Lamentations 3:23; Nehemiah 2:18
December 6, 2019
Harding Theological College’s Centenary Celebration, Tura, India
Faith
“Be faithful” is often what we say. Sometimes when someone we know who is sick, we would say, “Be faithful.” If someone is at a fork in life not knowing which path to take, we might say, “Be faithful.” To be faithful means that we believe that there is always a tomorrow. After the night, there is a new morning. And if there’s some anger or conflict, being faithful means that when we trust our lives in God’s merciful hands, love never ceases because there is always a faithful hope.
100 years ago, Frederick W. Harding, born in England, went to school in America, and was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1907, had the faith to come to the Garo Mission. Here in Assam, he wrote a book, Indigenous Christianity in Assam. Dr. Harding was faithful to his calling by God to share the Good News of Jesus Christ to the Garos and other tribes in Northeast India. In 1919, Dr. Harding founded the Tura Bible Training School. To honor Dr. Harding, you have named this college in his name for the glory of God.
When I was growing up at the First Baptist Church in Boston, Massachusetts, our Sunday school superintendent was a woman named Margaret Jordan. She would teach us the great hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” We kids would laugh sometimes when Mrs. Jordan would have a hard time flipping a chart with the lyrics of this hymn. This was way before powerpoint projectors and smart phones. It was a flipchart. After a while, we had memorized the words and could sing the hymn but Mrs. Jordan still wanted to use the flipchart. Margaret Jordan was faithful in being our Sunday school superintendent.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are exhorted to be faithful. But this great hymn and the Lamentations 3:23 passage is about God being faithful to us! When we stumble, God’s faithfulness is here. When we doubt, God’s faithfulness is here. When we find ourselves at the worst place we can ever imagine, God’s faithfulness to us is here.
In Lamentations 3:22, we read God’s “steadfast love.” This is God’s covenant loyalty to continue to exercise mercy and love, even when outward events and the darkness and distress of the situation makes it appear that God is working against you. When God’s character as a loving and merciful God is remembered, assurances can arise. God’s love and mercies will not cease or come to an end, even in the midst of all the dire calamities of life.
This assurance from God is the conviction that these realities emerge “new every morning,” and this leads us in praise: “Great is your faithfulness.” God’s covenant love is complemented by God’s covenant faithfulness.
We often emphasize the part that we need to be faithful when in truth, God’s faithfulness to us as well as to others as well as for the entire world is here, there and everywhere! Morning by morning, new mercies come from God. And we get another opportunity to do God’s work on earth.
This is really miraculous! Even when we falter in faith, God will never abandon us. Even when we forget God, God is always ready to fill your lives with mercies and love. Even when we outrightly deny God, like Peter did, God’s love never ceases, mercies come, and a new morning is about to break out again and again.
You know that ministers and pastors also have doubts and sometimes we become unfaithful, weak in faith, and can even lose faith. Growing up in Boston, I was baptized when I was around 16 years old. After all of the joy of being on a mountaintop and excitement of being baptized, I came crashing down. I thought I was going to be walking above the ground. I thought I would never sin or act in unChristian ways again. But the euphoria only lasted for a few days and I was down on earth again.
Soon after signing up for more Baptism classes with my pastor, I learned that my young faith will mature in time. I discovered that being faithful is a lifelong journey where there are ups and downs. And when we encounter suffering, Apostle Paul said,
When we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)
“We are justified by faith with peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2)
At this milestone centenary anniversary, we are boasting about Harding Theological College because you have been faithful for 100 years and throughout these many years, God’s faithfulness has been with you and is with you today. We are boasting with hope because our Lord Jesus Christ has justified us with God.
Service
Our baptism is like our ticket to begin our journey in discipleship. We are disciples of Jesus Christ learning his words and deeds, following in his footsteps, engaging the world in our Christian witness of what’s right from what is wrong, and discovering in the course of our life times what is the cost of discipleship for me, for you, for all of us.
This is Christian service like how faith is also depicted in Harding’s college seal. As students, you are disciples committed to Christian service. You don’t have the option of waiting until you graduate from Harding. Jesus Christ is calling you into Christian service now and for the rest of your lives.
Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14-16)
When you step out to share your faith in the world, it’s often challenging if not dangerous. Christians are still being persecuted because of their beliefs. When our workplaces are intimidating and not welcoming places to have theological conversations, we are left voiceless. When and where have you tried to share your Christian service only to be ostracized and perhaps persecuted?
During America’s war in Vietnam some 50 years ago, I became a conscientious objector. This means that as the result of my Christian faith, I would not serve my country in war. I can’t take another person’s life just because my country declared them to be my enemies. My alleged enemies are also created in the image of God like I am. I can only see them as my friends.
This means that my Christian service cannot be used in fighting a war. To be true and faithful to my own discipleship, I was ready to perform alternative service, just not going to war to take another of God’s creation’s life. For those who believed I was unpatriotic, I was stigmatized as being disloyal. For those who didn’t believe in the war we had in Vietnam, I became a symbol of Christian pacifism.
After graduating from seminary, I gave my life to Christ as a pastor for the past 45 years. My Christian service has led me to become a vegetarian because I continue to see not just human beings as God’s creation but also the great plethora of creation including living creatures on the land, in the sea and up in the sky. My convictions to not have any of God’s creatures give up their lives for me to eat is an ongoing witness to others to live and thrive in Christian service.
