AMARILLO?Reflecting on the Acts 1:8 challenge to be Jesus’ witnesses locally and globally, six preachers delivered brief “theme interpretation” sermons scheduled intermittently during the SBTC annual meeting Oct. 24-25 in Amarillo.

The sermons covered such topics as the lostness of the world, the lordship of Christ, and a call to cross-cultural gospel ministry. The following are capsules of each message.

Scott Maze
Admitting that the word “lostness” would not earn him extra credit from the English teachers in the audience, Maze, pastor of First Baptist Church of Borger, said it best describes the condition under which the unsaved live. And, he added, he hoped to “put a compulsion” in the hearts of those listening to reach someone for Christ.

Being lost, he said, is not simply a description of the end state of the unsaved, but a current malady impacting the lives of those living in that condition. Lostness, Maze said, “is our barber, beautician, the person down the street.”

Knowing the burden under which such people live should spur Christians to action. “There should be tear-stained pillows because of lostness.”

It is because of the condition of lostness that Jesus came to seek and save.

The “Jerusalem” of today for the Christian is wherever they live. In Texas, it is a state with an increasing population projected to be 25 million by 2009. Most of those are unsaved, Maze said, which should give Christians a sense of urgency about reaching them.

Maze made a parallel between the Great Commission and the theme behind the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” In the film, a small band of soldiers, lead by Capt. John Miller, played by Tom Hanks, are searching for Private Ryan, who had been given orders to go home. They are charged with finding and saving Ryan before he is killed in battle.

“Someone was your John Miller,” Maze said, making comparison to the Acts 1:8 charge.

Christians should be compelled to share the gospel, not only out of a sense of compassion and desperation for the lost, but because Jesus commanded it. Sometimes, Maze added, believers get too busy “doing church” that they forget the basic mandate. Or they believe the lost will come to them in the churches. He quoted Charles Spurgeon, who questioned whether a person is truly saved if he has never told anyone of his faith.

He used the loss of life from the Titanic as an example of the condition between believers and the lost.
Many of those who perished in the shipwreck did not drown, but died of hypothermia from exposure in the water. Many lifeboats were only half filled with passengers fleeing the scene but who refused to go back and retrieve those in the water for fear their small crafts would capsize in the course of a rescue effort.

“Those who were already saved,” Maze concluded, “did not go back for those who were dying.”

Nathan Lino
A person cannot submit to the Acts 1:8 commission until he completely, in all areas of his life, submits to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The entire Bible hangs on this fact and the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, said Nathan Lino, pastor of Houston’s Northeast Baptist Church.

Lino recalled asking a woman in his church who was seeking a divorce if her husband had cheated on her, had physically harmed her or the children, or had neglected to provide for his family. The answer to each of the questions was no.

Lino, puzzled by her responses, reminded her of God’s opposition to divorce. The woman’s reply affirmed her knowledge of that fact.

“I simply don’t want to be married to him anymore,” the woman stated.

Lino told the convention, “It sickens me that that is not the exception (in churches). It makes me wonder what has happened to God’s lordship.”

Lino said he places much of the blame on those who stand at the pulpit. Using the passage from Matthew 22:36 where Jesus is confronted by the lawyer asking which commandment is the greatest, Lino said the Lord’s response of loving God is not about an emotional attraction to God, but a choice, a decision. He warned that pastors who consistently preach sermons on “warm, fuzzy” love “are going to have an experience-driven ministry.”

He asked, “Where are the sermons on the lordship of Christ? If this is the greatest commandment in the Bible then his lordship ought to be interwoven into every message.”

Lino admitted that such topics as lordship and submission are difficult to address so they are often avoided.

“You are asking (your congregation) to shove their will aside to take on the will of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
With submission to the lordship of Christ “respect and dignity are restored to the bride of Christ” and personal holiness becomes an issue again with each individual. Lino said the call of the pastor is to make known the lordship of Jesus and to entreat and encourage believers to submit to that authority.

Jim Richards
SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards told the convention the Acts 1:8 mandate comes with a promise of power, a plan to witness, the person, Jesus Christ, of whom we bear witness, and the places to which the witness should go.

That call applies individually and corporately to believers today, Richards explained.

Primary to the Acts 1:8 task is empowerment of the Holy Spirit, which that verse promises.

