Sunday sermons | Passionate worship

This sermon was preached by Pastor Keith Cardwell at Swift Presbyterian Church.

Called To Serve
Numbers 11:16–17, 24–25 • Ephesians 4:4–7, 11–16
Jan. 15, 2017
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time • Ordination/installation day

T HIS SUNDAY OF EACH YEAR is one of my favorite Sundays — the day we ordain and install men and women into specific church leadership roles.

Elders and deacons. Both have their origins in biblical times. In a short while we will invite them to the front of the church. They will be asked to reaffirm their faith in Jesus Christ. That is essential. They will respond to questions of ordination — questions related to faith, the church and their leadership role. These are questions we discussed last fall in training. It’s essential they know what they are promising and what their servant task will be. Then we will lay hands on them. Women and men who have been ordained in the past as elders will come to the front. They represent this congregation and the whole Presbyterian Church USA.

We will gather around the ordainees, place our hands on them and pray for God’s Holy Spirit to be on them, in them and with them in their ministry. It is a special time. It is a moving time.

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THE BOOK OF NUMBERS is not a very promising title. Maybe if you are an accountant it sounds attractive to you. The Hebrew name for the book is “In the Wilderness”; that makes sense. Numbers is the story of the wandering Children of Israel during part of that 40-year period between crossing the Red Sea out of Egypt and entering the Promised Land.

During this time, God was forming a people. As their head, Moses spoke to God and mediated for the people. Moses also served as judge over them. Moses has been bearing the burden of the people alone and God calls him through this passage to share the load.

Moses had already been warned of the problem and sought to deal with it. In the account of this found in the book of the Exodus (chapter 18) Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, saw how Moses went about the task of leadership as a one-man show. Moses was at this stage a father-knows-best kind of leader.

Jethro told his son-in-law, “The thing you are doing is not right.” He went on to tell Moses, “You will surely wear yourself out, and these people as well. For the task is too heavy for you and you cannot do it alone.”

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JETHRO COUNSELED MOSES to set up leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens to resolve minor issues and to only present him with the major disputes of the people. This was for the good of the people as well as for Moses’ own health.

Now in Numbers, God has Moses pray to put some of the spirit that is on him on to seventy elders of the people. Today we will lay hands on those coming for ordination, elders and deacons, and pray once again for God’s Spirit to be on them.

The Apostle Paul, writing to early Christians in Ephesus, reminds them God gives the Spirit to those who serve, various gifts for ministry. You are to love and serve the people among whom you work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor.

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ELDERS MAKE DECISIONS on behalf of the church. We will pray for the gifts of wisdom and discernment to be upon you. Deacons minister in serving this community of faith. Through prayer. Through touch, words, presence. Deacons nurture people. We will pray for God’s Spirit to be on you. To do your calling effectively, you will need God’s Holy Spirit.

“Each of us [is] given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Each of us has been given the gift of grace to follow the One who comes to us and says “follow Me!” Not just folks called to specific ministries of deacons, elders or ministers. Every one of us has been called to ministry, called to follow Jesus.

We can love God and not serve God. We can love God and not follow God. We can love God and not fulfill the tasks which God has for us. Today we set aside these men and women, but we are all called to serve God, follow God, fulfill the tasks he has for everyone here.

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THOSE TASKS MIGHT BE of serving on a session or service as a deacon. The task might be teaching a Sunday school class. It might include volunteering for our food pantry ministry. Perhaps praying the weekly prayer list. Supporting our children and youth by cooking for Kids’ Club, hosting Refuel or leading children’s church. Working on behalf of the grieving. Organizing soccer within the community around the church. Or service beyond these walls and this property.

Whatever the task you are called by God to fulfill, choose each day to serve God — seek to fulfill that task. As we serve God — as we fulfill those tasks — we do so as individuals but also as a body, as the church. The saints — and we’re all saints — are equipped to build up the body of Christ — to build up the church so that it will speak forth and show forth a powerful witness to the world.

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I AM THANKFUL FOR THOSE who have served and are now moving on to other tasks. I am thankful for those who have responded to the call for service of governing and nurture. For your energy, intelligence, imagination and love. May the Holy Spirit be with, around, among, and within you all.

— Keith Cardwell

Numbers 11, 16–17, 24–25
New International Version

16 The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

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24 So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent. ²⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied — but did not do so again.

Ephesians 4:4–7, 11–16
New International Version

4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

_⁷But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.

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11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

_¹⁴Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. _¹⁵Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.