End of the Spear

Read Luke 5:27-32   

The true story of Jim Elliot and what follows is told in the 2005 movie End of the Spear.  

Philip James “Jim” Elliot was born October 8, 1927 into a ministry family in the Puget Sound, Washington State, USA area.  He trusted in Christ at age 8. He attended Wheaton College on an athletic scholarship and made the varsity wrestling team his first year at university.  He was a Preacher's Kid and a jock.  As a college student, Elliot journaled,

"There is one Christian worker for every 50,000 people in foreign lands, while there is one to every 500 in the United States."

Jim graduated with highest honors in 1949, and sensed God calling him to a deadly tribe in Ecuador that their neighbors called the Auca ("savage") Indians, a violent and murderous tribe that had never had any contact with the outside world. 

Jim and four other missionaries spent months carefully building a friendly relationship with the Aucas (or Huaorani, as they call themselves).

Although they had a gun, the four missionaries didn’t defend themselves when the Aucas attacked.  When the authorities found them slaughtered, they had been repeatedly pierced with spears and hacked by machetes. 

Before he died, Jim wrote in his journal:

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

There’s a remarkably happy ending to the story, but Jim Elliot understood that none of the dazzling trappings of this life has any lasting value.  Christ is far better. 

Early in his ministry, Jesus sees a tax collector named Levi open for business.  Jesus says to him, "Follow me.” Levi gets up, leaves everything right where it is, and follows him.  

Jesus calls Levi, a despised, social outcast.  Jesus takes initiative with outcasts, and it’s a good thing he does.  Otherwise, there would be no hope for any of us, because – let’s be honest – compared to God we’re all outcasts.    

Everything changes for Levi.  He shows us the essence of Christian discipleship, because following Christ means being willing to leave anything and everything for the sake of something unknown (to us), but better.

Levi was going to have none of the trappings, which for him were money and an in-crowd of outcasts.  He left it all because Jesus was irresistible   And that’s what God requires, that we leave it all.  But the pay-off is something you have to experience to believe. 

Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

Following Christ means being willing to leave anything and everything for the sake of something unknown, but better.  They don't call it faith for nothin'.  Levi shows us the essence of discipleship when he leaves everything to follow Jesus.  Everything’s different. 

Long-time, veteran Christians have heard this before.  "Oh yeah, I have that cost-of-discipleship stuff down."  But in reality we clutter our hearts with idols, distractions, and fleshly coping mechanisms that water down the Spirit of God who wants to inject us, and through us to inject the world with his love.  

Leaving everything means leaving everything every day, always fresh, always reforming, always a clean, new start.  

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

Jim Elliot did not just take that to heart for his personal relationship with Jesus.  It drove his short life’s mission.  It’s why we’re here, friends.  Jim Elliot is another reason (see Ruth) that the remarkably happy purpose of your life might not become clear till after you die.