“No one ever spoke the Gospel like Billy Graham!”

So said a guest on WBT Wednesday, as the radio station devoted the entire day to remembrances of the Charlotte-born evangelist.

Praise God for the way He worked through Billy Graham. Praise God that many came to faith through his preaching. Praise God that he built an effective parachurch ministry that continues to spread the Gospel.

But: No one spoke the Gospel like Graham? Ever? How many preachers of the Gospel had that guest heard? How many Christians had he heard tell their story and Jesus’ story? Was Billy Graham better at speaking the Gospel than any of these others? Even if that were the case – how would the guest have known?

Now, let’s give the guest a pass – he exaggerated while rightly honoring a man whom God had used to influence his own life.

But this radio broadcast highlights a danger Christians face today, in the US and around the world: The danger of exalting a person, a speaker, a public figure, and thinking because of crowds or web page hits or books or overall prominence that this person is the One, that this person is the Person my friends and family members need to hear. If only they will listen to this celebrity, they will come to faith.

Churches exhibit the same mindset when they attempt to get to the “next level,” to achieve more prominence in their city or in their country, by hiring a well-known author, a celebrity in their theological circle, as their preacher.

We gravitate to celebrities because of several confusions: Confusing results with faithfulness; confusing prominence with the Holy Spirit’s power; and confusing public ministry with personal ministry.

We serve a sovereign God who orchestrates all that happens for the glory of His Name. He raises up kings and presidents, countries and corporations, pastors and preachers, and brings them down. He may use a weak man with few natural gifts to save thousands, while cutting off the life of a woman of deep faith and incredible potential in her teens. He can do anything with anyone: the One who can turn stones into bread – and even into children of Abraham! (Matthew 4:3) – can use anyone who speaks the Gospel to bring others to faith. Our responsibility is not to bring about results; our responsibility is to be faithful to Him – to live our lives to His glory, offering all we are as a sacrifice to Him, speaking the Gospel and living out the Gospel in our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools. He will bring about the results.

Furthermore, there is no link between prominence and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Every believer in Jesus is indwelt by the Holy Spirit; every believer has a ministry granted by the Holy Spirit; every believer remains in this world to be as Jesus is (1 John 4:17). Remember, the Apostle Paul prays that we all would know “the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe” – indeed, the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19-20). That power is yours if you are in Christ – just as much as that power was in Billy Graham.

Finally, our celebrity focus downplays private ministry while exalting public ministry. Now, I praise God for preaching! Our Lord has helped me time and again through the public proclamation of His Word, and I hope that He has used my preaching in many of your lives to good effect. But the responsibility of pastors and teachers is to equip all of God’s people for the work of ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12); the entire Body grows when each part works properly, enabling the entire Body to grow up in love (Ephesians 4:16). That proper working includes much more private ministry than public ministry. The private ministry is just as vital as the public.

So, yes, let us thank God for the life of Billy Graham.

And let us thank God for those pastors and teachers and parents and fellow believers whom God has put in our lives personally, who taught us and loved us and wept with us and counseled us and prayed for us.

And let us thank God for thousands of unknown pastors, teachers, missionaries, and church planters who go out to rough neighborhoods and to despised peoples and to villages with no witness to Jesus – and day after day preach and live out the Gospel.

And let us be faithful to the personal ministries God has given us, as we step out in the power of the Holy Spirit, as we speak the Gospel, as we comfort and counsel, as we offer ourselves to Him as a living, holy, well-pleasing sacrifice.

We are the Body of Christ. Every joint, every capillary is vitally important. May we delight to do His will – and may we thank Him for all the others who also do His will.