Final Passages For Our Journey
On Sunday, February 16, 2014 I preached my final sermon as Senior Pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Carrollton, GA. For more than thirteen years I wrote a column in the church’s weekly newsletter, The Tidings, called “Passages For Our Journey.” While there wasn’t a column every week, there was the vast majority of that decade plus three years. My “final” column was published on February 12. It also appeared in the Worship Folder, with a couple of edits, on February 16.
These are my final passages for our journey together. For more than thirteen years I have written in this space hundreds of times. Periodically I’ve not written due to an overload of events that needed to be highlighted. That is a good thing! This area of The Tidings, though, has been traditionally reserved for the senior pastor. My humble prayer is that each time I have written you have sensed the genuineness of my heart.
Charles Dickens made this observation long ago: “It is a disquieting thought to do anything for the last time.” Writing in this space for the last time is disquieting for me. But this is especially true as I actually do other things for the last time as Christ’s under-shepherd at Tabernacle. Monday, for example, I attended my last staff and pastoral team meeting. There are many other things I will miss. Space does not allow me to enumerate those.
As I indicated in my resignation to the church on Sunday morning, February 2, over the course of these thirteen years I can honestly say that I have gotten up each day excited about being the Senior Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church and sometime, during each day, expressed gratitude to the Lord for this privilege and responsibility that He granted to me. I believe I have pastored Tabernacle faithfully and obediently in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ since I officially became senior pastor on Sunday, December 31, AD 2000. I’ll find out for certain on Judgment Day when I stand before Christ and give an account of my labors here. I pray He will find me to have been faithful.
Our daughter, Emily, was 13 and our son, Nicholas, was 10 when we arrived. Now she is a married woman expecting her first child with our son-in-law, Robert Browning. Nicholas is doing a good and important work in his job in the Tanner Health System at Willowbrook. At this moment he is going to pursue a career in psychiatric nursing. Their lives are better because they passed through Tabernacle. Jackie’s is, too. And so is mine.
I can’t express, in words, my feeling for you. My love for Tabernacle is beyond words. I believe you truly know my heart. While I know for certain that I made the right decision to step down as Senior Pastor there is still an emptiness that weighs heavily in my heart. I’m sure there will be days when my heart aches for you. And when it does, I’ll say a prayer for you and me and give thanks for the season we spent together—a season, from my vantage point, that was all too short.
Jackie and I are looking forward to the next chapter in our future. We aren’t sure what it is, but we are sure as to Who holds it. God has a plan and in His Sovereignty, He will allow us to join with Him in writing another script. Plus we have a granddaughter who is due on March 6. We are so looking forward to that.
I humbly ask you to gather with Jackie and me this Lord’s Day, February 16 for a final moment of worship together. That is what I’ve sought to lead us to do throughout these thirteen years: worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I will seek to do that one more time.
The late Christian comedian, Grady Nutt, made this observation a good while before his death. “To me, this is the essence of living: to look back on life with a solid smile and say, ‘I’m glad I did that!’”
Jackie and I will look back in years to come and reflect on my being Senior Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church. I am most confident that she will say, “I’m glad you did that.” I am most confident that I will also say, “I’m glad I did that, too.”
Much love, joy, and peace to you always as you gladly go into your future with the Lord’s blessing and ours. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen and Amen.