Dying to Self and the Call to Missions
The Ministry of John Paton
Philippians 2:5-11
Steve Hanchett, pastor
Berry Road Baptist Church
December 17, 2000
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking on himself the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of man. And being found in the appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, of those on the earth, and those under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
This month we have been looking at this great passage about Christ in light of what it teaches us about what it means to be a missionary. So far we have seen how Christ’s example shows us that to follow him means we must be willing to leave behind our comfort in order to pursuing proclaiming the gospel in the world. Secondly, we saw last week that to follow Christ means that we must be willing to adapt ourselves to the culture of the people we are trying to reach with the gospel. In the first week we saw how Lottie Moon left the comfort of her American home and lifestyle to carry the gospel to China. Last week we looked at Hudson Taylor’s life and how he adapted Chinese culture and lifestyle in order to relate the gospel to the Chinese people
Let’s take another look this week at what this passage teaches us about Christ. Already we have seen that it says that Jesus “being in the form of God did not think it robbery to be equal with God.” That is, he did not feel compelled to cling to His divine glory. So Christ left the glory and joy of heaven to bring salvation to us. The second point we see in this passage is that it says that Jesus “made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of man.” So he clothed himself in our humanity in order to bring us the good news. Today what we are going to see is that Christ’s coming involved a dying to himself. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross” is the way it is stated in this passage.
There are two crucial statements this passage makes about the death of Christ. The first is that this was an act of obedience on the part of Jesus Christ. His death on the cross was not something outside the realm of God’s will. To the contrary, it was smack dab in the middle of the will of God. To avoid the cross would have been an act of disobedience. In recognition of the will of God in his going to the cross, Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsamane, “Not my will, by thine.” The plan of God for the salvation of man required the death of Christ.
But we need to also note that while it was a part of the Father’s plan, it was still Jesus’ voluntary choice to go to the cross. He made it clear many times that, “no one takes my life from me, I lay it down.” When Jesus died on the cross he did so because he chose to give up his life for the sake of sinful men. He was not forced to go to the cross by the armies or Rome, the leaders of the Jews, by Pilate, or Herod, or the High Priest. While they all played a part and they all incurred their own guilt, we must recognize that Jesus had the power and resources to put an end to their evil plot at any time. But he did not do so because it was necessary for him to die.
The second statement this passage makes about the death of Christ is that it was an act of great humility. Crucifixion was the cruelest of all punishments. It was also the most humiliating in that it exposed the naked criminal to public view and the taunting of the people who callously gathered around the place of execution. It was a humiliating way to die. Thus, we see the passage tells us that Jesus humbled himself and gave himself over to die in this way.
Further, it was also an act of humility in that Jesus held back his power and glory and gave himself over as a lamb being led to the slaughter into the hands of sinful men. He allowed them to mock him, spit on him and beat him without mercy. All the while he opened not his mouth to defend his honor or dignity.
When we think about the fact that he had the power to free himself from this death, logic would say that if Jesus could have avoided such a death he should have. After all, consider how great a teacher he was. One only has to read the great “sermon on the mount” to know how inspired his teachings were. He was a young man. Imagine what deep truths he could have unleashed on this world had he remained longer in this life. Some could reason that He surely could have done far more good to stay and continue to teach and give his limitless wisdom to this world.
What about his healing power? Could Jesus not have continued his ministry and brought healing to so many more. Surely there were more blind, more lame, more dying people that could have used his healing touch. And yet he gave himself to die.
What about his benevolence ministry? So many people were fed by his simple prayer and the touch of his hand upon a few fish and some loaves of bread. What about the many starving and hungry people he left behind when he died. Maybe he should have stayed and continued to do them good. And yet he gave himself to die.
Human logic and reason argues powerfully against what seems to be the irrational decision of Jesus Christ to willingly give himself over to die on a cross. Surely, even some of those who admired him the most wondered why he allowed this to happen. Yet, still Jesus obediently and humbly went to the cross. Why?
