Over 38 years of pastoral ministry at New Park Street Chapel (later to become The Metropolitan Tabernacle), Charles Spurgeon and the church added nearly 14,000 people into membership. Of that number, how many would you guess were brought into the church through baptism — as new souls won to the Savior?

I would have guessed up to 3,500. Most, I would have reasoned, transferred from other churches to hear the generation’s greatest preacher. Further, 3,500 people baptized — on average 92 a year, nearly 2 per week for 38 years — seems like a downpour of blessing compared to the trickle of conversions I am accustomed to.

In his wonderful book Spurgeon the Pastor, Geoffrey Chang gives us the answer. “Spurgeon took in 13,797 people into membership. Of that number 10,063 (73%) were taken into membership through baptism,” the rest through transfer (20%) and by profession (7%) (110). Meaning, “most of the membership of the Tabernacle was made up of those who were converted through the ministry of the church” (112).

In one generation, over 10,000 brought into one local church through baptism. Can you imagine?

‘Burning Disgrace’

The astonishment deepens when Chang documents how Spurgeon detested lax standards of baptism and membership. Meaning, the church did not baptize on a whim. Those ten thousand did not raise a hand in one moment of passion and wade into the pool a few minutes later. Spurgeon refused to boast of “unhatched chickens” (112). Rather, the church remained serious about regenerate membership, with a process on the front end that towers over many churches today.

Above all, Chang writes of Spurgeon, “he wanted to see people brought into the church from the world” (111). His hunger to see God save souls was contagious. He could not conceive of the church of Jesus Christ not winning her Master’s spoils.

I should reckon it to be a burning disgrace if it could be said, “The large church under that man’s pastoral care is composed of members whom he has stolen away from other Christian churches.” No, but I value beyond all price the godless, the careless, who are brought out from the world into communion with Christ. (111)

“Spurgeon could not conceive of the church of Jesus Christ not winning her Master’s spoils.”

How many pastors and churches today think this way? Or, most convicting to me, how many believe this way? How many really believe God can build our churches primarily through baptism? I struggle to. How many really believe we can see a revival of a neighborhood, town, city, or nation with that old rugged gospel? I struggle to. How many really plead for God to move mightily among us as of old? I struggle to.

Great Awakenings

Stories like these stir a restlessness in me.

I read of God’s work in other lands and times, and wonder at such little resemblance to my own experience. They lived in an epic, it seems. I turn the pages of Scripture to read of my forebears “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Hebrews 11:33–35). What would they read flipping through the pages of my life?

Continuing on, I read of a mighty gospel “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). In special epochs — distant epochs — I read of major cities casting their idols into the fire (Acts 19:18–19), and of conviction for sin shattering hearts by the hundreds and thousands (Acts 2:37–41). I read of Great Awakenings on our own shores, as many looked up from their snake-bitten condition to Christ and were healed. Homes and streets were filled with heavenly conversation, they say. Multitudes lived with sobriety over sin and a fear of the wrath to come. Hearts seemed fuller, worship more robust, and the next life with Christ the grand desire.

Different times, I sigh. Then seemed to have something happening, something inbreaking, something at stake. Before them waters parted and revivals fell and mountains moved into the heart of the sea. Life was less certain, perhaps (I did not cite the next verses in Hebrews 11, detailing torture, flogging, and sawing in two), but as the fingers of time pressed firmly upon the neck, immortal beings felt their fleeting pulse and lived nearer, at least as I imagine, to the world to come.

Same Yesterday and Today

But on most days, that world and those times feel behind us. We live now — in a world of smartphones, freeways, and antibiotics. Modern man is too scientific, too enlightened — my unbelief contributes — to be won as less sophisticated generations were.

Today, more and more simply dismiss claims of religion, the Bible, and even objective truth. Today, the throb for that inarticulate something is often dulled by the endless buffet of amusements. Today, the breach between this world and the next is wider. The graveyard lies farther away. Loved ones are pulled through the door less unexpectedly; and when they are, we soothe ourselves with good vibes and vague hopes. Death’s noose is loosened just enough that few consider their end.

I am tempted to believe that the God of today is less immense, less relevant, and generally more nonintrusive than in former years. Like a president who has served his terms, he retired to his heavenly estate to enjoy the quiet life. We preach of God, but how often do we meet him? We teach classes on the Great Commission, but how often do we baptize? But what makes my soul bleed is this: How often have I even noticed the scarcity — or cared? Look up from your screens and worldly interests, Jesus says: “I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest” (John 4:35).

