Choosing Servanthood over Celebrity

Dannah Gresh: Hi, friend. I'm Dannah Gresh. I know you might be wondering, how is Nancy doing after her dear husband, or DH, as she called him, went to be with the Lord. Well, today, you'll hear an update.

But first, let me set the scene. Last month, Christian communicators from around the world met together in Nashville for a conference sponsored by the NRB—that stands for National Religious Broadcasters. At the annual convention, conference goers were able to explore all kinds of topics. They were introduced to new technologies. They heard about new podcasts and television programs, and they networked with their peers.

Jim Sanders: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the award . . . 

Dannah: On the final night of the convention, chairman of the board, Jim Sanders, encouraged Revive Our Hearts here in our 25th year. 

Jim: This year, the NRB Chairman's Award recognizes Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth for her faithful lifetime of service to the Lord, her commitment to proclaiming the Word of God with excellence, and her passion for evangelism through Revive Our Hearts ministries.

Dannah: And then later that evening, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth pointed the attendees to focus on what mattered most. After their frenetic activity of the week, she invited each person to make sure their attention was on the Lord.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It's not us, it's not our organizations, it's not our programs, it's not our words that comfort broken hearts and that heal lifelong wounds. It is Christ and His Word.

Dannah: We're about to listen to Nancy's message from the NRB convention here on the Revive Our Hearts podcast. It's Wednesday, March 11, 2026.

When Revive Our Hearts launched about twenty-five years ago, Jim Sanders helped us get the program on radio stations across the country. Jim now serves as the current chairman of the board for the National Religious Broadcasters. At the last NRB convention, he introduced Nancy.

Jim: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has had a tremendous impact on our world, to say the least. She's the founder and lead Bible teacher of Revive Our Hearts and dedicated to calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Jesus Christ. Her love for the Lord and passion for His Word are evident through her writing, digital, and conference ministries, and her two daily audio broadcasts Revive Our Hearts and Seeking Him. Her books have sold millions of copies and are reaching the hearts of women, young and old.

You may know her love story. Robert Wolgemuth and Nancy DeMoss married in November of 2015. What a joy it was to watch this woman who was convinced God had singleness for the rest of her life in His plan, only to find the love of her life as their lives unfurled to serve God and each other. It's an amazing thing. It reminds me of the quote that “man plans and God laughs.”

God had another plan for Nancy, but then the Lord took Robert home. And Nancy, I'm going to tell you that that you are here during these days of grief and difficulty is an amazing thing. I thank you for that. In fact, would you thank her with me, and ask her to come to the stage right now. Nancy DeMoss, welcome. (applause)

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Thank you so much. “This is my comfort in my affliction. Your promise has given me life” (Psalm 119:50).

As we walked into the Opryland hotel last night, I had a flood of memories come over my heart, out through my eyes in tears, thinking about times here at NRB with Robert. The pain of that loss is still pretty raw and fresh, but how thankful I am for the opportunity tonight to affirm that the Lord is good. He is kind. He is faithful. We can trust Him to write our story. His Word is true, and His promises are an anchor in life's most difficult storms.

Scripture tells us in Psalm 139, “All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began” (v. 16).

I'm so deeply grateful for the nearly 3,700 days that the Lord allowed me to share with this precious man, the incredible joy of being his wife after fifty-seven years of singleness, of loving and serving the Lord and each other and others together.

Would you be okay if I would just take a few moments to reflect on some of the last days that the Lord allowed us to share together? Thank you. The days He planned for us.

Christmas Eve morning was a Wednesday. Robert wasn't feeling well, hadn't been for several days. He had been having difficulty sleeping and breathing, and I took him that morning to the emergency room. Within a short period of time, he was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

We would discover during those next days that he actually had leukemia. We did not know that he had two small strokes. We didn't know that, and within those next few days, he declined rapidly. By Sunday, he was on life support, unconscious, unresponsive. They transported him to a larger hospital some ninety minutes from our home. Over those next nearly two weeks in ICU, we watched, we waited, we wept, and we worshiped.

I was at Robert's side early Saturday morning, January 10, as we played the song. We played many songs and sung and read Scripture for all those days, even when we didn't know if he could hear. He certainly wasn't responsive. But I played that song, you've probably heard it, “Come to Jesus.” It came to the final stanza. 

It says, “And with your final heartbeat,” and at that moment, Robert, whose breathing had been slowing, he took what would be his final breath. 

And with your final heartbeat, kiss the world goodbye.
Then go in peace and laugh on glory's side.
And fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus and live.
(“Untitled Hymn” by Chris Rice)

And at that moment, his brother, who was with me, along with his wife, looked over and just said with such reverence, “I think he just flew to Jesus.” He had.

