Do Your Job!

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Do Your Job!

Mentoring young pastor Timothy, Paul wrote, “Before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom, I solemnly charge you: proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not.”

After a little more expansion of those opening lines that you can read for yourself in 2 Timothy 4 if you’re not catching the drift, he commands more than urges, “Fulfill your ministry.”

Essentially, the apostle is telling the young fellah to find out what God wants him to do with his life and then do it while knowing every day will not be a hot fudge sundae.

Nota bene.

He tells Timothy to discover his calling/vocation/beruf/job not theirs.

He is sparing the young man from pursuing a career that someone else has in mind for him pero God may not have designed and destined for him.

God knows we know what happens when we take a job because mommy or daddy or the unemployment office or anyone else thinks we may like it.

Let me be more specific.

If we’re really called by God to do what we’re doing, we like what we’re doing far more than less and don’t banter and moan about it.

If we’re not really called by God to do what we’re doing, we’re unhappy campers causing discouraging misery for those around us and may even cause a lot of suffering and pain because posing is never real and only the authentic proves efficacious when tested.

The recent disaster on 14 February 2018 at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Sherman Douglas High School comes to mind.

Demonically possessed Nikolas Jacob Cruz murdered 17 people and attempted to murder another 17.

The reverberations from that horror birthed in hell continue to spark strong debates as Americans are forced to admit our culture is devolving and returning along with the rest of the world to the planet of the apes.

Among the conclusions is some cops were never called to be cops.

A Kopp all of my life, my call to undershepherding has been confirmed for over four decades by the fact that I’m still hanging around and will never hang it up; unless, of course, I get my grandpa Jacob’s cancer genes or am assassinated by an Islamofascistnutball savage or someone still mad at me for taking the church away from them and giving it back to Jesus.

Similarly, I was part of the promotion ceremony for Detective Polnow to Sergeant and Sergeant Gardner to Deputy Chief on 19 March 2018.

By tenure confirming their feelings that they should be cops, facts that they can do the job and have done it so well for so long, and friends, peers, and superiors who say they’re called to be cops, it’s obvious beyond any doubt that they’re cops by God’s design and destiny.

Just as much, like all rookies and even young cops who have not been tested by the storms and wolves/criminals preying on the sheep/citizens, the cops who failed to protect our children from Cruz and his master proved they were never called to be cops in the first place.

When the storms came and wolves attacked, they failed.

They are not called to be cops.

Sergeant Polnow and Deputy Chief Gardner have passed the tests and proven their call to be cops.

They have been promoted to leadership in law enforcement because they have done their jobs; and they are recognized as proven mentors for other women and men in blue to teach, provide, and guide them to do theirs.

Do your job!

Nobody has to say that to anybody who is called by God.

Again, everybody’s got a particular call/vocation/beruf/job for them as designed and destined by God; and when a person takes the time to assess their feelings (Do they feel called to do the job?), facts (Can they do it?), friends (Do peers say they are called to do the job?), and their faith compels their obedience to say what Jesus wants them to say and do what Jesus wants them to do, identity is discernable.

The general call that includes everyone who believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior is all about that last part of discerning specific call/vocation/beruf/job.

Faith.

Christians understand whatever they are saying and doing as how God designed and destined them to honor Him.

When someone becomes a member of our family of faith on the corner of Lincoln and Main, we only ask two questions to confirm that general call to Christianity.

Do you believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior?

Will you pray and work to honor Him in all things at all times in all places with all people?

A yes means we’re in here and now and forever.

Anything less – “Give me more time to think about it…Not sure…Not really ready to commit to the family just yet…No!” – means we’re not in and rolling the dice with our souls.

I’ll never forget Howie.

He was in an egghead program with me in college.

First day of the first class, we went around the room and introduced ourselves.

He introduced himself as Howard.

Later in the introductions, I called him Howie.

He said he didn’t like to be called Howie and asked everyone not to call him Howie.

Guess what we called him for the next four years?

It’s important to know who you are and what you’re supposed to do with your life.

George Carlin used to joke, “Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it!”

God knows we know lots of people who aren’t happy on the job.

They don’t like their jobs and working with/around them can be awfully miserable.

They are the ones who have to be reminded too often, “Do your job!”

Usually, they quit – sooner or later, usually sooner than later, but definitely before a retirement party.

They didn’t do their jobs because they weren’t called to ‘em in the first place.

So what do you do if you know you’re not called to a job because you don’t like it?

Change jobs!

Yeah, I know you’ve got to pay the bills and all of the rest; and I would never tell you to quit the wrong job before starting the right one.

All I’m saying is find out what He wants you to do through your feelings, facts, friends, and faith and then start praying and preparing to be who He designed and destined you to be.

Oral surgeon Robert Amon comes to mind.

We called him oral Robert.

Get it?

Anyway, it was about 40 years ago and I was a very young pastor and he was a mid-career oral surgeon who made lots of money; but he wasn’t happy and came to tell me about it.

He said, “When I was your age, I knew I was called to do what you do but I didn’t go to seminary after college because I wanted to make lots of money and knew I’d never make that much doing what you do.  So now I’m making lots of money and I’m really unhappy because I was called to do what you do and not what I’m doing.”

“No problem,” I said, “just quit and go to seminary.”

He did, made much less money, and lived happily for the rest of his truly called life.

He retired a very happy man just a few years ago.

So here’s the deal.

We will never be truly happy on the job until we do the jobs that God has designed and destined us to do.

When people have to be told to do their jobs or don’t do their jobs even when told, it’s obvious that they were never called to those jobs.

Like everything else, bottom line, the only way to be whole, happy, joyful, secure, strong, calm, sane – Let’s just say saved! – is to accept His job offer.

The logic is irrefutable.

He made us.

He knows what we can be and do at His best because He designed and destined us.

If we want job security, it ends if it starts with the right employer.

That’s Employer.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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