Spurgeon, seeking to rouse the church (and his own soul), likened many Christians to the disciples falling asleep in Gethsemane:

Christ is up yonder interceding, and we are down here sleeping, the most of us. Christ is up there showing his wounds, and pleading before the Father’s throne that he would visit the sons of men, and give him to see of the travail of his soul, and here are we, not watching against his enemies, nor helping him by our prayers; but are busy here and there wasting precious time, while immortal souls are being lost. We are sleeping like men in the midst of harvest when the grain is waiting for the sickle. (“The Church Aroused”)

His sermon text: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Ephesians 5:14 KJV).

Ye of Little Faith

Perhaps this is all an errant assessment — romanticizing the past and overlooking present triumphs. God has certainly not retired. Does a single hour pass without heaven rejoicing over the repentance of a sinner?

But from my view, in my own limited experience and spheres, something feels lacking. Perhaps you feel it too. Less soldierly, more civilian. Less awake, more drowsy. Less expectant, more complacent.

Risk great things for Christ? Stop scrolling and watching and coasting, and live in this greatest of all stories? Leave the Shire for adventure? No, I too often think with Bilbo, “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them!” (The Hobbit, 6).

“The gospel that sent a thunderclap through the world is the same we tell forth now.”

The difference is not with the times as much as it is with me. The God of yesterday — the God of Moses and David and Paul and Luther and Whitefield and Spurgeon — is the God of today. The gospel that sent a thunderclap through the world is the same we tell forth now. The Spirit, the mission, the urgency, the enemies have not changed. His promise to be with us now and unto the end of the age has not undergone amendment (Matthew 28:20). My faith and wakefulness and prayer and questing (or lack thereof) better explain castles untaken, souls unwon. Sentinels sleep upon the watchtower.

Driest Pool

I’ve needed to repent before our Lord for my small estimations of the King’s power and his willingness to work powerfully today. Maybe you have reason to do the same. Through even this one example of Spurgeon’s ministry, I’ve become more restless not seeing people added to the church regularly:

More rainless than the desert sand,No place more parched in all the land,This drought — above all droughts — abysmal,The empty pool, the dry baptismal.

Satan laughs, accusing fraud:“Behold the shortened arm of God!Behold the fountain, now a tomb;Behold the barren, lifeless womb!”

Satan nor his works renounced,No triune loyalties pronounced.No signal of heaven’s addition,No evidence of Great Commission.

Spurgeon kept the baptismal pool filled — even when no baptisms were scheduled (81). His people would always have the mission set before them. May our pools be figuratively filled with importunate prayers, compassionate tears, and joyful proclamations of the excellencies of our glorious Christ. May we be fully awake, fully alive, sowing much. And let us look to the God of our ancestors to answer us from heaven.

I’ll begin by stating the aim of this message six different ways:

My aim is that those of you who preach or teach the word of God would make clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. And I mean the killing of our own sin, not the sins of others.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between canceled sin and conquered sin.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people.
. . . that you would make clear that in releasing his people from guilt, Christ effectively secured their lives of righteousness in this world.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between justification by Christ’s blood and progressive sanctification by that same blood.
. . . that you would make clear the effective connection between the tearing of Christ’s flesh in crucifixion and the tearing out of your eye in the battle against lust.

I chose to pursue this aim with you because it seems to me that in the last forty years or so of the gospel-centered emphasis in America, there has not been a biblically proportionate emphasis on preaching holiness of life and godliness and righteousness and radical, countercultural Christlikeness. Instead, it seems to me that to be gospel-centered has often filtered down to the pew as something like this: “Preach the gospel to yourself every day,” which is heard to mean, Rehearse the good news that you are loved, accepted, and forgiven. No condemnation. No judgment. No hell. Acquitted. Vindicated. Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

Saved for More and Greater

Here’s the problem with that emphasis. Suppose you are condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead tomorrow morning. But when they come to open your cell at dawn, instead of taking you to the gallows, they set you free because someone has volunteered to take your place. This would be the happiest experience of your life, at least up till that moment. Your heart would overflow with joy being free from condemnation and execution. And you would be full of tearful thankfulness for the substitute. This would be an absolutely overwhelming, all-embracing experience of joy.

