What Christmas means for your work
How Jesus’s vocation assigns eternal meaning to your “non-spiritual” work, what the shepherds can teach us about how to lead well today, and the #1 book I recommend for overcoming insecurity at work.
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, Merry Christmas, and welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as assessors, janitors, and food writers? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to Daniel Darling, author of The Characters of Christmas, who is joining me for a very special Christmas Day episode of the podcast, where we are diving deep into the vocations of The Characters of Christmas and what they can teach us about our own work today.
Specifically, Daniel and I talked about how Jesus’ earthly vocation assigns eternal meaning to your “nonspiritual work.” We talked about what the shepherds can teach us about how to lead well in our work today, and I also share the number one book recommendation that I have if you are facing insecurity in the workplace and let’s face it, who doesn’t experience that from time to time? So, I know it’s Christmas day, you got a lot going on. If you miss this on Christmas day, no worries but don’t miss this episode with my friend, Daniel Darling.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:26.1] JR: Daniel Darling, welcome to The Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:29.2] DD: Well, thanks for having me, Jordan. I really appreciate it and just grateful for the work that you do for the podcast and through your ministry.
[0:01:35.6] JR: Yeah, thanks, man. I’ve told you this before via emails, and when I was on your show a while back, man, I loved your books, in particular, The Characters of Easter and The Characters of Christmas, and a few years ago, I was writing this devotional series, there was a very bad Chevy Chase pun called Christmas Vocations.
[0:01:54.3] DD: Yeah.
[0:01:55.7] JR: The player.
[0:01:55.7] DD: I like that, I like that a lot.
[0:01:57.7] JR: Is that good? It’s – it’s good, I don't know, I don't know, I don’t think people got on it, we’ll see but on today’s episode, I want to do something very similar to what I did in that devotional series. I want to take a look at some of the characters of Christmas, the vocations of these characters, and see if there’s anything we can learn to inform our own work today. You up for it?
[0:02:19.0] DD: I am totally up for it.
[0:02:20.4] JR: You're here for it, and we’re dropping on Christmas day, this is perfect, all right.
[0:02:23.5] DD: I’m thrilled about it, I love Christmas.
[0:02:24.8] JR: Do you really? What’s your favorite Christmas tradition?
[0:02:27.6] DD: Man, there’s so many, I mean, I just – I love the fact that Christmas is like six weeks, really.
[0:02:33.1] JR: It really is.
[0:02:34.0] DD: I don’t think you could start too soon. I love listening to Christmas music as soon as we can, and I love all of it, the candy, the trees, going around, seeing the lights, like, going to concerts, Christmas concerts, obviously the Christian theme of Christmas going to Christmas Eve really is my favorite tradition. I love Christmas Eve, I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, had so much meaning for me, so.
[0:02:55.6] JR: I remember, I think it was in the introduction of Tim Keller’s Christmas book called Hidden Christmas.
[0:03:01.0] DD: Which I loved.
[0:03:01.8] JR: Yeah, it was so good. So good, and really short, so you could read it in one sitting but I remember him talking about just the beauty of the whole world, the celebrating Christ’s birth, whether or not that’s explicit or not, we’re all rallying around this one date in time, it’s beautiful. Yeah, I’m not a Christmas music guy, I do love advent calendars, we do this – this chocolate advent calendar we get every year that tells the nativity story from Luke but we’ve added to it this year, I’m very pumped, a Star Wars Lego advent calendar.
[0:03:31.1] DD: That’s pretty cool.
[0:03:32.7] JR: Where we get a different little figure, yeah, I’m super excited about it. We’re recording this on October, who knows if it’s going to be any good? All right, let’s start our talk of Christmas vocation with Christ himself. Of course, we know that Jesus was born in the home of a carpenter or some translations say a stone mason named Joseph, and Daniel, correct me if I’m wrong but in Jesus’ days, that meant that Jesus was more or less bound to grow up in the vocation of his father. Is that right? His earthly father?
[0:04:00.0] DD: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, you got to think of them as being not destitute, the poorest of the poor but probably working class. There wasn’t much middle class in those days but probably living paycheck to paycheck but a decent living and this carpenter would be someone who would, yeah, not just someone who does wood carpentry and builds furniture, puts walls up in houses like we think of today.
I actually worked with a carpenter when I was in college but you know, kind of a craftsman, a handyman, so would make furniture, yeah, stone mason would carve, just not do wood stuff but like stuff out of stone and probably, everyone in his community knew who he was, right? Because of that.
