I said goodbye to my coworkers this past week. I’ve worked with some of these people for two and a half years. It was a bittersweet day. On the one hand, I’m excited for the new opportunity before me. On the other hand, as I reflected on my two and a half years here, I wondered if I had done everything that I could have to proclaim the gospel to my coworkers.
I started to list all the ways that I had failed to be a good witness of the kingdom. I hadn’t had one single explicit gospel conversation with a coworker. I prayed for them…sometimes…but I never explicitly shared the gospel with them. I talked with some of them about things going on in their lives, I told some of them that I was praying for them, but a gospel presentation never left my mouth in the whole two and a half years I worked there. I tried to live in a way that was above reproach and that was a strong witness to the redemption I’ve experienced. But I often failed. I complained. I grumbled. I snapped when I was stressed. My actions and attitudes at work did not always reflect the glory of Christ to my coworkers. On my last day, I let a clear opportunity to point a coworker to the gospel pass me by.
All this was weighing heavy on my mind Saturday night and Sunday morning as I went into church. I sat through the sermon and it was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.
The sermon was from Luke 8. It was about a parable of Jesus, one commonly called “The Parable of the Sower.” It is a story that many of us are familiar with. Here’s what stuck out to me from the sermon this time around: the responsibility to bring about changed lives in response to the gospel is NOT on my shoulders. My job is simply to sow the seeds.
The pastor described how the farmer would have sown the seeds at this time. He would have a bag of seeds over his shoulder and would go through the field, throwing handfuls this way and that. As we know from the parable, some of the seed landed on various bad soils where it could not take root, and some would land on the good soil where the crops would grow.
The seed, Jesus goes on to explain, is the word of God, the gospel. The sower is you and I, anyone who is a believer in Christ. It is our job to sow the seed. (Paul Tripp says it this way in New Morning Mercies: “No one has been chosen to be just a recipient of the redemptive work of his kingdom. No, everyone who has been chosen to be a recipient has also been commissioned to be an instrument of the work of that kingdom as well.”)
My job is not to try to determine which soil will produce fruit, but to be faithful in scattering the seed wherever I go. In other words, as applied to my two and a half years at work, the pressure is not on me to have coworkers respond to the gospel. My task is to scatter seeds by, as faithfully as I can, living above reproach, letting the joy of the Lord be my strength, and praying for opportunities to follow up on those scattered seeds with more intentional conversations.
This morning in my devotional time, God showed me something else from his word. This came from Mark 16:15-16, which is another telling of the “Great Commission.”
“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Here is what I saw: the responsibility for a response of belief is not on me, the proclaimer. My task is to proclaim the gospel wherever I go. The results are up to God and his work in the hearts of those who hear. The verse does NOT say: “proclaim the gospel AND make sure everyone who hears you believes.” No, the command is simply to proclaim.
While this brings great encouragement to my heart, I still wonder if I did enough during my time at this job. Did I consistently act in a way that showed that I was different because of Jesus in my life? Did I open my mouth when opportunities were presented to me to do so, or did I let those slip by? I can think of many times that the answer to those questions is that I missed it.
But does grace only apply at the moment of salvation, or does it continue to cover me throughout my Christian walk? The latter is true. I am continually covered by grace every day. And that covering of grace includes the missed opportunities to scatter seeds of the gospel.
I spent the last two semesters studying the Old Testament, where we see over and over again God’s people failing to do what he has asked them to do, and again and again God still working out his plan despite the failures of his people.
How prideful of me to think that my failures would be big enough to completely thwart the plans and purposes of God and his kingdom going forth. God still is at work among my coworkers, even if I failed in various ways to be a faithful witness of the gospel.
Who knows what will happen with the seeds that I did plant during that time? Only God knows. One day, in the kingdom, I guess I’ll find out. For now, my job is to be a faithful sower of the seeds, and not to wallow in regret over the missed chances to sow seeds. God is faithful even when I am not (2 Timothy 2:13).