Perhaps a year later the experience is still vivid and intense with happiness and thankfulness. And perhaps for the next five years you wake up every morning, and go to bed every night, preaching to yourself: “I’m not condemned! I’m not going to be hanged! I have a reprieve! No condemnation! No execution. No gallows! No punishment! Accepted! Forgiven!” Ten years later you are still preaching this same message to yourself. Thirty years later. Fifty years later. “I’m not going to be hanged! I’m not going to be hanged!”

You see the problem. There are vast reaches of the human heart — depths, heights, breadths — that can never be filled, never be satisfied, with that truncated gospel. We must have more than the message of justification. We must have more than: No condemnation. No hell. No guilt. Justification by faith is a means to something more and greater. The propitiation of God’s wrath is a means to something more and greater. Forgiveness of sins is a means to something more and greater. Escape from hell is a means to something more and greater. Redemption from slavery is a means to something more and greater.

Ultimately, finally, that “more and greater” is God himself. First Peter 3:18 puts it like this: “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” To see God. To know God. To have God as a companion. To enjoy God. To be irradiated with the glory of God. To finally, in some suitable measure, reflect God. To become, at last, a fitting echo of the excellence of God. Brothers and sisters, that is a million times greater than justification and forgiveness. Just as walking into heaven is a million times greater than walking out of hell. Because God is there. There is no comparing the pleasure of walking out of prison and walking into the arms of your wife.

But between the glories of justification and forgiveness that launch us by the blood of Christ into life, and final glorification with its perfected vision of God, and sinless savoring of his fellowship — between the first beginning and the final goal of our redeemed existence — there is the Christian life, a life of faith and hope and love and truth and righteousness and purity and holiness and courage, and countercultural conformity to Jesus over against selfishness and pride and greed and lust and rebellion and a hundred forms of worldliness.

Another Way of Preaching Grace

There is a kind of unhealthy preaching that focuses on holiness of life but in a way that fails to make plain the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It fails to make plain the relationship between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. And therefore holiness, in this kind of preaching, becomes a burden too great to bear. And people become despairing, or they become self-righteous, moral achievers.

“There is a way to preach that only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers.”

And there is a way to preach that is so allergic to biblical imperatives and commands and warnings that it never preaches with any sense of urgency about the biblical demand for holiness. It never says, “Tear out your eye because it’s better to lose one of your members than for your whole body be thrown the hell” (Matthew 5:29). It never says, “Pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). It never says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24). It only preaches grace that pardons, but doesn’t preach the grace that empowers. Grace to forgive sin, but not grace to kill sin.

My aim in this message is to plead for another way of preaching and teaching that commits neither of those two errors. My aim is that we would preach so as to show the people the effective connection — yes, even by grace to establish the effective connection — between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between canceled sin and conquered sin. Between the horrors of Christ’s suffering for us and the holiness of our life in him.

Canceled Sin and Conquered Sin

Of all the texts we could look at to make these connections (for example, Romans 8:4; Colossians 1:22; Hebrews 10:10), I want to look at two passages in 1 Peter. Let’s look first at 1 Peter 1:14–16.

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Four observations from those three verses: First, holiness is commanded. “Be holy” in verse 15 is an imperative (geneitheite). Not a suggestion. But a command.

Second, God’s holiness is the ground of the command. Verse 16: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

Third, God’s holiness means that he is so separate from all that is ordinary, indeed all that is created, that he is in a class by himself, one of a kind — like the rarest diamond. We call this kind of separateness transcendence. And the Bible adds a moral dimension to this transcendence so that we call it transcendent purity or goodness.

God’s holiness means that he is perfectly separate from all that is finite and all that is defiled. Transcendent purity. And since God’s purity is not measured by anything outside himself, he is the measure of all purity and all goodness and all worth. For God to be actively holy, therefore, is for all his words, and all his attitudes, and all his actions to be in perfect harmony with the infinite value of his transcendent purity. That is what it means for God to be holy.

Fourth, therefore, our holiness derives from his. It means that all our attitudes and words and actions should be in harmony with his infinite worth. First Peter 1:14 fills out what it means for us to be holy as God is holy: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions [the word is simply “desires”] of your former ignorance.” Unholy desires flow from ignorance — of what? God. The worth of God. The greatness of God. The all-satisfying beauty of God. The holiness of God.