Because, my friend, the cross is the only way we could be saved from death and hell. No greater teacher has ever graced this earth than Jesus Christ. This world has never seen the likes of the kind of power Jesus poured out on the lame, the blind, the deaf and the diseased as he brought a healing life-flow to them. The world has never seen the likes of one who could feed thousands with a little bit of nothing. But his power to heal, cast out demons, and feed the multitudes could never save one single solitary soul from hell. His great moral teachings could never deliver one of us from the eternal death that our sin brings upon us. It is only through his death on the cross that we could be saved.
This really is the crucial thing isn’t it? No question about it, Jesus could have done many good things apart from dying. It seems to me that one of the temptations that Satan placed before Jesus in the wilderness raised the same issue. When Jesus was offered the kingdoms of this world it must have been tempting for him to think what immediate good he could do as the king of these realms.
But whatever force that temptation held for Jesus was quickly and soundly overcome by the awareness that he had come for one great purpose - to die on the cross. Jesus was able see beyond any temporal benefit his power and teaching and wisdom might bring to the world. He was able to look into the ages to come and see that no one would ever be saved unless he died.
This brings me to my third point about missions and missionaries. The call to missions is a call to die to self. We have already seen that the call to missions is a call to leave comfort for the sake of proclaiming the gospel in other lands. Then we saw how that the call to missions is a call to adapt ourselves to the culture and language of others so that they might be able to understand the gospel of Christ. As we look at the example of Christ’s humble act of dying we are made aware that the call to follow him involves a call to die to self. That leads me to the life of John G. Paton.
In November of 1839 London Missionary Society missionary John Williams set out for Erromango Island in the New Hebrides. Williams previous ventures into the South Pacific had resulted in great success. After a two week journey Williams, along with his native volunteers, reached Erromango and were met by natives on the shore eager to receive the gifts Williams had brought with him. Williams and two other missionaries waded ashore and began to walk with the natives to their village when, without provocation, the natives attacked and began to beat them with clubs. One of the missionaries was able to make it back to the boat, but Williams was killed and eaten along with the other missionary.
This did not halt the missionary efforts in New Hebrides, but it certainly guaranteed that who ever went was committed to the work. Williams was followed by John Geddie. Geddie was described as tough-minded, humorless, and incredibly brave. Geddie and his wife landed on Aneityum and they spent their lives their translating the Scriptures, conducting evangelism and training native workers. An inscription in one of the churches Geddie established commemorated his influence: “When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.”
Geddie’s success fostered the interest of other men who felt called to mission work. One of those men was John G. Paton. Paton grew up in Scotland in a poor family. John was raised in the Presbyterian church, but it wasn’t until he was 17 that he was converted. His conversion was a life-changing experience that set his sights on full-time Christian service. In his early twenties he became a missionary for the Glasgow City Mission. He worked in the ghettos of Glasgow with the most sin-hardened people in Scotland. After ten years in this ministry he heard of the great need for missionaries in the South Pacific and answered the call.
The depth of Paton’s call is seen in his response to a Mr. Dickson who was seeking to discourage Paton from going to New Hebrides. “The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!”
To this Paton responded, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”
In the spring of 1858 Paton and his wife set sail for the Island of Tanna. They were almost immediately defeated by the culture shock they felt. The natives walked around basically naked. Killings among them happened almost daily. Mary Paton was constantly plagued by illness and she died less than a year after they arrived. Three weeks after her death their infant son died as well. Paton wrote that it was almost more than he could bear. He said, “But for Jesus, and the fellowship vouchsafed to me there, I must have gone mad and died beside the lonely grave.”
The first years of his missionary service saw little if any progress. His life was constantly being threatened. Native assistants from the island of Aneityum were attacked and one of them was killed. All of them left except one couple, leaving Paton virtually alone. He slept many nights with his clothes on and a lamp nearby just in case he needed to flee at a moments notice. His dog, Clutha, would bark and awake him if anyone approached and God used his dog to save his life several times in this way.
After four years Paton was forced to flee the island on a trading ship, leaving all of his possessions behind. He was roundly criticized for this. Even after all he had endured for four years on Tanna, some were saying he should have stayed at his station and let the natives kill him as they had John Williams.
After a speaking tour back in Scotland in which he was able to raise enough money to buy a mission ship, Paton, now remarried, returned to the South Seas Island of Aniwa. Here the ministry was attended with more visible results. In the years to come Paton established an orphanage, schools, and a thriving church. Describing the first communion service conducted on Aniwa he wrote: “At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched our to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer’s love, I had a foretaste of the joy of Glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself.”
