{"id":69705,"date":"2025-11-11T16:06:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T21:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/?p=69705"},"modified":"2025-11-14T12:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T17:21:18","slug":"stephen-rummage-the-mission-is-far-from-finished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/stephen-rummage-the-mission-is-far-from-finished\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Rummage: \u2018The mission is far from finished\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stephen Rummage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ORLANDO\u2013At the 2025 Florida Baptist annual meeting, Stephen Rummage, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, delivered a call for attendees to proclaim Jesus personally, consistently and together.<\/p>\n

In a sermon titled Gospel Demands, Rummage focused on Romans 10:13-17 and said that the Scripture identifies a \u201cchain of gospel demands.\u201d<\/p>\n

In these verses, he stated that the Apostle Paul \u201creverse engineers the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rummage said the Apostle Paul \u201cstarts with the picture on the box\u2014people getting saved\u2014and then he works backward to show what it takes for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida Baptist churches celebrated more than 30,701 baptisms in 2024, the highest in a decade, he said. Still there are millions of Floridians who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mission is far from finished,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

The first gospel demand, he said, is \u201ccrying out to Jesus (v. 13).\u201d This demand reflects a \u201cspecific cry to a specific person. It means crying out to the only One who can make a difference: His name is Jesus,\u201d Rummage said.<\/p>\n

The promise accompanying this call is, \u201cThose who cry out to the Lord Jesus will be saved, now and eternally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rummage shared the story of a sailor named Steve Callahan, who lost his sailboat in 1982 and was forced to survive in a raft for 76 days. \u201cThat raft was his only hope,\u201d said Rummage. \u201cIn the same way, Jesus Christ is the one lifeline God has provided every sinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second gospel demand, Rummage pointed out, is \u201ctrusting Jesus (v. 14).\u201d He explained, \u201cSaving faith is not just believing about something. Saving faith is trusting Someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He encouraged pastors in attendance to commit to \u201cgive people an opportunity to trust Jesus for salvation each time I stood to speak in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third gospel demand, Rummage said, is \u201chearing Jesus (v. 14, 17).\u201d Rummage explained, \u201cIn gospel proclamation, people don\u2019t just hear information about Jesus. They hear Jesus Himself speak. Jesus Himself joins the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rummage pointed to Radiant City Church in Boca Raton, a three-year-old church plant that recently baptized 13 people, including eight football players from Florida Atlantic University.<\/p>\n

Pastor Cliff McCray, a former college football player and chaplain for the FAU football team \u201chas opened up relationship bridges for players to hear the gospel,\u201d Rummage said.<\/p>\n

The fourth gospel demand, Rummage stated, is \u201cpreaching Jesus (v. 14).” To preach means \u201cto proclaim a message with authority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreachers must proclaim the gospel just as God gave it in His Word,\u201d Rummage stated.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Romans 10:15, Rummage admitted his feet are not beautiful in human eyes, but the \u201cfeet of gospel messengers are beautiful, not because of how they look, but because of the message they carry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 feet are \u201canother set of beautiful feet at the heart of the gospel,\u201d he said. Jesus\u2019 feet were beautiful but marred with the stakes that were driven through His feet. \u201cThose ugly wounds became a beautiful sign of love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rummage challenged attendees to proclaim Jesus personally, consistently and together, pointing out that the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, scheduled to be held in June 2026 in Orlando, offers a \u201csignificant opportunity to preach Jesus.\u201d Prior to the annual meeting, June 1-7, Crossover Orlando, which he described as \u201ca movement of evangelism,\u201d is being planned and organized.<\/p>\n

Florida Baptists are praying for 1,000 churches to participate in Crossover Orlando, 10,000 gospel conversations to be held and 1,000 people to make professions of faith.<\/p>\n

The fifth gospel demand, Rummage said, is \u201csending preachers (v. 15).\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained, \u201cThe gospel chain begins with the Lord Jesus who sends. And Jesus sends through His body, the Church. That\u2019s why churches must be sending churches. Sending is not optional. It\u2019s essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rummage concluded, \u201cWe can thank God for what He has done,\u201d noting that Southern Baptists\u2019 greatest year of baptisms was 1972, when 445,725 people were baptized.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur greatest year for evangelistic missions doesn\u2019t have to be a record in some dusty history book. There\u2019s still more ground to cover, more people to reach, more steps to take if we are going to break through \u2026 lostness with the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked, \u201cWill Baptists ever get back to the harvest?\u201d and he answered, \u201cI believe we can. And, I believe that God has called Florida Baptist churches to lead the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO\u2013At the 2025 Florida Baptist annual meeting, Stephen Rummage, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, delivered a call for attendees to proclaim Jesus personally, consistently and together. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":69706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2894,38,2617,19,45,25],"tags":[1058,2975,2976,2974],"class_list":["post-69705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2025-annual-meeting","category-annual-meeting","category-featured","category-news","category-statewide","category-stories","tag-fbsc25","tag-gospel-demands","tag-sermons","tag-stephem-rummage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69705","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=69705"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69756,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69705\/revisions\/69756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}