So, human holiness is the transformation of our knowledge, replacing “ignorance” (agnoia, verse 14) and the transformation of our “desires” so that they conform to the true worth of God and not to our former ignorance. Human holiness is to know the true greatness and beauty and worth of God, and to have desires that conform to that knowledge. They’re the attitudes and words and actions that follow.

Blood-Bought Ransom and Holy Conduct

Now comes the connection between the holiness of the Christian and the horrors of Christ’s suffering. Verse 17:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear [another imperative, like “be holy”] throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. (1 Peter 1:17–19)

Now, notice carefully that there are two ways that Peter makes the connection between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holy conduct of the Christian.

‘Ransomed from Futile Ways’

The first is in verse 18 where he says, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” He does not say we were ransomed from guilt, or from condemnation, or from Satan, or from hell. He says we were ransomed from “futile ways.” The word for “ways” (in verse 18) is the same word used for “conduct” in verse 15: “Be holy in all your conduct (anastrophei).” So, to show the parallel we can say (verse 18): You were ransomed from your futile “conduct” (anastropheis) by the precious blood of Christ.

Which means that when Christ died and shed his infinitely valuable blood, he purchased, by means of a ransom-payment, our transfer from futile conduct to holy conduct. He bought our holiness — our holy conduct. Not with perishable things like silver and gold (verse 18), but with the most precious thing in the world, the blood of the Son of God. That is what he paid for our holiness. That is what he paid to bring all our attitudes and words and actions into harmony with the infinite worth of God.

And the purchase was effective. Remember I used the word “effective” in each of my six statements of my aim for this message. I said my aim was a kind of preaching that makes clear the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Christ’s ransom-payment was not a failure. He didn’t shed his blood in vain. He obtained what he paid for. The holy conduct of God’s people is sure. Which is why the Bible repeatedly makes plain that if you don’t have this holiness of life, you have no warrant to think you are part of the ransomed. This is serious. Perhaps you can feel something of why this message feels so important to me.

‘Because You Were Ransomed’

I said there were two ways that Peter makes the connection in this passage between the blood-ransom of Christ and the holiness of the Christian. And the first way is that by his blood he effectively ransomed his people from futile conduct into holy conduct. He effectively obtained the holiness of his people.

Now, the second way is seen in the logical connection between verses 17 and 18. In the second half of verse 17 he gives the command: “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” [that is, be holy, for God is holy] and then comes a participle that functions as a ground (verse 18a): “ . . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways.” So, the logic connecting the two verses is: “Conduct yourselves in holiness, because you know you were ransomed from futile ways into holy ways.”

This is the preaching I am pleading for. Peter cries out to his congregations (the churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia) — he cries out with a clear imperative, command, “Conduct yourselves in godly fear! Be holy, because your God is holy. Bend your whole life into harmony with the infinite worth of God in Christ. Make holiness complete in the fear of the Lord” (as Paul does in 2 Corinthians 7:1). And he gives the great ground: Because your freedom from the old, futile ways, and your new holy way of life in Christ Jesus, has been bought by the most precious reality in the world, the blood of Jesus.

It’s not as though God saw his kidnapped wife in the hands of the enemy and paid the ransom to have her back, and then watched as she walked free and, instead of coming home, went and shacked up with another man. It didn’t happen like that. That’s not the way to think about the blood of Jesus. It is not impotent. It is effective. It was not shed in vain. The ransom bought a new way of life for his people. They will walk in the way he bought. And if they don’t, they have no warrant to think they are his people.

You recall how Paul put it in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The new way of holy living for the redeemed has been prepared by God. And part of that preparation was the ransom of 1 Peter 1:18. God did not spill the blood of his Son in vain. The good works of his people were purchased — prepared. The command is to walk in the steps he obtained with his blood.

That We Might Live to Holiness

Now, look with me at 1 Peter 2:20–24. Let’s start in the middle of verse 20. Peter is talking to slaves, but what he says applies to all Christians:

. . . If when you do good and suffer for it you endure [that is, endure in faith and love — holiness of life], this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called [so, this is God’s will for you, his call on your life. This is the imperative of a new way of life: not returning evil for evil, but good for evil. Then comes the ground], because Christ also suffered for you.

So, God’s call on your life to live a holy, humble, patient, radically countercultural life of returning good for evil is based on the suffering of Christ for you. That’s what we saw in chapter 1. Now we see it again here.

