The Guilt That Robs Us of Joy

If you are one of those rare Christians who feel no guilt because you are actively involved in living out the Great Commission, God bless you. You probably do not need the advice in this section, but it will help you understand how other believers may feel when you talk to them about God's global purposes.

Sometimes a visit from a missionary, a sermon on missions, or even a book like this one may cause people to feel guilty. By such means we come face to face with two overwhelming truths: (1) Christ died for all people and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; (2) of the 6 billion men, women, and children on this globe, at least 3 billion have never even heard the good news proclaimed in a way that is understandable to them.

These alarming facts may cause waves of guilt to surge in the consciences of those who listen to a mission speaker. A tidal wave of shame and regret can extinguish people's ardor to share Christ cross-culturally. In this manner, a mission festival can become a mission fizzle, with little lasting effect. People leave, promising themselves never to think very deeply about missions again, because their consciences become immersed in remorse.

If the Great Commission leaves you feeling accused, may I suggest that you examine your guilt, rather than simply ignore it. Identifying the cause of your guilt feelings will help you deal with them more realistically. As you read the following list, consider which kind (or kinds) of guilt might be disturbing you.

1. Guilt Due to Ignorance

Some do little or nothing to support worldwide Christian outreach because they have been led to believe that the task is almost completed. They think that the gospel has been preached to almost every creature. Once such ignorance is exposed, the proper response is not to bemoan past inactivity forever, but to "take the task he gives you gladly; Let his work your pleasure be" (Lutheran Worship, 318, stanza 4).

2. Guilt Due to Rebellious Disobedience

Some Christians experience pangs of guilt because they have consciously chosen to ignore their Savior's command to make disciples of all nations. They are modern-day Jonahs. Jonah was called by God to warn the cruel, pagan inhabitants of Nineveh to repent of their sin or their city would be destroyed in forty days. Rather than journey east to Nineveh, Jonah caught the first ship headed west. Now that is rebellious disobedience.

Why did Jonah run? Although God loved the Ninevites, Jonah hated them, because their brutal armies had conquered many peoples, including the northern tribes of Israel. With the help of the great fish, the Lord convinced Jonah to go through with His plan. He preached to the Ninevites. The Spirit led them to repent, and they were saved from God's wrath. A happy ending, right? Not for Jonah. Even though he had complied with God's command, he was still defiant and disobedient at heart, grumbling and growling at God for having spared his arch enemies.

In his poem You! Jonah! poet Thomas Carlisle ably depicts the confrontation of wills with which the story of Jonah closes:

And Jonah stalked
to his shaded seat
and waited for God
to come around
to his way of thinking.

And God is still waiting
for a host of Jonahs
in their comfortable homes
to come around
to His way of loving.
(Carlisle 1968, 64)

Ask yourself if this is the cause of your guilt--out and out disobedience to the Great Commission, because of dislike of and prejudice toward people of another culture. This may be hard to admit to yourself and to God; but if you will repent of this sin, the Holy Spirit will enable you to love both the people at the ends of the earth and the folks next door.

3. Guilt Due to Apathy about the Lost

Many Christians are not so openly antagonistic as Jonah. They don't hate foreigners; they simply are unconcerned about them. Their attitude is like that of the tourist who goes on an overseas vacation. With his fully automatic 35mm camera strapped around his neck, he captures all of the exotic scenery: the plants, the animals, the buildings, and the people. But notice that the people are treated like things, just part of the scenery. This tourist fails to see "the natives" as real people with emotions, burdens, trials, and dreams. He fails to see them as people who desperately need to be reconciled to their Creator.

Analyze your attitude toward the people in this world who do not know Christ. Are you apathetic about their plight? Do your guilty feelings stem from the fact that you simply don't care much about them?

Apathy is sin. Apathy is simply a fancy word for lovelessness. If God were apathetic, the Bible would say, "God was so unconcerned about the world that He never bothered to give His only begotten Son; therefore everyone will perish without hope of eternal life." You know what it really says: "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

4. Guilt Due to Universalistic Beliefs

Universalism is the misplaced hope that somehow or other God will simply ignore men's sins and allow everyone to be saved, whether they repent and trust in Christ or not. Others hold a moderate position, claiming that those who sincerely follow the tenets of their own religion will be pardoned by God. Either belief implies that there is no need for Christians to cross cultural barriers and proclaim justification by grace through faith in Christ.

Universalism sounds so loving, so kind. There's only one thing wrong with it. It's the exact opposite of what the Bible says:

Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan. 12:2-3).

Those who are wise do not deny the Scriptures' teaching about eternal destruction. Rather, they lead many to the righteousness of Christ by proclaiming His name to the nations.

