Empty Boats

“Don’t be so hard on yourself…”

“Come on, man, walk in victory, not defeat!”

More than one missionary friend has tried to convince me that any form of self-demeaning is foolish and needless. After all, we’ve been “raised with Christ”!

And certainly we have, we who lean on Jesus alone for our righteousness. We are free indeed, and have prepared for us an inheritance that is infinitely durable and gloriously unspeakable.

Yet, the Bible presents us with a Gospel paradox that is vital not to miss. Though fully forgiven, Paul still refers to himself as the “chief of sinners.” Though raised with Christ, we continue to carry about in our bodies the “dying” of the Lord Jesus. Though approaching God with confidence, the blessed must remain “poor in spirit.”

The missionary heavyweights of history got it. William Carey, Adoniram Judson, David Brainerd, David Livingstone, Henry Martyn, Robert Moffat—all of them were quick to loathe themselves as miserable sinners and wretched worms. Read them.

My, the grief they would get if they were around today! Many a church or mission would label them as woefully lacking in self-esteem. Accordingly, they might not even be recommended as “fit” for the rigors of overseas service! Can you imagine?

Our missionary heroes were perpetually awe-stricken by mercy. They never got over grace so free and so amazing lavished upon ones so foul and so undeserving. The Gospel that healed never ceased to humble. They weren’t joyless or morose. This wasn’t feigned pride or despair. Just a deep and wild and never-ending astonishment.

They knew that to entertain anything but the most lowly self-thoughts and self-descriptions was contradictory to the very Gospel they preached. Ignoring the “we are worthless servants” (Luke 17:10) texts, they reasoned, breeds only pride and presumption, however subtle or unconscious. They would’ve never stomached all of our self-congratulating and self-cajoling. Like Jesus’ cousin, they thought that “decreasing” was a good thing. Success meant running down the ladder, not up it.

In missions today, are we really imparting the untarnished gospel of grace to the nations, or merely transporting a God shell with the hot air of man-worship inside? Empty boats ferrying balloons of self-esteem? Or vessels full of the iron ore of truth?

I get this “empty boat” terminology from Spurgeon’s reading for this morning (though I confess to mixing the metaphor). And since his thoughts express what I am trying to say far better than I ever will, I’ll close by reproducing his mediation, which pertains so powerfully to today’s missionaries, indeed to today’s Church as a whole:

August 29 Morning

“Have mercy upon me, O God”
Psalm 51:1

When one of God’s choice servants, William Carey was suffering from a dangerous illness, the inquiry was made, “If this sickness should prove fatal, what passage would you select as the text for your funeral sermon?” He replied, “Oh, I feel that such a poor sinful creature is unworthy to have anything said about him; but if a funeral sermon must be preached, let it be from the words, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions’.” In the same spirit of humility he directed in his will that the following inscription and nothing more should be cut on his gravestone:


WILLIAM CAREY, BORN AUGUST 17th, 1761: DIED-
“A wretched, poor, and helpless worm
On Thy kind arms I fall.”

Only on the footing of free grace can the most experienced and most honored of the saints approach their God. The best of men are conscious above all others that they are men at best. Empty boats float high, but heavily laden vessels are low in the water; mere professors can boast, but true children of God cry for mercy upon their unprofitableness. We need the Lord to have mercy upon our good works, our prayers, our preachings, our offerings, and our living sacrifices. The blood was not only sprinkled on the doorposts of Israel’s houses, but upon the sanctuary, the mercy-seat, and the altar, because as sin intrudes upon our holiest things, the blood of Jesus is needed to purify them from defilement. If mercy is needed to be exercised towards our duties, what shall be said of our sins? How sweet the remembrance that inexhaustible mercy is waiting to be gracious to us, restore our backslidings, and make our broken bones rejoice!

—From Morning & Evening by Chrales Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg (Crossway, 2003)

~~posted by Jack