture of complaint, choosing clarity and respect over grumbling. Along the way, we share stories—the stonemason building a cathedral, Luther’s shoemaker crafting honest goods—that help us see how our craft becomes a canvas for worship. If you’re tired of living for the weekend, this conversation offers a sturdier vision: the cubicle as a sanctuary, the task list as a liturgy, and your daily labor as a way to adorn the gospel in plain sight.

If this reframed your view of work, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a Monday boost, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. How would your week change if you worked as if Christ were watching?

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Transcript

Heart Before Institutions: A Gospel Lens

SPEAKER_00 0:38

When God saves us, the reformation of our lives begins to impact the institutions we're part of.

Vocatio: Recovering The Sacred In Work

Luther And Calvin On Everyday Calling

From Paychecks To Purpose

Slavery In Rome And Paul’s Strategy

The Gospel’s Seeds That Topple Slavery

Your Station As Divine Calling

Six Traits For Monday: Humility

Reliability: Working To Please Christ

Complicity: Do Not Argue Or Complain

SPEAKER_01 0:47

The New Testament didn't write about how to rebel against or even how to reform the human institution, but it did introduce all that was necessary to reform the human heart. And the reformed, spiritually redeemed human heart will impact and reform human institution. It's the Latin word vocatio. It means a calling. And as early as the 1500s, the word was used to refer to every occupation, every kind of work as a sacred calling from God. In fact, Martin Luther, the reformer, the converted monk who would begin unknowingly, unwittingly, the Protestant Reformation wrote that God could populate the earth by creating each new generation of babies from the dust. But instead, he ordained the offices of husband and wife and parent as sacred vocations. All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in government, these are the masks of God, behind which he is hidden, through which he does all things. He even wrote this God Himself is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid. Every vocation was a sacred calling through which God fulfilled his divine purposes. So behind that word vocatio was the idea that every legitimate kind of work or social function was in fact a distinct calling from God. The reformer and theologian John Calvin wrote around 450 years ago that the workplace was to be considered a place of worship. You see, what these reformers did was wrestle the idea of a sacred calling away from the clergy alone and give it equally to the tradesman, the mother, the milkmaid in the dairy barn where it belongs. Every Christian has a sacred calling from God, whether you're a student or a teacher, an artist, a housewife, a farmer. So it doesn't matter if you're a chief surgeon or the chief of police or a chief executive officer or the chief custodian. All of you have been given a sacred duty, a vocatio, a calling from God. And for the believer, of course, this is revolutionary application. Out of this would come what we would call the Protestant work ethic, which is now waning because we've lost the meaning. It is this truth that any status, any occupation is the work of God. Nothing is wasted. Even the mundane act of milking a cow can be touched with magnificent meaning. And so we have the attitude told or described in that proverbial event where three men in the Middle Ages were on the grounds of a building site where for decades a cathedral had been under construction, and all three of them were chipping away at rock, and all three were asked by the visitor, What are you doing? And the first man replied, Well, I'm chipping rock. The second man replied, Well, I'm earning a living as a stonemason. The third man replied, I'm building a great cathedral for God. See, the reformers are going to flesh out what the apostle Paul has already written nearly 2,000 years ago, as he encouraged Christians, in whatever you do, work with all your heart as for the Lord and not for men. For it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Colossians 3, 23 and 24. Now, unfortunately, the word vocatio has become commonplace. It has become separated again from that which is sacred, and that which is now secular owns the word, which is tragic. We talk about our vocations, our vocational training, independently of the idea of sacredness or calling from God. See, today then the work or the motive for work is a paycheck. And the incentive for the work week is the weekend. And the ultimate goal for work is retirement when you don't have to do it anymore. See, the average American dream is to be done with work, never having to serve anybody ever again. But the Apostle Paul is about to clarify for the family what it means to work. It's going to be, in fact, the common ordinary family member known as the household servant, who's going to be given this clarification. It's going to be the slaves that Paul is going to give the dignity of work as worship and mandate through them that Christ can be seen and honored and exalted. Even a servant is endowed with a calling from God. So would you take your copy of inspired scripture and turn to the letter of Paul to Titus, if you're not there already, to chapter 2, and let's pick up the last member of the family that Paul speaks to in this family talk at verse 9. Urge bond slaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith. Why? So that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. Now, when Paul wrote this letter to Titus, there were an estimated 50 million slaves in the Roman Empire. In fact, estimates were that about every third person you met on the street was a bond servant belonging to somebody else. They could become slaves through being taken as prisoners of war, as punishment for certain crimes, because of debt, kidnapped and sold into slavery, voluntarily