Honoring a Loving Man

Dannah Gresh: Now, earlier this month, our dear friend Robert Wolgemuth went home to be with the Lord. Joni Eareckson Tada shared this reflection at his recent memorial service.

Joni Eareckson Tada: Robert's in the land of the living, and we are the ones who are in the land of the dying. So, I still love Robert, and he is still singing his heart out.

Dannah: We'll hear more from Joni and others today on the Revive Our Hearts podcast for Thursday, January 29, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh. Our host is Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, who was married to Robert Wolgemuth for ten years.

On Saturday morning, January 10, 2026, Robert Wolgemuth, beloved, dear husband—DH—to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, departed from his earthly body and this broken world and entered into the glory of eternity with Christ. 

Robert was seventy-seven. He was surrounded by the prayers and support of family members and friends, with Nancy by his side, as his faith became sight. Robert's homegoing followed a brief but intense battle with complications from pneumonia, for which he was hospitalized on Christmas Eve. 

While our hearts are filled with sorrow, we do not grieve as those who have no hope, believing that those who die in the Lord will live again, and that Robert has found ultimate relief and healing with Christ.

Last week, friends and family members gathered to remember Robert and to thank God for his life. We'll hear some of those memories from that service today. As you listen, I want you to think about two things.

First, thank the Lord for the life of a faithful man. He wasn't perfect, but he loved God and others. Think about your own life. What will others say about you? 

Let's start by listening to thoughts from Pastor Joe Fant.

Pastor Joe Fant: We've gathered here this afternoon in this place to grieve the loss and celebrate the life of our dear friend, Robert Wolgemuth. Our hearts mourn the Homegoing of a father, a husband, a grandfather, uncle, a brother, so many titles Robert owned, but most importantly of all, he was a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 9 tells us that there's a rest prepared for the people of God. And today, Robert is experiencing that eternal rest, ushered to the side of his dear Savior early on the morning of January 10—the Savior that he loved so much.

We all have different stories about how much Robert meant to us. Most of us knew him in different seasons of his life. I had the privilege of knowing Robert as he ran his “gun lap,” and the blessing of watching him cross his “finish line.”

I can tell you this morning that Robert did that so well. By the power of the Holy Spirit, and a life well-lived in submission to the will of God, Robert finished well.

In a time when Christian leaders are falling by the wayside, making a shipwreck of their lives by choosing to step outside of God's grace, Robert finished well—serving alongside Nancy over these past ten years, when most men were retiring, taking a step back and putting their feet up. He pressed in; he stepped up, and he finished well.

 

As you hear stories and testimonies today, I would encourage you to lay these truths to your own heart, as they will challenge us to finish well.

Dannah: That's Pastor Joe Fant.

Janine Nelson: To my fellow under-rowers . . .

Dannah: This is Janine Nelson, who has been a ministry friend of Robert's for many years. She's now on staff at Revive Our Hearts.

Janine: I want to say thanks for letting me represent and carry our collective heart here to the podium. When Robert married Nancy ten years ago, he didn't just get a wife. He inherited a global women's ministry based in Niles, Michigan.

He was the new guy, facing a gauntlet of questions from a protective (and maybe slightly skeptical) one hundred-plus staff members. I'm sure it's of no surprise that he passed with flying colors, and the staff quickly fell in love with him.

His immense value and presence were felt immediately. I mean, he did move from sunny Florida to Michigan! That's a commitment. But seriously, Robert didn't just support the work of Revive Our Hearts; he lived it alongside us.

Nancy was the first person to call him her Chief Encouragement Officer. How quickly that title spread and became so fitting, as we in the ROH staff are benefactors of his words of encouragement.

Last week, in one of our staff prayer times, individuals had a chance to share how Robert impacted them, and a beautiful pattern quickly emerged.

Here's a tiny sampling: 

Tom shared, “Robert never shouted a casual ‘love you.’ Instead, he stopped, looked you in the eye, and said, “I love you, Tom.” He made it personal. He put the ‘I’ in it.”

Austin said, “When as a nobody interviewing for a job with the ministry, Robert treated me with a sincerity that made me feel like I was the most important person in the building.”

Jill noticed that even when he wore his cuff links with the seal of the President, he never led with his credentials. He led with grace.

