ANAHEIM, Calif. (BP) – Mark Clifton opened the 2022 SBC Pastors’ Conference by reminding shepherds of local congregations that there are no unimportant churches and no unimportant places.
With the theme “We Proclaim Him,” speakers walked through Colossians, a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in Colossae, a small town, that could encourage any pastor wondering if his ministry matters.
Matt Henslee, president of the 2022 conference, said his hope was that the worship and sermons “help us to embrace endurance in the trenches of Gospel ministry.”
Clifton, a former Missouri Baptist and now replanting pastor at Linwood Baptist Church in Linwood, Kan., said many times the SBC has “forgotten all of those small, out-of-the-way places – places where God is still very much at work.”
“We have tens of thousands of churches in places like that,” Clifton said June 12 in Anaheim, Calif. “In fact, 33 million Americans live in rural America, and in many ways, it’s one of the most underreached parts of our country.”
Such places, as demonstrated in Colossians, are important to God.
“I don’t care where you serve, it matters to God, and so do you,” Clifton said, adding, “God knows where you are, and that’s all that matters.”
Omar Johnson, senior pastor of Temple Hills Baptist Church in Temple Hills, Md., said the perception of progress at churches is skewed “because we’re looking for the wrong things, evaluating our churches based on the wrong factors, perhaps holding up misguided or misplaced aims and ambitions for the congregations the Lord has given us to shepherd.”
The main idea of Colossians 1:9-14 can be summed up like this, Johnson said: “Gospel ministers should care about church growth – primarily the church’s spiritual growth.”
Because Epaphras was probably a protégé of Paul’s, he knew the kind of things that Paul wanted to hear about, Johnson said.
“Paul didn’t want to know how many members or attendees were present at the church of Colossae, nor was he curious how big their building or their budget was, neither was Paul interested in how many programs they put on,” Johnson said.
“What Paul was most concerned about was the church’s spiritual health, so the report that Epaphras relayed was that the church in Colossae was marked by faith in Christ Jesus and love for all the saints.”
Churches should grow in the knowledge of God and in living God-pleasing lives, Johnson explained from the text, noting, “Knowing God leads to living for God more faithfully.”
Hanley Lui, English lead pastor at First Chinese Baptist Church in Walnut, Calif., thanked the SBC for planting immigrant churches because he was saved through an English ministry of such a church.
From Colossians 1:15-20, Lui said Christ is supreme over His creation, and Christ is supreme over His new creation.
“This includes every single thing that has discouraged or divided the church in the past two and a half years,” Lui said. “Everything that has caused you, pastor, sleepless nights and stress, all of that falls under the sovereignty and the supremacy of Christ.”
Lui said he has felt pressure “to speak to everything under the sun,” but “that is not our task.”
“Our task, pastor brother, is to study the text, the Scriptures, diligently and to proclaim the text with clarity, and to apply the Scriptures with wisdom, pointing people to the ultimate wisdom of the Scriptures, which is Jesus Christ, and then we sit down. We sit down in the pew. We sit down under the throne,” Lui said.
“We must remember, pastor, our greatest encouragement is that we stand in the pulpit but Christ sits on the throne, and when we’re done with our message, we sit down, but Christ is still reigning. He’s the only one who can preach and speak to all things because all things were created by Him, through Him and for Him.”
Matthew Mueller, pastor of Valley Life Church North Peoria in Phoenix, said believers today find themselves in an interesting time.
“Society and culture have seemed to make truth subjective while elevating emotions to be the only objective in our culture, where emotions run supreme and truth is whatever you make it,” Mueller said. “That makes the Word of God, the truth we have in our hands, even more important.”
Through the Word of God, believers can be brought close to Jesus.
“Alienation from God will always result in self-centeredness and pride,” Mueller said. “When we alienate ourselves from God and from His Word, when we start to develop a hostility of mind, it will always end with evil, non-honoring, sinful actions.”
Believers have the cure to the malignancy of people’s souls, Mueller said. “How much do you have to hate someone to not share the Gospel with them?”
Clay Smith, senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., urged pastors to evaluate their own lives in terms of attitude, assignment, aim and agony in ministry.
“We aren’t celebrities,” Smith said. “We aren’t CEOs. We are under-shepherds of the flock of God, and this is our assignment from God, to be this servant that He’s called us to be, and let’s be honest. Ministry is tough. It’s hard. I tell our staff all the time ministry would be easy if it weren’t for people.”
Leadership is easy from the sidelines, Smith said. “Tweetership is not leadership. Leadership is getting in the trenches. Leadership is doing the hard work.”
God provided a way to make it, though.
“You will make it in Christ Jesus. You cannot do it in your own power, but you can do it in the power of Jesus,” Smith said.
Marcus Hayes, lead pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in The Woodlands, Texas, said in cultural Christianity today, “we need to turn up the dial of agonizing and not antagonizing.” Embedded in this kind of agony is “care, concern and compassion” for people.
Hayes warned pastors not to try to come up with a different type of Jesus.
“Don’t try to fashion your Jesus on preference,” Hayes said. “Don’t fashion a Jesus in your own mind based on politics. Don’t fashion your understanding of Jesus based on power. Fashion your idea and your theology and your Christology on who Jesus is and how He has presented Himself in the Scriptures.”