becoming what we would think of today, indentured servants, farm laborers, clerks, craftsmen, leaders, teachers, even doctors in the first century were bondservants. They could be treated without mercy because they were viewed as not a citizen, therefore not having rights, or they could be treated with great mercy. Aristotle called a slave a living tool, a kind of possession that possessed a soul. It will be the gospel, by the way, that will topple the tyranny of slavery. And to this day, it is the gospel in every generation and in every culture and the cultures of our world have embedded within them slavery. It is the gospel that topples it all, so that man treats other men, mankind, with equal dignity and justice. Paul did not call for an end to slavery, nor did he call for an open rebellion of slaves, for which the liberals, by the way, have made hay out of that, in discrediting the Apostle Paul. But what they miss is the patience of God's revelation delivered to this culture in the first century, where every third person belonged to somebody else. And what Paul does do is lay the groundwork for the elimination of slavery. He plants the truth of the gospel, which will eventually bear the fruit of freedom in any country and in every generation to this day. And he writes such radical things that don't sound that radical to us, but they did back then and in other cultures even today. He writes that slaves and their Christian masters are actually brothers. He writes that in the sight of God there is neither Gentile nor Jew, slaves or freemen, but they are all one in Christ. See, that's going to ripple out and change everything and eventually even topple institutions built upon slavery, Galatians chapter 3, verse 28. When Paul meets and eventually leads to faith in Christ, a runaway slave named Onesimus. He writes a letter. The letter we call Philemon, simply because that was to whom Paul was writing. Philemon was the owner of that slave. And he tells Philemon, whatever Onesimus stole from you, put that on my account and welcome him back, because I'm sending him back to you, not as a servant, but as a fellow brother. When the Roman Empire disintegrated and eventually collapsed in that world and in that generation, that system of slavery collapsed with it, due in great measure to the influence of Christianity. In fact, before its collapse, you can learn from your history books that so many slaves were being set free that the Roman Emperor introduced legal restrictions to try and curb the trend. The gospel will make the difference. The New Testament didn't write about how to rebel against or even how to reform the human institution. That along with others, like government. But it did introduce all that was necessary to reform the human heart. Because it's a matter of heart. And the reformed, spiritually redeemed, human heart will impact and reform human institutions. And what I find really fascinating in this paragraph in Paul the Titus, what I just read, is that Paul is challenging a change of heart, not for the master, but for the slave. Paul will effectively tell the servant that his station in life is a divinely ordained vocatio, that even that life is not a wasted life. It's a sacred calling because God behind the scenes will work through the hands and the life of that servant and impact his world for the glory of God. And from this text, for those of us who live in a free world now, come six characteristics that revolutionize your own personal vocation. You may not be a slave, but you might feel like you're living to get out of debt. You may consider your life something of an indentured servant to the bank or to that corporation. Well, in this culture, and of course I'm going to make immediate application to us in this free culture, what is Paul telling us to do? How should we approach Monday morning and a world system, at least our world, driven, by about eight or nine hours as you're heading off to that sacred calling or remaining at home, which is your sacred calling, wherever your station of life is. That is your vocatio. How do you handle that calling? Let me give you six things. First of all, we enter our world of work with the characteristic of humility. Go back to verse 9 again. He said, urge bond slaves to be subject. That word subject was used by the military to designate a soldier's relationship to his superior officer. It carried the idea of lining up in rank and file. In other words, urge bondservants or bond slaves to make sure they're in order. Now that sounds redundant, doesn't it? Why tell a bond slave to line up behind his master? He already was. In fact, he didn't have a choice, but that's the point he's going to make because Paul uses the passive voice in the original language, indicating that servants then and employees today are to willingly, voluntarily accept their position in the rank and file of their world, to voluntarily come under the authority of their supervisor. You see, it isn't a matter then of being bullied into submission, and only if they twist my arm will I cry, uncle. No, it's a matter of being willing, no matter how difficult, no matter how unfair, no matter how oppressive, the faithful believer perseveres with humility and self-sacrifice as long as he is employed in that job. Well, the others, where you're going to show up perhaps, tomorrow morning, I mean, they live to roast the management, right? I mean, they live to talk down the boss, to run down the company. But the Christian stays in place, willingly, graciously doing the hard task, even if he's never thanked by his supervisor or paid what he believes he's worth. In fact, Paul uses the word for master here. It gives us another English word. It's the word despotase. He gives us the word despot. That man is a tyrannical, arbitrary ruler with absolute authority, who often in his authority acts with unkindness and unreasonableness and an overbearing spirit. So what Paul is doing is he's painting the worst possible picture. He