When Ana shared her fear of becoming a foster parent, he looked at her with a parental heart and said, “What a beautiful thing that we get the opportunity to do scary things for Jesus, isn't it?”

He was the man who was so, so grateful for every small act. He was the sender of the 5 a.m. birthday or anniversary text. He would also send a text to individuals on the team to say how grateful he was for their work, for their specific work.

But he was also the man who walked alongside us through our darkest valleys without a shred of judgment, offering only a soft heart, a tender voice, and pointing them to Jesus.

In recent years, as Nancy has been especially busy with study and recording programs to teach through the Bible; while we see a little less of her, Robert, like clockwork, could be counted on to drive to the office for chapel and prayer times. He was also one of the first ones to log on for the Zoom meetings.

Now, Robert really never quite mastered Zoom etiquette. The concept of the mute button was really just not his style. He wanted to be able to easily interject his encouragement. We do treasure and will likely repeat his iconic soundtrack—“so good,” “incredible,” “so, so grateful,” and of course, the rolling “amens” during prayer times. We are really going to miss hearing his voice.

We cannot speak of Robert without speaking of his love for Nancy. He was her greatest champion. He opened up the world for her and adored her with a chivalry that just didn't change her life, it changed the marriages of the men around him.

 

To watch Robert love Nancy was to see a living glimpse of how Christ loves His Church. He understood that the greatest use of one's life was to spend it for the sake of others—whether he was leading a board room or sending a pre-dawn text. He lived with a single-minded purpose to reflect the love of Christ to everyone in his orbit.

• He left us a road map of how to finish well. 
• He taught us to listen to the birds. 
• He taught us to pay attention to the person behind us in the car wash and to pay for it. 
• He taught us to look for the person in the back row to ensure they know they are seen.

Robert was ready for heaven long before he arrived there. He lived in the light of eternity, and because of that, he wasn't afraid of the “finish line.”

Today, we honor him by putting the “I” back in the “I love yous,” by waking up early to encourage a friend, and by holding our own ambitions loosely so that others can be prioritized.

As we say goodbye to him today, I can almost hear him signing off one last time, not with a list of his books or his accomplishments, but with those simple, humble words, “So, so grateful. I love you.”

Robert, we love you, and we are so grateful for the way you showed us the Father. See you soon.

Dannah: One of the highlights of remembering Robert was when Will Ellerman stepped to the mic. Robert had developed a very special friendship with Will, who has Down syndrome. Robert had requested specifically that Will share. You're going to hear Will share about a very special t-shirt. When he's talking about it. His mother, Rebecca, is going to hold it up. It was a very special moment.

Will Ellerman: I want to talk about my good friend, Robert.

My favorite memories of Robert, number one: he and Nancy invited me and my mom to see the movie The Forge. I got to sit by Robert. It was a great movie.

Two: Robert invited me to help him on their back patio. I loved helping him put the pillows back in the storage when we were finished outside.

Three: Robert invited me to ride in his top-down car, and it was really fast.

Four: Robert invited me to sit by him when Nancy was recording. One time she talked a lot about donkeys. We were silly and laughed every time she said the word “donkey.” Robert started calling me his “little donkey man,” and he made us matching shirts.

Five: One morning while it was still dark, Robert was spending time alone with God. He invited me to sit with him in that “Nancy chair.” He wanted to show me the deer that passed by the window in the backyard. He was so happy that I got to see them with him.

He was my friend and yours. He loved Jesus. He put it to practice His Word.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like the wise man who builds his house on a rock, and the rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it was founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:24–25).

Robert, I love you. I miss you. I know you're with Jesus, and I'll see you soon.

Dan Wolgemuth: This transition, this passing, has not been something that we casually dismiss.

Dannah: This is one of Robert's brothers, Dan Wolgemuth.

Dan: It's called lament—the voice of sadness that is amplified by closeness, not a rudderless drifting through grief, but a guided journey through troubled water, sorrow, seasoned with gratitude. As a proxy voice for our siblings, what I would tell you is that the more you lament, the more you remember. Memories. Perhaps it's the gift that God gives you to remind you that both you've been blessed to journey with an individual, and you've been asked to steward what he’s left behind.