Who in the Bible talks the most about hell? Is it Moses, the giver of the Law? No. Is it one of the prophets whose words of warning resound through the pages of the Old Testament? No. The one who speaks the lion's share of Biblical warnings about hell is none other than Jesus Christ (See Matt. 13:36-43; 25:31-46). He who saves us from eternal death is the one who sounds the alarm most urgently.

If there really is no danger of hell, then Christ is as sadistic as the person who shouts "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. But what if there is a fire? Then people must be alerted! Jesus does just that, pointing to the only escape route: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). We who have come to the Father through Christ cannot deny to others the opportunity to make the same pilgrimage of faith.

Has the lie of universalism crept into your thinking about missions? Is this the sin that troubles your conscience when you hear Christ say (Luke 24:47) believers will preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name to all nations?

5. Guilt Due to Myopic Self-Interest

Many believers who value the gospel and promote evangelism, still have difficulty seeing beyond the city limits. Suffering from the Mr. Magoo mentality about missions, they rationalize: "Yes, cross-cultural work is important, but there is so much that needs to be done right here in our community and country. We need to proclaim the Gospel more here before we concentrate on faraway places. After all, an unsaved person in North America is just as lost as an unbeliever in Morocco or Myanmar."

The last sentence is a half-truth. Yes, a man or woman who does not trust in Christ for salvation is lost, no matter on what piece of real estate he or she is standing. However, if a Christian thinks that the gospel is as available in Morocco or Myanmar as it is in North America, nothing could be farther from the truth. For instance, the North African nation of Morocco, with a population of over twenty-nine million, is 99.8 percent Muslim, 0.14 percent Roman Catholic, and 0.01 percent Protestant. Furthermore, many of the tiny sliver of Protestants are foreigners living in Morocco (Johnstone 1986, 303).

Myanmar (formerly Burma), in southeast Asia, does not fare much better. Eighty-eight percent of the 46 million inhabitants are Buddhists, while Christianity weighs in at a mere 6.5 percent. Significantly, only one out of 50 Burmese Christians is from the dominant people group, the Bama, who comprise nearly two-thirds of the population. Hats off, however, to the one thousand Burmese missionaries, most of them from the Burma Baptist Convention, who are striving to bring in a harvest from this divided and troubled land (Johnstone 1986, 122-23).

In comparison, the English-speaking world enjoys an abundance of Christian resources:

• 90% of the world's ordained ministers work among the 9% who speak English....
• There is more evangelical literature printed in English than in all the other languages of the world combined (Watkins 1987c, 200).

Christ shed His blood for all nations. Let's not treat Him like a tribal god whose power and salvation are effective only for one people--ourselves. Is this the cause of your guilt? Have you set priorities for yourself and your church that only emphasize outreach to those who are like yourselves?

If so, you would do well to imagine the following situation (Watkins 1968, 21). Picture 20 people carrying a heavy log. Nineteen are lifting one end, and one lone fellow is groping, straining, and struggling at the other end. Then all 20 call out to you, "Help!" Now, where will you lend a hand?

Jesus Himself recognized the varied levels of opportunity to hear the gospel and carried out His ministry accordingly. Even though His major assignment was to proclaim the good news to the lost sheep of Israel, in what region did the Savior carry out most of His ministry? It was in Galilee of the Gentiles, the part of Judea where the Jewish religion was the weakest, the place that had a high Gentile population and was surrounded by Gentile peoples. He let His light shine in the darkest place available to Him, thus fulfilling the prophecy: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned" (Is. 9:2).

Remember your Sunday school days. One of the favorite songs was "This Little Gospel Light." When you sang, "All around the neighborhood I'm going to let it shine," how big did you imagine the neighborhood to be? Probably pretty small. In Paul's great chapter on love, he says, "When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me" (I Cor. 13:11). Jesus said that the field is the world (Matt. 13:38). He said that our neighbor is anyone to whom we show mercy. Lay aside childish self-interest and ask God to cause your light to shine also in the dark and distant corners of the earth.

6. Guilt Due to Sins of Omission

A good number of Christians realize that the field is the whole world. They want to play a part in their Savior's Great Commission. But somehow or other their interest became derailed. Amid the hurry-scurry of life their priorities are rearranged, so that other matters drain their time, energies, and resources.

The factors that force world evangelization to the back burner are not all bad. Conscientious parents devote time and energy to their children. Christians get a new job or start a business, and they allow it to bite giant chunks out of their schedule. A congregation starts or expands a Christian school, and suddenly the members no longer contribute as much to mission work. Sometimes the vast array of church activities so consumes our time that little or nothing is left for addressing the plight of the unreached masses. Mission activist David Bryant calls this situation "smorgasborditis." The overabundance of Christian programs, books, magazines, music, and the like causes us to focus all our attention on the offerings and opportunities right in our own parish while overlooking the fact that many peoples are starving for the Word of God (Bryant 1985, 51-52).