“These cowering disciples hiding behind locked doors all of the sudden (at Pentecost) became explosive proclaimers of the Word. And it is because they were endued with power from on high,” leading to 3,000 souls saved.

Richards noted that the Holy Spirit is present to produce holiness, calling believers to “a separate lifestyle, a difference.”

The Christian’s peculiarity, Richards said, “is that we cross-grain the culture.”

“The Holy Spirit purifies us and makes us more like Jesus” so that believers may run the race successfully.
Acts 1:8 also states a plan for the disciples to be Jesus’ witnesses, Richards said.

“We are to be a witness of objective truth and subjective experience” through the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, as 1 John 5:13 and Romans 8:16 describe.

“The objective truth enables us to witness about Jesus Christ,” Richards said, adding; “There are those who would say that Jesus is my final authority. And that sounds so pious, but the only thing that we know about Jesus Christ of truth is found within the pages of God’s holy Word.

Acts 1:8 also points to a person?Christ, Richards said. While agreeing that denominational emphases such as Empowering Kingdom Growth have had positive results, “It’s really not about the kingdom, it’s about the king,” Richards said.

“We’re not about building our kingdoms and we’re not about building the kingdom of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. We’re not even about building the kingdom itself?because what we’re to do is we’re to lift up the king and he will build the kingdom.

“He said, ‘If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me.'”

Richards added, “When we’re Acts 1:8 challenge takers, we’re going to talk about Jesus and uplift him.”

Acts 1:8 also directs the places the witness will go: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the world.
Richards noted that previous to Jesus’ words in Acts 1:8, he gave the same essential charge to his disciples four previous times during the 40 days after his resurrection (John 20, Mark 16, Matthew 28, Luke 24).

“In those 40 days he challenged them to be Acts 1:8 followers” and he is calling individual Christians and churches to reach their cities, state, nation and world as well.

“We know that over half of the people in our state do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior nor attend church,” Richards said, noting that among a 22-million person population there are numerous ethno-linguistic groups yet unreac

MARILLO?Biblically shepherding a church requires two things?nourishing and protecting the flock, Chris Osborne, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Bryan, told convention messengers in his final president’s address Oct. 24.

Osborne said he’d done about 15 different things during his ministry that he thought were clever, but the effective shepherd does two things, according to 1 Peter 2:1-4.

Osborne recalled a television episode of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” in which a woman taught her cat to eat gourmet food using chopsticks and then warned pastors, “You’ve got a woman who would feed her cat with the best stuff, and we don’t do that in the pulpit.”

He cautioned pastors against borrowing pre-packaged sermons in place of doing their own preparation. Instead, allow God to give you a message for your own people through careful Scriptural study, he advised.

“I went to a conference with a preacher in California. I’m not going to name him, but he had a whole lot of purpose in his life,” Osborne said to laughter in an apparent allusion to California pastor and author Rick Warren. “This purpose guy said that he enjoyed expository preaching, but then he pretty much for the whole weekend made fun of it.”

Osborne, an expository preacher, said when the pastor was pressed about his sermon style, he defended his approach by saying he researches 300 verses on a topic as he prepares to preach. Osborne told the messengers, “You can’t research 300 verses every week.”

Instead of fishing for verses to support a topical message, Osborne called on pastors to find a Scripture passage, then “get in there and stay in that passage” to apprehend God’s message.

He added, “Scripture doesn’t tell us to read it. It tells us to meditate on it. I’m afraid we’ve become spiritually lazy people. Just log on and push a button and you’ve got 320 verses.”

Throughout 28 years of preaching, Osborne said, “I have yet to have a week where I didn’t see something I didn’t know was there.”

Studying to understand what the passage says in order to preach that to the people?”that’s your job,” he declared.

In fulfilling the other biblical mandate for a pastor, Osborne said pastors should make sure they’re protecting their people from truly damaging things.

“When you tell them to be afraid of things you don’t like but that really aren’t a danger, they won’t listen when we do come around with something they should legitimately be afraid of. They ignore it.”

For example, from the “danger of letting somebody in the church who’s been baptized by somebody else” to “freaking out when Baylor allowed dancing on campus,” Osborne said pastors sometimes warn against things of little importance.