P.J. Tibayan, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Bellflower, Calif., said there are all kinds of bad ideas in the world today, but some of them sound reasonable and some are captivating. In the end, they “threaten our souls, our ministries, our churches and our witness.”
“Pastor brothers, I have good news for you this morning. God gave us Colossians 2:8-23 to equip us and strengthen us to continue in Christ and avoid being captivated by attractive, bad ideas, dangerous ideas,” Tibayan said.
“… The saints in Colossae were being tempted by these outside ideas, but it comes from actually a good desire. Their desire was they wanted to live a truly full and fulfilled life in Christ. … No harm there, but in valuing fulfillment, they were vulnerable to false ideas on how to live and experience that full life in Christ.”
The fulness of God dwells in Christ, Tibayan noted, so the filling of Christ is enough, Tibayan said.
Longtime pastor Al Jackson closed out the 2022 SBC Pastors’ Conference study of the Book of Colossians by examining the list of faithful servants named at the end of the Apostle Paul’s letter, reminding pastors that even little-known saints are significant saints to God.
“These are not insignificant followers of Christ,” Jackson, pastor emeritus of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala., said of people such as Tychicus and Onesimus. “They’re not well-known like Paul and Peter and John, but they served faithfully on Paul’s missionary team in the place to which they had been assigned.”
Jackson drew from each name a characteristic vital to the advance of the Gospel: faithful service, reconciliation, cross-cultural ministry, intercessory prayer and loyalty. One name, though, pointed to the tragic risk of falling away, he said.
“My brother pastors, there’s a warning for all of us here including myself: Do not presume that you are incapable of forsaking your ministry,” Jackson said June 13 in Anaheim, Calif. “Do not presume that you are incapable of doing exactly what Demas did. Worldliness has sidelined many a pastor from finishing the race to which God has called him.”
Daryl Jones, pastor of Rock Fellowship Church in Pembroke Pines, Fla., preached from Colossians 3:1-11 and noted that many people make New Year’s resolutions as goals for improvement.
“Unfortunately, by about mid-February, those goals go by the wayside,” Jones said. “The reason is because oftentimes they want this newness of life and yet forget that the old habits and the old practices and the old ways have to be removed.”
Believers should know that if they’re going to reach goals of newness, they have to do something different, Jones said.
“The truth of your identity in the resurrection of Jesus Christ corresponds to the truth that your mindset and your motivation should only be Him,” Jones said, “and if it doesn’t belong to Him, pertain to Him, look like Him, kick it to the curb.”
Christians should be motivated by the victory won by Christ alone, and everything should flow from a mindset of pursuing Christ, Jones said.
Matt Carter, lead pastor of Sagemont Church in Houston, said division is one of the greatest issues facing the Southern Baptist Convention.
“If we don’t get this right, we are going to further alienate a lost world that we are trying to reach with the Gospel,” Carter said. “We are going to further alienate ourselves as a convention from a younger generation of preachers that are looking at us and trying to find a plausible reason why they want to join us.”
Division also will further alienate the SBC from the blessing of the hand of God, Carter said.
When he looks at Twitter, Carter said he sees a convention as a whole marked not necessarily by the fruit of the Spirit but by the fruits of the flesh.
“There are times when lines need to be drawn in the sand, but the Scripture makes it crystal clear that no matter what we face as a convention that we are always to engage each other in a Christlike kind of way, and we’re not doing that. I’m not sure that the Lord is pleased,” Carter said.
Israel Villalobos, pastor of Spanish ministries at Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Texas, said the apostle Paul knew people “needed clearly defined practical guidelines to avoid making unwise choices in life in the areas where we spend most of our time – in the home and in the workplace.”
“He’s trying to help them live a Christian life in ways that God has ordained and in so doing bring our Heavenly Father glory and honor,” Villalobos said of Colossians 3:18-4:1. “… He’s telling them, ‘Live according to these guidelines, and in so doing you will magnify the Creator.’”
Submission, particularly by wives in marriage, is an idea many people reject today, but Villalobos envisions Paul was saying, “This is good. It functions within the marriage just like it functions with the Trinity. This is God’s design. Do it. It works.”
“Don’t miss this godly counsel all because you’re fighting back with the text. Keep this in the framework of God’s Word and understand that submission was not a command only for the wife. It was one of the distinct markings of all true believers,” Villalobos said.
“… Live this way because this is the order God has set in place. This is what God wants, and what God wants far outweighs whatever we think is best.”
Julio Arriola, church planting catalyst with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and NAMB in Grapevine, Texas, said believers are servants of Christ “rescued from the pits of hell, reconciled with God by the blood of Jesus to live lives that would glorify the Father as we walk this world empowered by the Holy Spirit.”
God, the Master, does what He wants because He is sovereign, Arriola said, but somehow He acts at the beat of His servants’ prayers, “and when God’s people pray, prayer changes everything.” This is why Paul wrote, “Devote yourselves to prayer,” Arriola said.
“We dedicate time to things we believe are important,” Arriola said, urging pastors to pray for their families, their churches, the nation and the world.
“The greatest influence we have as pastors is not over the church member that goes to sleep over your sermon on Sunday but over the family member that goes to sleep under the same roof as you every night,” Arriola said.