But someone might say: wait a minute. You are interpreting the phrase “for you” in verse 21 (“Christ also suffered for you”) in a substitutionary way, but the very next phrase describes the death of Christ as an example, not a substitution. So, verse 21 goes on: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.” So, why do you take the words, “suffered for you,” to mean, “suffer in your place,” when the defining participle describes it as suffering to give you an example of how to live?

My answer is: I take the words this way because that’s where Peter goes in his explanation in verse 24. The death of Jesus “for you” (verse 21) is not simply to give you an example for how to live, but even more fundamentally to bear your sins (verse 24): “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” So, that’s the ground of the call on your life to return good for evil and walk in all holiness. And to make that crystal clear Peter adds at the end of verse 24 the purpose clause for the sin-bearing work of Christ, namely, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” — live to holiness. That we might be holy.

So, the life-altering logic is the same as 1 Peter 1:17–18. “Be holy, because God is holy, and conduct yourselves in godly fear, because he ransomed you from a futile way of life for a life of holiness by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”

“The sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian.”

And the logic here in 1 Peter 2:24 is that the sin-bearing work of Christ is the ground of the sin-killing work of the Christian. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Or as verse 21 says: we are called to return good for evil because Christ suffered “for us” — not only to give us an example, but also to bear our sins in his suffering for us.

So, my message is: Preach this! Preach the pursuit of holiness this way. Preach the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Preach the effective connection between Christ’s canceling sin and our conquering sin. Preach the effective connection between the horrors of Christ’s suffering and the holiness of Christ’s people. Preach the effective connection between the tearing off of the flesh of Jesus and the tearing out of our lustful eyes.

Five Reasons Preachers Avoid Holiness

I’d like to close by addressing five possible reasons some pastors don’t preach the pursuit of holiness with the kind of blood-bought urgency we find in the New Testament.

First, perhaps some have simply not seen the connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. It’s just a blind spot in their biblical thinking. I hope this message helps remove that blind spot.

Second, perhaps some are reluctant to press the conscience of their people with the biblical demand for holiness because they fear the rebuke of Jesus that he gave to the lawyers when he said,

Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. (Luke 11:46)

To such pastors I would plead that you not try to address a real, biblical danger in an unbiblical way. The point of this message is that the Christian fight for holiness is connected to the forgiveness of sins in a gloriously unique gospel way not found in any other religion. Namely, that the only sin that can be successfully fought is a forgiven sin. And not only that, but also since the forgiveness has been secured infallibly by the blood of Jesus, the fight will be successful. Get to know this pervasive New Testament dynamic of holiness, and you will not have to fear the rebuke of Jesus that you have made his yoke hard and his burden heavy. Just the opposite.

Third, some pastors avoid preaching on the urgency and necessity of holiness because their own secret lives are morally compromised. They are wasting their time on trifles. They are watching movies that fill their minds with worldliness, not godliness. They are dabbling in pornography, or worse. They are dishonest in their financial dealings. They continually overeat in bondage to food. They neglect the teaching of their children and don’t pray with their wives. They are starting to medicate with wine, which they once called freedom. Their casual mouth has become crude. They’ve grown weary of fruitful Bible study and are becoming second-handers, depending on other people’s sermons.

Is it any wonder that these pastors preach week in and week out on the grace of God to forgive sins, but rarely celebrate the glory of God’s grace to defeat sinning? They lift high the cross as a covering for all their sins, and never make the biblical connection that Christ was crucified to conquer pornography, crucified to conquer laziness, crucified to conquer gluttony, crucified to conquer dishonesty, crucified to bring back the joy of creating their own sermons.

“There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America.”

Fourth, some pastors avoid anything approaching a kind of preaching that would confront people with their sin and would risk making them unhappy. There are pastors who are deeply infected with the coddling culture of contemporary America, and who are not only hyper-sensitive to being offended, but in the pulpit are fearful of stirring up anyone’s displeasure. There are reasons for this kind of reluctance to preach the urgency of holiness, and one of them is a deep-seated insecurity that shows itself in a desperate need to be liked — to be approved by other people.

Such pastors need to dig down deep into their hearts, and perhaps into their past, to find why these insecurities have such a hold on them, and then, perhaps with the help of counselors, apply the sovereign grace of God more deeply to their own hearts than they ever have.

Finally, some pastors are so fearful of being labeled as conservative, or fundamentalist, or progressive, or woke, or whatever the circles they care about would look down on, that they avoid any radical, biblical command that would seem to put them in some camp that they don’t want to be part of.

