The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is. No war on earth was ever fought for a greater cause or a greater king. (Don’t Waste Your Life, 118)
Do you know a war is being waged for the eternal souls around you? And not just the souls immediately around you, but for every person on earth — the 1.46 billion in India (80% Hindu), the 1.42 billion in China (just 5% Christian), the 255 million in Pakistan (96% Muslim). Billions of people are running headlong into hell, many of them with no one fighting to introduce them to Jesus.
There is no greater cause, and there is no greater king, and those who love this cause and this king, those who feel the tremors and stakes of this war, adopt a different lifestyle, a wartime mentality to life and time and money.
Strategic and Aggressive Simplicity
This “wartime mentality,” first preached by John Piper in a 1983 sermon, has been a thirty-year legacy of Desiring God. Here’s how we define it in our core values as a ministry:
As a nation during wartime focuses its collective resources on winning the war, so also we seek as individuals and as an organization to focus our resources on the goal of achieving our shared mission. We believe that this involves pursuing strategic simplicity with regard to nonessentials in order that more resources may be channeled to winning the war.
The wartime mentality is not (as it’s often misunderstood) mere frugality or asceticism — it’s not cheapness — as if enjoying anything “unnecessary” is dangerous. No, it’s “strategic simplicity with regard to nonessentials” in order to meet the needs that really, eternally matter. The wartime mentality is an ambition to spend our energy, our dollars, our very selves to win the greatest war ever waged.
I want to issue a fresh call to a wartime mentality toward world missions, and I’m writing especially for those, like me, who don’t feel called to go overseas ourselves (at least not today). This is a call for wartime sending, for the rope-holders who stay behind and support those who board a plane and cross a culture.
Eternities hang on this glorious and harrowing war. It is a war for souls, against greed, from joy.
Make War for Souls
The war of world missions is first and foremost a war for souls. It’s a war for worship. There is only one King in our universe, and most refuse to offer him even a thought. And because they ignore and despise him, they not only forfeit abundant and lasting life; they also face dreadful and lasting destruction. Our work in missions is to run into enemy lines and win as many souls as possible, by whatever righteous means. We ask, what can I do to bring even one more dying soul home?
And we don’t have to go to play a vital part in the war. Some of the heroes in missions history have stayed and sent. Many of us should go, and all of us should consider going — the stakes are that high — but we don’t have to go to advance the war for souls among the nations. What could you do, even from where you are, to see the gospel run in an unreached part of the world?
Paul models this wartime mentality when he tells his younger disciple, “I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Timothy 2:10). He was willing to endure prison (and worse) for the sake of seeing one more soul saved.
A few verses earlier, the apostle says more about this war effort:
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. (2 Timothy 2:1–4)
We hear the mentality: “Share in suffering as a soldier”; “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits.” But what’s the war? The war is telling more people about Jesus, who tell more people about Jesus, who tell more people about Jesus. We’re calling people, pleading with people, to the saving King.
Now, that may not sound like a war to us, but it did to Paul. Why would that be? Well, probably because telling others about Jesus hasn’t cost us what it cost him (not yet, anyway), and because we’ve lost a sense of what’s at stake. Jesus says, “[The unrighteous] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). We send like we’re at war when we really believe in hell. Cosmic battle is being waged, and millions are perishing because they never heard about Jesus.
Now, the war for souls isn’t uncertain. Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). The victory is sure. We will win. But we must still fight the war — and at great cost.
Make War Against Greed
This is also a war against greed. Again, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Good soldiers don’t get entangled, distracted by “civilian pursuits.” They’re not MIA on the battlefield because they’re consumed by all the things the world cares about and lives for. It’s true for goers, and it’s also true for senders.
If someone looked closely at your spending and giving, would they see that you’re at war? And if so, what would they say you’re fighting for? If you haven’t started supporting God’s work among the nations, what if you worked to identify one missionary, maybe through your local church, whom you could start prayerfully supporting today?
Faithful senders don’t get entangled in civilian pursuits, because we too have been enlisted in the war — and because we know greed is suicidal to the soul. Has anyone told you how dangerous selfishness and greed are?
Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9–10)
If you grew up in America, you (likely) didn’t get the message that money is dangerous. No, we hear the message that money is king. Many are devoted to the love of money. So, as senders, we make war against greed — because we know it plunges people into ruin and destruction, and because it drags strong, healthy soldiers out of the war.
Making war on greed doesn’t mean we avoid money. Winning the war for souls — sending more missionaries, reaching unreached people groups, building healthy churches, discipling the nations with sound teaching — will require lots and lots of money. Adopting a wartime mentality doesn’t mean avoiding money; it means putting the love of money to death, and making, saving, spending, and giving money in ways that honor God. It means going to war on greed for the sake of love.
Make War from Joy
Lastly, this is a war from joy. We’re engaged in a war for souls, against greed, from joy. The apostle Paul says to the Christians in Corinth,
I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. (2 Corinthians 12:15)
That is the anthem of the wartime mentality. Paul tells us what winning really means: I’m spending and being spent for your souls. I’m dying to myself for your spiritual and eternal good. He also tells us that this lifestyle is about far more than money: I will spend and be spent — this is money and time and attention and heartache. And he does all that spending gladly.
We wage this war with a smile, for there’s joy in the battle, and we cannot be beaten. Jesus says, “It is more blessed” — happier — “to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Do you believe him? Do you really believe it’s more blessed to give for the needs of others, especially their spiritual needs, than to receive and enjoy extra earthly comforts in this life? Do you believe, really believe, it is more blessed to send for the sake of souls than to spend on ourselves?
We miss out on the highest, fullest joys when we keep what we should give. This is true for the goers, those who risk their lives to take the gospel to unreached peoples. And this is true for the senders, those who gladly spend and are spent to support those who go.
The Army Behind the Army
I recently read Flags of Our Fathers, a book about six teenage boys who join the Marines and end up hoisting the American flag on Iwo Jima during World War II. As I thought about the critical importance of senders, I was particularly captured by the army behind the army:
“The civilians of America have mobilized behind these fighting boys. Behind each man on board the ships are hundreds of workers: in the factories, in the cities and towns, on the heartland farms.” [These were the senders.] For each of the 70,000 assault-troop Marines, 1,322 pounds of supplies and equipment were loaded on the ships — socks, blankets, flashlights, bandages, machine guns, grenades, ammunition, food, and water.
Behind each soldier, there was an army. And behind each missionary, we need an army. These missionaries don’t need machine guns and grenades. (Though they might need socks, blankets, and a flashlight.) They absolutely need prayer and financial support (lots of it).
To win the war for souls, we need those who stay back to stay fully, generously, joyfully engaged in the battle.
Desiring God