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PHOENIX?”You may labor in obscurity until eternity reveals your work,” stated Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Director Jim Richards June 18 in his theme interpretation on “Kingdom Living Today.”
“The greatest in the kingdom may be an invalid in the sick room praying down heaven’s blessings,” he added, insisting that doing God’s will is the very definition of kingdom living.
SBC president Jack Graham praised Richards as “a kingdom man” whom he knows to be “a convictional and compassionate leader who provides assistance and encouragement to pastors and support to churches.” Noting SBTC’s leadership in sending 52 percent of Cooperative Program receipts to the SBC budget, Graham said Richards “has fully adopted and led us in the kingdom agenda of Southern Baptists in the great state of Texas.”
Richards first described the provisions of God in a time when international instability and economic uncertainty dominate headlines today. “Since
He added, “Moral morass continues with unborn babies being killed, homosexuality being accepted and tolerance being mandated for all except evangelical Christianity.” He turned to Luke 9:23, 57-62 to offer Jesus’ approach to kingdom living in such circumstances.
Although Jesus repeatedly spoke of the kingdom, Richards observed a difference in the selected text. “Jesus addressed kingdom living at that moment,” he said, noting that it is “not for wimps, whiners or the wicked.” He explained, “In our soft, affluent, politically correct American culture, we do not like to hear about responsibilities, expectations or sacrifice. Everybody seems to be a victim.”
However, Jesus did not put up with that mindset, preferring to “address the realities of kingdom living with the three would-be disciples,” he said. “The insights he gave are relevant twenty centuries later because they are the Word of God.”
In the first example, Jesus addressed the problems in the heart of the man who “made a boast he was unable to keep,” Richards said. “Perhaps his expectations were of the millennial kingdom with Solomonic splendor,” he speculated.
Richards expressed gratitude for “a God who knows the end from the beginning,” refuting the theory of open theism that “tells us God does not know how the end will occur.” Drawing applause from the audience, Richards said, “There has never been a time that God hasn’t known what will happen in the next day.”
Elaborating, he added, “God has never had to go out on a stump and think about what’s going to take place. God knows the end from the beginning.”
He warned from the text of a tendency toward spiritual arrogance and sinful avarice. “Those who have a perverted view of the prayer of Jabez think God is obligated to bless them on every hand. What about the Sudanese Christians who are being martyred?” he asked as an example. “We don’t live in a time when God is obligated to answer our every whim. That makes God nothing more than a cosmic bellboy waiting to grant our every wish.”
Quoting 1 Peter 4:12, Richards said suffering and trials are to be expected. “God is not as concerned about our happiness as he is our holiness. It is not about our comfort, but about his cross.” By relying on the Holy Spirit and resting in God’s promises, Christians can overcome such secret attacks, he said.
Richards recounted when he and his wife were living in a house trailer with an income of $100 a week early in their marriage. When an elderly man brought them groceries he had purchased with his own food stamps, Richards experienced God’s provision. “If you are in the center of God’s will in kingdom living today the provisions of his providence come through.”
From Luke 9:59-60, Richards described “the preeminence of his person,” insisting that a Christian’s relationship with Jesus must be more important than any other. Richards warned of two potential struggles every Christian faces, being consumed by popular opinions or controlled by personal agendas.
“In all of our endeavors of kingdom living today, doing the right thing with our families, with our churches, building and working and putting all of our energy into all of these efforts, let us never forget the preeminence of his person, the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s all about the King.”
In Luke 9:61-62, Richards found the priority of God’s plan, noting Jesus’ use of an agrarian illustration
