Risky Business

5 min read

7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. 8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.
— 1 Thessalonians 3:7-8

Can you imagine if someone risked their life to share the gospel with you, and you got “saved” but then you abandoned the church and the faith? How tragic. And what if the person actually was martyred for sharing the gospel with you?

In a way, that scenario has played out countless times. But can we say that the evangelist died in vain?

No way. God would never waste a life like that. Every martyr died for someone’s salvation. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church” (Tertullian). But more so than that, every church has been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ (Acts 20:28).

But the question I ask myself is this: Does the passion I have for Christ and His church match the passion of the witnesses who risked their lives and gave their lives so that I could be saved? Because if we think about it, every single one of us who is saved is saved because of at least one martyr.

At the very least, we could trace that connection back to the original apostles. In fact, for those of us of Korean ancestry, we could trace our connection to the martyrs to Robert Jermain Thomas, who died distributing Bibles in Korea in 1866.

I imagine that if I meet one of these saints in heaven, they would be quite gracious concerning my sometimes lukewarm faith. But how might I feel?

I genuinely believe that not everyone is called to risk their life to share the gospel with others. At the same time, I am thoroughly convicted that as followers of Jesus Christ we are all called to devote our lives to sharing the gospel with others.

That does not mean that we are all called to be missionaries or evangelists or pastors. Of course, some of us are. What this does mean is that every church is given the commission to share the gospel with a dying world that needs Jesus and needs Jesus now, and so every believer is called to build up the church in love with that commission in mind (Ephesians 4:11-16; Matthew 28:19-20).

Compared to those who have risked their lives for my salvation, I have done very little to advance the gospel in a dying world. Even so, my joy is found when our church is standing firm in the Lord. My joy is found in every house church that is standing firm in the Lord.

Father, Thank You for the blood of the martyrs through whom the gospel came to me. More than that, thank You for the blood of my Lord Jesus by which I am saved. Forgive me whenever my faith grows lukewarm or even cold. Stir my heart with Your Spirit through Your word so that I might stand firm in the Lord and passionately bear witness to Him. In Jesus’s name. Amen.