[0:04:42.2] JR: Yeah. That’s interesting and because it probably, you know, it wasn’t the largest town.
[0:04:47.8] DD: Right, that’s right. Yeah, yeah. Well, and it’s said, you know we’re getting ahead of ourselves, the Bible describes Joseph as a righteous man and so if he’s righteous in all his dealings, probably a fair person who charged a fair wage and did good work.
[0:04:59.8] JR: That’s good. All right, so this has always been an issue in question for me to dwell on, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it but I’m curious to get your take on this, like, God could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in anybody’s home. He could have chosen for Jesus to grow up around any vocation. What do you make of this decision for Jesus to grow up in the home of a small business owner and tradesman named Joseph?
[0:05:21.3] DD: Well, I think there’s a lot we could think about that. The fact that Jesus grew up in a lower-class home with people who lived close to the ground, who worked with their hands, the Bible makes a note of him being a carpenter and you know, it’s an important part of the story. I think it tells us a few things both symbolic and just reality. I think first like, it tells us that God cares about the working man and woman and He cares about the work we do.
I think if we go back to creation that our work is part of subduing the earth, it’s part of creation, you’ve written a lot about this, Jordan but I think God doesn’t just care about our work in terms of as a means to an end, to make money, or to provide, which are all important, or help missions or whatever but the actual work because we’re taking the raw materials of creation and making things, and Joseph was a maker.
He was a builder and I think, he’s identifying with the average – a lot of people in our world are sure to have forgotten but they make our world run. They make our houses run and our businesses and our cars, and we sort of don’t see them until we need something but I also think there’s symbolism here and that Jesus is a builder, right? Like, He’s building in his first advent, He came to recreate what sin had destroyed.
He’d come to rebuild, He’d come to make something, and I think there’s no – I don’t think there’s a coincidence that this is why God chose Joseph to be a carpenter. Obviously, he was in the line of the Messiah, he was in the line of the right family line from David but also, the fact that he had this kind of vocation that wasn’t in the palace with the kings, it wasn’t pomp and circumstance circumstance. He was a common carpenter and I think that says a lot.
[0:07:03.5] JR: Yeah, it’s really, really good. I love the symbolism of the building. I also loved that it was this common vocation, it wasn’t in the palace, it wasn’t in the temple, right? I mean because listen, I’ve written about this before but it was perfectly within God’s power for Jesus to grow up in the home of a – in a priestly household, right? Like John the Baptist, where he would spend most of his Monday through Fridays if you will, obviously, I’m not talking exact, devoted to prayer, right?
He could have chosen for Jesus to grow up in the home like the apostle Paul in the home of a pharisee, right? Where he would spend hours upon end studying the scriptures but instead, Jesus was placed in the home of a carpenter where He would spend most of his time making things, creating things like most of us today, and on the surface, I think that truth comes off as shocking to people.
But I would argue it’s probably the least surprising thing of the entire Christmas narrative, right? Because the work of Jesus' earthly father was similar, although of course, distinct from the work of Jesus’ heavenly Father, right? In the beginning, God created, and He created with His words in Genesis one but in Genesis two, we see Him creating with His hands by digging a garden in the east and I just think it’s a beautiful reminder that work is not beneath the God of the Bible, amen?
[0:08:18.4] DD: No, Jesus came – you know, work is not a product of the curse, work is not a punishment, work is a gift from God to, “We work in the image of a working God.” Jesus would say that, “I’m always working, my Father’s always working.” Jesus came, if anything, to redeem our work that in the kingdom of God, He is redeeming it and actually when He comes again and we’re in the New Jerusalem, we’re going to be working.
But we won’t have to deal with the thorns and the thistles that obstruct our work, and I think what we can say too about Jesus, that’s so interesting, is that He comes into the home of a working-class family with little agency and power in their community, not like if you and I were scripting the story, if Hollywood was scripting a story, we would not have chosen this family, we just wouldn’t have.
And, I think it’s significant, Jordan, that Jesus, along with his father, likely made things. Like, Joseph taught him to make things and there were probably people in that community that had furniture, had something that Jesus had helped create, which is really fascinating to think that the one who the Bible says created the heavens and earth, He created humans with the ability to create was also as the second Adam creating in subduing the earth.