What is the legacy of John Paton and the other men and women who gave their lives to the natives of the Islands of New Hebrides? Today about 85% of the population of those islands identify themselves as Christians.
As we began this morning I said that the example of Jesus teaches us that the call to missions is a call to die. John Paton lives that out for us in his life story. There are some very specific ways in which Paton follows the example of Jesus.
1. When Paton made it known that he felt called to go to the South Seas as a missionary, many people tried to discourage him from going. One of the most reasoned arguments against going was that he was doing so much good where he was already serving. He was doing quite well working with the Glasgow Mission. Once he made his intentions of leaving known they offered to give him a better home to live in and double his salary. Others couldn’t understand why he would want to leave when there was so much work to do where he was. It was clear that for him to go to new Hebrides posed a real threat to his life. Yet, in spite of the inducements to stay, and the dangers that going posed to him and his wife, Paton chose to go.
2. Paton also lives out what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus in this respect: He was determined to obey at all costs. Even if it meant giving up his life. There must have been times when he felt like throwing in the towel. When his first wife and son died, during the lonely and fear-filled nights on Aneityum, when he was criticized by the other missionaries, and when he saw no fruit from his labor he surely must have thought about going home to Glasgow for good. But John Paton felt a compelling call of God upon his life. That call brought about a powerful perseverance in his life. He never gave up because he wanted only to do the will of God his Father.
3. The third lesson we learn from Paton’s life is that he did what he did for the sake of the salvation of people who were lost without Jesus Christ. He knew the power of the gospel to change the hearts of men. Answering the critics of his work he wrote: “When I have read or heard the shallow objections of irreligious scribblers and talkers, hinting that there was no reality in conversions and that mission effort was but waste, oh, how my heart has yearned to plant them just one week on Tanna, with the natural man all around in the person of cannibal and heathen, on only one spiritual man in the person of the converted Abraham, nursing them, feeding them, saving them ‘for the love of Jesus’ - that I might just learn how many hours it took to convince them that Christ in man was a reality after all! All the skepticism of Europe would hide its head in foolish shame; and all its doubts would dissolve under one glance of the new light that Jesus, and Jesus alone, pours from the converted cannibal’s eye.” There is a power in the gospel to change men now and for eternity. It was Paton’s great faith in the power of the gospel that inflamed his heart to give his life to tell this story to the natives of New Hebrides.
When I read the story of the lives of men and women like John Paton two things happen. First, my heart is searched. I ask myself if I am giving myself to the great cause of the gospel of Christ in a way that will produce eternal fruit like he was? I ask myself what I need to do to give myself completely to a task large enough to require the power and presence of God to sustain and accomplish the work?
But my heart is not only searched, it is inspired as well. We have the privilege of looking at the results of these men’s lives a hundred years after they have died. John Williams died on the sands of a distant island. He never saw that his blood became the seed by which the church of New Hebrides would blossom. My heart is inspired to know that if I give my life away for the cause of Christ, it is not a life that is lost, instead it is a life that is found.
I am also inspired to see again the amazing power of the gospel. What a message we have to tell the world. A message that can transform the heart of a cannibal. The gospel can save someone who could eat a fellow human being. The gospel can transform that cruel heart into a heart of love for others.
Finally, it is only right that before we leave this place we consecrate our lives anew to Christ. It is only right that if we are going to follow him that we give our lives humbly to him who gave his life so humbly for us. And if that means that we should die is some way - whether that means dying to our plans, our desires, our goals, our comforts, or our families - or if it means laying down our lives and going to an early grave, may it be so that God would find our hearts more than ready.
And before we leave if we have doubts in our heart about the power of the gospel to change men and women forever, let us confess this sin against God. And if our mouths are stopped from proclaiming the gospel of Christ in this world in which we live, let us confess this as a sin against Christ who came that we might have life. Before we leave may God give us repentant hearts of the sin of silence.
Resources:
1. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, by Ruth A. Tucker; Acadamie Books
2. Autobiography, by John G. Paton; Banner of Truth Trust
3. Message by John Piper, Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, February 8, 2000
