President Rich Gurgel
NWC ’81, WLS ’86
2 Corinthians 4:5-7
Commencement Service sermon (condensed) May 16, 2026
If you came expecting to hear the usual commencement commendations about how our graduates are going to make a difference in the world because they’re such wonderful people, you’re going to be disappointed. Today isn’t first and foremost about you, dear graduates. It’s about him!
That’s the point Paul makes in these verses: “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
It’s so easy to make ministry about establishing our own little kingdom just the way we like it—with as few problems as possible, making sure everyone recognizes how thankful they should be for us. But our ministries as staff ministers, teachers, and pastors aren’t about us. We don’t preach ourselves. We preach Jesus!
Paul continues: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” God doesn’t send out some kind of superhuman race to carry out his gospel mission. He sends out us, and we’re just jars of clay. Frail, cracking, weak, subject to all the challenges life throws at us.
Ah, but there’s treasure in our clay jars! God declared us his forgiven and holy children through Jesus. We are his new creations in Christ. We belong to his eternal kingdom, and we will one day inherit his new heavens and new earth, where all our “clay-jariness” will be gone!
This treasure is God’s gift of love to each one of us. And as that treasure fills us, it prepares us to serve him wherever that may be! He simply asks us to pour out what he has poured into us!
So, yes, dear graduates, God will use the talents he’s given you and nurtured while you were here. Those too are gifts of God. But, bottom line, as jars of clay, your real treasure is always and ever Jesus. What a wonderful comfort for faith, life, and eternity. What a powerful encouragement for ministry. It’s not about you—it’s about him!
From the InFocus Summer 2026 Issue
