Thweatt challenges messengers to take risks for Christ, share gospel without hesitation

John Thweatt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Pell City, in St. Clair Baptist Association urged messengers to take risks for Christ during the convention sermon at the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Huntsville. 
   
Sticking to the convention’s theme of Intentional Evangelism, Thweatt challenged the congregation to look to Paul’s model in Philippians 1:20–21. 
   
For many years, Thweatt said, “I never had to worry about laying down my life for Christ. When I was in seminary in Dallas, I did a little street preaching, but I never knew what it was to fear for my life.” 
   
That changed with his missions trips to Kenya, where, for the first time, he encountered real danger in professing Christ.
   
“As we were going to the villages to preach, the driver would tell us to get our hands inside the car and roll up the windows,” Thweatt said. “There were people on both sides of the road. There were junkyards and dumps.”
   
His group visited the villages that were considered safe for American visitors, reaching some of the lost, while he continued to think about the people in the area they drove through. “I asked, ‘Why don’t we preach there?’” Thweatt recalled. “They told me we couldn’t go there because it was too dangerous.”
   
Determined to go to the area that had touched his heart, he was instructed to leave his ring, watch and passport behind and take only enough money to get there and back. Thweatt and two others went, not knowing what to expect. 
   
That night, 80 people came to Christ. 
   
“It was even scarier the next night,” he said. “They knew we were coming. One hundred and twenty people came forward. We knew what Paul meant when Tweatt  said, ‘To live is Christ.’”
   
The group returned to Kenya several times. Conditions deteriorated.Once, when they were planning to go, the State Department issued a warning to American citizens not to travel to Kenya. 
   
Thweatt and his team felt compelled to go anyway.  
   
“We were determined to go,” he said. “We made sure everyone understood the risks. We told them to make sure they knew this was the will of God.” 
   
Twenty people went and when the group arrived, they learned that the U.S. Embassy had closed.
   
“We were on our own, but we felt led by God to stay and preach. We saw more people come to Christ than any other time we had been there,” Thweatt said. “When was the last time you took a risk for Jesus?”
   
He pointed out that “we have taught our children that following Christ is safe.” 
   
“I’m not against safety but I hate that it has transferred over to our Christianity,” Thweatt said.
   
“The second question we ask is how much it will cost. It shouldn’t be how much it will cost, but what it will cost if we don’t go.”
   
He described several Old Testament heroes who took risks for God.
   
“Abraham left everything he had ever known to go to an unknown place for God,” Thweatt said. “I can imagine the conversation he had with Sarah. ‘What should I pack?’ ‘Everything.’ ‘Where are we going?’ ‘I don’t know.’”
   
Citing the stories of Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Esther and others, he drew truths for the modern Christian from their examples.
   
Moving to the New Testament, Thweatt said, “Tell Paul that the ministry is supposed to be safe. Ministry will cost you. It requires a risk. We will be burned, will be abused. We may lose our lives. Following God means we are faced with the same risks Paul faced. Do we run or face the risk?
   
“Ministry will cost you because you cannot stay where you are and follow Christ,” he said. “It takes precedence over everything.”
   
Inviting the congregation to go with him on an imaginary trip to the graves of those who gave their lives for Christ, Thweatt declared, “Ask them if it was worth it. The answer would be a resounding ‘Yes!’
   
“We must use the gifts God has given us,” he said. “Are you willing to take risks, whether it means going across the street or across the ocean? When was the last time you took a risk?”