Declaring that “God has but one mandate for us,” Don Wilton, pastor of First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, urged South Carolina Baptists to “give it away!”
Don Wilton addresses the messengers to the state convention.“Somehow many of us really struggle to understand what that means,” Wilton acknowledged in the president’s address during the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Taylors. “What it means is simply this, my beloved friends: We are to sing of the wondrous love of Jesus. We must sing and talk and tell about his mercy and grace.”
Although he had planned to preach a 10-point message, Wilton said he had decided instead to deliver “one verse, one illustration, one statement, and one mandate.”
Using John 10:10 for his text, Wilton proclaimed, “It’s not about the size of the church. It’s not about the budget. It’s not our ability to preach or to sing,” he said. “All it is about really is the wondrous love of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Members of First Spartanburg’s ministry team gathered around Wilton on the platform and then began to sing, “When we all get to heaven.”
Afterward, Wilton told about receiving an invitation as part of the Billy Graham team to speak about Jesus to a group of people in Grand Forks, N.D., who had lost everything. As he prepared to speak to an audience of about 300 people, he noticed a man weeping uncontrollably, Wilton recalled.
The man shared with Wilton that he had lost everything – his home, his church and his income – and that he had come to hear Wilton speak. “You don’t need to hear me speak today, but I do have a suggestion for you,” Wilton told him. “I want you to walk outside of this Holiday Inn, and the very first person you come to, I want you to walk up and say to them, ‘Would you like to give your heart to Jesus?’
“My friend, don’t be afraid,” Wilton coaxed. “Just go and give it away.”
The perplexed man left the meeting, but near the end of his message Wilton looked up and saw the man standing in the doorway. “Only this time his countenance was different,” Wilton noted.
Another man, who was dressed in a suit and holding a briefcase, stood next to him. “You won’t believe this,” the first man told Wilton. At first he had thought, “I’m not going to just walk up to anybody. What is this preacher thinking? I don’t know how to do this,” the man confided. But then he had recalled how Wilton had insisted, “Just give it away.”
When he asked the other man if he wanted to give his heart to Jesus, the other man replied, “How did you know?” The other man then shared how his marriage had just ended and his whole life was collapsing around him, opened his briefcase and showed him a suicide note.
Youth ministers, including Jeff Stillwell of Cayce, Seth Buckley of Spartanburg, Joey Turner of Easley and Cory Singleton of the SCBC staff, sing following an interpretation of the convention’s theme, “Give It Away,” by Don Wilton.“I didn’t know,” the first man responded. “I’m just coming to give it away, because I know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and what Jesus has done for me, he will do exactly the same for you,” he told the other man.
Kneeling in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, that man had the privilege of leading another to Jesus Christ, Wilton rejoiced.
Reminding South Carolina Baptists that Jesus said he had come to give us abundant life, Wilton stated, “It’s time, my beloved South Carolina Baptists, for us to give it away. We don’t need another message.
“I’m asking each one of us, ‘What are we doing with this Jesus?'” Wilton continued. “What do you suppose God is telling us to do?” he asked.
“Whether it be a book, a message, a hand on the shoulder, a gift to the Cooperative Program, a song you sing, a cup of juice you serve at Vacation Bible School, a bus you drive, a mile you travel, a pat on the back you give, a visit you make in the hospital, a telephone call, a letter you write, perhaps just one little word of encouragement,” he pleaded. “If Jesus told us, ‘I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it abundantly,’ I stand before you tonight to tell you I believe that with all my heart. And that, by God’s grace, I want to give it away.”
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