Chapters Seven and Eight deal with Tripp’s concept of Christian love and how followers of Christ should interact with one another in loving relationships. In order for the reader to become an instrument for the radical change needed in the hearts of people today, Tripp states it is necessary to consider the following point: “I am deeply persuaded that the foundation for people-transforming ministry is not sound theology; it is love” (117). Tripp does not discount sound theology. Instruments in the Hands of the Redeemer is a writing full of sound explanations and applications of Scripture. But his point is expressed in an old Sunday school poster: “They don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.” People need to know they are loved, and Tripp firmly states in this section that there is more to love than conditional lip service. People who truly want to be a light in the world around them must have a grasp on the unconditional, committed love of Christ.
Paul says, “You are recipients of Christ’s love and nothing can separate you from it.” This love offers hope to anyone willing to confess sin and cry out for transformation. Yet this is where we often get stuck. We want ministry that doesn’t demand love that is, well, so demanding! We don’t want to serve others in a way that requires so much personal sacrifice. We would prefer to lob hand grenades of truth into people’s lives rather than lay down our lives for them (118).
Tripp clearly lays out in these opening pages a call that will be difficult to accept for many. Being an instrument of the Redeemer means giving up the right to perform as an instrument of your own will or agenda. This is a well explained point, and a challenging call that the reader is forced to ponder as the book continues. Christ has not called us to a life of convenient assistance. Rather, we have been called to follow in his footsteps and lay down our lives for our fellow man.
Once Tripp lays out this challenge for radical change in the love shown by the church, he explains how Christ has exhibited this love in the lives of all believers: through our “justification, adoption, and sanctification” (120). Relationships are the key element to the Heavenly Father’s work on this planet. Our relationship with Christ is what redeems us to Him, and our relationships with one another is one way he continues his sanctification work in each of us.
Tripp has written much to this point about the love and redeeming work of God, and so much discussion on love often brings up the questioning of God based on the suffering in the world. All of Chapter Eight is devoted to explaining to the reader how God is active in the suffering in this world to bring about redeeming change and ultimately show his love to the world. It this point, having an ultimate faith in the inerrancy of Scripture and the sovereignty of God becomes paramount to the reader’s understanding and acceptance of this idea. Suffering, Tripp states, is “one of God’s most useful workrooms” (145). In suffering, every person is brought to a level playing field of reliance upon God. Suffering is also the way Christ made redemption available to humanity. It was through his suffering that Christ made salvation available to man and showed that he understands the suffering people experience daily.
Tripp shows the reader that suffering has an ultimate purpose in the lives of people. Personal suffering is one of the greatest tools anyone can use to proclaim the sovereignty of God to the life of another. Experience can be the connecting bridge between God and man, and often it is the experience of similar or shared suffering that creates that bridge. Suffering also instills in God’s instruments a certain understanding and Christ-like compassion for those experiencing similar suffering. Often those who have traveled similar roads of suffering and change are the ones that can lead many down the same road of God’s healing love and redemption. Tripp closes the chapter by explaining that “God’s acceptance is not a call to relax, but a call to work…The grace God extends to us is always grace leading to change” (158). Radical change in the church will begin, Tripp concludes, when people become willing to share their sufferings with one another and then are willing to accept one another while assisting in the change God is seeking to make in lives.
Bekah Mason 