Eric Beerbower Ordination Service

Some years ago, my wife and I had the chance to go on a trip with members of our church, some of whom are here this evening, to the Holy Land, the Holy Land, to Israel, which is not a very holy land, at least to my way of thinking. It was just a place to go. It didn't feel very holy. But the week before we went to the Holy Land, we went to the unholy land, which actually may be your land, okay, Jordan. And we spent, no, you're Palestinian, aren't you? Okay, so we went to Jordan, and that felt very holy because it was very easy to conceive of it as it was 2,000, 4,000 years ago with the Israelites coming out. Not much has changed. It is arid, barren, dirty, desolate. It is a remarkable place to visit, and I commend it to you.

And one of the most striking places that we visited in all the time that we spent in Jordan and Israel was when we drove to the top of what is today regarded as Mount Nebo. Mount Nebo being the mountain where Moses was taken by God to die, from which he looked out across the Dead Sea into the Jordan Valley and saw the land that God was giving to the people of Israel, but then was taken by God. and not allowed to cross over. It was a windy day. Jordan is filled with plastic bags. Every tree looks like it was festooned for Christmas by garbage bags everywhere. We stood on top of this mountain with the wind blowing like nothing I've ever known before and faced Israel and imagined what it was like for Moses there in the solitude of that mountain or a mountain nearby. It was certainly the region, if not the actual mountain. To stand there, ushered there by God, accompanied by God, shown the promised land in the distance, the green, the fertile, in the midst of the aridity of the land that he was in, and then to die. And forbidden entrance into the promised land because of this passage, what events, the events that take place in the passage we just looked at together. Moses did not enter because he failed to hold the Lord up as holy. That's what God said to him, said,

For this reason, you will not be allowed. You did not hold me up as holy when you brought water from the rock at Kadesh. So I want to speak this evening of Moses, the character of Moses, and what we can learn from Moses. This event in the life of Moses is perhaps one of two in Scripture where you see the personality of Moses. at the forefront. The other I'll mention in a bit. This is one of two, and it's a great feeling that Moses allows his personality to shine through. Now, there are many reasons that are given for why Moses is not allowed to go into the promised land on the basis of this passage. Some people suggest that he hit the rock, or he hit it twice, or he did... There's a variety of explanations. Oh, it was this act, it was that act. It's certainly not one act.

It's certainly an attitude. And the attitude is of Moses. He's lost his sister, his beloved sister, the one who accompanied him, the one who saved his life when he was a baby. She's died. He's feeling the weight of the people. They're again, as they've done multiple times, they're complaining and saying to him, you have brought us here to die. You are an unworthy leader. You are, and he says, I've had it with you. Must we do this for you again, you rebels? And his personality comes out, and the wrath of God comes down on Moses, the very man who had stood for these people for 40 years against the wrath of God, intervening, interceding. It's a lesson here, and I want to speak about it in terms of what we're doing tonight, which is ordaining a man to the work of Moses, to the work of a shepherd of God's people.

The work of leading God's flock through the wilderness, the pilgrimage of this world. This is the call of a shepherd, of a pastor. And this is what we are ordaining, what we have the privilege of ordaining our brother Eric to this evening. The life of Moses is filled with crises. He is challenged in every possible way. Tim's and my dad used to say, there was never ever a leader. Like Moses, and that's true. There was never a greater human leader than Moses. There could not have been. If you would see the imperial, the royal highway that goes through Jordan, which is the same route that the Israelites took. It seems unmistakably that this had to be the way they went. And you saw the rigors of that land. You saw the desolation of that land.

And you think of Moses taking these millions of people through that land. You go, no one ever did anything like it. No leader ever did anything like it. They talk about Shackleton and the expedition to the pole and the way he kept his men together and the things he did. And what a great leader he was. They talk about Winston Churchill and how he stood for the nation of Great Britain during World War II against the forces of the Axis. And everyone lauds these individual leaders and says, what a great leader. There is nothing. that compares to the leadership of Moses. Never. No one. He is challenged along the way, as all leaders are. Fellow leaders tell him that he is not a leader and that they reject his leadership and that he is not as special as he thinks he is. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, earlier on in his work of leading the people, rebel against him and say, all the people are holy, Moses. All of us have the right to go up to God.

