Laboring in the Gospel

Yesterday morning I participated in a commissioning service for a couple who is making a change in their ministry with an internationally-based Christian literature mission. These dear people have faithfully served outside of the country, and for the last twenty-some years they have served in a high-level administrative capacity here in the US.

The time has come for them to turn over the leadership of the US ministry to someone else, and with great joy they watched as their oldest son assumed the position that his dad occupied for the last two decades.

Bill and Marge will be relocating to the southeast, where they will serve as representatives for the mission, visit some mission bookstores here in the US and assist in recruitment. While they are grateful for the opportunity to lay aside the weight they have carried so well for these last years, as I sat listening to their international director talk about the new work they would be doing, I could not help but wonder if they would feel, in this new work, that they would somehow be doing something of lesser significance.

I had preached on Sunday morning from Romans 1:16-17, and on Monday was out walking at a local park in the late afternoon and was listening to a sermon by RC Sproul that I had downloaded. As it happened, he was preaching from the same passage. One of the things he noted was that in verse 16 Paul writes that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation, and then he spoke about how we are so prone to rely on gimmicks and programs to do the work of God. But it is the Gospel that changes lives, and it is the Gospel - and only the Gospel - that has God's power behind it.

When it was my turn to share something with them and pray for them, I shared a bit about this and reminded them that as long as they are involved in Gospel-related work, what they did was of great significance. We are all laborers in the same great field. Some do higher profile work than others, but we're all in there. What will ultimately be the gauge of our success and that which shapes our legacy is our staying in the Gospel: faithfully rooted in God's Word, focused on Christ, ministering to people.

No gimmicks needed!