Am I Letting God Down If I Don’t Move Overseas?
Am I letting God down if I don’t move overseas? While it’s not a question everyone asks out loud, many people at least wonder about it in the back of their minds. So let’s think about it together according to God’s Word.
First and foremost, let’s make sure we’re thinking about this question through the lens of the gospel. I know this will sound basic, but it’s really important to start here.
Romans 3:23 makes clear that we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In this sense, we have all let God down. More accurately put, we have all rebelled against God. And the greatest news in all the world is that God has made a way for us to be forgiven of all our sin by his grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone.
When we trust in Jesus, we become new creations and adopted children who are completely accepted by God and credited with the righteousness of Jesus himself. Let this reality captivate you every day: this is how God sees you!
Then, recognizing who we are in Christ, let’s think about how we’re called to live in Christ.
I always look to 1 Corinthians 4:1–2 as the clearest, most concise picture of what “success” looks like for life in Christ. Paul writes: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” That’s a reference to who we are in Christ: we’re his servants, and we’re stewards of the gospel.
Then Paul says these important words: “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” There it is, what I would call the definition for success in the Christian life: faithfulness. The path to glorifying God is paved with faithfulness to God by the power of his Spirit at work in our lives.
These biblical truths about who we are in Christ and how we’re called to live in Christ then lead us back to our question: “Am I letting God down if I move overseas?”
FAITHFULNESS WHEREVER WE LIVE
At the core of each of our lives, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and we want to live with faithfulness to Christ. Such faithfulness plays out in loving God supremely and loving others selflessly (Matthew 22:37–40), abiding in Christ (John 15:1–17), pursuing holiness (1 Peter 1:13–19), and following all the other commands God gives us in the New Testament (that, by the way, are all good for us!).
That includes Jesus’ command for us to go and make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18–20), as well as his purpose for us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth through the power of his Spirit in us (Acts 1:8). The book of Matthew shows us that faithfulness means following Jesus and making him known in our neighborhoods and all nations (Matthew 4:18–22). All of the above is faithfulness for every Christian.
At the same time, there is no command in the New Testament for every follower of Jesus to move to another country for the spread of the gospel. Instead, we see pictures of some followers of Jesus staying in places where the gospel has already gone, and other followers of Jesus taking the gospel to places where it hasn’t gone (see Acts 13:1–4).
In other words, faithfulness for some means making disciples of the nations where they already live, and faithfulness for others means making disciples of the nations by moving to a new place.
What is required for every follower of Jesus is that we are willing and obedient to go wherever he leads us to go and do whatever he calls us to do, no matter what that means or what that may cost.
This means we are free from comparison with others, thinking, “Well, if I’m not doing what they’re doing, I’m letting God down.” Instead, our eyes are free to be fixed on Jesus as we all live with a passion for his glory among all the nations and a resolve to play whatever part he calls us to play in making his glory known.
And Lord willing, one day we will each stand before him, by his grace, and we will hear him say, in the words of Matthew 25:21, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