Why are you hogging the spotlight? Who do you think you are? They come after him and they say, we're holy like you. You hold yourselves above us and you're not above us. He's challenged by his own sister and his own brother. He married a Cushite woman. We don't know quite what the issue was. It's probable that she was not a Hebrew. I mean, it's a certain thing. She was not a Hebrew. It's probable that her not being a Hebrew and perhaps being of a different apparent race than the Hebrews might have caused resentment of her, and thus Aaron and Miriam say, hey, who are you, Moses? They say almost the exact same thing that Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had said earlier. They say, who are you? God has spoken to us as well. Moses faces his brother and sister. He faces all the elders of Israel.

He's challenged by them. He's challenged by the people. Here they're murmuring. There they're murmuring. They were murmuring at Kadesh, at Meribah, in the wilderness when they just initially left Egypt. Are there not enough graves in Egypt for us? They constantly challenged Moses, complaining against him. They say that he's brought them out to the wilderness to die. And even at one point, they take up rocks to stone him. Brother, sister, leaders, people, all of them. Miriam, the sister who saved his life, whose death he's mourning now, had said just recently, because of his Cushite wife, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us as well? And the Lord heard it. And the Lord heard Miriam say that. And you remember what happened when Miriam said that. Miriam turned white with leprosy, and they hustled her.

outside the camp. And Moses pleaded with God for his sister and said, please do not let her suffer from leprosy. Please don't let her go down to the grave with leprosy. And God said, if her father had spat in her face, would she not bear her reproach? Let her stay outside the camp for three days. And then she was healed at the end of those days. But God said, I am with my man, Moses. Eric, as... You embark on the work of a lifetime of shepherding God's flock. No doubt you're aware that in many important respects, Moses' life will be a picture of your own. The challenges he faced will be the challenges you face. You must gain his strengths. Just a portion of them would be a blessing. The reaction of the people to his leadership will be mirrored often by the reaction of those you shepherd to you.

If you're blessed, you'll someday be in a church where there are people who say, you shouldn't be our pastor. You're not worthy. It happened to Paul. It happened to Christ. It happened to John the Baptist. It happened to the prophets. It should happen to you if you're faithful. That day should come. I hope it's not here. But that day is a real day. And most of us who are pastors and older have seen this day, have come to that day. You're going to need the strengths of Moses. You're going to face the trials that Moses faced, and you're going to have the final joys, I trust, that Moses had. It was bittersweet not to enter the promised land, but what a joy to know that his children, his flock, was going to. What a gift to know that he had led them safely to the verge.

Well, he himself was not passing over. They would. That they were going to security and peace and plenty. And he had brought them there. This is your job. This is your goal. This will be your satisfaction, I trust, later in life. And in the trials you face, you will need the strength of Moses because you will face the temptations that Moses faced. Now, Moses, of course, Bible tells us, was a special child. Do any of you have a special child? No, no. Moses was, what does the Bible say about Moses? He was a beautiful child, right? It's a strange commendation of Moses. He was a beautiful child. And his mother saw his beautiful child and said, I can't put this beautiful child to death. I can't abandon him. I can't expose him. I will not do it.

