I now have the secret to success,” Dale Huff told participants during the final theme interpretation sermon of the Nov. 17–18 annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention. “And that is to please God.”
Huff, retiring director of the office of LeaderCare and church administration for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, tackled the final letter in the acrostic “PRAY,” the theme of the 193rd annual meeting. The “Y,” he said, was for “yoke,” a term representing service and sacrifice.
“What does it mean to be yoked to someone else?” Huff questioned. “This means we, God’s people, are responsible to Him.”
But the yoke that Huff referenced is not one heavy and burdensome. Instead it is an invitation to service.
Discipline, surrender
Matthew 11:28–30 says, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and lean on Me. … For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Huff described a yoke as representing discipline and surrender, which frees Christians to wholeheartedly serve God, obey His command and be available for His ministry.
“God’s yoke is well-fitted and customized to your collar size,” Huff said.
As Christians “the task, the yoke, the ministry” belongs to God, Huff emphasized, reiterating our responsibility to God.
Christians also are responsible to each other, Huff added. A yoke is made for two after all, he said, a design that “connotes partnering and connection.”
A yoke also requires cooperation, a condition that emphasizes a program that Huff fervently believes in — the Cooperative Program (CP).
“I am a CP Baptist because I am … yoked to my fellow Baptists.”
CP, the Southern Baptist Convention’s network of giving, directly yokes Alabama Baptists to one another, “binding us together in these blessed bonds of Christian love,” Huff said.
“A Cooperative Program is a much better option than an uncooperative program.”
‘Be steadfast’
Quoting 1 Corinthians 15:58 in heartfelt prayer, Huff concluded by encouraging participants, “Therefore be steadfast, immovable always in the work of the Lord, knowing that the labor of the Lord is not in vain.”
Share with others: