Empowered by His Sovereignty
In this role of being on staff with Campus Outreach, there is a great need to daily be empowered for ministry. The burden of reaching lost souls, the pressures of ministry success, all mixed with the overwhelming tasks and responsibilities we must keep up with, make it necessary for me to minister out of an overflow. It’s crucial that the Holy Spirit is my source for strength and direction as I pour out my life as a faithful drink offering. A truth that has allowed me to trust in the Holy Spirit all the more and have an even greater understanding of my role as a laborer on the college campus has been the theology of God’s sovereignty. By growing to have a more complete and thorough understanding of God’s sovereignty over the elect, I have been refined in the way I go about evangelism and disciple-making. There is joy to be found in recognizing we are not the Holy Spirit and in properly acknowledging the style and timeline of the Holy Spirit’s work.
Daily pressure to seek and save the lost can be replaced with a genuine joy that I get to serve King Jesus by telling others of the glorious riches found in Christ, leaving the results to God. The more I understand and appreciate God’s sovereignty, calling, and the elements of election that God determined before the foundations of the world, the smaller my fears become when thinking about pursuing others with the universal call of the gospel. It is pleasing and thrilling to do evangelism with confidence that God has planned events out before time, yet they are revealed at distinct moments in our lives.
Being a drink offering for God is nice and purposeful, but being a drink offering under the care and wisdom of a sovereign God is even greater. In this role, I get to help others experience the good news of becoming a child of God, and the story doesn’t end there. Together with those who come to faith we get to share in the joy of serving our sovereign God, bringing good news to future leaders that they would be justified as we have been and adopted as children of God. To quote the great John Murray, “Eternity will not exhaust the marvel of adoption.” I have reason to live and lead with confidence, for those God calls he will surely save, and those he has saved have certain glorification to anticipate. This semester I will work under the beauty of that sovereignty, that God cares for the world more than I ever could, and evangelize knowing that there are elect out there whom He is calling into His family.
Alan Martin is the Area Director over Augusta University, Paine College, and USC - Aiken. He graduated from Georgia College & State University and has been on staff with COA for five years. Alan, and his wife Erica, live in Augusta.