And so she said, we're going to save this child. Miriam, the mother, got a basket, bull rushes, hit it in the bull rushes, coated it with pitch and tar, put it down there, and Miriam stayed by the basket to watch it. The daughter of Pharaoh came out to watch, sees the basket, sees the beautiful baby, and says, this is a Hebrew child. We're going to take it home. It's going to be my child. Well, you know, if you think Harry Potter had auguries of greatness on his life, you know, the scar on his forehead and the kinds of things that said he's a chosen child. Moses had far more because Moses was really chosen from death to be a son of Pharaoh. He was a beautiful child. He was raised in privilege, destined for death, preserved by God, elevated to royalty, a grandson of Pharaoh.

raised a prince. It was clear that God had a purpose for him, that he was chosen by God. But then at 40 years of age, having lived this life of privilege and power as a son of the Egyptians, despite his Hebrew heritage, he sees an Egyptian overseer beating a Hebrew slave, and his anger is aroused. The first time, the only other time in the Bible that I suggest to you, that I believe, we see the personality of Moses. His anger is aroused. He goes up and he strikes the Hebrew overseer and he kills him. He buries the body, he hides the body, and he thinks that on the basis of his heritage and his magnanimity to his people, that he stood for the Hebrew slave, that he is going to be the savior of his people, recognized as their leader.

appreciated. And so when he sees two Hebrew slaves fighting together, he says, your brothers, why are you doing this? You should not be doing this. And they look at him and say, who are you? What right do you have to be talking to us like this? Are you going to kill us like you killed that Egyptian overseer? And Moses understands that the jig is up, that he is now no longer in favor with Pharaoh, and that he has no people to go to. In his anger, in his righteousness, he felt anger. He rose up and killed. And because of that murder, that killing of the overseer, he flees to Midian at the age of 40. And there in Midian, he spends the next 40 years of his life working as a shepherd, tending sheep in the desert. This child of privilege, this beautiful child, must have felt that his life had gone to nothing. That all the portents of greatness, all the privilege was just a facade and that God had no real purpose for it. 40 years, he's 80 years old. 80 years old and he's done nothing. 80 years old and he has not set his people free. 80 years old. He has learned one thing though.

In that event where he killed the Egyptian overseer and he responded with righteous anger and assumed that the people of the Hebrews, his fellow Hebrews would follow him, he learned a lesson. And that lesson was that leadership is not about personality, that leadership is about authority. He thought he had authority because he had personality. He was a Hebrew. He was angry, righteous anger. He was a son of Pharaoh. He had all these special privileges and marks of his beautiful lineage and heritage. And he thinks he'll be followed, and he goes and kills the man, and no one follows him. And that teaches him that leadership is something bigger and greater than personality. I recently read that the chief of the French spy agency, the French equivalent of the CIA, President Ronald Reagan back in the 1980s. And after meeting President Reagan, this famous, famous wise man in France, I don't know him, but I read that he was famous for his discernment. He went back to France and he said to the people in the ministry that he oversaw, that man Reagan, he may not know much, but he understands everything. The charge was that Reagan was a...

A guy who didn't know anything. He was just a vain, empty head. Reagan had a sunny disposition. That was not his strength. Reagan was a movie star. Looks were not his strength. Reagan wasn't that smart. I think it's fair to say. But that did not hinder his strength. Reagan had strength because he understood authority. He understood what it was to have authority and to wield authority. Story I've heard, and I don't know if it's apocryphal, and I'm not sure it's about Reagan. I've tried to chase it down, but I've read it, was that Reagan, in the period between his election and his installation, his inauguration as president, went and asked and spoke with a number of people and asked them advice. And one very famous admiral, a legendary admiral, as I understand it, though Reagan fired this guy, so I think they've got to have it wrong. All right, but anyway.

That this admiral said to him, okay, I got one piece of advice for you. He said, at some point early in your presidency, in your time as president, someone's going to challenge you. And they're going to take a test of your mettle. They're going to see how you respond because they're going to go against you. And this man said to Reagan, when that happens, you must publicly and quickly fire. that person. Well, some of you who were alive back then remember that in 1981, the year that Reagan was first president, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization said, we want to go out on strike. We're not paid enough. This is news to most of you. I can tell it. They said, we're going to go out on strike. There was a law. There is still a law that people in those positions are not allowed to go on strike. They are indispensable to the running of the skies.