isn't saying, submit at your job and to your supervisor because he loves you, or because she has your best interests at heart, or because over there at that company they just love and appreciate you. They can't tell you enough ways how important you are. No, it's just the opposite, which might be the majority of your impressions. Willingly submit even when you're working for a despot. Why would anybody willingly, graciously work for someone like that? Nobody out there submits willingly to a boss like that. And that's his point. The world doesn't. That's how a Christian stands out as soon as they show up. Like a candle burning in a very dark room. Believers who understand that their supervisor really isn't their final authority. That their job just so happens to be a sacred calling from a living God who will work through them to fulfill his purposes and reflect his glory by their own gracious perseverance, and by that they're able to carry on, even when it means going out to the dairy barn at five o'clock in the morning to milk a cow. That's why Paul begins with the categorical characteristic that makes this employee absolutely unique and outstanding. He's showing up with a characteristic of humility. He's accepting his or her place in this role while everybody else is clawing over everyone else to get one more wrung up. Paul refers secondly to the distinction of reliability. Here's another way to show up for work. Paul adds in verse 9 to be well pleasing. This word well-pleasing was almost always used in the New Testament for being well-pleasing to God. Paul uses that. And he's hinting then for the believer who knows his word, his scripture, he's hinting at a greater, higher vision for any employee. Paul wrote, it was his ambition to be pleasing to Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, 9. Same word here. He, Christ, is our ultimate supervisor. So being an employee has to do with your status, but being well pleasing has to do with your spirit. So a Christian employee has no excuse for half-hearted work, for cutting corners, for laziness, for a lack of initiative, for only doing the bare minimum, and even that because my boss is watching me. See, that person will never please his boss. Bosses figure that out fairly quickly. Many of you are supervisors in your world. What Paul wants us to know is that is it pleasing the Lord who happens to be watching 24-7? Do what you do to the best of your ability for the glory of God. Martin Luther, that reformer again, was once approached by a cobbler who wanted to know how he could best please his Savior now that he became a Christian. So he asked Luther, How can I serve God? Luther asked him, Well, what is your work? The man said, I'm a shoemaker. Much to the cobbler's surprise, Luther replied, Then make good shoes and sell them at a fair price. What Paul is doing is what the Reformation attempted to reignite. This is a higher motive for work. It's a standard of excellence because of the person you ultimately represent. One author put it this way: it is then possible for the housewife to cook a meal as if Jesus Christ were going to eat it. Or to clean the house as if Christ were to be the honored guest. It is possible for teachers to educate children, for doctors to treat patients, nurses to care for them, for salesmen to help clients, shop assistants to serve customers, accountants to audit books, and secretaries to type letters, as if in each case they were serving Jesus Christ, which we all are. That's why the Christian does the hard work. That's why they stay after or show up early. That's why they go the extra mile. That's why they're the one that someone says that's the person we can ask to help someone else out. See, Christianity makes that cubicle, that desk, that home, that shop, that office, that boardroom, nothing less than a holy of holies where God touches earth. Paul says, if you want to revolutionize the island of Crete, it won't be through a series of sermons that most of them will never come to hear. It will be a reliable employee who shows up that everyone around him happens to see in action. And he's driving toward his purpose statement, but there are some more characteristics still being delivered. This characteristic of humility, this distinction of reliability, thirdly, an attitude of complicity. This might be the hardest one yet, by the way. Verse 90 adds, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative. Now, Paul actually puts together a string of participles that describe what it means to be well-pleasing. For the sake of our study, I'm going to separate them individually. Paul refers to complicity, not argumentative. That's how you can be well-pleasing. And he keeps raising the bar, doesn't he? With each one of these, he's going to raise the bar. The slave in Paul's day had to be submissive, that was the way it was. But now he's told to be reliable, that's even harder. And now he's told, and every employee to this generation is told don't argue back, don't grumble, don't complain, don't voice displeasure. Okay, I'm gonna do it. I get paid to do it. I showed up, didn't I? I'll do it. But I don't like it. At all. He says, don't be that way. Don't be argumentative. And that effectively shuts down most of the inner office conversation. I mean, what in the world are you going to talk about at the water cooler if you can't run the boss down and talk about your supervisor and how bad the corporation is and the low wages and the unfair treatment? Oh, lunch is over, man. I got to go back to work. Work won't be nearly as fun if you can't do that. Paul actually uses a verb that means, you can translate it, to speak against. In our vocabulary, it would be to talk back. Don't talk back. It carries the idea of mouthing off. So the idea isn't now you fulfill a task or that you do it, or that you plan to do it with excellence. But you don't complain about it in the process. See, Paul is getting under the skin of work to the very spirit of the worker.