My Christian service includes a commitment in creation justice that helps persons and churches to become more environmentally sustainable in light of global warming that we are seeing that are causing devastating consequences around the world. The horrible wildfires that are happening regularly for the past 3 years in California is an example that we need to do whatever we can to care for the earth that God has provided for us to live.
What is your Christian service in Tura, in Northeast India, with your particular tribal group, and in your own life as a witness of God’s plan? What is Christian service for Harding Theological College as you celebrate God’s faithfulness?
This is not an option for you as a person of faith. When we declare publicly in our baptism in Christ, we are then empowered and sent out to be the light in darkness, to speak up for what is right against the world’s evil and perform Christian service in order to heal a broken world.
Unity
The third word in Harding’s college seal is unity. God’s plan for creation is that we are in unity with one another. When Adam found himself to be alone, God created Eve for him so that they can be in union. When the Hebrew tribes were not watching out for each other, God made them one nation in Israel. Even when God gave the Israelites the Promised Land, God instructed them to welcome the alien, the stranger, the foreigner, those not of their tribe to have food, shelter and safety.
Jesus taught about unity in John 17:20-23 when he prayed to his Father, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and I have loved them even as you have loved me.”
The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 spoke about the unity of the church as in one body in Jesus Christ all working together for the goal of God’s kingdom work. While everyone has a different role and function, we compliment and work together in making the whole effective and healthy as a representative of Christ on earth.
It is not my place as your guest to evaluate or judge the unity of the church in the Garo Baptist convention or at Harding Theological College; only you can do that. But the question for us today is how might we become more unified in the name of Christ Jesus as his earthly representation today? As Baptists, we seem to always have something to fight about. We like to disagree with each other and claim that because we are all priests, we have a direct line with God.
God grieves when we are not in Christian fellowship with each other. Christian unity is how God desires his creation to become. We are called to work together, pray together, struggle together and ultimately to carry out God’s work on earth together. And we know that when we are unified in Spirit, in truth, and in deeds, miracles do happen.
In my family, I am the first person ever to graduate from college. This is in 1971. Now in my immediate family alone, 2 children, 5 nieces/nephews, 5 grandnieces/nephews for a total of 12 have graduated from college. Four grandnieces/nephews are in college today. And our oldest granddaughter is 17 and she will be attending college in 2021. And I hope that our other 5 grandchildren will have an opportunity to also attend and graduate from college.
Having the ability to attend and graduate from college requires unity in the family to come up with money to pay for tuition. We need to pool together as much funds as we can to send someone to college. It’s commonly said that “It takes a village to raise a child.” It takes a family village sharing valuable resources and unified with a commitment to send children to college.
This why Harding Theological College’s Centenary Celebration is very significant to highlight and give praise. Imagine how many sacrifices parents and families had to make working together to send young adults to attend college? All of you are primary examples of unity in the family, unity in the Baptist churches, and an unwavering unity in Christ to make Harding a successful institution of higher learning for the past 100 years.
And as you know, I am also committed to the successful and continuing establishment of the Northeast Christian University in Dimapur and Nagaland on behalf of all the Baptist churches and conventions that comprise the Council of Baptist Churches of Northeast India. NECU is and will become a wonderful example of how our different tribal groups, language groups, Baptist associations and conventions can actually work together to produce a new liberal arts university for the benefit and welfare of all.
What one person can’t do alone, we can accomplish together. What one tribe can’t do alone, when all the tribes come together, we can make it happen. When not only the people and churches that are near Dimapur or Nagaland are active in supporting NECU can do but it’s when everybody from all of NE India are working and contributing together is when NECU will come into full existence. NECU is also for graduates of Harding who wish to pursue university education in the arts and sciences.
When we are unified in our efforts here on earth together is when we are a closer resemblance to the Body of Christ.
In Nehemiah 2:18, we see that it was time to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. When the hand of God was shown to be gracious, they said to one another, “Let us start building!” They didn’t start building for their self-importance. They didn’t start building for just themselves. They started building and committing themselves for the common good. They were unified for the common good.
Harding’s 100th
Tonight begins the Centenary Celebration of Harding Theological College that started 100 years ago by Frederick W. Harding. Harding’s faith in God led you to have faith in Christ. Harding’s Christian service of being a Baptist missionary from America to Northeast India is modeling for you Christian service for today’s world that is badly in need of the Good News. Harding’s unified efforts to travel to you as a missionary is setting an example for you too to be unified in Christ, to work together, to become a closer resemblance of the Body of Christ on earth than ever before.
Celebrate God’s faithfulness to you in the past 100 years! Happy anniversary Harding Theological College and may God continue to bless you and watch over you for another hundred years of preparing men and women in faith, in service and in unity in Christ our Lord himself.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, we lift up Harding Theological College as a wonderful example of faithfulness, service and unity in your name as the school continues to reach out to men and women to help them reach their God-given goals for life in Christ. Bless them with resources and a strong conviction to do your will on earth as we know is already true in heaven. May this centenary celebration lead them to rise up and build for you, O God. For you, Lord have indeed been faithful! In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.