MURFREESBORO — Tennessee Baptist Convention president Jay Hardwick challenged Tennessee Baptists to “advance together” in the closing sermon of Tennessee Baptists’ annual Summit on Nov. 12 at the Murfreesboro Convention Center.
Like the sessions before it during the two-day meeting, the closing session focused on celebration and unity as messengers and guests looked back over 150 years of God’s work among Tennessee Baptists and looked forward into a future full of promise and opportunity.
The choir from Forest Hills Baptist Church led the congregation in worship focused on the glory of God and the hope found in Jesus.
Throughout the two-day event, messengers and guests had opportunity to share their “God story” in writing or on video, and a highlight of the final session included video clips of individuals sharing their stories. From salvations to personal healing to ministry opportunities, messengers and guests gave God glory for the way He positioned them to see Him work in their lives and the lives of others.
TBC president Jay Hardwick, senior pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church, delivers the convention sermon at this year’s Summit.
Preaching from Matthew 9:35-10:5, Hardwick reminded the congregation that of the 128,000 additions to the world’s population each day, 12,000 will come to faith in Jesus; 30,000 will have opportunity to hear but reject His message; and 86,000 will live and die without ever hearing the gospel.
“Dr. Paul Chitwood and the IMB remind us that 170,000 people die every day without Christ,” Hardwick said. “Dial that in closer to home. Of the 7 million who call Tennessee home, stats tell us that upwards of 5 million are disconnected from Jesus and His church and heading toward a Christless eternity.”
These numbers are staggering, Hardwick said.
“If lostness is the greatest problem — and it is — and the gospel is the only solution — and it is — but the numbers are so staggering, how will we make a dent? How could we make a dent?” Hardwick asked.
Jesus taught us how to advance together to fulfill the Great Commission as we see Jesus’s heart for the lost, the true condition of lostness, the problem and the opportunity and hear the call to action, Hardwick said.
First, Jesus had a heart for the lost. Healing the sick in His day gave Jesus the opportunity to meet the people’s deeper spiritual needs — needs they may not have realized they had. He did so out of compassion, “a word that speaks to emotion felt in the bowels; literally a gut-wrenching, stomach-turning emotion,” Hardwick said.
“What causes that for you?” Hardwick asked. “Which needs turns your stomach?” For Jesus, it was lostness. “He was broken and shaken to the core over lostness.”
Why? Because Jesus knew the true condition of lostness, Hardwick said. Jesus described the people as “sheep without a shepherd — wandering, clumsy, dead.”
“This is what sin and separation from Christ does to people,” Hardwick said. “They move from addiction to addiction, from relationship to relationship, from possession to possession, looking for something — for life — for anything that might feel like life, only to find themselves feeling more like death.”
“This broke Jesus. It should break us,” Hardwick said, which then leads us to see the problem and the opportunity Jesus presented His disciples.
“The harvest is plentiful,” Hardwick said, quoting Matthew 9:37. “God is at work! There are many to reach, and He is already there — at work among the nations and in your neighborhood!”
Tennessee Baptists have an opportunity to reach the five million across the state who are disconnected from Jesus and His church, but the laborers are few, Hardwick said.
“We’ve been lulled to sleep by our comfort, our convenience, our preferences, our misplaced priorities and our security,” Hardwick said. “Maybe we forgot what it was like to be lost.”
Quoting a friend who served as a Send City missionary with the North American Mission Board for many years, Hardwick said, “The only thing worse than being lost is being lost but knowing no one is looking for you.”
“May we be a people who are always looking!” Hardwick challenged. “May we see a day where it is hard to go to hell from Tennessee! The harvest is here. God is at work. May it never be said of Tennessee Baptists that the workers are few!”
Finally, Hardwick challenged the congregation to hear the call to action in Jesus’s words: Pray, go, and go together.
“We must pray with passion and urgency to the Lord of the harvest,” Hardwick said.
“Lord, move! Lord, send! Lord, use me!”
We must also pray for salvations and for workers. But we must not miss that those Jesus called to pray, He also called to go, Hardwick said.
In Matthew 10, Jesus gave the disciples His power, then He sent them out into the world. “The word, sent, means thrust or throw,” Hardwick said. “Jesus was saying to the disciples, ‘Why are you just standing there? Get outta here!’”
“Will you pray? Will you go? Will we pray and go together? Let’s reach every life in Tennessee so that we can send to every nation from Tennessee,” Hardwick said.
“Tennessee Baptists let’s advance together!” B&R — Lovell has been writing at about Baptist work for more than 25 years. She and her husband, Joe, are members of the Church at Station Hill, a campus of Brentwood Baptist Church.
Pastor Kent Shingleton and his wife, Shawnah, register for Summit with the help of TBMB staff member Carrie Kidd.
