Guarneri: Focus on God’s faithfulness, not giant challenges

PEARLAND—In spite of giant obstacles, God’s people cannot afford to be paralyzed by fear or retreat to the past, Julio Guarneri told the Convención Bautista Hispana de Texas.

Guarneri, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, preached at the opening session of the Convención annual meeting June 30 at Parkway Church in Pearland.

The Old Testament book of Numbers tells how Moses sent advance scouts into the Promised Land. All 12 agreed about the land’s fertility, but 10 delivered negative news about “giants” who dwelled there.

The Israelites had witnessed the mighty acts of God, who delivered his people from bondage in Egypt. Even so, they focused on the obstacles rather than on the God who was capable of overcoming them, Guarneri said.

“Sometimes, we feel we are too small. We don’t see what God can do through us,” he said.

The majority was “paralyzed” by fear when they considered the giants who lived in the land, Guarneri said.

Today, America faces real giants, he observed, pointing to political division, anger that infects families and churches, and confusion about gender and sexuality, he noted.

Texas faces the giant challenge of a burgeoning population and churches that are failing to keep pace with that growth, he added.

“It’s almost 2,000 years after the Resurrection, and we still haven’t fulfilled Christ’s Great Commission,” Guarneri lamented.

When the Israelites heard the negative report from the 10 scouts, some voiced a desire to return to Egypt—forgetting the cruelty of life in bondage.

Similarly, when confronted with giant obstacles today, some Christians want to return to an idealized view of the past, when at least the challenges were familiar, Guarneri suggested.

“Hispanic Baptists have a great legacy, but God never calls his people to go back to the past,” he said.

Christians rightly look to the past to recall God’s faithfulness and to learn from mistakes, Guarneri noted. But they should not seek to retreat to the past when God is calling them to advance into the future.

Just as two scouts—Caleb and Joshua­—challenged the people of God to claim the land God had promised them, Hispanic Baptists in Texas should catch the vision of what God can do through them, he asserted.

“Hispanic Baptists, our moment is now,” Guarneri said. “Now is the time to win Texas for Christ and mobilize churches to fulfill the Great Commission.”