If you check the sky, it’s likely you’re going to see some clouds, Jarman Leatherwood said.
“The Word is very clear that while we are saved by grace and we love the Lord, we are not exempt from dealing with stormy days,” said Leatherwood, pastor of House of Hope and Restoration Church in Huntsville, as he preached the convention sermon at the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 15.
He said Jesus told his followers in John 16:33 that those “clouds” would be there, and that truth is written in other places too.
But there’s also a call to persevere through those stormy trials, Leatherwood said, noting that Paul is an example of that.
“The Apostle Paul picks up his pen to parchment and he writes for us this beautiful novella,” he said, pointing to the 2023 convention theme Scripture, Philippians 3:13–14, which talks about pressing on toward the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ. “When he writes this, he doesn’t write it in the palace, in the suburbs or on the beach. He writes this text from prison.”
But even so, Paul still has joy — he references joy 16 times in his letter to the Philippians, Leatherwood said. “Now we can learn from that because there are times when life happens to us and it seems our joy can be tampered with … but Paul says you can be on death row and still have joy.”
Dealing with trials
When we’re dealing with life’s trials, God still reigns, Leatherwood said. “Nations are going crazy, wars are raging, situations are bad, but God is still on the throne.”
He shared three things from the theme passage that he believes are necessary for Alabama Baptists to joyfully continue doing the work God has called them to do.
- Forget the past but not our purpose.
“There are times when it’s good to look back and pull a memory from your Rolodex and celebrate the goodness of what God has done,” Leatherwood said.
For example, when David fought Goliath, he recalled how God had given him strength to defeat a lion and a bear and knew that God could give him that strength again.
But there are other times when we recall the painful memories of the past and they cripple us, Leatherwood said. He challenged those who were listening to let those memories go and be faithful with the present opportunity.
- Faithfully strive to make forward progress.
Striving means to want something bad enough, to yearn for it, Leatherwood said. “It means to literally give yourself away.”
He told the story of a runner who dove over the finish line because he wanted to make it so badly.
One of the things those who have been in ministry for a while may ask themselves, he noted, is “do you even want it anymore? Are we trying to make forward progress?”
He said he prays that God “would shake us up and give us such a passion that we would yearn for the lost again, that we would yearn for the broken and the hungry.”
- Focus on the prize.
Passion for the lost, Leatherwood said, brings a laser-like focus on what is most important in the life of the believer.
“I want to know Christ, I want to know Him, I want to know the fellowship of His suffering,” he said. “I believe it’s possible for us to spend our whole life in church and never know Him.”
The ultimate prize is knowing Jesus Christ in His fullness, Leatherwood said.
“You know what makes me afraid? Succeeding at something God never told me to do,” he said. “Paul says to press toward the mark.”
That mark is knowing Jesus and taking Him to a dying world, Leatherwood said. “If we don’t finish the work He called us to, it’s possible some others won’t finish theirs. … I believe that it’s important and it’s necessary for God to set your soul on fire to make sure you do the best you can to go and finish the work He started.”
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