The Unrecorded Sermon

2 Timothy 4:1–8

In May I stood in the hall of my old college and told fourteen hundred students how God found me in Changi. The lights were bright. Someone filmed it. Afterwards people said kind things, and I sat quietly in the back of a Grab on the way home, wondering whether I had just done the most important work of my year.

I had not.

The most important work of my year has mostly happened on ordinary Tuesdays. Purging a steam wand before the doors open. Correcting a Restarter’s tamp for the ninth time without letting my voice go flat. Sitting across from one of my boys inside, watching him turn a page of a Bible study he cannot yet bring himself to talk about, and saying nothing at all because nothing is what he needs from me that morning. No lights. No recording. Half the time, no visible result.

Paul knew Timothy would be tempted to rank his duties by the size of the room. So he does not say do the impressive parts of your ministry. He says fulfil it. All of it. In season and out of season (v. 2) — which is to say, on the days when the words come easily and on the days when they will not come at all.

And he gives the reason before he gives the command. Timothy serves “before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 1). The platform may be small. The Audience could not possibly be larger.

This is what I keep having to relearn. I did not build The Gateway; God provided it, and He provided it as a place of ordinary faithfulness rather than a stage. Every espresso pulled properly, every rota written fairly, every hard conversation not avoided — these are the duties. The unrecorded sermon is still a sermon. Christ is watching it, and He is not bored.

Paul ends by looking back over a life of exactly this — poured out, course finished, faith kept (vv. 6–7). Not one line about applause.

So today I will wipe the counter as unto Him.

Soli Deo Gloria

Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash