I just finished reading Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor, and it has been both inspiring and insightful for me. The timing could not have been better because I was also preparing to preach for our Theology of Work series at Victory. The book became more than just another good read, itt helped me think more deeply about work, calling, vocation, and the role of Christians in the marketplace.

For most of my adult life, I have been in the marketplace. I spent nearly four decades in banking, investments, insurance, financial planning, business, training, and consulting. Today, I am serving full-time in ministry, preaching the gospel, discipling people, and helping believers understand what it means to follow Jesus in every area of life. In many ways, both the marketplace and ministry have shaped me, but the more I study Scripture, the more convinced I am that these were never meant to be two separate worlds in the first place.

One of the things Tim Keller helped me appreciate more deeply is a truth I have long believed but perhaps had not always articulated clearly. Work matters to God and this is not limited to church work, missions, preaching, or other activities we usually classify as spiritual. The accountant preparing financial statements, the entrepreneur building a company, the teacher preparing lessons, the doctor caring for patients, the engineer designing a building, the salesperson serving customers, the mother managing a home, and the artist creating something beautiful can all express their calling before God through their work.

One of Tim Keller’s important reminders is that work did not come as a consequence of the Fall, work came before the Fall. Genesis begins with God at work. He creates, orders, develops, and brings beauty out of what was formless. He then creates human beings in His image and gives them the responsibility of cultivating and exercising stewardship over His creation. This changes the way we look at vocation because work is not simply something we endure so that we can earn enough money to enjoy weekends and vacations. Work is part of what it means to bear the image of God.

Of course, Genesis 3 reminds us that work has been broken by sin. Work can become frustrating, organizations can become dysfunctional, leaders can become selfish, employees can become disengaged, businesses can become greedy, and careers can become idols. Sometimes we end up worshiping our work, while at other times we end up hating it. Both are expressions of how sin has distorted something God originally intended for good.

This became particularly helpful as I prepared my messages for our Theology of Work series. I realized that we cannot preach about work simply by telling people to work harder or become more successful. That would simply baptize the world’s definition of success with Christian language. The gospel gives us a very different understanding of work because in Christ, even the way we understand and practice our work can be redeemed.

Colossians 3:23 to 24 tells us to work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. The phrase “whatever you do” has enormous implications because it reminds us that there is dignity in honest work. Ultimately, we are not merely working for a boss, a company, a client, or even for ourselves. We are working before the Lord.

Tim Keller’s discussion also helped reinforce something I believe the church needs to recover, which is the idea that there should not be a hierarchy of vocations in the kingdom of God. I may now stand behind a pulpit, but that does not make my calling more spiritual than someone faithfully running a business, managing a bank, teaching in a classroom, coding software, or selling products. A pastor and and an accountant both have opportunities to glorify God. A missionary and a manager are both called to faithfulness. Pastors equip the saints, but those saints are then scattered throughout society to serve God through their own vocations.

This has been especially transformative for me because I now look back at almost four decades in the financial services industry differently. I used to think of my marketplace years primarily as my career before entering full-time ministry, but I no longer see it that way, those years were part of my ministry too. Perhaps I did not always understand it as clearly then, but God was already forming me through the marketplace by teaching me about people, stewardship, money, leadership, ambition, failure, integrity, relationships, and grace. The marketplace was not merely preparation for ministry, it was itself a mission field.

This is one of the convictions I hope we can recover as a church. Most Christians will never become pastors, and they should not. They are called to be teachers, business owners, executives, engineers, bankers, doctors, artists, government workers, salespeople, entrepreneurs, and professionals. The better question is not, “How do I leave the marketplace to serve God?” The better question is, “How do I serve God where He has already placed me?”

This is where Tim Keller’s ideas become especially powerful because our work becomes one of the ways we love our neighbor. A good doctor loves his neighbor by providing excellent healthcare. A good entrepreneur loves his neighbor by creating useful products, meaningful employment, and economic opportunities. A good financial professional loves his neighbor by helping people steward resources wisely. A good businessman should not merely ask how much profit can be made, but also what good can be created through the business.

This is where theology of work naturally connects with what I have been calling Kingdom Economics and redemptive business. Business cannot simply be about maximizing shareholder value, work cannot simply be about career advancement, and money cannot simply be about accumulation. If Jesus is Lord, then He must also be Lord of our businesses, careers, investments, leadership, compensation practices, relationships with employees, treatment of customers, and use of capital. The gospel must eventually reach our Monday mornings. Otherwise, we have reduced Christianity to Sunday religion.

Perhaps one of my biggest takeaways from Every Good Endeavor is that our work matters, but our work is not our identity. That distinction is important because the world constantly tells us that we are what we accomplish. Our titles, income, influence, businesses, achievements, and successes can easily become measurements of our worth. I know that temptation well. The gospel, however, tells us that before we accomplish anything, our identity is already secure in Christ.

That truth frees us to work hard without worshiping our work. We can pursue excellence without making excellence our god. We can succeed without believing that success defines us, and we can fail without believing that failure destroys us. That is incredibly liberating, especially in a world where so much of our value is measured by performance, productivity, and achievement.

As someone who has spent many years in the marketplace and now finds himself in full-time ministry, Every Good Endeavor has helped me see the continuity between the two. The venue may have changed and the vocation may have changed, but the calling remains the same. We are called to glorify God, love people, steward what He has entrusted to us, and participate faithfully in His work in the world.

Whether we are preaching a sermon, running a company, teaching a class, managing investments, preparing a spreadsheet, serving a customer, or raising a family, our work can become an act of worship. Ultimately, our hope is not that our careers will succeed or our businesses will prosper. Our hope is Jesus Christ. We work because He first worked for us, and we serve because He first served us. We also look forward to the day when Christ will make all things new, including the work of our hands.

Until then, we work faithfully, not simply to make a living or to build a career, but because every good endeavor can become part of God’s greater redemptive work in the world.