The 40 Weeks of Mission writings are aiming to help you be more effective in sharing the gospel with those around you. We want to share the gospel because, well, we know it is the God-ordained means for salvation. How can a person be saved unless he hears? And how can he hear unless someone is sent? (Rom 10) The gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1).
But perhaps we talk too much about how to win people? I wonder if a lot of our talk about evangelism is nothing more than principles of relationship. You know, how to make friends and influence people. How to be winsome. That’s important, of course, because if we aren’t friendly I don’t think anyone will listen to us. We must not, however, reduce our mission to techniques and clever outreaches. We must realize first and foremost that salvation is the work of God.
What I’m saying is that we cannot save a single soul. We can’t even save ourselves. The Scriptures teach that human beings are dead spiritually. They are so dead that even the best sermon and the most winsome efforts and the most articulate presentation of truth cannot save them. Unless God raises a person from their spiritual death, they will not be raised.
Valid questions
This theological reality has a strange bearing on our missions efforts. If we can’t do anything in ourselves to save people, and God alone can save, and God will save whom He will save—then why not sit back and relax? Why pray for souls? Why sacrifice to reach people? Why bother preaching at all?
Some of you I’m sure have had these musings. It hit me at one point in my frenzy of trying to save everyone around me that nothing I choose to do, or choose not to do, will ultimately result in changing the eternal destiny of even one soul. In other words, nobody will be in hell because I didn’t pray enough for them or because I didn’t share Christ with them. And nobody will be in heaven because of my great prayers and efforts to save them. No, no, no. Nothing we do or do not do will have any eternal bearing on anyone’s destiny.
Think about it
That might sound shocking to some of you, but think about it. Imagine being in heaven knowing that if we had prayed a little harder or had been bolder or had sacrificed more, that several people you knew would spend eternity enjoying Christ instead of being separated from Him in hell. Who could bear that kind of weight? And equally absurd would be someone coming up to us in heaven praising us because, had we not done what we did to rescue them, they would be lost. Do we think we would be credited for the salvation of certain people? Oh my, no!
God alone is the author of salvation. Scripture doesn’t reveal why He chooses who He chooses. It has always mystified me. It doesn’t make sense. He seems to choose some really bad people (like me). He seems to choose the poor, the unlovely, the unsavory. He chooses those who are despised by society. There is no rhyme or reason to it (from our perspective). He saves who He saves. All He tells us in the Bible is that it’s according to His good pleasure and the counsel of His will (Eph 1). That’s another way of saying, “it’s way beyond our comprehension.” He simply sets His saving grace upon certain people, and no matter how deep in sin and unbelief they may be, He raises them to newness of life.
Savior complex
So what are we supposed to do in all this? What role do we play? Does anything we do really matter? Why bother with trying to save people, especially since they don’t seem to want to be saved?
These are valid questions. Who wants to put forth effort doing something in vain? In one sense, it’s true, what we do or do not do will not determine anyone’s eternal destination. Especially in America, this devastates our Savior complex. We like our Marvel movies because we can live vicariously through the superhero who saves the world. We secretly want to be the hero who rescues the helpless from the powers of evil. But here’s the problem: Jesus alone is the Savior.
Instruments
Okay, okay, then what are we? The Lord has invited us to partner with Him in this great work of gathering a people to Himself. He even calls us co-laborers. We are “instruments fit for the Master’s use.” We are like a paintbrush in the hands of Michelangelo. We are like a wooden baseball bat in the hands of Babe Ruth. We are a hollow body electric guitar in the hands of BB King. God is doing His work through us to reconcile the world. He is actually using our hands, our feet, our tongues. We are vessels that He flows through to save people. Wow!
You say, “But, why should I bother exerting myself if it doesn’t actually make a real difference? If God doesn’t use me He’ll still get the job done and save whom He will save.”
Maybe we are missing the whole point of everything? We aren’t at the center. We aren’t saving people. We aren’t even needed by God. If we stubbornly refuse His invitation to pray and labor—His work will still get done. He is choosing a people for Himself, with or without our help.
Maybe instead of thinking of ourselves as superheroes, we should think of ourselves in more humble terms. Like a paintbrush. If I was a paintbrush living in the studio of Picasso or Matisse or Klee—what would be the greatest thing to live for? I would want to be such a good brush that the artist would use me to paint a masterpiece. If I was a frequently-used beloved brush, man, that would be living, right?
Why we exist
Maybe we don’t see the beauty of being yielded instruments in the hands of God in the great work of reconciling a people to Himself because we want to be the one who saves? Maybe we buck against these theological truths because we are jacked up on self-importance? Maybe we don’t realize that secretly we want to be god?
Oh that we would come down from our ridiculous notion of being the savior of people. May we find joy in being an instrument in the hands of the Eternal Savior. May we labor and toil, sweat and bleed, for the glory of God and the great privilege of being a vessel He works through.
It’s perhaps for another day to expound on, but I’ll just mention that being used by God as His instrument is one of the great ways God makes Himself known to us. So part of what compels us to spend ourselves praying and laboring in Christ to rescue the perishing is that we grow in our knowledge of Him. When Christ flows through us it’s like a close-up view of God in action. The choice of God to use us is not only the means of salvation for others, but it is the means of revelation for us.
Plus, nothing pleases an artist more than a brush that perfectly cooperates. Selah.