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Dan Summerlin: Convention Sermon
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Dan Summerlin, senior pastor of Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Paducah, preached the annual meeting message. Speaking from Acts 1, he recalled Jesus’ instructions to the disciples to "be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth." After issuing the command, Christ ascended leaving the disciples looking into the sky even after they no longer could see Him.
The disciples then were joined by two angels who chided them, asking "Why do you stand looking into heaven?”
"Jesus tells them what to do, but it takes two angels to come to tell them to do it," Summerlin observed. The disciples "were gazing instead of going.”
Summerlin said the disciples’ reaction is not surprising "because of what they had just witnessed" and "the impossible task they received.”
"God loves to give us impossible assignments,"Summerlin said. "If all we’re going to do is what we can do in our own power, we don’t need God.”
Physical and financial impossibilities make it imperative that Christians act in faith and not their own strength.
"If you try to work this out on paper, it will never work. We don’t have a money problem, we have an obedience problem.”
Summerlin encouraged Kentucky Baptists: "Anytime God gives you an impossible assignment, He has a plan and He will give you the power.”
