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JAMES A. SMITH SR.
Executive Editor
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OCALA (FBW) – In times of “frustration and failure,” Christians must “turn to the great Transformer, the creative Christ who makes all things new,” Hayes Wicker preached Nov. 14 in his president’s message at the Florida Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Ocala.
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Preaching from Luke 5:1-11, in which Jesus causes Peter and other soon-to-be-disciples to experience a great catch of fish after a night of failure, Wicker urged messengers to seek Christ’s transformational work in their ministries.
“I believe in this Convention God is saying to us, it’s transformation time; let’s shove off,” said Wicker, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Naples, who was re-elected to a second presidential term the next day.
Wicker said that Jesus transforms “spectators into students,” noting that Jesus had “commandeered Peter’s boat as a pulpit and taught the Word of God to those who were pressing in” to hear Him preach.
The Bible, Wicker insisted, is always the context for transformation.
“The Bible is the bedrock of our ministry. And when the storm surges of life come and the hurricane winds blow, the key is that we are to be the wise men Jesus said who build our houses on the rock of the Word, who hear the Word and heed the Word, as Jesus said in Matt. 7:24,” he preached.
“We as Southern Baptists, in a very real sense, have won the battle for the Bible over the inerrancy of Scripture. But the battle continues over the authority of Scripture, the application of the Scripture, the implementation of truth,” Wicker added.
“Everything we do, every message we give must be according to the Scriptures. That’s why a pastor cannot have the luxury of saying I will be loose with the Word of God. He has no right to say, I will skim over the top of the truth.”
Wicker decried the “dearth” of expository preaching in churches today.
“God has called us not just to use the Word in casual reference, but to seek the silver and mine the gold and dig for the diamonds in the Word of God and preach the Word,” he said.
Wicker said Jesus also transforms “obstacles into opportunities,” recalling how Peter’s night of fishing produced no results.
Wicker said that Florida Baptists often do not understand that “God wants to transform failure into faith. … He is wonderfully present, even in the nighttime, even if you fished those shoals of your local lake and seemingly have caught nothing.”
Contrary to a practice of faith, Wicker said, some pastors want God to answer their pleas “big, loud, fast, with no suffering and on demand.”
Recalling a cartoon of two Eskimos fishing with one having made a manhole size hole in the ice and the other having made a whale-sized hole, “Jesus wants us to have a whale-size vision. He wants to look out and see,” Wicker declared.
Wicker noted that his church’s vision to re-locate its facilities was stymied by the opposition of one man for a period of time who would not permit a 700 foot easement for the property. The church’s response was to seek “the Lord in prayer, fasting and repentance” and eventually God allowed an alternative easement.
“And when Hurricane Wilma hit recently and all the power was out, it was out everywhere else except in that grid with our church. All over town people were saying, is the power on at the church? Amen! The power is on! He fills and He floods and He flows when there is vision in spite of failure.”
Wicker preached that Jesus transforms “struggle into surrender.”
“The issue is for Peter to say, ‘yes Lord, even if there has been failure and even if [with a] lack of vision, yet I will do as you say.’”
Although Americans are “fixated on rights,” Wicker said that Christians must recognize that they have “no rights under His Lordship. I have privileges; I have possibilities; but I have no rights. Jesus has the right to tell me what to do. … Our obedience is not out of rules, but relationship; not under the law, but in grace; not out of fear, but of love.”
Wicker added, “It is faith that Jesus is looking for. Will He find faith in Florida when He comes again? We ask in every venture, where’s the faith? Where’s the faith? He’s looking in the committee meeting; He’s walking in the deacon’s meeting; He’s looking in the staff meeting. Where’s the faith?”
Jesus also “transforms our struggles when we surrender in confession,” Wicker said.
“Like a weightless astronaut, the people of our culture are saying, just give me a sign that this is up or this is down. We have misunderstood virtue and morality for tolerance,” he said, noting when Peter came into the presence of Christ he became aware of his sinfulness.
“There is a deep need in our Convention today for revival, to hunger not for tolerance or even virtue, but holiness and confession and say, Oh, God I am a sinner,” Wicker asserted.
Noting, “in the original language” of the text “Jesus is southerner,” Wicker said Jesus transforms “isolation into cooperation.”
“All you all, He says. All of you, let down your nets,” Wicker said, pointing to signs of cooperation throughout the account.
“That’s what we do in a Convention like this. We are signaling for you to come over and help us, to stand with one mind and one faith and one purpose and take hold of our great commission, and recommit ourselves to the Cooperative Program, and to preaching the Word of God and reaching and discipleling people and worshipping the living God together toward tomorrow,” he said.
Finally, Wicker said Jesus transforms “career into commission.”
Jesus changed Peter from a fisherman to a fisher of men, Wicker said. “He said from now on Peter you will be catching men – literally … it means taking men alive.”
At one point in his life, Wicker said Jesus “showed me that I must not be a reservoir, but a river; not just Bible-centered, but others-oriented as well; not just evangelical, but evangelistic; not even just local-church oriented, but missionary minded for the whole world.” Although “there have been times in my ministry when I thought the shoals were shallow and the fishing was dead and maybe I needed to launch out to another lake somewhere else,” Wicker said, “Jesus recommissioned me,” adding, “We believe that everyone can reach people for Christ, but only when we fulfill all things through Christ who strengthens us.”