Southern Baptists have been willing to go to war for two things.
1. for the propagation of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
2. For the inerrancy of the Scriptures.
This is a “kairos” moments, a time of spiritual warfare, a defining time in our denomination’s history. With deep conviction and urgency, he comes to appeal to us:
Now is the time to lead!
Leaders are born in the times of crisis.
This is the time of unraveling. Many are frozen in fear and afraid to do anything. We see hisroeic levels of persecution of christians.
Our economy is on the edge (he’s throwing statistics faster than I can type on my iPad)
Strong call to denouce racism!
57 million babies have been killed through abortion. Deplorable! That is like destroying the entire population of both California and New York.
Next Supreme Court ruling – religious liberty and biblical marriage. Most significant since Roe v. Wade. Could add fuel to the wildfire of sexual revolution.
Now is the time to lead.
Back at the church, many churches sleep. Most of our churches fight. At times, the fellowship of our SBC is broken by secondary matters that are not primary. We must refuse this as carnal matters.
Leading fights over these is not leadership, it is the forfeiture of leadership. It is carnal. Leaders are not exempt from the command to call one another.
For every crisis there is an opportunity.
In Revelation 2-3, there are 7 churches. Only 2 of them received commendation without rebuke. In the midst of difficulties of Philadelphia, Rev 3:7-8, God opened doors no one could close.
Our churches today operate in a hostile environment. Now is the time to lead.
1. Now is the time lead – Believing and Standing.
Only Jesus has all authority – holding the keys. Rev 1:18. Thru his death and res, Jesus has all authority and this is our message to the world.
The gospel is our message and our authority.
In a world that is darker by the moment, we must preach the gospel. We may be seen as weak and limited, but with the gospel, we have authority.
Will we be faithful in this day of many opponents? When others are relaxing the message to be accepted in teh culture, will we be faithful? Will we stand faithful?
Because of this, Jesus placed before them an open door no one could shut. Doors will open when we believe and stand. No government or court or demonic force can shut doors against the power of Christ.
Southern Baptists stand believing that the Bible is God’s inerrant, authoritative and final word on all things. You can count on us. We will contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints.
Southern Baptists stand believing that Jesus Christ is the only way. There is only one path to God, Jesus Christ alone. We are all sinners and only Jesus forgives sin.
We stand believing we are called to make disciples of all the nations. The propagation of the gospel is the unifying principle that will keep us together. We need to see the next great spiritual awakening.
We need a Jesus revolution. We must lead by coming together in clear agreement, visible union and extraordinary prayer.
America: we believe that humanity’s bearing of the image of God is not contingent on skin color and we condemn all racism.
We stand believing that abortion is a desecration of the value of human life that leads to other desecration.
We love all people and want to help them. We are all sinners, in need of God’s forgiveness. But we declare this truth to our leaders and to the court, that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant for one lifetime!
We will not compromise!!
We do not need to redefine what God has already defined. This is a Bonhoeffer moment for every pastor in the United States. Will we bow down to culture or will we stand for the Word of God?
The Supreme Court is NOT the final authority on matters of truth. The word of God is!
I declare that I will not officiate over any same sex marriages or unions of any sort!
We stand believing in freedom of religion.
2. We must lead Living and Going
Why was 1972 our highest number of baptisms? The JEsus movement was a revival!
We need a third great awakening!
A movement of God can wake up a dead preacher, a sleeping church, an ineffective convention. It can turn America back to God.
We are adrift on denial if we don’t realize where we are. We have our doctrine right but our evangelism is wrong. We need to call out to God now.
Prioritize evangelism and have an aggressive strategy of evangelism.