Four weeks ago today, as a massive winter storm swept across the nation, we gathered with friends and family to grieve Robert's death, to celebrate his life, and to worship the Lord who has conquered death. The following day, with temperatures just above zero, we stood at his grave, and we committed his body to the ground.

Now I have to say, I did not at that moment anticipate the waves of grief that would come crashing into my soul following the funeral. I have cried years of tears over the past several weeks. I miss Robert more than I could express. You have probably been there yourself with a loved one. You know that sense.

But through this whole experience, I have been so grateful for more than sixty-five years of history, a track record with God. I've realized what an incredible gift it is in the middle of a crisis to be grounded in the ways and the Word of God. It's reflexive. This is what you know, what you love, what you believe to be true. In those moments of crisis, you know it is true.

Hundreds of times in recent weeks, I have signed texts and updates with five simple words, Heaven rules, and Jesus is near. I say this to encourage others, but I say it mostly to counsel my own heart with the truth.

This is what supports me: 

In every high and stormy gale
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
All other ground is sinking sand.
(“My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” by Edward Mote)

So along with a deep grief, I've also been experiencing daily precious glimpses of grace. Our pastor often says, “Today's grace today; tomorrow's grace tomorrow.” And that's exactly what it has been. Today's grace for this moment.

 

Today, the grace of God has come to me in the presence of His Holy Spirit, in His promises, through His people. How grateful I am for many in this room. Thank you for the love, the notes, the encouragement, and most of all, the prayers.

And then there's this grace, the promise of God that we know, that we know, that we know, that beyond this night of weeping, however long and dark it may be, that there will be joy in the morning. Heaven rules, and Jesus is so very near.

Well, thank you for those moments. This year will mark twenty-five years since Elisabeth Elliot's Gateway to Joy went off the air on a Friday and Revive Our Hearts launched on those three hundred stations the following Monday.

Through all these years, we've been believing God for a movement of revival and reformation, a movement of His Spirit among women. We've asked the Lord, I have from the outset, as it was said of Samuel, that not one word that God speaks through this ministry and His Word to people's hearts, not one word would fall to the ground—that the Scripture would wing its way into people's hearts and that they would be arrested by the truth, that hearts and lives would be transformed.

What an incredible joy it is to look back and to see what God has been pleased to do now in generations of women around the world.

Exactly one week before Revive Our Hearts went on the air, I spoke at a regional NRB conference. The verse that was on my heart that day comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1. 

This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. (ESV)

Servants of Christ. The literal translation for that word is underrowers. These were those who rode in the bellies of the galley ships in the lowest parts of the ship. This was hard, thankless, menial, lowly work. And Paul says we want to be known as underrowers, servants, lowly servants of Christ.

But we are also stewards of the mysteries of God. A steward, a manager of an estate entrusted by the owner with responsibility. We are servants of Christ. We are stewards of the mysteries of Christ, and this is what we are.

As I spoke that day, I opened my heart, one week before we launched, about some of the challenges that I had faced over the previous year in the start-up process of Revive Our Hearts. 

I talked about pitfalls and dangers that I had grappled with: 

• The danger of not living what I'm proclaiming to others 
• The danger of busyness in a deadline-driven ministry 
• The danger of neglecting biblical priorities 
• The danger of becoming consumed with the mechanics of doing ministry
• The danger of getting to the place where we thought we could operate without the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit 
• The danger of comparison, of having a competitive spirit toward other ministries or other servants of God 
• The danger of the multitude of words, speaking becoming babbling, speaking about things of which we know nothing or more or different than what God would have us to say 
• The danger of pointing people to principles rather than to Christ 
• The danger of thinking too highly of myself
• The danger of seeking or accepting the praise of men, of self promotion 
• The danger of using people to build my ministry rather than building His kingdom 
• The danger of measuring success in terms of short-term, visible metrics versus measuring success in the ways that God does with unseen, eternal realities

That's a Cliff Notes version of what I shared that day twenty-five years ago.

But now, twenty-five years later, I realize that these are ongoing challenges and pitfalls for all of us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of the gospel. These things matter in every season of ministry, whether it's just when the starting gun is going off or whether it's for those of us who've been doing this for a long time, as we approach the finish line.

George Whitefield, the eighteenth century evangelist, is buried in a crypt in a basement directly beneath the pulpit where he preached in the Old South Church in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Next to that crypt there is a plaque on the wall that reads in part, it has the epitaph that Whitefield himself had requested. “Here lies G.W. What sort of man he was, the Great Day will discover.”

