May 18, 2010 | By Paul F. South
NEW ORLEANS - A standing-room-only crowd packed Leavell Chapel to celebrate New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's largest graduating class since Hurricane Katrina battered both the campus and the city in August 2005.
Some 315 graduation candidates participated in the May 15 ceremony.
NOBTS President Chuck Kelley briefly reflected on the years since America's worst natural disaster.
"How much we have learned as a seminary family, how much we have learned: That our God is truly able to sustain us in all circumstances," Kelley told the audience.
In keeping with that theme, Kelley preached from 2 Cor. 1, a passage on the comfort found in God despite the trials and tribulations of life. Kelley called the verses "startling" because it assumes that in life, everyone will face trouble.
Kelley asked for a show of hands from the graduates who had faced troubles and trials during their seminary days. Virtually every hand shot up.
"That's not the experience of seminary students. That's the experience of life," Kelley said."This is in fact what we are going to experience all the rest of our days. The simple reality is that as we live, there will be trouble, or to use the biblical word, there will be affliction."
There will be joy along the ministry road, Kelley told graduates - pastors performing baptisms, or a marriage of people he baptized, or a missionary leading people to Christ in a completely non-Christian culture. Nevertheless, there will be challenges.
"This will come as a great surprise to you, but every now and then, people will not have the same assessment of your ministry that your mother does," Kelley said. "There will be physical calamities like storms, tornadoes and hurricanes as we have seen on this campus, recently in Nashville and out in the Gulf of Mexico with that oil spill -- things that can alter the course of a human life."
There will be sorrow and sadness, betrayal, discouragement and disillusionment, Kelley said. All of those troubles are "practice" for ministry in the storms of life.
"It is only in those moments when you experience affliction yourself that you will learn how God ministers to you; that you will learn that this is not because God has forgotten your name. It's not because you've done something wrong. It is not because you somehow messed up and you don't know what in the world you did. Affliction. Trouble. It is the lot of all of us in life."
This harsh reality, Kelley said, is the result of sin in the world. The world groans under its weight.
However, while the passage promises trouble, it also promises comfort, Kelley said. The Apostle Paul sets the scene referring to God as "the Father of mercies," and "the God of all comfort." For every trouble in life, God offers comfort; for every joy, God offers celebration.
"What we learn is that when you come to Jesus Christ, God gets a grip on your soul that can never be broken. And you may not always be safe," Kelley said. "But you will always be secure."
Kelley read from Isaiah 41:10: "Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not afraid for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will hold you up with the right hand of My righteousness."
He added, "The grip of God is on your life and your soul."
As the graduates go forward into ministry, the grip of God should give them confidence as they share the gospel with a lost and dying world.
"As you come to accept and revel in that confidence, you will be equipped to help others to learn that even though all is falling apart, God's grip is still firm on your soul."
A real life example of that faith in God's grip is found in the life of Horatio Spafford. In one year, Spafford and his wife lost their son. Later, as his wife and four daughters sailed to England, the vessel collided with another ship. Spafford's wife survived. The couple's four daughters perished.
Mrs. Spafford sent a simple, heart-wrenching message: "Saved alone."
Later, as Horatio sailed to England to reunite with his grieving wife, the ship's captain came to Spafford, and told him that they were about at the location where the ship carrying his family had gone down. Spafford gazed on the gray, rolling waters for a time, then returned to his cabin.
There, Spafford penned the hymn that has comforted countless across the years. "It is well with my soul."
Kelley asked the crowd to come together to sing the classic hymn. It begins:
"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul. It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul."
Kelley then reminded his listeners of the promise of John 3:16. "Anyone can be transformed by the gospel," Kelley said. "In our hearts, the conviction that the grip of God in our soul will never ever let go, whatever our circumstances."
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