[0:09:26.3] JR: That’s really good, that’s really, really good. I love it. All right, so we’re getting ahead of ourselves in the narrative a little bit, right? But here in the manger in Bethlehem, Jesus of course had no vocation, right? Before he was a carpenter, he had no work. I love how J.I. Packer articulates this. He says he’s marveling at the idea that “The almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child.”
Which really is mind-boggling, right? Like, so I’m curious, I would love to hear you talk, Daniel, about what does it mean for our work today that Jesus himself relied on the work of human hands during this time on earth, even though He certainly did not have to.
[0:10:14.6] DD: Well, it tells us a lot of things. Just think of that holy mystery of the night Jesus was born, that the one who created the heavens and earth, who breathed life into human beings is now dependent and reliant on human beings, dependent on His creation, but I also think we mess this a lot, Jordan, with Christmas. Jesus didn’t come, God didn’t send Jesus as a disembodied spirit.
Jesus came as a full human being, an embodied human being. He is a human being, and sometimes we say Jesus was a human. He still is a human being, He has risen from the dead. and He came as a full-bodied human being, which means that this is God saying that human bodies are good, and God came to redeem our human bodies, to redeem our humanity from the decay of sin, and also, he’s telling us that work is good.
That working with our hands, that the common everyday things we do in our lives, whatever your vocation is, whether you’re someone who builds things or makes things, fixes things, or if you fill out spreadsheets, or if you teach kids. Whatever it is that God has called you to do, that the work itself matters, and the work itself is part of obeying God and living in his kingdom. Of course, as a Christian, we do it.
Our motivation is to do it for the glory of God but this is – Jesus’ birth tells us something about that. It tells us that it’s you know, sometimes as Christians, we sort of over-spiritualize and say, “You know, nothing here matters, the only thing that matters is sort of the spiritual and the soul.” But we’re bodies and souls, right? We’re not just bodies, we don’t want to just make materials where all we worship is what is here and present and we can touch.
But we also don’t want to go the other way and be sort of neo-gnostic where it’s like, none of these stuff matters and you think of like, other religions where everything spiritual and you don’t deal with the material, we’re both, and Jesus came to redeem both.
[0:12:03.8] JR: That’s exactly right. I think this picture of yeah, just being reliant on Mary to change cloth diapers and feed Jesus is this beautiful picture. I think of a truth we see all throughout the Bible that while God is perfectly capable of working in this world unilaterally, more often than not, He chooses to work with and through His image bearers, you and me, right?
He doesn’t need us but He wants to work in and through us to accomplish His purposes on earth as it is in heaven, which is mind-boggling, and I think on full display as we look at this manger scene and look to.
[0:12:45.7] DD: It really does, and I think, what we should learn from Christmas is Christmas is both hopeful and joyful but it’s also we can bring our sorrows and our sadness to Christmas because Christmas acknowledges the reality, the broken reality of our world, and the hope and the message of Christmas is that Christ has come to redeem the world, to restore the world, to fix the things that are broken.
So, the things in your job that frustrates you, the things in your life that frustrates you, the things in the world that are upside down, where there’s wars and famine and strife, God has come to redeem what is broken and fix and make new, make it new, so that even if in your job, because I know we talk a lot of working people who listen to this, you know, you feel somewhat fulfilled because it’s – let’s say you’re in a job that you really love and you really enjoy.
You really feel like you’re doing what God has called you to do but there’s always problems, there’s always obstacles, there’s always like, parts of it that will never be totally fixed but Christ came to redeem those things and that’s the future we can look forward to. I think that’s the message that Christmas brings to us, not sort of pollyanna but like actual reality that because He came as a human being because He came to a carpenter because he built things, shows us how much God loves His creation and loves human beings who create and make things.
[0:13:59.1] JR: Yeah, there’s so much bad theology in Christmas music and Christmas hymns but one thing that I think we get right is Jesus did come to make God’s blessings flow far as the curse is found. Jesus did not just come to redeem my soul, He came to redeem all things, to reconcile to Himself all things, including the material world that you and I work with and the work itself, see Isiah 65, and that is enormous implications for how we think about our work.
All right, hey, I want to move on to this chapter in your book, where you dedicated this whole chapter, actually, to King Herod and another chapter to the Three Kings of Orient Are. I’ve always wondered, who the heck are the Magi. Daniel, can you help us understand this?
[0:14:42.7] DD: So, there’s a lot of speculation through church history of who they are, and we get the three from the three gifts but it’s likely that it was a bigger entourage of kings. You don’t have to correct your aunt about that if you like – you could still say the –
[0:14:56.4] JR: Don’t be that guy.