So perhaps, for example, they will not deal with racial discrimination, because that will make them sound woke. Or they won’t deal with, say, modesty, or nudity in movies, because that will make them sound fundamentalist. Or they won’t deal with the fact that we are citizens of heaven first and not American first, because that will make them sound unpatriotic.

The remedy for this bondage to the opinions of others is first to become more like Jesus, who had this reputation (Mark 12:14): “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.”

And the second part of that remedy is to be so radically committed to all that the Bible teaches that just when people think they have you pegged in some camp, you bring out of your biblical treasure chest something that throws them completely off-balance — until it becomes well-known: you are nobody’s lackey. You do not live to please men, right or left, rich or poor, white or black, male or female. You march to the biblical drum, no matter what.

Power in the Blood

My prayer for you is that when all of these obstacles are out of the way, you would preach and teach and live in such a way as to help your people experience the effective connection between the sin-bearing work of Christ and the sin-killing work of the Christian. Between the glorious justifying and glorious sanctifying effect of the precious blood of Christ. That you would sing with your people, and mean it:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?     There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood.Would you o’er evil a victory win?     There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

“When did you feel called to missions?”

This question often gets posed to current and former missionaries. For me, a particular ministry opportunity quickly turned into a call. I was studying and training for ministry and had an interest in cross-cultural work, but it only hit home when a professor said, “I have a friend in Ukraine who could use someone to teach the things we are learning in this class. Are any of you interested?” That need fit me, and my heart quickly grew toward God’s work there.

Are You Called?

A lot of people, however, feel confused about the term “called.” One person may believe his call places him outside the reach of evaluation — as if my sense of divine call obligates other people to treat me in a special way. A call to missions can sometimes seem to validate someone’s Christian faith, as if I am incomplete as a Christian unless God gives me the significance of cross-cultural ministry. Or we may say we are called when what we mean is that we feel drawn toward the spiritual and physical needs of people in a certain place. These interpretations tend to make the call an internal experience more interested in how I feel than with God’s purposes in the world.

The missionary call can also be expanded so widely that it stirs up improper guilt. The passionate singer-songwriter Keith Green gave this missions exhortation in 1982:

[Jesus] commands you to go. . . . “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 KJV). That’s right. . . . YOU ARE CALLED! In fact, if you don’t go, you need a specific calling from God to stay home.

And by “go,” Green did not mean just to a next-door neighbor. This was a call to cross-cultural evangelism in light of the overwhelming number of people who have never heard the gospel. Green wanted his listeners to feel guilty for not crossing cultures as missionaries. Such an exhortation cuts through the process of discernment about whether someone is called to missions and simply concludes that we are all called.

All Are Sent, Some Are Called

Green’s words remind us that the whole church is sent. Jesus sends the apostles in John 20:21 and tells them they will be his “witnesses” all over the world (Acts 1:8). The Great Commission addresses all of Jesus’s disciples with its charge to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). Peter makes clear that this sense of mission applies to everyone in the church when he calls his readers “a holy nation.” You were chosen, he says, “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

But the whole church fulfills that mission by setting apart particular people to bring the saving gospel to new groups in different cultures. Instead of saying, “You are all called to cross-cultural missions,” we can announce to the church, “You are sent!” without specifying exactly where and how each person participates in that mission.

To help clarify how the church uses these terms, I propose that we reserve a missionary “calling” to people who have both an internal desire to be involved in this ministry and also the affirmation of the church, the institution that Jesus Christ has authorized and sent. A “call” to missions announces that a particular person will join the church’s mission in this particular task — crossing cultures in order to proclaim the gospel and establish the church.

Missionary Calling in the New Testament

God certainly directs his people into specific ministry assignments, but the New Testament does not emphasize the internal sense of calling to the degree that we often do. The apostles received distinctive divine calls — whether through the incarnate Lord saying, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18–22), or, as with Paul, through an appearance of the risen Christ speaking directly to him (Acts 9:1–19). But these were extraordinary callings for extraordinary tasks. When we look at how the other missionaries were chosen in the book of Acts, we find a variety of means.

“Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision.”

In the examples of Silas, Timothy, and John Mark, they each seem to have joined a missionary team through a combination of desire, need, and opportunity. Paul needed a partner and so looked to Silas (Acts 15:40). Barnabas needed a partner and recruited John Mark back onto the team (Acts 15:37–39). Timothy “was well spoken of,” and Paul recruited him (Acts 16:1–3). These examples show us that while the whole church is sent to make disciples, individuals join particular branches of that task through a combination of factors.

