Transcription
My identity can operate inside of all sorts of vocations. However, and this is what's critical in an interview process. Certain identities work really well within certain vocs. But if the person being interviewed has no sense of identity and the interviewer has no sense of identity, it's pretty much a crapshoot all the time. That's a challenge.
It's like we see a we see a person, they're successful and we just want to go to seminars and figure out how do you be that person which is impossible obviously. That's why there's so much failure rate and um discouragement. But to watch a person moving in their own unique very unique identity is really encouraging. I mean that's just exciting to me. I'm pretty sure I'll never run a restaurant, but what's amazing about watching Mark is but I could move in my identity with that same effectiveness. That's what we need to observe, right? Not just what are they doing? Can I find the three steps to do what they did? How did they become who they are? even when he's talking about the hiring practices, the interviewing practices and the idea of of people wanting to be seen and known and um in my career we I worked with people that didn't want to be seen or known and um but really actually when you get down to it that's exactly that is true. People want to be seen and they want to be known and they'll do a lot to make themselves seen and known and they will they will they will commit crimes to be seen and known. Um and we tend to ignore those people which is doesn't work obviously. Um so just I just thought I would just take a couple of minutes. I just wanted to make a distinction uh that was really helpful to me in my career um between identity and vocation. Just a real quick um distinction between those two.
Uh Jesus of course our great example had an identity and a vocation. So his identity which he which our definition of identity if from the spiritual standpoint but even from a societal standpoint identity is is something that's received. It's not something that you come up with inside of yourself. That's called radical individualism and that that's ruining us. So this is identity versus individualism. Identity is received in community. This is the way it's always been since the beginning of anthropological study. It's received from outside of ourselves in community through our mind or through actually it's through the imagination from and we would say from God. So identity is received in community received key word received in community through our imagination from God. Now, if that sounds weird to you, that is the definition that Tim Keller gave at Wheaten this year, which is surprising to me, but that's really it. So, all cultures have always identity is given in community. You don't come up with your own identity, you receive it, and it's given actually spiritually. That's how it's always been done. The danger is when we've moved away from just come up with your own identity and try and live it out. You have the right to do that. That is that breaks down community. So that's my definition of identity.
So if you think about that Jesus, his identity was received in community through the intuitive by God. So what's his what's Jesus's identity? Right? It's at the baptism, right? He's in community. This is my son who I love in whom I'm pleased. Son loved pleased. That's his identity. That's it. What's interesting and it's a fascinating study is what's not in that identity. We've attached to Jesus's identity. That's not his identity. But those are the three from God. Son, loved pleased. When he goes out into the temptation, which is first act uh in in the spirit, he goes out into the temptation. The enemy attacks his identity. That's all the enemy ever attacks in a person is their identity. Always. Once your identity is gone, you are done. That's it.
So if so vocation then just to do this briefly, vocation then is whatever you do with your identity. So I can my identity can operate inside of all sorts of vocations. However, and this is what's critical in an interview process, which police departments in my experience and government agencies have no idea how to do, but Mark just talked about it. So, certain identities work really well within certain VOCs, but if the person being interviewed has no sense of identity and the interviewer has no sense of identity, it's pretty much a crapshoot all the time. You have turnover, you have frustration, you hire the wrong people, you have the wrong people hiring. And so most people get their identity from what they do, what they have, and what people think about them, right? That's that's where all of us get it. If you don't get it in community from above, you're going to get it somewhere else, right? So Jesus is our model of a human living as a human should. where he gets his identity. And then how does he live out his vocation? His vocation is Messiah. That's his vocation. That's not an identity. That's a vocation. Interestingly, so he is in his identity a son loved please. He's to he's to be the name of all names. The the one who came to destroy the works of the enemy and make people well. That's his vocation. The enemy doesn't attack his vocation. The enemy attacks his identity. That's all it just if you read it carefully that's what the enemy attacks.
So I just want to give you one example and then I'll be done. So Jesus when he's walking around among humans, he's not giving them things to do. He's not giving them vocations. He's walking them into identity is what he's doing. Once you have an identity, you can figure out the vocation. Once a fifth grader has an identity, they will, and Mark kind of said it, they will figure out where to go to college. And your job as a parent is to coach them into identity and then forward and how to protect that identity, all that sort of thing. That that would change revolutionize uh education if we got back to identity.
Um so I'm going to give you one example in scripture. First a quote by Thomas Martin. This is what he says. There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else but to become ourselves. Now that is what Jesus is talking about. In your mother's womb, you were given an identity and in that identity you were born of water. You were born into that identity. The question is how do we bring out that identity in all of its fullness and beauty and power? or as we say, how do we live fearlessly in our true identity? How do we live fearlessly in our true identity? And then in our vocations, as we're doing that, how do we help others live fearlessly in their true identity? So that a person that comes and works here, as Mark was saying, comes here and says, "Wow." Well, imagine employees saying, "I discovered who I really was from my job, from my boss." and then they realize I shouldn't be working here, right? Or I should be those questions.
So, one example from scripture, John 3, since I'm talking about being born again. Now, think how often we read this passage as like uh I was raised in this passage as this is the way to heaven. John 3. This is the way to heaven for we just jump to 16, right? For God so loved the world. that verse because we treat Jesus not in his identity but in his vocation. And so we don't pay attention to what he's actually saying in his identity. And Jesus in his identity and even in his vocation is not a western uh college professor. It's not how he teaches at all. He's a eastern master teacher. That's what he is. But Eastern teachers teach differently than Western. So when you're trying to get Eastern thought into Western principles, it's a challenge, which is what we do. So we want to turn Jesus into a seminar if we can, but it's not how he speaks.
So Jesus is going around up until John 3 causing quite a stir. And so Nicodemus comes to him. You guys know this passage. Now listen, I want you to think identity and vocation. Try and think that way through this passage. just just a couple of verses into it. We won't get down to 16. You guys all know that one. So, think identity and vocation and listen to what John is emphasizing here. Does anyone know John's identity in the kingdom? What Jesus calls him, what God calls him? Beloved, right? He's the beloved. So, you can see his identity in everything that he writes, right? That because he's that's his identity is beloved. So obviously he focuses on that. Anyway, now there was a certain man among the Pharisees. What is Pharisees? Is Pharisees an identity received from above from God? Pharisee? No. Uh-uh. It's like saying, "Now there was a man among the Republicans or the Democrats, not an identity." If you make that identity, which the Pharisees did, you miss everything. Now there was a man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus which means overcomer or to overcome the people. Um listen to this. So there's a man among the Pharisees named a ruler. Identity or vocation? Vocation a leader maybe we don't know and authority among the Jews. Jews identity or vocation or what? What is Jewish an identity? What do you think is Jesus a Jewish son or just son from God? This is my son. Just son, right? So ethnicity not necessarily an identity but a team like anyway we can do that more among the Jews who came to Jesus at night and said to him this is so important what he calls Jesus. He calls him rabbi. Rabbi, master. It's not the word teacher. It's higher. It's a higher. It's the highest level teacher that Nicodemus, who is also a teacher. So, it's a teacher coming to a teacher. Don't forget this. It's not a lost guy coming to find a way to heaven. That's not why he's coming to Jesus. We've turned it into that. That's not why he's coming. He doesn't know about that yet. So he ra master we know that you have come from God as a teacher. Master you have come to God as a teacher. Didascalas is the Greek word the Aramaic word. It's the idea of just a a person who teaches. Rabbi is a master who guides. A teacher is a lower level vocational term. But you're a teacher that you're a teacher from God though. Think of that. What if an elementary school said, "We're only hiring teachers from God." What would that mean? Because no one can do the signs and proofs that you do. No one is accomplishing the kind of things that you're accomplishing in the classroom. None of us can do it. Nobody has kids being transformed in a public school at risk high school. No one or or any school. How are you? How are you, the fifth grade teacher producing kids that are deep in trauma and you're not traumatized, you're well, and they're getting well. How is how are you doing that? That's his question. For no one can do these things that you do unless God is with them. H how many time wouldn't you love to have people say that about your vocation? Nobody. And it's not based on how much money you've made. It's based on transformation of the people around you. Imagine that. No one can do carpentry like you can because the the people that work with you are never the same. How are you doing that? And how are you coming up with these new architectural designs that seem to reduce trauma in people? You must be asking a vocational professional question. He's not asking how to go to heaven when you die. He So this is and so Jesus answered him. Think of this question. I'm a teacher. I mean I I I taught at the University of South Carolina and taught I've taught all over the world in every possible situation. And if I saw Jesus teaching a class, I would go to him and say, "How are you teaching like you are? How in the world are you teaching like you are?" Because I've never seen a teacher as do it as well as you do. I mean, it's unbelievable. Everyone wants to be in your class. People that hate you when they start love you. They love their enemies after they're with you. What are you doing in your class or your restaurant or your company? What are you doing? And here's what Jesus says. He tells him how to do it. He says, "Ah, it's not that hard to tell you. I'll tell you how to do it." Jesus answered him, "I'm telling you seriously that unless a po person person is born again from above, he cannot ever see or understand or experience the kingdom of God." There's his answer. There's his answer. As a police officer and I see I I'm working I see a master police officer and I'm watching like how do you do what you do in a shift? It's unbelievable. Like people, how are you doing it? People are being transformed by you. You're impacting people, but you're not getting us sued. Uh how are you doing it? And this is if Jesus was that police officer. He say, "Oh, you have you can't be a really good police officer unless you're born again from above in policing." And I would go the same thing Nicodemus says. What? Like I don't have no idea what you just said. Here's the problem. Here's the problem for Christians. We don't know what that is either. That's our challenge. We don't know what that is. We don't know how to teach it. Oh, we we know religious stuff. We can come up with curriculums which f which the Pharisees already have done. They've got a very strong curriculum going. Very strong, very heavy-handed curriculum. And Jesus is like, "No, no, no, no, no, not that, not that. It's you got you got to be like transformed from above, like born again." And so what a person does when they're fearful, they get literal and sarcastic. Oh, you mean like go into my mother's womb and be born again? Because it scares Nicodemus what he said. But let me get literal on you then. That can't be done. That's stupid. That's mystical weird Eastern goofy stuff. And Jesus says, "No, no, no. What's born the things that are born of this world are born of this world. Things that are born from above have to be they have to come from above. You have to be able to access educational theory and pedigogy from above. Carpentry from above, restaurant above, everything from above all the time. Don't present the whole thing a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which you should be doing every day. And and and don't be conformed to the old business patterns and policing patterns and educational patterns of the past. Don't be conformed any longer to that. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind because you're born again from above all the time in what you do and live out your true identity in your vocation. And then you can do it. And then you can do it. Do you know why? And you know how you do that? Because God opened the way for you to do it on down to 16, which makes 16 super compelling then. That way more than I get to go to heaven when I die. Big deal. Tell me how to transform the police officers around me. How tell me how to not be cynical in the job. Tell me how not to be traumatized by traumatized students. Tell me that you have to be born again from above. And what we need is a marketplace community, a marketplace community that are experts in this topic.