One day, unless Jesus comes first, my body will lie next to Robert's in a cemetery. And I think, as I get older, I think more about what sort of woman that Great Day will reveal me to have been—not what my fans thought, not what our donors thought, not what our staff thought, but what God knew and knows.

And the closer I get to that day, the deeper is my conviction about the importance of what we have been called to do and about the power, the necessity, the beauty and the wonder of this book that we proclaim, the Word of God.

Now I’ve been thinking recently about the ministry we've been entrusted and about the things that are shaping and shaking and thrilling our world as we sit here tonight. What do the people around us care about? What moves them? What entertains them? What are they talking about?

Well, at this very moment, there are a lot of them being entertained and talking about the Olympics, watching the top athletes in the world vying for the gold. There are a lot of people talking and concerned about the disappearance of an eighty-four year-old widow, people on the edge of their seats. What happened? People thinking about, concerned about the crisis in the Middle East, and Supreme Court decisions and political debates and advancements and challenges in technology and AI and dealing with rapid change.

But they're also thinking about more personal concerns: their families, health issues, tensions, conflicts, prodigal children. These are the kinds of things that people are talking about. It's what they're thinking about.

But the question is, do they care about what we are talking about, and do they feel that we really care about our message? Does what we are giving our lives to, day after day, some for 50 years or more, does it really matter? And what difference does it make, and what difference could it make to those who are listening to our message and beyond that to those who need to be listening to our message?

What will speak to the concerns and the tragedies of those around us? 

What will speak to the issues pressing in our world today that seems so overwhelming, so massive? 

What will give people hope? 

What will give them purpose? 

What will bring them healing and help? 

What will open our unbelieving neighbor's eyes to see their need for a Savior? 

What will set people free from confusion and boredom and fear and anxiety and despair and guilt and shame and sinful addictions and idols of the heart?

We read in 1 Peter chapter 1 that: 

All flesh is like grass,
and it's glory like a flower of the grass.
The grass withers and the flower falls . . . (v. 24) 

I've received a lot of flowers in the last several weeks, but they're all dead. They've all been taken out to the trash. The grass withers, the flower falls. The glory of man, man at his best, is like those cut flowers. 

but the word of the Lord endures forever.
And this word is the gospel that was proclaimed to you. (vv. 24–25)

I’ve spent the past two years teaching through the Bible, starting in Genesis. The aim is to go, as Robert would say, all the way to the maps, cover to cover. Wonder of the Word we're calling this. It's being translated into multiple languages. As I record, it goes into translations. I'm just over halfway through recording what, Lord willing, will be 260 half-hour video podcasts through the Scripture.

I got stuck in the middle of Isaiah just before Robert got sick. As I was preparing to move on in chapter 40, we had to push pause. When I come back to the microphone, whenever that is, the next verses I will speak on, Isaiah 40, “Comfort my people, says the Lord” (v. 1) I'm going to teach it differently than I might have if I'd done it on my timing.

But as I've been recording, there's a woman . . . We just have a very small audience. We do this in a home studio. But there's a woman in our area who has a history, a horrific history, of sexual abuse, much of it at the hands of spiritual leaders. She's dealt with so much self-harm, suicidal ideation. She has sat in our little, tiny studio in most of these recordings.

She was terrified at first because men of God, supposedly, who had abused her had used the Old Testament as part of that abusive process. I can't even describe it. She was scared about the Old Testament. She didn't trust the God of Scripture because of these men.

But what I've watched over the last two years is the reality of what we read in Psalm 107, verse 20, “He sent his word and healed them.” I've watched this woman experiencing the healing grace of Christ in her life, in her mind, her emotions, her body. Every part of her is being healed, not because of my words, but by the Word of God, and that is the same Word that is healing my own broken heart in this season.

Remember your word to your servant; you have given me hope through it. (Psalm 119:49)

You know the name George Mueller, who cared for thousands of orphans in England. He trusted God to meet the needs of the children, as well as many other ministries that he founded and oversaw. Throughout his long life, Mueller had this deep confidence in the sovereignty and the goodness of God. But that did not exempt him from intense suffering and trials.

He went through seasons of great physical pain. He outlived two wives that he dearly loved. The first wife, Mary, bore him four children, two of whom were stillborn, and one of whom died when he was a year old. After thirty-nine years of marriage, Mary died of rheumatic fever, and five days later, standing before some twelve hundred orphans and thousands of grieving friends, Mueller preached the sermon at his wife's funeral.

His text was Psalm 119, verse 68, “You are good and do good.” He had three simple points.

1. Lord was good and did good in giving her to me.
2. The Lord was good and did good in so long leaving her to me.
3. The Lord was good and did good in taking her from me.
"You are good and do good."

That verse has been precious to me for many years. On September 1, 1979, I received word that my dad had died instantly of a heart attack. I had seen him just that morning. My mother was forty. I'm the oldest of seven children, then eight to twenty-one. And in God's kindness, the first conscious thought that crossed my mind before the enormous sense of loss that would follow, the first conscious thought was this verse, which I had read just days earlier, “You are good and do good.”

I can't count the number of times, including over recent weeks, that this assurance from God's Word, along with countless other Scriptures, has recalibrated my thinking and has been a life preserver for my aching, doubting, fearful, painful heart.

 

And so that's just one verse. But in the midst of all that goes into running our ministries and our organizations, we can never afford to lose our sense of the wonder of God's Word, our confidence in the power of His Word that endures forever.

It's the Word of God that created this universe.
It's the Word of God that produces new birth and that creates saving faith.
It's the Word of God that reveals the heart and the ways of God.
It's the Word of God that reveals our own hearts to us.
It's the Word of God that convicts of sin, that renews the mind, that revives the heart.
It's the Word of God that cleanses and sanctifies.
It's the Word of God that produces joy, that protects and guides, gives wisdom, guards from sin, strengthens, encourages, gives courage.
It's the Word of God that accomplishes God's purposes in this world.

You see, it's not us. And by the way, you know this, I know this, but we need these reminders. It's not us. 

• It's not our organizations. It's not our programs. It's not our words that comfort broken hearts and that heal lifelong wounds. It is Christ and His Word.
• It's not our words that give hope to those who are in despair. It is Christ and His Word. 
• It's not our words that reconcile broken relationships. It's Christ and His Word. 
• It's not our words that convict sinners to repent and believe the gospel. It's Christ and His Word. 
• It's not our words that draw men and women to love and worship God more than they love themselves and this present world. It is Christ and His Word.
• It's not our words that will ever bring lasting change or transformation to people, to families, to churches, to neighborhoods, to countries or to our world. It is God and His Word.

It is the wisdom of God found in His written Word and in Christ, the Living Word, that exposes the lies of this world, that rescues men and women from the foolishness of their own ways and opens their eyes to behold and embrace the truth. It is the beauty of Christ revealed in His Word that woos hearts from the banal pleasures and trivial pursuits of this world.

It's the treasures of grace stored up in His Word that make people dissatisfied with the cheap pleasures this world, offers and leads them to pursue and cherish Christ, the supreme treasure.

It's the word of God that assures us that He's got the whole world in His hands, that He is a redeeming God who is making all things new. Through Jesus' sinless life and death, sin and death have been overcome, and that one day, sorrow and tears will be no more for those who are in Christ, that we will enter into the endless joy of the house of the Lord forever.

It's the Word of God that assures us heaven rules, and Jesus really is near.

Would you pray with me?

O Lord, Your Word says that You have exalted above all things Your name and Your Word, so may we exalt what You exalt. May we love what You love in our public ministries and in our private lives. 

May we never, ever lose the wonder of Your precious Word. May we never stop learning it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, meditating on it. May we never stop loving it. May we never stop living it. And may we never stop till we see Jesus proclaiming that Word with humility, passion, faith, earnestness, and joy.

We pray in the name of Jesus, the living Word, whom we love so dearly. Amen.

Dannah: That's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters convention last month. You know, many people in that audience have some sort of public ministry. Some of them received awards at that conference. Some of them were able to be on the platform. But the recognition and the attention don't really matter. Those things don't truly satisfy. The one thing that matters is getting to know the Lord through His Word. It's true for those conference attendees, and it's true for us, no matter if we're on stage or doing some thankless job.

Would you make sure that you're making your time with the Lord your top priority?

Our program today is brought to you in part by our Revive Partner team. Hey, if you're in that group, thank you so very much. Revive Partners commit to give a certain amount each month. They pray for Revive Our Hearts on a regular basis, and they spread the word to others. In appreciation for their support, we shower them with gifts, including free conference registrations from time to time.

There's more information about how you can become a Revive Partner at ReviveOurHearts.com/partners. ReviveOurHearts.com is also where you can sign up to receive Nancy's booklet A Deeper Kind of Kindness. It's our thank you for your gift of any size. Again, the web address is ReviveOurHearts.com, or if you'd rather call, our number is 1-800-569-5959.

So, do your words turn away or stir up anger? We'll take a closer look at the power of a gentle word tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts. Kathy Branzell, president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, will be with us. Nancy and I had a great conversation with her about showing kindness. I hope you'll join us for that. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the CSB unless otherwise noted.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.