That is not to say that the idea of a calling or vocation is without biblical evidence. “Calling” in the New Testament Epistles always refers in some way back to one’s conversion, the time God called one into his family (1 Corinthians 1:26). But in at least one text, 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul also views our life circumstances as part of our calling. He writes, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Paul means that when God calls you into his family, he calls you specifically, with all the relationships, positions, and history that you have. Were you married when he called you (that is, when you were converted)? Then God means to make you his child in that state of marriage.

It is from this text that Christians have developed the idea of one’s “calling” or “vocation” in life. Since God is sovereign over the events in our life, whatever he gives us to do can be a part of our particular path of discipleship. God means to make us Christians in whatever circumstances he gives us. That call may include caring for an elderly parent, or raising a child with special needs, or — if you happen to be born as the eldest son of a monarch — serving as a prince and king.

It makes sense, then, to refer to the task of cross-cultural missions as a calling, just as pastoral ministry, motherhood, running a farm, and simply living as the persons we are in the place God has given us are callings from God.

Learning from the Pastoral Call

That said, a pastoral calling works in a special way that would be helpful for missionaries to learn from. Protestant churches have long recognized that a man does not possess the authority of a pastor unless a church recognizes the God-given gifts that accompany that position. Many churches and denominations require that ordination be “to a definite work” (as the PCA’s Book of Church Order puts it). This is a “call,” a specific affirmation of someone’s gifts and of his fit for a particular task with recognized status and responsibility in the church. A man may feel called to preach the gospel, but he is only truly called to pastoral ministry when the church affirms that desire and gives him some responsibility.

In his handbook for future pastors, Bobby Jamieson prefers to say that a man “aspires” to become a pastor rather than “is called.” “Calling asks you to picture yourself at the end of the trail. Aspiration points out the path and tells you to take a step” (The Path to Being a Pastor, 30). An aspiring pastor asks the church to help him take the next step toward affirmation and responsibility.

Because pastoral ministry includes a specific authority to preach God’s word to God’s assembled people and to participate in the oversight of a local church, it requires definite and fairly high qualifications. But because missions can represent a variety of ministries, some of which are only tangentially related to spiritual authority in the church, we can easily dilute the calling. A person’s desire alone can be mistaken for a calling to a particular work.

If we adopted the careful language of a pastoral call for missionaries, we would clarify where someone is on the path to becoming a missionary. A subjective calling to cross-cultural ministry will be confirmed if and when God arranges it so that this person is actually engaged in that definite work.

Rather than speaking confidently of our calling to missions (and may the Lord call out many more!), we might be wise to say, “I desire to be a missionary,” or “I am preparing to be a missionary,” or “I aspire to be a missionary.” Since our knowledge of God’s call is tentative and aspirational, we can have a missionary burden, a desire for missions, an exploration of a call, or a sense that we might be called.

Opening Ourselves to God’s Leading

Aspiration announces that we are on a path. It says to the church around us, “Please help me discern the next step God would have me take.” It opens us up to evaluation and input, and places our desire for ministry within the appropriate context of the church’s mission. Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling also saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision. If we aspire, then we do not announce confidently that we already have the call. And if we aspire, we are asking for the church’s affirmation rather than for a unique divine sign.

“Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed” (Acts 15:39–40). Did Silas receive a missionary call? Silas was certainly a well-respected church leader. He had been chosen, along with Paul and Barnabas, to bring the letter from the Jerusalem council back to Antioch (Acts 15:22). But Paul’s invitation here was enough to have him join the missionary team. God may have moved in a hundred ways before that day to prepare him for this call. But the crucial moment came when Paul said, “Why don’t you join me?” and Silas heard and accepted that call.

Instead of waiting for a miraculous sign, Christians can seek opportunities for ministry and use discernment to ask, “Would this ministry fit how God has made me?” Instead of boldly announcing that one is “called” to missions, Christians can ask for input from other mature believers. “I would like to be called as a cross-cultural missionary. How could I prepare for and pursue that calling?”

A call to missions is confirmed when the church sends someone who is willing, capable, and tested to proclaim the gospel and establish the church in another culture. When that happens, a missionary can be confident in God’s direction not only because of his subjective desire, but also because of the affirmation of God’s people in the church.