Exhortation

Later in the service this morning, we will ordain two new deacons, Rick Schumaker and Brendan O’Donnell.  Both have gone through a period of apprenticeship with our two deacons, and both have been elected by the congregation.

But the ordination is no mere formality.  Ordination is not just a symbol of something that has already happened, but an effective action of Jesus Christ.

The hands laid upon them will be the hands of the elders, but just as certainly as we lay hands upon these men, so also Jesus Christ, the Head of His Church, lays the hand of His Spirit upon them.  Jesus, not just you and not just the elders, gives them a particular ministry in this church, and makes them adequate for this ministry.

As you witness this ordination, remind yourselves that you too have been ordained.  Baptism is a kind of ordination, and all of you who are baptized are deputized to ministry in the body of Christ.  Every one of you – not just elders and deacons – has been equipped by the Spirit with gifts to edify the church.

As Peter says in Pastor Sumpter’s sermon text, “each one has received a special gift,” and each of you is a “steward of the manifold grace of God.”  So, “Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Paul makes the same point: “one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.”  To the extent that you are hiding your gifts away or refusing to use them for the body, you are quenching the Spirit.  That’s something Paul warns us not to do, and a false humility of which we must repent.