[0:14:57.3] DD: Three kings, don’t be that guy.
[0:14:59.0] JR: Don’t be that guy at Christmas dinner tonight, yeah.
[0:15:01.8] DD: Yes, we know they came later, it’s okay, you can have them at your nativity set but it is really interesting, there’s a lot of speculation, probably came from the east. Some people have wondered if – how did they learned about the Messiah? Could it be that they came from the same area where Daniel was centuries before in the east as an exile and as a wise man, who these were, passed down these stories and they were searching and finding?
It does tell us a number of things, the one thing it tells us is that, people who genuinely search for Jesus will find him, and they had an earnest search, their honest earnest search, “What is truth, what is real?” And God – what’s fascinating Jordan, to me about the wise men is that God leveraged the entire universe to bring them to His Son. Think about it, He leveraged the solar system, the stars, dreams, and all these things, to bring them to His Son.
That’s just how much God, the hand of heaven seeks after people who are seeking Him. If you are seeking truth in an earnest way, God will make sure that you find your way to Jesus. I think that’s one of the most powerful parts of the story.
[0:16:12.8] JR: That’s really good. I’ve never thought about it that way, it’s beautiful. So, we have these two sets of kings really, right? We already mentioned Herod, we mentioned the Magi, and then these two totally different responses to the newborn king, Jesus Christ, right? Like Herod wants to murder Jesus because of course, he sends us a threat to his vocational power, although, that might be oversimplifying things.
But the Magi have this opposite response, they fall down in total worship, and I think the question for me, the question for our listeners is how do you and I respond to this newborn king? If you're listening to this podcast, you’re certainly not responding like Herod did, right? But I’m not a hundred percent sure if I’m honest Daniel, that I always respond like the Magi in total worship.
I know, my temptation, I think probably the temptation of a lot of listeners is yeah, profess faith in Christ but not make Him the Lord of every single area of our lives, right? But if He’s king, man, I can’t be on the throne anymore, He has to be king and not consultant. So, as you look at your own life, Daniel, do you struggle with this? Like, what are some signs for you personally that you’re treating Jesus more of a consultant in your work rather than the King of kings that deserves your obedience in every square inch of how you spend your time and do your work?
[0:17:33.9] DD: That’s a great question, and I think, for us in the modern era, it’s easy for us to get so, sort of busy, and I think be having a full life is good. So, I’m not someone who thinks we should never be busy.
[0:17:46.5] JR: Yeah, I think Jesus had a full life.
[0:17:48.3] DD: Having a full life, like with – we have our kids and we have a million projects and teaching and work, and it’s all-meaningful good work but we can sometimes see Jesus as you said, as a consultant or as an accessory to our dreams instead of being in constant prayer and dialog with Him about, “Is He master of my life?” And we really know that or what’s one area of our life we don’t want Him to touch?
If you think about King Herod, there’s a couple of ways to think about King Herod. One is a sort of macro level that if you notice, Jordan, every story we tell about Christmas, and I love all of them, I love all the Christmas. It’s one of our traditions to watch like, all the like 10 or 12 of the Christmas movies and we have to plan it out in our family, there’s always a villain. There’s always a villain, whether it’s Mr. Potter, whether it’s the Grinch, even these lame Hallmark movies I watch with my wife, they have a villain, you know?
Like, and that stems I think with the original Christmas story has Herod, who is the villain. He is the monster of Christmas, he is trying to kill Jesus but that is just part of this long epic battle that was predicted in Genesis 3 that maybe the clash between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and it’s coming to a fore here. Herod is just one more in that long line but also Herod represents, like you said, us, where temptation for us is that Jesus enters our lives and He inconveniences it.
Jesus comes, He’s born, and there’s an announcement of a king, and this is uncomfortable for Herod because it’s going to threaten, he feels his kingship, his hold on power. He was a really illegitimate king of Israel, he wasn’t in the right family line. He was put there by Rome, he wasn’t very well-liked, he was a brutal king. He built a lot of really cool things but he also was a brutal king, killed his own family members to hold on to power.
You know, I’m saying an insecure leader that just did whatever he could to hang on to power and this baby, it seems ridiculous if you step back and say, “Wait a minute, a baby born to a peasant couple in a village a few miles from you is a threat to your leadership? I mean, what’s wrong with this guy?” But that’s how he saw it but we also know that Jesus disrupts our lives. He disrupts our lives and even at Christmas, He can make us uncomfortable.
