Lately as I’ve been preparing to transition into a new role as a family discipleship minister, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of our vocations as Christians. Especially how God works within our vocations to sanctify us. That is, to make us holy by conforming us more closely to the image of Christ.

If you’ve followed this blog, you’ve probably noticed that. Especially my last post on sanctification, but also in my post on Christ telling us we must take up our cross to be His disciples.

You can look back at those posts via the links below:

Sanctification: Positional and Progressive (Hebrews 10:10, 14)

The easy yoke and the cross

Our vocations are the various stations we occupy in life. It’s not just the thing you do to collect a paycheck. That’s one vocation, but you also might have a vocation as a husband or wife; mother or father; a child, a sibling, a church member, a neighbor, and a citizen.

Within all of those vocations we are called as Christians to love our neighbors. But we find that Christ is loving our neighbors through us.

God is giving His good gifts to others through our imperfect lives and flawed performance. And so He is glorified in us. As Christ tells us: let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew‬ ‭5:16‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

But God does not only glorify Himself in our vocations. He also works in them for our good. The Spirit is not producing His good fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians‬ ‭5:22-23‬) in us in the seclusion of our quiet times. Rather, He works sanctification in us as we pursue our vocations. As we learn to be patient with an annoying coworker. Or as we learn to be gentle with our children.

Consider this: Christ has given us ordinary means as members of His church to sanctify us. These are the Word of God preached; and the sacraments—baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Consider what St. Paul has taught us about how Christ has sanctified His church:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
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Ephesians‬ ‭5:25-27‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Christ sanctifies us—makes us holy—through baptism, and specifically, through God’s promise of forgiveness and continual cleansing in Christ, which is actual grace imparted to us there in ordinary tap water.

What’s astonishing about all of it is that God is doing this incredible work of making us holy through ordinary water, ordinary bread and wine, and the voice of an ordinary human proclaiming the Gospel of Christ.

These are the ordinary means of grace. They’re ordinary because God has promised, Christ has promised, to meet us in the water of baptism, the bread and wine of the Lord’s table, and the preaching of the Gospel. He has not promised to meet us in our retreats, our “quiet times,” or our made-up spiritual disciplines.

But of course, God is still at work in us by His Spirit in the ordinary rhythms of our lives. As it is written: Where shall I go from your Spirit? (Psalm 139:7) We often discount this truth and opt for a more pious-looking or Instagram-able option for sanctifying ourselves.

But a healthy doctrine of vocation reminds us to view our lives—all of life—in this light: So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians‬ ‭10:31‬ ‭ESV‬‬) God is glorified in us as we eat and drink and fold laundry, because He is working in us and through us for the good of our neighbors, and to conform us to the image of Christ.

The Reformer Martin Luther saw this very clearly. In his day, only priests and monks and nuns were believed to have “holy” vocations. But Luther saw that, no: Every vocation of a Christian is holy, because we are holy to God, and He is fulfilling His holy purpose through us.

And Luther explained this in his own rather playfully punchy way, when admonishing men why it is not beneath them to change their baby’s diaper. Luther began:

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose …

Luther calls our natural human reason a clever harlot, and scripture affirms this: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
‭‭(Jeremiah‬ ‭17:9‬ ‭KJV‬‬) Like an unfaithful bride, our fallen reason is deceptive, fickle, and dishonest—and very good at conning us. We end up cuckolded by our own thoughts.

And what is it a man’s sinful heart may say to him? Again, Luther is speaking specifically to men—dudes, if you will—in his day who believed tending to babies was “woman’s work.” Luther said this was our deceitful reason turning up her nose and saying:

“Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labor at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves?”

Thus are we tempted to sin against our vocations as husbands and fathers.

You see, our vocations are the arena where the new creation we are in Christ (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17); wrestles against our fallen flesh, with its pride and selfish desires and ungodly ambitions.

It’s in our vocations where we must daily pick up our crosses and follow Jesus into the place of suffering.

It is in our vocations where we must remind ourselves that: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. (Galatians‬ ‭2:20‬ ‭ESV‬‬) Yes, our old Adam has been crucified. But crucifixion is a long, slow, painful death, and our flesh keeps rising and gasping for every breath it can get.

Our fallen reason asserts itself each day. And so each day, we must take up our cross and follow Jesus to spray out the baby’s poopy diapers and apply Boudreaux’s Butt Paste to its rashes. Every time we put that baby’s needs ahead of our own—we die again to the sin that curves us in on ourselves.

