Tags
High Council, Laws, LDS, Missionary Work, Mormon, Perfect, Proclam, Redeem, Talk, Team, TeamLaws
I spoke in the Brunswick Ga 1st Ward today (on assignment as the High Council Speaker). Becky and 3 of our 4 kids were able to come along, which was cool. (The family was in town for the weekend and to celebrate David’s 15th Birthday). Since the talk is long I’ll break it up over the next 5 days.
(pt 1 of 5)
“The Essence of the Gospel”
Twenty-eight years ago (April 1981 GC) the first presidency of the Church announced what has since come to be known as the “three-fold mission of the Church” for the first time.
In his talk entitled “A Report of My Stewardship” President Spencer W. Kimball said:
My brothers and sisters, as the Brethren of the First Presidency and the Twelve have meditated upon and prayed about the great latter-day work the Lord has given us to do, we are impressed that the mission of the Church is threefold:
1. To proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;
2. To perfect the Saints by preparing them to receive the ordinances of the gospel and by instruction and discipline to gain exaltation;
3. To redeem the dead by performing vicarious ordinances of the gospel for those who have lived on the earth.
All three are part of one work—to assist our Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, in their grand and glorious mission “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39.)[i]
I was just completing my junior year of High School and I loved President Kimball as the Prophet of my childhood, Young Men’s, the prophet who called me on a mission and whose 12 year tenure as Prophet ended 5 months after I returned home from my mission. I was amazed and amused by his clarion testimony rendered in his very original “Darth Vader” tones. I probably wasn’t paying very close attention on that Saturday morning when the Prophet opened the 151st General Conference of the Church.
In all of the intervening years this powerfully concise statement of purpose and destiny has become ever more important to me personally as ever increasing blocks of time and effort are being exerted in fulfilling one or more of these functions.
This then is the focus of my remarks to you today. I wish to remind you going forward of President Kimball’s astute observation that all three purposes are an entwined part of one great work, that work being dubbed in the Doctrine & Covenants “God’s Work” and “God’s Glory” and the eventual result of which is “the immortality and eternal life of man”. Can you think of anything under heaven more grand and glorious than this? I will answer that for you! OF COURSE NOT! And not least of which, because we (you and I) are the primary benefactors of this marvelous plan.
Let’s discuss then “Proclaiming”, “Perfecting”, & “Redeeming”.