Ordination exhortation

Matthew 17:19-20: Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, Why could we not cast out the demon? Jesus said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it shall move; and nothing shall be impossible to you.

As we’ve seen this morning, Jesus’ evaluation of the disciples’ faith is puzzling. On the one hand, He rebukes them for “little faith” when they can’t cast out a demon. On the other hand, He says that faith as little as a mustard seed is sufficient to perform wonders. The disciples had enough faith in Jesus to want to be His disciples and to follow Him and listen to Him. Peter had the faith to confess Jesus as Christ, and the three had the faith to know that they had seem an extraordinary display of glory on the mountain.

Their faith, however, was too little for them to be effective in ministering to the damaged and demon-harassed people of Israel at the foot of the mountain. It was too little for them to participate effectively in the restoration of all things, the program of John and Jesus.

You certainly have the faith of the disciple. You know and love Jesus, and can’t remember a time when you didn’t. You have been a disciple of Jesus all your life. But you’re being ordained to a ministry today that requires something more than that. If you are going to be effective as an elder in the church, you must not only have the faith of a disciple but you must have at least the mustard seed of faith that moves mountains. We are Protestants. We all believe that salvation is by faith. But we often forget Jesus’ teaching here: Not only salvation but service must be done in faith.

Our culture encourages us to believe that we can serve others by applying the right technique. We are surrounded be helping professionals, who, despite the good they can do, often treat human beings as input-output machines. We live in an age that attempts to find formulae for ministry as for everything else. And beyond that, there is the perennial temptation to think of ministry as our work, the perennial temptation to be as God. We are tempted to think that our effectiveness depends on us, on the persuasiveness of our words, on the wisdom and efficiency of our programs, on the clarity of our vision, on our own boldness and willingness to seize the moment. We are tempted to think that we can engage in ministry without faith.

That is a prescription for despair in ministry, a prescription for losing sleep and losing what hair you have left. If the success of your ministry depends on you, then you and every other minister in the church are in huge trouble. If we must find adequacy in ourselves, we are of all men most miserable.

That’s not how ministry works. Your service to the people of God, if it is successful, will be successful because of the work of the Spirit. It will work because the Spirit has caught you up into the work of the beloved Son sent by the Father, the work of restoring all things. It will work because God in His surprising favor has used a clay vessel – you – and shone His dazzling glory through you.

On your side, it will work only if you engage in your ministry by faith. With every word you speak, trust the Father that He will not let it return void. Every time you give counsel, trust the Wisdom of God that is Jesus to make it effective. When you bind up the broken-hearted and proclaim liberty to captives, remember that you do it by the power of the Servant of Yahweh who is anointed by the Comforting Spirit.

This doesn’t mean that you should be timid in ministry. It’s very much the opposite. We are able to bold and visionary and courageous and confident in ministry precisely because we know it doesn’t depend on us. We are joyful and even relaxed in ministry because we know Jesus is the Lord of the church and He will not stop until He has built it into a mature man.

In whatever you do as elder in this church, do it in faith, trusting the Spirit of Jesus to make it work. Do it with faith in Jesus, the greater Elisha, come to restore all things. In whatever you do, remember that “this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”