Erik Wolgemuth: There was never an instance when there was cause for questioning Robert's character . . .

Dannah: We also heard from Robert's nephew and trusted colleague, Erik Wolgemuth.

Erik: . . . for issues or concerns about his commitment to living in a way that honored the Lord. His life was not one that was piloted by a hardened, harsh legalism. Rather, what I saw in him was the eager expression of the words of Jesus in John 14, where Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” Robert lived a joyful, loving obedience.

Dannah: Here is Greg Thornton.

Greg Thornton: In well-known verses in Ephesians 2 we read, “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is God's gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do” (vv. 8–10 CSB). 

Robert, called by God, saved by faith in Jesus Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, marvelously accomplished the good works that God had prepared ahead of time for him.

Dannah: Joni Eareckson Tada wasn't able to be at the memorial service in person, but she sent this tribute.

Joni: Oh Nancy, thank you for asking me to offer a few reflections on your amazing husband, and Missy and Julie, your amazing dad. I am so honored.

The morning that we met at Word Publishing in Waco, Texas, he was sitting at the far end of the boardroom table as the sharp, new, vice-president of marketing . . . and he looked the part. I sat opposite him at the far end. After discussing books, I could have left that meeting thinking that he was just an interesting young executive, except that as we left the building, he started humming a hymn, a hymn that I knew well. By the time we reached the parking lot, we were harmonizing on a favorite of his and of mine.

Oh, worship the King, all glorious above . . .

This fellow knew all the great hymns of the faith, just as many as I did. And so, we kept singing for the next fifteen minutes or so. I'm sure he must have missed a meeting, but in that time, on that parking lot, I could tell that Robert loved the Lord Jesus, that he loved the Bible, and he loved the hymns that best glorified our Savior.

I never did a book with Word Publishing, but in the 1990s, when Robert started representing authors, I signed on. At every meeting from then on, we sang. We sang in conference rooms and parking lots and hotels. People did not have to listen. We just sang because we enjoyed bringing a smile to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't you just love Robert. I can't use the past tense loved, because Robert's in the land of the living, and we are the ones who are in the land of the dying. So I still love Robert, and he is still singing his heart out.

I remember when I had cancer back in 2010, Robert often called to sing to me. I'm sure Nancy would attest that he sang his way through his own journey with cancer. And when he was struggling, I sent him a letter of encouragement that included these words from Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon said, quote: 

Any man can sing in the day. He can draw his inspiration when his cup is full, when wealth rolls around him in abundance. Any man can praise the God who gives a plenteous harvest. It is easy to sing when that man can read the notes by daylight. But a skillful man is he who sings when there is not a ray of light to read by, when he sings from his heart.

Lay me upon the bed of illness, and how shall I then chant God's high praises, unless He Himself gives the song. For it is not in man's power to sing when all is adverse, unless an altar coal touches his lips. Then he sings brave music.

And that was Robert.

When our dear friend left us on this side and went on to heaven, I believe he experienced what 2 Peter calls, quote, “a rich welcome into heaven.” And like you, oh, I long for the day when God will finally close the curtain on sin and suffering and death.

And finally, in Isaiah's words, “[We] shall enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown our heads. Gladness and joy will overtake us, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isa. 35:10 NIV). We will enter Zion singing.

Please bear with me for just one more song.

Jesus may come today
Glad day, glad day!
And I would see my friend;
Dangers and troubles would end
If Jesus should come today.

Glad day. Glad day!
Is it the crowning day?
I'll live for today, nor anxious be;
Jesus, my Lord, I soon shall see.
Glad day, glad day!
Is it the crowning day?

(“Is It the Crowning Day?” by Henry Ostrom)

Dannah: We're listening to just some of what friends and family of Robert Wolgemuth shared at his service last week. David Swanson was Robert's pastor during the decades Robert lived in Orlando, Florida. Let's listen to what he shared.

Pastor David Swanson: Micah 6:8: 

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (NIV)

I think that's a verse that Robert and I talked about many times. It resonated in so many ways, because God tells us, “You want to know what the requirements are? You want to know what to do? You want to know how to live well? Here it is. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you what is good.”

