Blame 2020. Or blame social media. Or blame the true source of the problem: my warped heart. For whatever reason, I regularly need to reread part of Francis Schaeffer’s book No Little People. It reminds me of what I know to be true but often forget.
“Most Christians take an honest look at themselves and conclude that their limited talents, energy, and talent mean they don’t amount to much,” the blurb on the back reads. “Francis A. Schaeffer says the biblical emphasis is much different. There are no little people!”
Three of the sixteen sermons recalibrate my thinking on a regular basis.
No Little People, No Little Places
The first sermon reminds me to stay faithful to my charge when I get restless and want to find something easier or bigger elsewhere. It helps me overcome my insecurity: “The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God.” It helps me understand the importance of where I’m called to serve.
“There are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places. To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him—this is the creature glorified … This is the way of the Christian: he should choose the lesser place until God extrudes him into a position of more responsibility and authority.”
Schaeffer understands that “in every one of us there remains a seed of wanting to be boss, of wanting to be in control and have the word of power over our fellows.” He reminds us to follow the path of servanthood instead, to be happy to serve in the place God has given us, and to be content until God moves us elsewhere.
The Weakness of God’s Servants
I’m amused by how easily we alternate between insecurity and ambition. We want more, and yet we already feel inadequate. Both are forms of pride. Schaeffer helps us to think more accurately about ourselves.
Scripture is honest about the faults of God’s servants. “If we look through the Scripture even quickly, the weaknesses of God’s servants are apparent.” We all need salvation; we all need to continually repent; we all need a realistic view of what it means to be a Christian leader.
Schaeffer reminds me that leaders never grow beyond being sinners in need of God’s grace, and that God delights in using sinners who repent regularly and know his grace.
The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way
I read this sermon often to remind me of our real problem in the church. It’s never out there in the world. Dangers exist in the world, but are never our primary threat. “The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them.”
The solution is to trust God’s methods. “To trust in particular methods is to copy the world and to remove ourselves from the tremendous promise that we have something different — the power of the Holy Spirit rather than the power of human technique.” Because our battle is spiritual, we need spiritual weapons.
I regularly forget what Christian ministry is all about. Schaeffer reminds me that God uses unimpressive people who are consecrated to him; that no place is beneath any of God’s servants; that we will never outgrow our need of God’s grace; that we will never succeed in our task unless we do God’s work in God’s way. They’re just the reminders I need to read often.
