Ohio State football players lead mass worship and baptism service

“I was spiritually dead. I could go out there, and I could smile and laugh . . . But on the inside, I was broken.” This is how former Ohio State football player Kamryn Babb described his life before coming to faith in Christ. He was one of several athletes who led a recent worship service for as many as a thousand people. By the end of the night, at least sixty people were baptized as believers.

Consider the unseen consequences of this remarkable event: not just the eternal souls who escaped hell for the joy of heaven, but the ripple effects of those who will share with others what they experienced. For years to come, people who were not present at the service will be impacted by those who were.

On this Labor Day, I’d like us to reflect on the fact that we cannot measure the eternal consequences of present faithfulness. This is just one reason why serving Jesus gives our work an empowering significance found nowhere else.

Two brothers killed the day before their sister’s wedding

The law of unintended consequences works the other way as well, sometimes tragically. For example, Israel has recovered the bodies of six hostages killed by Hamas in Gaza, including an Israeli-American captive. According to the IDF, they were murdered before they could be rescued, another consequence of Hamas’s brutal hatred for Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis surged into the streets last night, demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a cease-fire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.

In other news, NHL star Johnny Gaudreau and his brother were killed in a bike crash after being struck by a suspected drunk driver. They were set to be groomsmen in their sister’s wedding the next day, a celebration she has now canceled.

Johnny leaves a wife, a two-year-old daughter, and a seven-month-old son. His brother Matthew is survived by his wife, who is pregnant with their first child. When the driver who caused the crash allegedly chose to drink and then drive, he could not know the unimaginable devastation that would result.

I could go on, unfortunately. But you understand the point: so much of life is the consequence of unintended consequences, for good or for evil.

The path to eternal significance

How, then, can we live and work in ways that glorify God and bless others? Let’s take three biblical steps.

One: Stay connected to our Source

The spiritual genius Oswald Chambers observed:

A river touches places of which its source knows nothing, and Jesus says if we have received of his fullness, however small the visible measure of our lives, out of us will flow rivers that will bless to the uttermost parts of the earth.

His wisdom reflected that of our Lord: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). A branch bears fruit only through its connection with the vine. In the same way, we can make an eternal difference only if the eternal God works through our temporal lives.

This connection is available to all believers by God’s grace. St. Jerome advised us: “Do not despair of his mercy, no matter how great your sins, for great mercy will take away great sins.” The key to eternal significance is less our ability than our availability to the Holy Spirit.

Two: Work with excellence

At the same time, we are urged by Scripture: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23–24).

As we work, God works. When we do our best, we position ourselves to experience his best.

St. Augustine encouraged us:

Let us live so as to be worthy of [God’s] great grace, and not do injury to it. So mighty is the physician who has come to us that he has healed all our sins! If we choose to be sick once again, we will not only harm ourselves, but show ingratitude to the physician as well.

Three: Measure success by faithfulness

To quote Oswald Chambers again: “Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. . . . The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.”

This is true to life, on two levels.

Some of those who most influence us died before us. Oswald Chambers died more than forty years before I was born. C. S. Lewis died when I was five years old. Neither had any way to know that their work would influence my life and work every day. Not to mention the previous generations who shaped our nation and daily lives in innumerable ways.

Others impact us in the present without being present to us. I’m thinking not just of the scientists, doctors, and political leaders whose work shapes our world, but of the spiritual influencers who cannot know how their lives and work impact us. I’m confident you could name many such examples, as can I.

Paul Powell, a pastor and writer whose ministry lives on in the multiplied thousands he impacted, offered a maxim that makes my point:

“Plant trees we will never sit under and dig wells from which we will never drink.”

On this Labor Day, would you pause to give thanks for those who planted your “tree” and dug your “well”?

Then would you resolve to pay forward their faithfulness, to the glory of God?

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Monday news to know:

• UN agencies to start rollout of Gaza polio vaccines
• Polls show a changed, close 2024 race heading into Labor Day
• Far right set to win in a German state for the first time since WWII
• Starliner capsule heads home without crew
• On this day in 1945: Japan surrenders, bringing an end to WWII

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“The whole duty of man is summed up in obedience to God’s will.” —George Washington