Maybe we want to have this wonderful Christmas with all these people and He allows circumstances in our lives that disrupt us or Jesus is making demands of us with our time and our money and the way we order our families that inconvenient and hard and we have to make sacrifices and Jesus, sometimes we recoil at Jesus. We become enemies of Jesus because He – we want Him to be in our lives but not Lord over everything and I think that’s what Herod represents.
[0:20:23.8] JR: Yeah, I think so too. What’s one of those inconveniences that you’ve had to recognizing and cave to an obedience to Jesus? Let’s say in the last year.
[0:20:31.5] DD: Well, I think for me in this season of our lives, we have – we’re in a full season. I have Jordan, I have four teenagers, and my oldest is in college is almost 20 but we have four teenagers and love my kids and something you have to constantly tell yourself is that the interruptions are not interruptions, they’re actually part of God’s, what God is doing, and so it can easily become, I got my day planned, this comes up, or I have to go do this or go do that.
And sort of getting out of our schedule or getting out of our rhythm, that can be a way that God is saying, “Okay, I want you to surrender.” Have a plan, so like we should plan our lives but hold it loosely because God’s going to disrupt it. In the last few years, we’ve had some disruptions. We’ve moved, we’ve had a couple of unfortunate car accidents, I lost my mom a couple of years ago, and all these things are sort of disruption.
But they’re also opportunities for Jesus to come into our lives and for us to – I think as a father you might understand this. The more responsibility you have, the more there’s a sense that I can do this myself, I need the Lord. I need to abide in Him. You know, we – I think I especially have a real strong sense of self-reliance like, “I can take care of this, I got this,” and there’s times God puts you at the end of yourselves and you say, “No, I can’t do this. I just can’t, I need the Lord.”
[0:21:51.1] JR: Yeah, I feel that way in the work of parenthood but I also feel like that with the work I do in this office as momentum continues to build around the stuff I’m doing and impact continues to grow. There is a weight to that, there is a weightiness and recognition that I can’t steward this in my own strength and to be, you know there’s some thorns and thistles pushing back against that that I see as a blessing, it’s part of the blessing of the curse if I can say that because when I recognize that I can’t do it on my own, it drives me to my knees.
It drives me to reliance on the Lord. It drives me to Jesus not just as consultant but truly as King, right? Because I recognize that I need to be submitting to Him in all things because if I am not, man, none of this is going to have any sort of eternal significance. Does that make any sense at all Daniel?
[0:22:49.0] DD: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right and a state of dependence. I think Henry Black, he said it, that God purposely puts things in our lives or calls us to things that are too big for us so that we’re forced to depend on Him and constantly being away from our self-sufficiency into dependence on the Lord but it actually can be really sweet and I think the older we get, at least for me, you have less inhibition about admitting that you need the Lord.
You pray more, some of it’s by necessity because you have children and you have responsibilities and you’re like, “Okay, Lord, I need your help here.” But also and I think you hit, Jordan, sometimes it’s in the area that we’re most gifted. Like in the area of gifting when things are flowing and we’re doing work we love, it’s hard to just not let that consume us and be our whole lives, right?
You know, if you have a job that you hate, it’s pretty easy to say, “I’m going to cut out after a certain time and live for the weekend.” But if it’s a job you really enjoy and you are building stuff, and God made us to build things and make things, it’s easy to get our ordering out of line to where that becomes everything instead of subordinated under the kingdom of God.
[0:23:56.1] JR: Yeah, it’s really good. Hey, when you look at your book, The Characters of Christmas, which of these characters do you think has the most to teach us about our own work today?
[0:24:04.3] DD: That’s a great question. I love talking about the shepherds and if I could talk about the shepherds for a moment.
[0:24:10.7] JR: Yes, I was hoping you’re going to say that.
[0:24:12.4] DD: I loved writing this chapter, I loved writing this whole book honestly because I just love Christmas but I loved the shepherds and I think it’s not a coincidence, I think it’s intentional. In fact, I know it is that when God was scripting the story of the incarnation of the son of God, when He’s scripting the story of how He would renew and redeem the world from eternity past, that He used simple shepherds.
And you think about the shepherds, the first appearance, the first announcement of Jesus' birth did not come via press release, press conference, website, TV network, cable news, whatever the version of those were in those days, didn’t come to Rome or Herod’s palace. It came to a simple shepherd’s field outside a backwater town, Bethlehem. Why shepherds? I think there’s a few reasons He chose shepherds.
One, because if you think about the symbolism, all through the symbolism of the Passover lamb, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, Jesus is that lamb, and shepherds were caring for Passover lambs. So, the symbolism in terms of the atonement what Jesus would represent. I also think He chose shepherds because they were earthy, they were tough people, they were real, they wouldn’t have any pretension.
He knew He could trust them, He gave them the news, and they went immediately there and saw Jesus and told everybody but there is a third reason too. The dominant metaphor for leadership in the scripture is shepherding. You go through the whole Bible from the Old Testament all the way to the New, what kind of leader, what kind of king would this new king be? He wouldn’t be like King Herod, a tyrant.
He wouldn’t be like Caesar, authoritarian. Jesus would be a shepherd and you see through the Old Testament God rebuked bad shepherds who didn’t care for their sheep and so God is saying that Jesus is the good shepherd. Jesus would say later in John, “I am the good shepherd. I lay my life down for the sheep.” I think we have a lot to learn from that. I think number one, to Jesus as our good shepherd, what kind of king is Jesus?
What kind of king is this baby? Yes, He’s the king of the world but He is also is a shepherd who is close to us, who knows every sheep by his name. If you are a Christian, Jesus knows your name, you know Him, and you’re known by Him but also as a model for what kind of leadership, what does Christian leadership look like? Shepherding, it doesn’t mean weakness, it just means sacrificial care and leadership for the people that God has put under you.
So, I love talking about shepherds. I think when it comes to our work Jordan, whatever area of responsibility you have, we have staff that we have to lead, or organizations we have to lead, there is a kind of – shepherding is a kind of mix of intentionality and purpose and obviously not passivity but a proper kind of aggressiveness but then also a gentleness, a care for the people under us not losing any of our sheep, knowing them by name, and leading people to a place.
A shepherd leads its sheep to water, he leads them to good pastures. He doesn’t drive them but he leads them. I think it’s a really beautiful picture and I don’t think we should miss it.
[0:27:18.6] JR: No, I think it’s really good. I love that picture of seeing ourselves as leaders as shepherds as opposed to, I am trying to think what the converse of this would be, right? It’s almost like a tsar or a king, right? That is a ruling with fear or with directive and directive is important you go and saying but it is more of a stewardship and a care in a gentler and lowlier way of leading that is about the care of the flock first and foremost. Does that make sense?
[0:27:48.2] DD: Yeah. I think in my view Jordan, and I’m curious, your opinion on this, working with different leaders you have worked for and having led myself, I’ve come to realize one of the most important things about leadership is sort of personal security, which underneath that I think is emotional quotient and all that but this personal security that I know who I am in Christ, I know God, and I’m known my God.
I am not trying to prove myself, I’m comfortable in my own skin, not cocky, not arrogant but I know who I am because I think leaders if they’re not careful will lead out of their insecurities, right? I’ve worked for leaders who couldn’t forgive, had a grudge they held on for 25 years and they’re always trying to prove themselves or they are trying to prove that they’re this and they’re not that and insecurity will do two things.
A leader will either be a tyrant because they want to control everything or they’ll be the opposite, they’ll be like King Saul and they’ll shrink back, and whatever the – “We need you to step up, we need you to rally the team, we need you to make a decision,” they’re hiding because they’re worried about all of that. A healthy leader tends to his soul, tends to her soul, understands who they are in Christ, and can lead well.
[0:28:54.7] JR: No, I think that’s a hundred percent right. It’s why I point to Tim Keller’s tiny little book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, as one of the most important books for any Christian leader to read because in – it’s not about thinking about myself less. It’s not about thinking about others more. It is a bit – it is about thinking about myself but it’s not a negative self-esteem, right?
It is the freedom of self-forgetfulness, I don’t have to worry about what people think about me as I walk in the room. I am not judging myself because God has already judged me. It’s what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians, I don’t judge myself, I don’t care what you think about me because God has already deemed me an adopted child of God and that is the place of my –
[0:29:39.3] DD: That’s right.
[0:29:39.9] JR: Security and so I can be secure in success or defeat and I don’t have to get anything from you as I walk in the room because that’s what so many people are doing at work, right? They walk in the room and they’re grandstanding and name-dropping because they need to get something from all of those things but if I’ve been called a child of God by the kind of the universe, I don’t need anything from anybody.
