What happens when the people of God swap a core responsibility with God? When men take a role that God has designed for himself and run with it? Bottom line, the church departs from the mission that God has ordained for her and God must respond in discipline because of his own glory, His love for his church, and His love for the lost. So before unpacking this particular subject, I want to be clear about the mission. The mission of the people of God is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded.[1] Everything that I do after I’ve surrendered my life to King Jesus must ladder up to this. There is no flexibility in the participation of this calling.
Preservation
Preservation is defined as the process of keeping something valued alive, intact, or free from damage or decay. As applied to people, it is keeping oneself from destruction or harm. Preservation is a good thing. In fact, preservation is a compelling theme in Scripture.
Psalm 40 is a notable example of what is found everywhere in the Psalms. In it, David recognizes that God is his only hope for preservation and the full weight of responsibility is on God alone. In verse 11, David writes, “As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!”[2] Investigate for yourself, but the conclusion of the Psalms is that the preservation of God’s people is God’s job and he is faithful and trustworthy to carry it out.
The prophets also bear witness to God’s preservation of his people. Isaiah 49 encapsulates the view of the prophets when God says to Isaiah regarding his mission, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth,” and then in reference to Israel a couple verses later, “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people….”[3] Again, it doesn’t take much reading in any prophetic book to find a statement about God’s preservation of his people. We are confronted throughout the Old Testament with story after story of how God preserved his chosen and every time it is God’s faithful hand alone (either in a supernaturally or through the obedience of his servants) that provides.
In the New Testament, this theme continues with the same consistency. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul shares his experience of God’s preservation when he was alone contending for the gospel. “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that though me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So, I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.”[4] Peter applied God’s preservation to the whole of God’s people in 1 Peter, “…he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”[5]
Preservation is God’s job, not ours. Every time we see God’s people preserving themselves, they mess things up. We see this with Abraham, Elijah, David, the children of Israel, the disciples, etc. When we take the responsibility of our own preservation, we veer from what God has called us to do. The act of self-preservation (and the preservation of our kingdoms) cannot exist alongside carrying out the mission of discipleship. If we treasure our own preservation, we will not proclaim the gospel to the ends of the earth because the ends of the earth threaten our security and safety. In fact, in Luke, Jesus equates taking God’s role of preservation on oneself as characteristic of Lot’s wife. “Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”[6] Matthew records a similar statement of Jesus in the context of how foolish it is to be about the activity of preservation. “If anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”[7]
The hardest thing about preservation being solely God’s job is that God does not always preserve us in the way we want to be preserved. I love how God preserved Daniel in the lion’s den but am not as much of a fan of how he preserved Paul in letting him get beaten just short of death more than once. I want to see the prison doors opened as for Peter and John, but I do not want to see the face of Jesus while being stoned to death like Stephen. It is really hard to trust God with preservation. And as they say on Shark Tank, “For those reasons, I’m out.” And that has been the evolving behavior of the church particularly in the United States. We have built systems and structures founded on the preservation of our power and influence. I realize this is a severe statement and it may elicit a “now, wait just a minute” response. But if we are honest and open ourselves up to the searching and revealing of the Holy Spirit, I believe we will find this to be uncomfortably true. How is it that the church in the United States has experienced unprecedented freedom to proclaim the gospel without recrimination for hundreds of years and the result is that America is now characterized as a post-Christian nation? It’s not the fault of Democrats or Republicans. It’s not because abortion was legalized. It’s most definitely not because the gospel is weak and irrelevant in the lives of people. I believe that it is because we have, as the people of God, focused ourselves on preservation, choosing to not trust God and actively rejecting the ways in which God chooses to preserve us. We love our lives unto control, comfort, and convenience, not as John describes those who overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. So, if preservation is God’s job, on what do we focus ourselves?
PERSEVERANCE
Perseverance is defined as persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. It does not shy away from opposition, failure, or threat, it is steadfast and endures. As much as preservation is a theme in Scripture, so is perseverance. And, you guessed it, perseverance is our job.
“But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”[8]
“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”[9]
“Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.”[10]
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith…”[11]
“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”[12]
This is a snapshot of Scriptural evidence proving that our job is perseverance. This means that we continue to make disciples of all nations when things are going our way and while we experience favor and prosperity. It also means that we continue to make disciples of all nations when things are set against us and we are challenged and persecuted. Perseverance means that our actions are not dependent on the environment or culture around us, whether favorable or detrimental. We fully focus on perseverance while we let God concern himself with our preservation. God will preserve you while you persevere until he is glorified through you and then your end will come and you’ll be glorified.
So, what happens when the people of God choose to take upon themselves God’s job of preservation? We abandon the mission that God has called us to accomplish. Maybe it’s not even conscious, but the result is the same. When I don’t trust God for my preservation and I take that upon myself, I cannot develop perseverance because I am too busy building my safety nets and protective walls. When the church doesn’t trust God for her preservation, she cannot be developing perseverance because she is too busy making deals for power and protection, building armies and coalitions while the proclamation of the gospel and the participation in the sufferings of Christ are lost and even despised. The result? The church can’t persevere, united because of Christ, through two years of a pandemic. We became fractured, local families divided, and the church lost much of what was left of her voice. Why? Because the people of God believed that they had to preserve themselves to help God accomplish his purposes, when in reality, God was warning his people that they are not paying attention nor obeying him at all.
Here’s where it gets really personal for me. I, as a pastor – no, as one who claims allegiance to Jesus – have a choice to make. Do I choose to preserve my reputation, my job, my status, my comfort, my happiness, my kingdom, my fill-in-the-blank? Or do I leave my preservation to God and trust his method of it? If I choose preservation for myself then I have clearly not chosen God and his kingdom, no matter how well I can defend my choice. In fact, there have been so many with influence throughout the years that have fallen away from the heart and mission of Jesus for this very reason. My confession is that, for a long time, I have concerned myself with preservation resulting in compromise and diluting God’s kingdom with mine. My repentance is that I will no longer pursue preservation, and instead I will work out my salvation and transformation with perseverance.
While no one knows that day or hour of Christ’s return, we do see the signs of the season and we are in that season. We have the task of perseverance in making disciples of all nations, especially the unengaged and the unreached. That is our only job. While we participate in different ways, every person who has been grafted into the family of God is accountable on the day of judgement for how they participated in this mission. God will not reward preservation, just read the parable of the talents if you don’t believe me. God will reward only those who persevere in faithfulness to him and obey his command to take his message to the ends of the earth.
Maranatha.
Matthew has been pastoring in one form or another from the Midwest to Central California for 20 years. He and his wife are in the parenting adult children season of life. Over the last few years, Matthew has been awakened by the Maranatha Cry and now carries with him a deep conviction to ready the church for the return of Jesus, calling the church to intimacy with Jesus and obedience by making disciples.
[1] Matthew 28:19-20
[2] Psalm 40:11
[3] Isaiah 49:6,8
[4] 2 Timothy 4:17-18
[5] 1 Peter 1:3-5
[6] Luke 17:32-33
[7] Matthew 16:24-25
[8] Matthew 24:13-14
[9] Romans 5:2-5
[10] 2 Thessalonians 1:4
[11] Hebrews 12:1-2
[12] James 1:12
[13] Matthew 16:1-4
