Imagine a husband who tells his wife he doesn’t love her anymore. Then imagine that he tells her not to worry, nothing will change — he’ll stay there, pay the bills and provide for the family.
“This is what happened at the church at Ephesus,” said H.B. Charles, pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida. “They were at a point where they said, ‘Lord, I don’t love you like I once did.’ If there was ever a time in your life where you loved Jesus more than you do now, beware.”
The church at Ephesus had busy feet, clean hands and an upright heart — but its soul was adrift, said Charles, preaching from Revelation 2 to those gathered at the evening session of the 2018 Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference. “The church had abandoned its first love, and it was on a collision course with disaster,” he said.
But Christ didn’t leave pastors without help, he noted. Charles pointed out that in Revelation 1:20, Jesus said the seven stars were the angels of the seven churches — and some believe those angels could signify the pastors. Then in chapter 2, Jesus said he holds those seven stars in his right hand.
“This signifies protection and authority,” he said. “Jesus has you in His firm grip. Restore your first love. Remember the aftermath of grace in your life and repent.”
Charles was one of eight pastors who led those gathered at the Pastors Conference through the theme of Preaching Christ, offering sermons showing what it looks like to preach Christ through the whole Bible.
That was Daven Watkins’ vision for the conference, held Nov. 12 at First Baptist Church, Trussville — that it would give an example of what it looked like to preach about Jesus from every genre of Scripture.
Watkins, conference president and pastor of First Baptist Church, Pelham, said the sermons were “a tremendous blessing.”
Charles finished in Revelation what Robert Smith, preaching professor at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, began that morning in Genesis.
Sacrificing everything
Preaching from the story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, Smith shared how right away in Scripture there’s a picture of a God who loves His people intensely but requires that they sacrifice everything to follow Him.
Misery and mercy intersected at Mount Moriah just like they did at Calvary, he said. A substitution was offered — and faith was required.
“Abraham’s response must be ours — ‘here I am,’” Smith said. “Abraham might not have known the ‘how,’ but he knew the ‘Who.’ If you want to be able to follow Him, you have to be willing to lose your life.”
Kevin Hamm, pastor of Gardendale First Baptist Church, said God stays trustworthy through pastors’ storms in life. Preaching from Psalm 124, he said the Lord is on their side through it all.
“God says to us, ‘I know you’ve been hurt, I know you’ve been disappointed, but I want to remind you that I’m your strong tower. I’m your protector; I’m your Savior,’” Hamm said. “Sometimes we focus too much on our problems and we forget to step back and remember what God Almighty has done through Jesus Christ.”
Nathan Daniels, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, Andalusia, showed Christ in the Prophets through Jonah.
“Multiple times in His ministry, Jesus likens Himself to Jonah, even though Jonah doesn’t always seem like someone who has it all together,” he said.
Jesus is “the better Jonah” — the embodiment of the message of the Book of Jonah, Daniels said. Jonah refused to preach to the Ninevites, but Jesus fulfilled His mission.
“Jesus doesn’t flee, but says, ‘Yes, Father’ and accepts His task to go live among the deplorable — namely you and me,” Daniels said.
After Jonah reluctantly sacrificed himself to the sea to avoid Nineveh and to calm the storm he was thrown up by the fish. After Jesus willingly died for our sins on Calvary He burst forth gloriously from the tomb.
‘There’s mercy available’
“We need a better Jonah because we are Jonah,” he said. “We run away from God, but there’s mercy available for everyone. That’s why Jesus compares Himself to Jonah. Because the message of the Book of Jonah is that there is mercy enough for me and you.”
Reginald Calvert, pastor of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, Bessemer, had the assignment of preaching Christ from the Gospels, but he said he let Jesus do it for him — he preached on Jesus preaching Jesus in Luke 4:16–30.
‘God is here’
There in the synagogue in Nazareth the minister brings Jesus the Book of Isaiah, and He reads aloud from Isaiah 61 — that He has come to bring sight to the blind and bind up the brokenhearted. Then He tells them the Scripture has been fulfilled right then and there, Calvert said. “Here He makes His messianic claim. He’s letting people know that God has come to town, that God is here.”
Then in Luke 7:22, when John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus if He is the Christ, Jesus quotes the prophets again — the blind can see and the lame are healed.
“With the words of the prophets, He takes John the Baptist’s question mark and straightens it out into an exclamation point of His messiahship,” Calvert said.
From there, Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, talked about how Christ is preached in the parables. He said that often Christians see themselves as the subject of the parables — they try to glean a moral lesson from them. But the point of a parable is often Christ Himself, George said.
“If we make ourselves the Good Samaritan, we miss seeing how Christ is the Good Samaritan and how we are the wounded man in the ditch, unable to rescue ourselves, broken and empty and unable to lift a finger,” he said. “We miss how dramatic our need is. And we miss seeing how Jesus’ way of giving is so different from ours. We help people out of our surplus, and He goes the extra mile every time.”
The proper lens for reading the parables is not as fables or morals and often not allegories, he said. The parables are a view of who Christ is and what life can look like without Him.
Tom Richter, pastor of First Baptist Church, Cullman, said Peter also gave a picture of who Christ is through his first sermon in Acts 2.
It was right on the heels of Pentecost — the Holy Spirit had come, and now the fire that signified God’s presence, the fire that descended on Mount Sinai, lived in them, he said.
“That fire that would’ve been fatal now lives inside them — inside you,” Richter said.
And not only that — Jesus’ followers had begun speaking in tongues so that everyone there could understand in their own language. That was hugely significant, Richter said.
“It would be like the gospel being preached in impeccable mandarin by Uncle Si from ‘Duck Dynasty,’” Richter said. “It signified something incredible — when the gospel was first preached, it was preached in every language at one time so that no culture could ever pull rank. God doesn’t speak a language — He speaks people. Every tribe, tongue and language is equally treasured in the kingdom of God.”
And Peter, now filled with the Holy Spirit, preaches a message full of Scripture, full of Christ and full of grace, Richter said. “It’s like a light bulb had gone off and Peter couldn’t help but see how every Scripture points to Christ.”
Hershael York — pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church, Frankfort, Kentucky; and dean of the School of Theology and Professor of Preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky — said marriage can be another way God preaches His gospel to the world.
He preached out of Ephesians 5 on how a godly marriage should reflect the love between Christ and the Church.
“Marriage matters because it points to Christ and the Church,” York said.
A godly marriage should imitate the joy between a Christian and the Savior in our homes, he said. “When we make Christ the center of our lives and our marriages, the world looks and says ‘I want to know that God.’”
‘Rich day of worship’
Watkins said he prayed that everyone in attendance left motivated and encouraged to preach Christ in every text and topic. He also expressed gratitude to the volunteers and staff of First, Trussville, for hosting the conference, as well as to the worship team and combined choir from Birmingham-area churches, led by Brett Fuller, worship pastor at First, Pelham.
They, along with the preachers, provided a “glorious, rich day of worship and learning,” Watkins said.
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The 2019 Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference will be Nov. 11 at Eastern Shore Baptist Church, Daphne. Officers for 2019 are Treasurer Richard Richie, pastor of Blue Springs Baptist Church, Somerville; President Stuart Davidson, pastor of Eastern Shore Baptist Church, Daphne; President-elect Nathan Daniels, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, Andalusia; and Vice President Blake Kersey, pastor of FBC Decatur.
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