You Can’t, So God Did
You Can’t, So God Did
The Gospel uniquely levels the ground beneath every one of us.
I’m back in school again.
No trapper keepers or locker combinations nowadays. It’s all computer screens and virtual lectures. But I am back to reading assignments, double-spaced papers, and homework deadlines.
I’m finishing the first year of an Executive Master’s Program in leadership and theology. After I knocked the academic rust off, it’s certainly been a worthwhile adventure.
More Smarts ≠ More Saved
I love to study the scriptures and learn from theologians who are way smarter than me. Probing the unending depths of the Gospel and learning to articulate it in ways people understand—especially in our marketplace and missions role here at The Stone Table—has opened up new layers of joy in my heart. But something hit me all over again as I was wrapping up my New Testament course this semester:
My deeper and deeper understanding of Scripture does not make me more and more saved. Only the finished work of Jesus saves. And that is the key: it is His finished work.
Honestly, that can be a little frustrating to high-capacity, type-A personalities like me who want to will and earn our way into everything, including God’s love and affection. It’s good to work hard, it just won’t make you any more loved and valued by Jesus.
One of the reasons I trust the good news of the gospel is because it is not dependent on me. The gospel is the deepest of waters, but it’s not my master’s level grasp of theology that gives me the full benefit of it.
The gospel is Someone to be trusted, not something to be attained.
Our salvation is all His work, not ours. His work overflows into our obedience and practice, but our obedience and practice does not accomplish the work. And this changes everything.
It’s not “hey, when you finally figure this out, you will be saved.”
It’s “throw yourself fully upon the One who is putting all things back together again.”
(Oh, and by the way, that putting back together actually includes you, too).
A 51-year-old businessman from Indianapolis, a 23-year-old university student from Amsterdam, a 6-year-old impoverished girl from sub-Saharan Africa, or a 73 year old grandmother from Vietnam all have the exact same problem:
We are sinners separated from God and lost in our brokenness.
And yet we all have the exact same answer, too. And it’s not getting into the right school, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, following the advice of the latest internet influencer, or doing enough good things to balance out our mistakes that finally fixes us.
Jesus Really is the Answer
The Gospel is unique among all world religions. Every other system says do more, climb higher, try harder, be better. The Gospel says Jesus has already done for you what you could never do for yourself. You can’t, so God did.
This is why increasing gospel access around the world matters so deeply to us at The Stone Table. Because the answer for the businessman in Indianapolis is the same answer for the grandmother in Vietnam and the child in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s not self-improvement, intellectual ascent, or personal achievement. It’s the finished work of Jesus.
The world does not need a better motivational message. It needs a Savior.
Just like you and me.
Erik Cooper
Erik began his career in the business world before spending twelve years in full-time ministry, serving on staff at a large suburban church and later as a church planter in downtown Indianapolis. Today, he serves as the President of a family of business-oriented nonprofit organizations that work together to mobilize the marketplace to make Jesus known in the world. He leads The Stone Table, which equips marketplace believers and invests in global mission initiatives, and Community Reinvestment Foundation, a nonprofit real estate company providing high-quality affordable housing in Indiana and directing its profits to missions through The Stone Table.