And yet, there are so many people in our world who are struggling to find that. They're desperately trying to find out what's true, while you've got all these carnival hucksters trying to draw them in, saying, “Oh, give this a try. Here's what's true. Align your life this way, then you'll find the thing you're looking for.”

And so they try it. They line their life up with something that's false, and until ultimately they find it empty and wanting. Then they go on to try something else, and they're just searching for it. And yet, Robert found the one thing that was true, and he invested his life in it. 

And God says, “You want to know what the truth is? You want to know what's good and true and right and beautiful? It's found in Me. It's found in My Word. And here's what I want you to do. I just want you to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with Me.”

So on those three things, to do justice. Robert, we all know from the time he was little, he had a profound sense of right and wrong. As a man, as a business person, he had this deep sense of integrity. He wanted to do the right thing all the time, and so we trusted in him. His “yes” was yes, and his “no” was no.

And people, that comes right out of the nature and character of God. We worship a God who, in His essence, in the nature of His being, He is just, and He is our judge. And today, in our culture, my goodness, that's one of the worst things that you can be called today—judgmental.

And yet, I would tell you this afternoon that you want a God who is just. You know this is true. How do we know this? Because every time you're in the parking lot of your grocery store and you come out and there's a big ding in the side of your car, what do you want? You want justice. You know this is wrong. They've driven away, and you want payment, you want restitution, you want someone to come back and right the wrong. We know that comes right out of how you've been made, in the image of God. We want justice. 

But in our culture today, now there is no absolute authority. There's no one person who's determining this is right and this is wrong. Instead, now it's just all left up to the individual. It's what you think versus what I think. Now it's become arbitrary. 

We've fallen into what the French philosopher and atheist John Paul Clark said, “In the absence of God, all things are permissible.” And that's what we see around us all the time.

And then you pair that with this false idea that love wins, that God is so big that it really doesn't matter what you do, everybody's going to get in. Just come on. You have to follow where the logic naturally takes you. If that's true, then what's wrong doesn't matter. And if what's wrong doesn't matter, then what's right doesn't matter. And then nothing matters.

We want a God who cares about what's right and wrong and moves against it. And does that involve us? You bet it does! Because God's justice is going to come at us, because we owe God a debt for our own rebellion. But that's the beauty of the gospel. God provides within Himself the very thing He demands. And so today, we stand justly before the Lord, righteously based not on our works, but on the works of our God in Christ imputed to us.

And so we saw that sense of the Lord as that just one, as Robert did justice.

And secondly, He said, love mercy. Now, mercy is kind of the other side of a two-sided coin between mercy and grace. Grace is getting something you don't deserve. Mercy is not getting something you do deserve.

God says, “I want you to love mercy.” In other words, “I want you to love people in a way that you're not giving them what they deserve.” And that's why we were so drawn to Robert, isn't it? Because Robert didn't treat us for who we really are in our sinful nature. He saw us through the merciful eyes of God. He saw the best in us, not the sinful side of us. With one exception, and that's when Robert was editing something that you wrote, and then Robert was merciless. 

 

But think about that with me. If mercy is not getting something that you really deserve, then how many times has our loving Father not given us what we deserved? You'll never know it this side of heaven.

Robert loved seeing the best in us and treating us with God's mercy. Robert believed in me more than I believed in myself.

And then it says, “Walk humbly with your God.” Walk humbly with your God.

Warren Smith was quoted in the Christianity Today obituary that “Robert Wolgemuth was the most influential or most important evangelical that you've never heard of.” That was so true. What I loved about that is Robert was completely okay with that.

You know, Robert was rarely (I mean, sometimes he was, but most of the time he wasn't) the headliner, but he was the one plowing the ground for the headliner. He was like the fire starter. He was getting it ready for the person who was going to throw out the seed.

He was the best MC you've ever seen, because he was getting it ready so that the people would have their hearts prepared to hear what Nancy, or whoever it was, was going to say. And that comes right out of the Scriptures, Philippians 2:3: 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourself. (CSB)

I don't know who said this. It wasn't me. This is not original. I can't remember who said it. But there are two kinds of people in the world. There are, “Here I am people.” And there are, “There you are people.”

There are some people who when they walk into a room, they kind of essentially go, “Here I am, and you're glad to see me!” Right? They kind of fill the room with a lot of personality.

