Last Sunday I had the great privilege and honor to be one of the speakers at the retirement celebration for Pastor Peter Smith and his wife Carol. They have faithfully served our church for 12 years, and the appreciation of all of the attendees to them was evident.
I was struck by something that I wanted to highlight in this email. As the last of 9 speakers, and with my comments all set to go, two of the earlier speakers used a portion of a verse that I had alsoplanned to use as my closing thought(!):
“…Well done, good and faithful servant!…“ Matthew 25:21b]
So 3 of the 9 speakers independently determined that this verse portion best described the work of Peter and Carol. What a tribute! But now I want to highlight a concept that I hadn’t understood before. Let’s look at the entire verse:
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.’“
In examining the underlined portion of the above verse, it became clear to me that even though the master praised the past work of the servant, the servants job was not yet completed, as he would be “put in charge” of many additional things. This calls to mind another, oft-quoted, verse:
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” [Ephesians 2:10]
This email is NOT a call to Peter and Carol to continue their good works. I’m confident they already have, or will soon have, their God-assignments. However, this email IS a call to all believers to continue to fight the good fight. We all have jobs to do as long as we are on ‘the sunny side of the sod’. Our work continues until our last day, or until the Day of Jesus’ return. Whichever comes first.