{"id":45791,"date":"2023-11-14T21:06:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T02:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridabaptist.wpengine.com\/?p=45791"},"modified":"2025-11-04T16:18:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:18:37","slug":"green-proclaims-jesus-christ-is-same-yesterday-today-and-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/green-proclaims-jesus-christ-is-same-yesterday-today-and-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"Green: \u2018Jesus Christ is same yesterday, today and forever\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUTZ\u00ad\u2013Delivering a passionate and personal sermon to messengers gathered for the 2023 Florida Baptist State Convention<\/a> annual meeting, Tommy Green, Florida Baptists\u2019 executive director-treasurer proclaimed, \u201cJesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green shared that through the course of his 46-year-ministry, he has served in a variety of contexts, including \u201ca rural church, a First Baptist red brick church, a white column church on the city square and a suburban church in a growing area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Focused on Hebrews 13:8, Green said, \u201cThe journey of faith and ministry has many challenges and changes. While the contexts of ministry are different, the constant of faith and ministry never moves.<\/p>\n

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“In every season of life and ministry, Jesus Christ is the same. The same Christ who meets you on the top of the mountain is the Christ who meets you in the depth of the valley. The same Christ who sustains you in the good times is the Christ who sustains you in the hard times. He is the same.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tommy Green<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIn every season of life and ministry, Jesus Christ is the same. The same Christ who meets you on the top of the mountain is the Christ who meets you in the depth of the valley. The same Christ who sustains you in the good times is the Christ who sustains you in the hard times. He is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green taught, \u201cThe victory of Christ is declared in the Old Testament.\u201d<\/p>\n

God\u2019s response to Moses in Exodus 3:14, \u201cI am that I am,\u201d reflects God\u2019s truth, \u201cI will continually be what I repeatedly have been! I will always be what I have always been! I am the same yesterday, today and forever!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Green continued, \u201cThe great \u2018I am\u2019 is revealed throughout the Old Testament and is fulfilled in Jesus Christ!\u201d<\/p>\n

The same Christ who died, was buried and resurrected in the New Testament is the same Christ who promises to return and claim His Bride, the Church.<\/p>\n

On Easter Sunday 1977 Green recalled preaching his first sermon. \u201cI was not trained in homiletics or hermeneutics, did not know Greek or Hebrew, did not understand the proper way to exegete a text.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, because Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, the husband of a relative heard the gospel that day and accepted Christ as his Savior.<\/p>\n

Green shared that the truth of Hebrews 13:8 became even more personalized in his life in 2023. \u201cThis year has been a year that everything I thought I could stand on was just knocked out from under me, both professionally and personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, on May, 5, Green learned that the Florida Baptist Convention was the victim of cyberfraud<\/a> and had \u201csent money to what we thought was a partner in ministry but it turned out to be thieves who stole the money. That\u2019s a challenging moment.\u201d Green contacted the State Board of Missions who provided leadership through the experience of investigating the cyberfraud attack. Considering his role with Florida Baptists not as a job but as a \u201csacred stewardship of trusted resources,\u201d Green said, \u201cEverything in my life was shaken,\u201d even to the point that he offered his resignation to the State Board of Missions, who would not accept it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want Florida Baptists to thrive because there is too much at stake in this state,\u201d he said. The investigative report, presented to the State Board of Missions on Aug. 24-25, revealed no criminal engagement \u201cfrom anybody that was a part of our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry for what happened,\u201d he said, stating that the Convention is now \u201cbetter and stronger\u201d because protocols and training have been established to prevent such an occurrence from happening again.<\/p>\n

Then, on Aug. 28, as he and his wife, Karen, were watching updates on Hurricane Idalia making landfall in Florida, Green said that he did not know about \u201cthe hurricane that was about to come into my life and Karen\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n

That afternoon, he received a phone call which led him to head to South Florida to check on the welfare of his middle son, who was unreachable by phone. When Green arrived at his son\u2019s home, \u201cOur worst thoughts were reality.\u201d Their 41-year-old son, Philip, had died unexpectedly on his kitchen floor from heart failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never anticipate a day that you will stand and watch your son being rolled out on a gurney from his house. It was the worst day of my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bible says that \u2018Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning.\u2019 We\u2019re still in the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green thanked the Florida Baptist family for its love, support and prayers through the loss of their son, \u201cfor being the heart and the hands and the voice of Christ in our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the year, Green said that he had begun working on his sermon, focusing on this particular passage of Scripture. \u201cGod knows all things, doesn\u2019t He?<\/p>\n

\u201cI can stand before you today with a heart that is broken and still crushed, but I can testify\u2013and Karen can testify\u2013in our lives of the goodness and the faithfulness of the Lord and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delivering a passionate and personal sermon to messengers gathered for the 2023 Florida Baptist State Convention annual meeting, Tommy Green, Florida Baptists\u2019 executive director-treasurer proclaimed, \u201cJesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":50404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,39,40,11,19,22,23,45,25],"tags":[41,495,44,200],"class_list":["post-45791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-annual-meeting-archive","category-developing","category-expanding","category-news","category-providing","category-sharing","category-statewide","category-stories","tag-fbsc23","tag-florida-baptist-state-convention-2023","tag-florida-baptist-state-convention-tampa","tag-tommy-green"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64714,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45791\/revisions\/64714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}