Pet Sayings Exposed and Exploded Number 9 "Surrender to full-time Christian service"
By David Heesen
What a noble thought. Too bad it’s not scriptural.
I well remember a dear associate pastor about 45 years ago speaking disparagingly about a Bible college student who ended up “pumping gas.” He implied that instead of being in “full-time Christian service” this student was sinning against God, or at least he was sort of a second-rate Christian.
I’m here to say that there are those who merely “pump gas” who are just as much in “full-time Christian service” as anyone, and sometimes more so.
Oh, they’re not in the limelight. They’re not on a church payroll. But just the way they approach their work, just the way they do their work, tells you they’re in full-time Christian service.
The following is an example of what I’m talking about:
In my home church as I grew up we had a big tall fellow with red hair-everybody called him Red.
Red was the best soul winner in our church. And everyone always kind of commented, boy, it's amazing, Red wins so many people to Christ, but he has somewhat of a speech impediment. He's not fluid. But he didn't stutter, but he came real close.
Well, one Sunday night our pastor said, You know, I think Red's probably the best soul winner in our church (everybody said Amen). And he said, I just wonder on a Sunday night, how many of you here were personally led to Christ by Red? And over 300 people stood up. And the preacher said, No, no, I want to make sure you understand—I don't mean that he brought you to church; I mean he led you to Christ out there and now you come to church. Only about maybe 15 to 20 people sat down.
The preacher said, I'd really like to get some testimonies because this is amazing. And he went to the first guy and the guy said, "Oh, I can tell you why. You ought to see Red work."
Now Red worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber, and he was not an executive; he didn't wear a suit to work. He worked making tires. And this is in the day before robotics were involved; this was filthy, hard work. At the end of the day you'd be black rubber soot from the top of your head to the bottom of your-hard, manual labor. And this guy said, You ought to see him work. Everyday he says, "You want to see what Jesus means to me? Watch me work today. And he does the work of four or five people. And this man said, "I hated him-because he made us look bad. And one day I told him, you're making us look bad. And he said, That's okay, I'll help you, too. And he said, I was just waiting for him to stumble. Then he said, then after a couple of years I said, "I want a God that means as much to me as God means to him." You see everyday he'd tell us, I'm doing this for Jesus. The shop steward, the union man, came to him—now saved, in the church-and I said, I told him, man, you're making it look bad. He said, we'll go to the boss. And he said, No. My boss isn't Goodyear; my boss is Jesus. And he's told me that whatever my hand finds to do I'm to do with all my might.
Would anybody want your Jesus, based on how you work? ...
“Being a Two Mile Christian,” 6/30/2010, David Gibbs, Jr.
For further reading/listening I would highly recommend the 9/3/10 message by Adrian Rogers “God’s Grace in the Work Place” (“you are no more in full-time service when you quit a secular job to enter the ministry than you were before”), and the message by David Saxer of Maranatha Baptist Bible College, “Dispensationalism, The Cultural Mandate, and MBBC.” You can probably find them by Googling.