And then there are other people who when they walk into the room, they go, “There you are. I was hoping I'd see you. Tell me how your daughter's doing. How's your business you told me about the last time we talked.” That was Robert. Robert was a “there you are” kind of person.

Robert loved first. And what I mean by that is, do you understand how humble you have to be to be the one who initiates the words? He was the first man to tell me repeatedly, “I love you.”

We live in a culture where we're always telling people so casually, “Love you guys.” Oh, you're leaving a dinner party and everybody's hugging it out. “Love you all, see you later.” Right?

But all of a sudden, when you put one little letter in front of that, it becomes weighty and significant, because now you have located the source of the love. It's not general; it's not random.

But Robert would say to me, “David, I love you.” And when you say that first . . . Honestly, I ought to tell you, as a guy, when he started saying that to me, I was uncomfortable. I was like, ‘Will you stop saying that?” It was too intimate for me. I would give him back the “love you too.”

But you know what? Robert didn't care. Why? Because the original first Lover had already loved him. Jesus loved first.

When you love first, you completely expose yourself. When you love first, you become so vulnerable to pain and grief and loss and joy and love.

Jesus loved first. He loved Robert first. He loved you and me first. He exposed Himself. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, death on a cross.

And so by the humility of God's love for Robert, Robert's cup was filled so he could go love first in other people's life. So when he told me, “I love you,” and I didn't say it back, he didn't care. Why? Because he didn't need to manipulate me to get what he needed.

That's how we all function in relationships. Our cups are empty, and we're always using social media or other people. We try to get them to tell us what we so long to hear. Robert had already heard it, because he had walked humbly with a God who was willing to humble Himself.

If you're a skeptic (and I don't presume that everybody here loves Jesus), you may be a skeptic. I can see how you might feel like Mary and Martha after Lazarus died. You're like, “What good did faith do? Robert, pneumonia, pneumonia at seventy-seven.” We want to scream at Jesus the way Mary and Martha did, “If you were just here, then this wouldn't have happened!” And if I'm perfectly honest with you, I have said that to the Lord a few times myself. “Lord, if you'd just been there . . .”

And then we want to find someone to blame. How could this happen? We start running through all the possible reasons, and we run it up all the way the food chain. And we get to the top of the food chain, and we go, “Well, it must be God's fault. He didn't show up.”

That's why so many people run from God, when you can't hold God to promises He never made. He never promised that we wouldn't run into the wages of sin and death.

But what He did promise, as Mary and Martha found out with Jesus, He didn't answer either one of them. He just sat down with them, and He wept. And the tears that I have cried, they're all held by our Lord, as yours are, and they're remembered.

And then Jesus brought Lazarus out of the grave. So note, God didn't cause Robert's death, but boy, He did answer it by overcoming it. The reason He came in Jesus Christ was so that what you feel and I feel right now, that death is a thief and a robber, that feeling never wins, because God has overcome it in Jesus Christ. Robert lives and reigns with the Lord forever.

Stop flitting about to the fake and empty flowers and troughs that look good, but are ultimately shallow and meaningless. Go to the One who is the fountain of true life, the water of life, and drink deeply in Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank You that You changed my life through a man. I love how You do that. You take sinful, broken people like Robert Wolgemuth, and you use them to do miraculous, spiritually transforming things. You do that in each of our lives. Thank You that You changed him. Thank You that You changed so many of us through him.

I pray that we might find the true aroma of Jesus and the hope and the promise of a cross and an empty tomb. That the wellspring of life has been given to us by the One who has overcome death, so that Robert, now today, lives and reigns in glory, and that we, by faith, will see him once more.

Lord, bless and anoint this word, I pray, for Your glory and for the salvation of the lost. We pray in the name of Christ our Lord, Amen.

Dannah: That's Pastor David Swanson, remembering Robert Wolgemuth’s life and pointing us to the hope of the gospel.

Robert authored many books in his lifetime. If you're interested in checking out any of them, we've listed them on this website, ReviveOurHearts.com/Robert. There's also more information about Robert. 

Thank you for listening. Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, widow of Robert Wolgemuth, with thoughts about her dear husband—his life, his love, and, of course, his God. We hope you'll join us 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.

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