“I’ve heard preachers wail against square dancing as if it were the most lustful thing in your life. Have you seen what they wear? If that creates lust in your life, you’ve got a lot of other problems.”

Osborne told of the large number of Baptists buying best-selling author Joel Osteen’s “You’re Best Life Now.” In answer to talk show host Larry King’s question asking whether Jesus Christ is the only way to God, Osborne related how Osteen said he does not talk about sin, hell or Satan at his church.

“Our people are reading his books. You stand against Joel and you’re going to get some e-mails, but that’s OK. You’ve got a delete button,” Osborne said. “Protect your flock from real danger, not square dancing.”

The next instruction found in verse 2 tells elders to oversee.

“If you can contribute to GuideStone, you’re an elder?that’s how we’re defining it,” Osborne said, drawing laughter from the audience.

While having oversight means to rule, Osborne warned pastors not to go home and tell their deacons to leave.

“If you do, you better hope the moving van’s not busy that weekend.”

He instructed pastors to lead their congregations through their deacons.

“They are not men to be pushed aside. They are men to be honored and used. That’s a good thing. If it goes in the tank, they’re with you. Lead them. Don’t dictate to them.”

From the instruction to lead “not under compulsion, but willingly,” Osborne said pastors should be “called by the heart of God.” Furthermore, they should not be greedy, he said, defining “shameful gain” as mooching.

“People in your church love to do things for you and if you’re not careful, you can enjoy that to the extent that you begin to expect that and think you’re entitled to it instead of appreciating it.”

Instead, he urged pastors, “Come to the place in your ministry where the affirmation of this Word and the affirmation of the Holy Spirit are enough applause so that it doesn’t matter what they say or don’t say.”

AMARILLO, Texas?Junior Hill read aloud the words from the letter written to him by a struggling pastor. “I literally ache all over,” the pastor lamented, admitting he felt like a failure and was ready to quit despite no immoral act or deliberate sin.

Hill, the Hartselle, Ala., evangelist who has preached to preachers for decades, said the young pastor and many like him could learn something Hill has learned from experience.

“Failure is an instrument of God’s grace by which he teaches us things we wouldn’t learn any other way,” Hill related to the audience during the final session of the SBTC annual meeting.

Preaching from 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, where Paul speaks of his power being made perfect in weakness and a thorn in his flesh that kept him from being exulted, Hill said Paul’s thorn did several useful things.

-First, it turned Paul’s exultation into humiliation, Hill said.

“If anybody had reason to be exulted, it was the apostle Paul.”

Hill said Paul had a “desirable preparation”?a Roman citizen trained in the best Jewish schools and a Pharisee?a “dramatic conversion experience” on the Damascus road, a “distinguished designation” as the apostle to the Gentiles, and “divine revelation” in his apostolic role.

“If you had all those things, you’d be a little proud,” Hill said, noting that because of that God gave him a thorn.

Paul had his weaknesses too, such as a physical appearance and a speaking style that was unimpressive. That God would use Paul’s lack of charisma is evidence that “not many wise, not many mighty” are called. “God in his sovereignty has called zeros” to serve him, Hill said, explaining that the “base” things God uses to confound the wise literally have the meaning of less than the numeric value of one.

-Also, “that thorn made friends out of his foes,” Hill contended, adding that the thorn “was in fact the strength of his life” that moved him from a zealous persecutor to a beloved apostle and teacher.

Hill said he remembers coveting the preaching skills of people such as the late Vance Havner or W.A. Criswell, only to realize later that God had crafted him to be like no one else for a purpose only he could fill.

“The point is that he made me and nobody in this world can be as good a Junior Hill as I can. ? What you think is your weakness God says, ‘I’m going to make it your strength.'”

-Finally, “Paul, with God’s help, saw his problems ultimately become pleasures.”

Hill recounted how in 1961 as a seminary student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and pastoring a church in Mississippi, he mentioned to his deacons one Sunday that he believed the church’s message of salvation was for all people regardless of skin color. The next Saturday when he drove into town and entered the barber shop for a haircut, the barber announced to him that the church had fired him the previous Wednesday.

“My heart was crushed beyond understanding,” Hill remembered. But 43 years later the peace, consolation and “the lessons God taught me in that terrible experience” are invaluable, he said.

“If you will see (hardship) in the light of God’s sovereignty, you will see him turn those problems into pleasure.”