Think about how you use your time, energy, and resources. Have you been giving God's global task a priority lower than it deserves? Perhaps this is the cause of the guilt you sense.

7. Guilt Due to Inflated Expectations

This kind of guilt is not the result of personal sin. Rather, some Christians carry a load of guilt because they assume, "If I am not a missionary, then I am failing God." In some cases this guilt may be real, if the person is running from God's call, as Jonah did. On the other hand, many people mistakenly assume that the only ones who truly obey the Great Commission are those who do cross-cultural ministry in a distant land. This is a myth. Those who energetically support missions are also fulfilling Christ's command. Furthermore, in almost every part of North America, there are opportunities to share the good news with neighbors from other ethnic backgrounds. Later chapters will demonstrate how you can participate actively in the Great Commission without ever changing your address.

I hope the list above has helped you identify the guilt that you may sense when you consider the Bible's challenge to proclaim Christ's name to the ends of the earth. But what do you do with it now?

Lay Your Guilt at the Foot of the Cross

In most cases, the reason that we feel guilty is that we are guilty. God's Law accuses us. With remorse we admit that our mission zeal fizzles because of our lack of love for Christ and for our fellow men. God thundered from Mount Sinai, "You shall not murder," and we are reminded of how we have failed to bring the Word of Life to the spiritually dead. Jesus commanded, "Love your neighbor as yourself," and we lament that we have loved ourselves much more. This is the Law that accuses us. If we have not obeyed it, our guilty hearts may be so overburdened that we cannot rise to take up the joyful task of God's mission.

Being cut to the heart by the Law, what will you do? Why not repent of this sin, just as you would any other? Trust in Christ's blood to cleanse you of your guilt. Call on the Holy Spirit to make the necessary changes in your heart and life. Only then can you serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all your days (Luke 1:74-75).

If the Great Commission leaves you guilt-stricken, remember that your Savior also died for the Christian's sin of lovelessness toward the unsaved. Confess your disobedience to God. He will have mercy on you! He will freely pardon. The Holy Spirit will grant you His strength to amend your selfish ways and learn to love all people.

How can you know this is true? The Bible affirms it in the words of the apostle John:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world ( I John 2:12).

In addition, the Bible affirms it in the real life example of the apostle John. When John wrote the above words about forgiveness, he was not merely theorizing. John himself had been guilty of the sin of despising the lost. He himself had experienced God's merciful pardon even for this sin. Here's the story:

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village (Luke 9:51-56).

Fire of judgment from heaven! That was all that John and his brother thought this Samaritan village deserved. The mercy of God was the farthest thing from their minds. Instead, they were driven by the ethnic prejudice which the Jews harbored against the Samaritans.

Jesus rebuked James and John for their vindictive proposal. To our minds that simple rebuke might not seem enough--a mere slap on the wrist. Why didn't He strip them of their rank of apostle and put more worthy men in their places? You may wonder the same thing regarding yourself: "After all my failures to take His Great Commission seriously, how could Christ ever use me now to bring His gospel to the nations?"

Now hear the rest of the story. Acts 8 relates how, a few years later, Philip the Deacon was proclaiming Christ in the land of Samaria. Until then the apostles had been slow to bring the gospel to foreigners such as the Samaritans. Receiving word of conversions among the Samaritans, the Twelve sent two of their number, Peter and John, to check into the matter. When they arrived and prayed for the Samaritan converts, something astounding happened. They received the Holy Spirit.

Imagine how John felt. Previously, he had wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village. His goal was judgment and wrath. Now God used him to call down another fire from heaven, the Holy Spirit, the fire of forgiveness, rebirth, and renewal.

Christ did not reject John as an apostle! Neither will He reject you!

"Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages" (Acts 8:25). The text does not tell us which villages they went to, but it is altogether possible that John said, "Peter, there is one village in particular that I want to visit, the one that James and I wanted to see burned to the ground. What a loveless fool I was then! With all my heart I long to go to that village now and tell them about the loving Savior they previously rejected. "

This is how John's mission failure was transformed into a mission festival. The joy of God's pardoning love overcame John's guilt and fears. Any doubts that he was an unworthy instrument were overruled by the joy of being used by Christ to proclaim His name to those in darkness.

The same is true for you. Confessing your mission sins to God, there is no doubt that the blood of Jesus Christ purifies you of all sin and guilt. You are free to enjoy a lifetime of mission activity. Be assured that the Holy Spirit will indeed empower you to contribute to the Triune God's ultimate goal for mankind:

"My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the Lord Almighty (Mal. 1 :11).

Chapter 3 continues in Part 3 of 3.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.