April 21, 2015
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the Harding Theological College, Tura, Meghalaya, India.
Thank you for the invitation to be with you this morning. While one can say that I’m here willingly and under my own volition, I’m here under orders too.
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the Baptist World Alliance meetings in Izmir, Turkey when I met a number of leaders from Northeast India. At the American Baptist International Missions Conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin, I met more friends from Northeast India and then I was extended an invitation to come to be with you today. I believed that from my new friends I was under orders to come.
Today, we live in a society that frowns upon giving orders and especially receiving orders. We prefer to make decisions based on group discussions and collaboration. In fact, when we receive orders like I did to report to the military draft board during the Vietnam War, I was ready to disobey them. But today, I was under orders to come to the Harding Theological College.
Paul
Today’s lesson from 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 is Paul writing to defend himself for teaching and making judgments about the life of the congregation at Corinth. Keep in mind, Paul was the one who found this church but someone evidently raised a question about Paul’s apostolic credentials. They asked, “What gives Paul the right to tell us how to live the faith?” This sounds awfully like us Baptists! What gives Don Ng the right to come to Harding Theological College to tell us what to do? Who cares if he’s President of the ABC!
In verses 16-17, Paul argues that his authority rests on the fact that he did not opt to be an apostle; he is under a commission from God. He is under orders. Four times here, Paul uses the Greek word “gar” meaning “for” to demonstrate that his authority rests upon external authorization—the call of none other than the risen Christ. Paul speaks “for” Christ.
In this first letter to the Corinthians, Paul defends himself. Paul reminds them that he is a true apostle. He reminds them also that they wouldn’t be a church without him. And yet Paul says none of that is what gets to the heart of the matter. “But I have made no use of any of these rights,” says Paul (1 Cor. 9:15).
Paul’s authority rests upon his external authorization. Paul says that he does what he does and says what he says because an obligation is laid on him, and woe to him if he does not preach the gospel. He does this, “not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission” (v. 17).
Paul tells the Corinthians, in effect, that he does not work for them. He has been sent, commissioned, ordered to preach the gospel to them. Paul’s words are not linked to congregational approval, a winning personality, or to his superior theological training. When it comes down to it, Paul’s authorization has come from God. He is writing to the Corinthians not because this gives him personal pleasure—but “an obligation is laid on me.” Paul was giving orders from God to preach Christ.
Now you are all sitting here wondering whether you should have invited me to come today! What is Don Ng under orders to say?
40th Anniversary
Three months ago, our church in San Francisco remembered my 40th anniversary of ordination into the Christian ministry. This was not on my radar and I was totally surprised that the church had a reception for my anniversary. But hanging in my church office is a Certificate of Ordination that said on January 19, 1975, I was ordained into the Christian Ministry at First Baptist Church of Boston. It said that 50 delegates from 24 churches came from the Samuel Stillman Association to approve my ordination. It was signed by the state executive minister, Dr. Ellis Holt; the church’s pastor at the time, Rev. Walter Sillen; association secretary, Rev. Carroll Turner; and church moderator, Millie Brooks. On that day, over 40 years ago, I was under orders.
At my ordination service, my Andover Newton homiletics professor, Dr. Eddie O’Neal preached. I liked his classes and knew he was a great preacher so I invited him to preach. But he had the audacity at my ordination to entitle his sermon, “Coolie for Christ!” When I heard this in 1975, I was incensed. Here was an African American whom I adored having the nerve to call me a “coolie!” A “coolie” was a derogatory word that I wasn’t yet ready to embrace. Someone taped that sermon for me and for the longest time, I was too mad to listen to it.
But as I mature in faith and ministry, as I grew to know the Scriptures, as I put aside my ego and began to take on Jesus as my Lord and Savior, Dr. O’Neal gave me my orders that night. Last year I had the opportunity to call Dr. O’Neal and thanked him personally on what he has done for me on behalf of God.
Paul calls himself a “slave” for Christ. He is one whose neck is in a yoke; a burden has been placed upon his back. Under the orders from Christ, Dr. O’Neal placed a burden on my back over 40 years ago and now I am proud to be a “coolie for Christ” until I die.
God Chooses Us
What happened to Paul and if I may dare say happened to me as well sounds quite foreign to us today. We live in a world that teaches us that our lives are self-created through our purposeful, free, deliberate choices. “I choose, therefore I am. I think and therefore I am.” As seminarians, you have completed your studies, passed your exams; perhaps receiving some honors and maybe even have a call to ministry where you will serve the Lord. You are ready and anxious to solve the world’s problems and are ready to take your orders.
Freedom of choice is our highest virtue—the reason why we have satellite TV with hundreds of channels and markets filled with products to choose from in India. It seems like the good life is the life that we fabricate through our choices.
But what if the life you are living is not your own? What if while you are busy making your choices, God is also making choices? What if it’s not up to you to decide what to do with your life but rather the direction of your life is up to the God who created you?
The Corinthians at this church asked Paul, “How did you decide to follow Christ? How did you choose to be a Christian? Did you always have a deep desire to travel to far away places like Corinth? Were you really good at public speaking? Did you have an inclination to think theologically?”
And Paul replies that he was just minding his own business, proceeding down the Damascus Road, when Jesus chose him!
Paul tells the squabbling Corinthians, “I’m not here by my own power. I am under obligation. I have a commission and that’s why I am attempting to serve Christ by serving you. I am just following orders.”
I know that you think you are here today because you chose to be here. You are here to receive your diploma and your family and friends have come out to celebrate with you. You may think that you are here because this is what everyone is doing.
But what if you are here today because God put you here? What if the work that you are doing, you are not doing for yourself? What if the life you are living is not your own to live?