[0:30:05.2] DD: That’s right, and then you know how to filter out and I’ve written about this a few times but look, if you are a leader of consequence in the 21st century, you’re going to have critics. You’re probably going to have online critics, you’re probably going to have people who you think on your team are not, and there’s going to be good faith critics and bad faith critics.
There’s good faith folks who are like, “You know, I should listen to that, they have something. They care about me, they’re for me.” There’s going to be a lot of sort of I think of Nehemiah with Sanballat and Tobiah, where you know, they’re just over there chirping and trying and he’s like, “Look, I don’t have time for this, I have to build something.” You know, he didn’t let those critics live in his head because what I’ve seen happen is an insecure leader will constantly let these people live in their head and that’s all they talk about.
I am nervous Jordan, when I talk to a leader or someone who every conversation brings up some critics. “Did you hear what this guy said online about me? Did you hear about it?” Like, they just can’t and it drives everything they do, and now, when I – if I am on a church committee or if I am helping interviews, and like I will ask all the questions but I also want to say like, “What are you trying to prove? Do you have any outstanding grudges you haven’t forgiven?”
Those kinds of things because that will manifest in ways we don’t realize, like the fallout of insecure leadership is really damaging even in Christian circles, even with otherwise good people, so.
[0:31:17.0] JR: For sure, it’s really good. Hey, one follow-up on the shepherds, I could be totally wrong here, of course, one of the reasons why I think God may have chosen to tell the shepherds first, right? Tell them the good news that a savior had been born is because all throughout history, it has been through mere Christians working as shepherds, working as carpenters, working as mothers, and entrepreneurs, etcetera, and not religious professionals that the gospel has spread the most. What do you think about that?
[0:31:49.7] DD: I am so glad you said that and I am saying this Jordan, as someone who has always worked for Christian organization, Christian 501(c)(3) I don’t feel ashamed about that, that’s my calling but people like me are in a small bubble. You know, we’re in a – and I am glad we have. You know, I had a seminary where we trained people to go into ministry and I think you have to have ministry professionals just like a hospital has to have trained doctors, right?
But you’re so right, most of the body of Christ in heaven and earth are everyday people working in the marketplace, nine to five people who are applying their trade in the marketplace, and you’re exactly right, Jesus came to the ordinary people who are doing everyday work with their hands and with their – this is the kind of people, and He is telling us by the people He visited, whether it’s Mary and Joseph, a peasant couple with no power, no agency.
Lowly shepherds, outsiders like the Wise Men that He was saying, “This is the kind of kingdom I’m building, it’s different than the kingdoms you’re used to.” And I try to tell ministry professionals this that when I pastor, I try to go out to lunch and go to like all the people who work like, “What is your job like? What are your struggles?” Like we’re preaching to people in the marketplace who are taking their Christianity into the marketplace, and this is most of the body of Christ.
My day is a retired plumber and was a great faithful churchman, he still is. I sometimes felt growing up that because he applied his skills in the marketplace, he’s sort of on the JV team that he wasn’t a pastor or a missionary. So, he’s like, “Oh, well that’s good, you can at least tie that whenever, you know?” And instead of saying no, this is where most people are and where God has called most people to be. This is kind of where the kingdom of God is.
[0:33:30.8] JR: And this is how the kingdom of God spreads. If not, why tell the shepherds first?
[0:33:34.8] DD: Right, that’s right.
[0:33:35.9] JR: Right? Like it just makes no sense because this is how it always spreads and man, that’s a pretty good charge for us to wrap up on that we, mere Christians, working outside the four walls of the church are called to herald the good news that Christ is born today. All right, Daniel, four questions we round out every episode with. Number one, what job would you love for God to give you on the new earth when we finally see Isiah 65 realized?
[0:34:03.0] DD: Man, that’s a great question and that’s a hard question to think about. I mean, first of all, I love writing. I love putting words together, I love being a creative, and I’ve always been that person, I love being a creative. In another life, do you ever see the people that make furniture and just how incredible it is, like with woodcraft? And I was like, man –
[0:34:22.1] JR: Like Ron Swanson in Parks and Rec?
[0:34:24.1] DD: Yeah, except good, good furniture, you know? Like, just really good craftsmanship or maybe like a baseball player. I don’t know but those are some things.