And we are humbled in fear and trembling, with the awesome knowledge that God is at work in us to will and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13). And when your baby’s up with the colic, God’s good pleasure is to love and comfort that baby through you.

So Luther tells us how to proceed in faith:

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels.

In John 12:23, Christ said: The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. He wasn’t talking about some great miracle He was about to perform. He was talking about going to the cross. He saw glory there. The Father was glorified in the Son’s death, because God was loving His enemies in the cross, and bringing many sons to glory (Romans 5:8-10; Hebrews 2:10).

Christ died on the cross, and the death He died was for others. As we live out our vocations as Christians, we die to ourselves—our ego, our selfishness, our need to be impressive—so that God may love others through us.

When we are changing diapers, folding laundry, and missing sleep as Christians to love our children; our Father is well-pleased. And He crowns our work with His approval.

According to Luther, once we see our vocations as the place where God is working through us and in us, for His glory and the good of our neighbor (in Luther’s example, the neighbors are a man’s wife and child)—now we work in faith. And the faith that God has formed in us by His Holy Spirit says:

“O God, because I am certain that you have created me as a man and have from my body begotten this child, I also know for certain that it meets with your perfect pleasure. I confess to you that I am not worthy to rock this little babe or wash its diapers. Or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving your creature and your most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in your sight.”

Ephesians 2:10 teaches us that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians‬ ‭2:10‬ ‭NIV‬‬)

God prepared good works for you to do for His own good pleasure, and created you anew in Christ to do them.

He has made you a parent, a spouse, an employee, a church member, a citizen, so that you can do the good works He planned for the very people He planned from eternity to bless through you.

You do not need to travel to foreign lands, or volunteer for multiple programs at church like a scout trying to earn merit badges, or go far out of your way looking for good to do to glorify God.

Those things are not more holy than going to work at your job to feed, clothe, and house your family; or cooking a meal for your own children; a making chicken soup for your neighbor who’s down with the flu; or praying for your wayward cousin Billy. As long as you are doing these in faith—in Christ—they are holy and pleasing to God.

It’s our hearts—those wicked and deceitful little devils—that try and convince us all this is not enough for God. It’s not holy enough. It’s not glorious enough. When our hearts tell us that, we ought to say: Hush! You don’t really want God to be glorified ! You’re trying to convince me to do “greater” things for my own glory! God is glorified every time I change a diaper!

When our hearts tell us our ordinary works are not holy enough, we must remember what St. John taught us: if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. (1 John‬ ‭3:20‬ ‭KJV‬‬) God has already sanctified believers once and for all by the blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:10, 14). Therefore whatever we do as we faithfully fulfill our vocations is holy to God, and glorifies Him. Remind your heart of that when it condemns you.

Now it is true that our sins are often exposed as we work out our vocations. When we are walking in the light, they will be (1 John 1:7).

We will find that we sin against our vocations. Some days we fail to be gentle with our child, or patient with our aging parents, or we lack self-control when we speak to our neighbor. But we also have assurance that as we see our sins and confess them, we are forgiven and continually cleansed by the blood of Christ (1 John 1:7, 9).

Indeed, it is when we see that we have failed in our vocations that we pray: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm‬ ‭51:10‬ ‭ESV‬‬) And by His Spirit, God does renew us, nurturing His good fruit in us.

But we sin every day. We struggle every day. We fail every day. Still, Christ tells us: you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children (Matthew‬ ‭7:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬). We shall always be fallen sinners this side of the resurrection. But God still gives good gifts through our hands. Our imperfect efforts and flawed performances still manage to feed and nurture our families. Because God’s gifts are good even though we are not.

So our Father is well-pleased with us, for Christ’s sake. We are working for His glory and good pleasure even in the smelly, mundane work of changing diapers. We will give good gifts in spite of ourselves because God is the one at work in us. Our work is holy to God because we are in Christ and He is holy—therefore our offerings are holy.

Luther concludes along these same lines:

God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.

On Marriage (1522)

As we die to ourselves and condescend to wash a diaper, we decrease, Christ increases, and God is glorified. And it may just be that as we wash the diapers and the dishes, the Holy Spirit is at work in us, cleansing a little more of the caked-on filth of selfishness, pride, and sin from us.