We can think of other biblical personalities—Abraham and Sarah, Jonah and Moses, Jeremiah and Ruth, Matthew and Peter, dozens of people who didn’t really want to work with God, but God was determined to work through them. That’s Paul’s defense of his ministry. “I’m not here because I just love Corinth. I’m here under orders, commissioned, forced against my will.”
Why We Are Here
I pray that you are here and I am here far from San Francisco but much closer to the new friends I met last year today because Christ has called us together.
I am under orders to share with you the importance of being Baptists in a foreign land. I know that staying true and faithful in keeping the Baptist witness alive may seem tough and lonely here in Northeast India particularly in a strong Hindu country but I tell you today that we know you and pray for your continued faithfulness.
We are under orders to transmit to the next generation that God’s grace in Jesus Christ is here in the present age.
We are under orders to set aside our false beliefs that we are the only ones making free and deliberate choices over our lives and to live our lives that are upright and Godly because it is God who is in full control.
We are under orders to voluntarily become “all things to all people” like Paul was in order to proclaim the gospel not for ourselves but for the sake of all people so that they can share in Christ’s blessings. Just as I am more effective in doing effective ministries in San Francisco, you are definitely more effective in doing faithful ministries here in Northeast India than I would ever be.
When you feel despised and marginalized in your faith as Baptists in this foreign land, Titus is saying that you have the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. In gratitude, we give back to God our lives in Christian service because God first gave Jesus Christ to the world.
We are under orders to live lives with self-control, uprightness and godliness because we have the blessed hope that our Savior, Jesus Christ is coming and will come again.
We are all under orders to “become all things to all people so that we might by all means save some.”
This reminds me of Luke 8. Jesus goes out from Galilee and is encountered by a poor, tormented man, deranged in mind and spirit, wandering naked among the tombs, crazed by demons. Jesus rebukes the demons that torment the man. Immediately after healing the man, Jesus tells him “go, and tell everyone what God has done for you.”
Don’t you find that amazing? Here is this poor man who has been in bondage, maybe for a very long time. His life has been a miserable dead end. At last, he is healed by Jesus. And on the very first day of his miraculously transformed, restored life, Jesus tells him to, “Go! Get out of here, become a preacher and preach to everybody. Testify to what God has done for you.”
As a pastor, I confess that I might have had more pity on the man than Jesus had for him! I would probably have been more protective and told him, “You have sure suffered enough, you poor thing. You go home and spend time with your family. Enjoy some rest and have the rest of your life in peace and quiet.”
But not Jesus. This restored man who was once possessed by demons was under orders to preach good news. Jesus loves to commission people, loves to call the unlikeliest of people, even as he called the prosecutor Paul, and gave him responsibilities in his kingdom.
Sealed orders
I identify with this demon-possessed and tormented man in Luke 8. Growing up in Boston as the first generation Chinese American born in the US wasn’t very easy. I had a hard time at school having learned Chinese before learning English. I had a stuttered speech and was petrified to raise my hand in class. One time, my third grade teacher came over to me at my desk and shook me in front of everyone yelling at me to speak. How could I?
But in Sunday school at First Baptist in Boston, I read about Moses who had stuttered speech and how he told God to ask his brother Aaron instead. I read about Jeremiah when God called him and he said he did not know how to speak because he was too young. I read about Peter, the leader of all the disciples who was afraid when the soldiers came arresting all those who followed Jesus and Peter denying Jesus three times. I read about Paul who was an enemy of Christians and went around persecuting Jesus’ disciples. If God can take these unlikeliest people and give them responsibilities in his kingdom, God can use me too.
I have been under official orders for over 40 years since my ordination to preach the Gospel. But as I look back, I was under order when I was baptized 10 years earlier in high school. I will be under the orders of Jesus Christ until I die.
Just like the Apostle Paul, you are now under the orders of God to be his disciples in the communities that you live and work. This authority doesn’t come from me as the ABC President but it comes directly from God that you be active in support of the gospel at home and in other countries around the world. Just as I have been under orders from God for almost all the years of my life, you too are under orders to remain steadfast in your faith, to be a slave to all so that you may win more people for Christ, the Lord!
The Danish Christian philosopher Kierkegaard said that each of us is born “with sealed orders.” That is, each of us is here for a purpose, some direction that God has in mind for us. But that purpose, that direction is not self-evident to us. Therefore we must search the scriptures, we must be attentive to the leadings of he Holy Spirit, we must seek the guidance of the church if we are to find out what lies within our “sealed orders.”
When I unsealed my orders, I became a “coolie for Christ.”
Paul says he is “under a commission.” Every one of us here today, by virtue of our baptism, is commissioned. We are not here on our own. We are under direct orders from God.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we are here because you have called us together, calling each of us by name to step forward and become a part of your reign on earth. You have not only called us but you have entrusted us with your truth and your beloved world. Therefore we pray that you would give us the gifts we need to be faithful to your commission of us.
In the face of resistance and scorn, help us to remember that we too resisted you and that the only reason we are here is because of your constantly inviting love and grace.
When we encounter setbacks and disappointments in our attempts to be ministers in your name, give us hope and a vision beyond the present. And when we have doubts about our own abilities to be faithful to you, remind us that you would not have called us if you did not know that we could, by your grace, be faithful to your call. In name of Christ, we pray. Amen.
Benediction
You are under the orders of Jesus Christ himself,
To go out to bravely profess that the Kingdom of God has come near,
That we and the whole earth have been changed through the coming of Christ.
Go to affirm in your living, even as you are being changed daily according to God’s purpose.
Now may the blessing of the God of divine purpose and intervention,
Enacted through Jesus the Christ is upon us in love and power. Amen.