[0:34:31.8] JR: Those are killer answers, I love it. All right, hey, if we open up your Amazon order history, which book would we see you buying over and over and over again to give away to people?
[0:34:39.6] DD: Man, my top books, that’s such a hard one but I would say the book I’ve probably given away more has been probably Tim Keller’s book, A Reason for God, apologetic for Christianity. A lot of Keller’s books, his book, Every Good Endeavor on work is so good. I think J. I. Packer’s book, Knowing God. The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom, there’s probably about 20 more if we had endless time.
[0:35:02.1]4 JR: I just bought – it’s new. It’s a graphic novel of The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom for young readers, my daughter loved it. My daughter’s 10 and she absolutely loved it. Yeah, that’s really good. Hey, Daniel, who would you want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences the work that mere Christians do in the world? Ideally not a pastor or a religious professional.
[0:35:24.7] DD: Here’s what’s funny Jordan, I’ve never been a businessman but I am fascinated by entrepreneurs and businessmen that you know how there’s people, Jordan, that maybe this is you, who can just see around the corner and I’ve been around these folks who could just like, you think of the most successful businesses and it’s like someone thought of this and had the foresight to see this business model and it’s doing well around that. So, I’m always fascinated, like I listen to a podcast of we have over here Dutch Bros, a little coffee thing.
[0:35:51.0] JR: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:35:51.6] DD: And I listen to podcasts of how it got started. It’s like these three brothers and they took a chance and they did it in Portland, it’s like I love that stuff. So, those kinds of things, like people with entrepreneurial minds, inventors, those kinds of folks.
[0:36:03.8] JR: We had tons of entrepreneurs on the podcast but we’re always looking for more, that’s good.
[0:36:07.1] DD: Like inventors or you know, those kinds of folks.
[0:36:10.1] JR: I like that a lot, that’s good. All right, Daniel, you are talking to this global audience of mere Christians, very diverse vocationally, lots of entrepreneurs in the audience but also a lot of baristas and medical professionals and attorneys and mechanics. What’s one thing you want to say to them before we sign off this Christmas day?
[0:36:28.1] DD: You know, I want to say this, as a pastor, I want to say to you that your work really matters not just so that you can provide for your family. That is very important, the Bible says it’s important. Not just so you can give a part of your money to the Lord’s work, which you should do but the actual work you’re doing every day that doesn’t seem like much, you know, getting there early to the hospital to your shift.
Working, you know, if you’re a landscaper and doing beautiful lawn work, or whatever it is that you’re doing, creating craft, and making sales calls, your work matters to God. It’s part of how we take the raw materials of this earth and fulfill the creation mandate. It’s part of how we serve our neighbors, we love our neighbors by being in the marketplace and serving their needs. I want to tell you your work matters.
I always have people, as a pastor, come up to me and say, “I wish I could be in the ministry like you, I just have this nine-to-five job, and I am not working for God.” I said, “Hold on a second, you are in the ministry. You are working for God, you are doing God’s work.” One quick story, my dad’s a retired plumber, I mentioned that. I used to help him, he used to drag me out into the construction site.
Super cold, you have put on a million layers in Chicago in the winter. It was so good for me to learn how to work and my dad was known for good work, and I would sit there and say like, “Dad, like, can we just go? Like, why do you have to make sure it’s perfect?” You know, he’s putting pipes inside the wall, water pipes that no one’s going to see. I said, “No one’s going to see this, dad.”
“So, you cover up a drywall,” and he said, “Yeah, but God sees it and I want this work to be good.” And that’s what I’m talking about. The work you do that maybe nobody sees, maybe seems insignificant, it’s significant to God.
[0:38:03.9] JR: That’s exactly right, and it is the Lord’s work, and by the way, if it wasn’t it would make no sense whatsoever that on that first Christmas day, Jesus would be born in the home a small business owner named Joseph, it just makes no sense. So, Daniel, I want to commend you man, for your exceptional work that you do every day for the glory of God and the good of others, for the reminder today of just how much our work matters and how we see that all throughout the Christmas narrative.
Hey friends, if you want more from Daniel, check out his great book, The Characters of Christmas and The Characters of Easter. Daniel, thanks for hanging out with us today.
[0:38:39.5] DD: Well, thank you Jordan, and what a privilege it is and I love the ministry that God has given me here.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:38:44.4] JR: I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. If you did, go leave a review of The Mere Christians Podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you’re listening right now. Thank you, guys, so much for listening, I’ll see you next week.
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