For a pastor who admittedly loves using points in his messages, Stuart Davidson shared only one during his theme interpretation sermon at the Alabama Baptist State Convention (ABSC) annual meeting — repent.
Davidson, pastor of Eastern Shore Baptist Church, Daphne, where the annual meeting was held, illustrated the “R” in the meeting’s theme “PRAY” — “Renew a right spirit within us.”
In Psalm 51, David had been confronted by Nathan about his adulterous acts with Bathsheba. It’s not until verse 10 that David repents of his sin and asks God to create in him a pure heart and to renew a steadfast spirit.
Davidson too was fleeing repentance in his own life just a few years ago, he said.
In 2009 he said the Lord was speaking to him through Scripture but at every command Davidson would say “no.”
“When the call came to me to care for those whom no one else cares about or to be a father to the fatherless, I said no every time,” Davidson said, speaking specifically about the call to adopt a child.
It wasn’t until 2012 that the “seed and a burden for people who had never heard the gospel was planted in me.” A couple at his church at the time, First Baptist Church, Montgomery, traveled to Moldova to adopt a little girl.
“When they brought her home the Lord did something inside of me,” Davidson said. “I knew God was calling me to do what they did, to follow their example (and adopt), and even though every time I saw them I felt confronted by this call, time and time again I said no.”
When Davidson was called as pastor of Eastern Shore Baptist the call to be a “father to the fatherless” stuck with him — but he still did not obey.
‘Make a call’
At the 2012 ABSC annual meeting Davidson felt the Lord asking him to make a decision.
“I had all the trappings of a holy, godly, obedient person but the problem was I was being disobedient and I was not repentant about it,” he said.
He said he heard the Lord asking him, “Are you going to be obedient or not? Stop deceiving yourself thinking you’re being obedient and playing a game in front of your church. Make a call.”
Davidson said he was broken on the drive home and repented, called his wife and the couple soon began the long process of international adoption.
About a year in, the adoption agency called them and told them about a little boy in China, ready for adoption.
“His parents had abandoned him. He weighed less than a pound. They left him in a box on the side of the road and by some miracle a Chinese police officer found him and took him to the hospital where they kept him for only 30 minutes before sending him to an orphanage to be cared for in his last days.”
But God had different plans.
“My wife and I traveled a great distance at a great cost and we found him. He didn’t earn it. He didn’t ask for it. But we came, we took him home, gave him a new family, a new purpose, a new name, a new future for his life.
“As sad and brutal of a story as that is, that is where each and every one of us is without Jesus Christ.”
Lost. In a box. On the side of the road.
Ripple effect
“But there is a Father who lives a great distance away who at a great price purchased me and purchased you. He came, He got us, He brought us home, He gave us a new life. So repent. … We think repentance is here in this moment and only has to deal with (ourselves) but the reality is that repentance has a ripple effect, just like disobedience has a ripple effect.”
Davidson said as he repented and obeyed God’s call he became a better husband and a better father to his other two sons along with his son, Jett, from China.
“How many of us are making all the right calls but still disobeying? The ripple effect of obedience is immeasurable and God can use it to set captives free.”
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