Sovereign and Smiling: How Joy Creates and Sends Missionaries

Pierre Richet and Guillaume Chartier were the first Protestant missionaries to cross the Atlantic Ocean and set foot on American soil. They arrived in Brazil in 1557. From the moment Calvin blessed the team in France and sent them to the "New World", missionary work and Calvinism were inextricably linked.

But the rich history of Calvinist missionaries over the centuries has not disproved an old cliché that you have probably heard more than once. It goes something like this: The more we exalt God’s sovereignty in the salvation of individual souls, the less compelling the call to take the gospel to every corner of the world becomes (and the less compelling the need to share the gospel with our neighbors or colleagues). If God is sovereign over who will come to faith, they say, then we, as agents, are merely bystanders in the theater of God’s saving work in the world. The claim is that God’s sovereignty threatens the urgency of evangelism.

But the truth is always more beautiful than the cliché. We rejoice in God's sovereignty, as we do in missionary work and evangelism. In fact, we support missionary work and evangelism precisely because we rejoice in God's sovereignty. We are not trying to bring together two magnets that repel each other, but we are holding two magnets that are already attracted to each other and united by joy in Jesus.

Incomparable joy

During His earthly ministry, Jesus once rejoiced over the sovereign goodness of His Father—for the glorious gospel message to be hidden from proud religious leaders and for the awakening of faith in the hearts of simple sinners.

At that moment Jesus declared: «At that time Jesus answered and said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Yes, Father, for such was your good pleasure. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him» (Matthew 11:25–27).

Jesus’ mission is to reveal His glory to sinners, which also means knowing the Father. This is always a divine revelation. As Jesus sees the plan of sovereign redemption unfolding in real time, His heart is filled with praise to the Father.

The sovereignty of God in the salvation of each individual is a glorious truth that should awaken our hearts to joy in God. And with this joy in our sovereign God, what do we do next?

Glorious offer

At this very moment, Christ’s attention shifts from God to the glorious call of those around Him, in the form of an invitation: «Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light» (Matt. 11:28–30).

Jesus immediately offers the good news of freedom from the yoke of sin.

In other words, the proper response to the vision of God’s power in the salvation of sinners is to offer the gospel openly to all sinners. Jesus« joy in God’s power must »be released,« says the Puritan Thomas Boston, who observed, »As the fulness that dwells in the Mediator has a free outlet in his heart, so it seeks to be diffused in the souls of needy sinners« (The Works, 9:171).

Or, in the words of Jonathan Edwards: «Christ’s holy joyous experience in contemplating the sovereign grace of the Father and the power which He had given Him as Mediator naturally awakens in His heart the manifestation of grace and love which is expressed in this blessed invitation» (sermon 178).

The Mission and Joy of Jesus

As Jesus sees God's power unfolding in history—in closing the eyes of the proud from the glory of Christ and opening the eyes of the simple sinners to see the infinite beauty and majesty of the Son—Christ is filled with divine joy. And this divine joy is expressed in worship of the Father, which is expressed in a general call to all sinners, wherever they may be, to come to Him for the true satisfaction of the soul that they can find nowhere else.

This is surely a fitting motivation for our evangelistic ministry from beginning to end. My personal admiration of God's power and my amazement that He saves me should produce a joy that cannot remain hidden or stifled, but should flow into a universal call to all sinners everywhere to repent and turn from their sins to Christ.

In other words, the universal call is not in conflict with God’s authority, and the joy of God’s sovereignty is not just a distant meditation in a Calvinist’s study. These two aspects are harmoniously combined as we see God’s all-powerful power become food for the soul of His regenerated children. This power gives them a joy that flows into an openness of heart ready to receive all who are willing to come into the arms of our sovereign Savior.

The Passion of the Christ combines Reformed theology and a desire to bring the good news to the ends of the known world.