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CORPUS CHRISTI?”We’re not there yet. We’ve seen God do incredible things, but we are not there yet,” Odessa pastor Byron McWilliams said Nov. 15 in his address to messengers at the SBTC Annual Meeting in Corpus Christi.
Like Paul, writing in Philippians 3, the churches of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention must forget what is behind and press forward “what God has in the future,” McWilliams said.
The SBTC has been blessed with “amazing and explosive growth since 1998” and unlike many state convention is “not playing catch up with the CP.” Holding true to what has already been attained, “we must always remember that we have not arrived, Southern Baptists of Texas.”
Paul in Philippians 3:12-13 is looking toward a future resurrection, which makes any present suffering or affliction bearable, McWilliams noted.
With God’s blessing, “you better be aware that Satan is out there seeing it also” and “wants to bring division into this convention,” McWilliams warned.
To stay on course, he said, the SBTC must remember that “we have not arrived,” to “put our whole heart in the race” and run it with “single-minded focus,” and “honor our namesake in all we do.”
“We must never cease to put our whole heart in the race,” said McWilliams, adding that Paul took a stand against “autopilot Christianity” and “cruise control Christianity.”
“I am praying that in my lifetime we can see a great awakening occur such that occurred during the time of those magnificent preachers of years ago,” McWilliams said. “And they lifted up Jesus Christ. They didn’t come in and model hipster Christianity. And they didn’t come in and try to be cool, because cool was not important to them. What they did was they came in and opened up the Word of God and preached a message about Jesus Christ because Jesus and Jesus Christ alone is the one who does the saving.”
Saying he came under conviction about this in his own life, McWilliams stated, “When you lift Jesus up people come to know him.”
Striving toward the goal of God’s upward calling, Paul modeled a “sanctified ambition for God” and “to be all God wants and nothing less.”
“I pray to God that he would raise a host of young men and young women with a sanctified ambition?. We need those with a sanctified ambition to go out and serve God.”
Finally, “Paul’s big goal was to live up to his namesake” and Southern Baptists in Texas must do the same, McWilliams said.
Noting that God’s blessing on the SBTC is evidenced by its growth from about 120 founding churches and a $900,000 budget in 1998 to more than 2,280 churches and a $25.4 million budget today, “we’re not there yet.”
“Our goal is to honor our namesake, the Lord Jesus Christ, in everything we do.”