They're not allowed to go on strike. It's a law. They said we're going to go on strike. President Reagan said to them, you are forbidden to go on strike. It is against the law. Do not go on strike. The next day, they struck. The day following that, those of you who are alive remember the startling news that President Reagan fired 13,000 air traffic controllers all at once. And did not let them back in. And everyone said, George Shultz, who was the Secretary of State of the United States at the time, said that domestic act by Reagan was the most important international thing he ever did. Because he said every president of every country around the world that was an opponent of the United States looked and said, whoa, this guy understands authority. We don't want to mess with him. That's what the Secretary of State, George Shultz, said about that.

Today, Eric, we are convened to recognize, but not just recognize, also in a very real sense to convey authority. That is what ordination is. Ordination is the apostolic practice. It's called in the Westminster standards the laying on of hands. We have another term for it, ordination, but it's simply the laying on of hands. It's recognition of a calling. Also, it's the bestowal of a gift, a power, and authority. Now, Paul, writing to the young Timothy who was pastoring in Ephesus at the time, says to him, prescribe and teach these things. In other words, you must teach these things that I've just spoken to you about. Prescribe them. In other words, make sure that people understand that they're to obey. It's just like Jesus who says in his Great Commission, you know, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.

and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. Paul's saying the exact same thing to Timothy. He's saying, go and prescribe these things. Make sure they do these things. Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. In other words, I understand that you're going to think, who am I to go and tell people what to do? What authority do I have to speak to the people of Ephesus, this renowned city, these elders, these famous people, this influential city and its citizens? Who am I to tell them what to do? Paul says, no, don't let them look down on your youth. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying.

He says, don't neglect that gift that was given you, that power that you received by the laying on of hands and prophetic utterance by the presbytery. The presbytery is gathered today. They are going to lay hands on Eric. They're going to ordain him. We are doing the thing that Paul writes about to Timothy. Moses. He was ordained by God from birth, but he spent the next 80 years learning to lead, learning to be the leader that God intended him to be from birth. During those 80 years, Moses learned certain fundamental lessons about leading God's people. First, he learned that preparation and privilege and power, such as he enjoyed as a son of Pharaoh's household where he lived until the age of 40, are not the raw material of leadership.

Moses reacted in that personal power, that personal privilege, that personality that he had gained by his 40 years of being in the court of Pharaoh. He reacted in it against the overseer, and no one was willing to follow him. He thought he would immediately be seen as a deliverer. Instead, he was resented. Who made you a judge over us, the Israelites complained. So he ran all the way to Midian. And for the next 40 years, he lives as a shepherd in the desert, an experience almost diametrically opposed to his first 40 years. It is striking how often God's greatest leaders are people that he puts through a 40 years of nothing but dirt. You think of David and his years of running from Saul. You think of Saul, then Paul, known as the...

chief of Pharisees, and then when he's finally sent out by God, he's sent to the Gentiles where his background and learning mean almost nothing. You look at Moses, 40 years. This is a lesson that we all must learn, Eric. Personality is not authority. You can trust in your personality or you can have faith in God by wielding his authority. Personality is what you can do, who you are, what makes you special. Authority is from God. Authority is not about you. Authority is about God. It is a gift from Christ to his followers, to his under shepherds. Christ, to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given, is granting you a share in his authority. Aaron and Miriam claim that God has given to them authority and spoken to them. They accuse Moses of pride. They accuse him of being about his personality. He's not about his personality. They accuse him of pride, as did Dathan and Abiram. It's not his pride. The Bible says, now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth. It's ironic that he's constantly accused of being proud. He was the most humble man on the face of the earth.

constantly accused of being proud because people did not understand authority. They did not understand that this was not Moses. This was God. They accused him of pride. It looks like pride. It's not. Jesus left his disciples with authority. He gave his Holy Spirit. He said, all authority in heaven on earth is given me. Now go and operate. It is not. The personality that makes a pastor. I know we think it is. He's funny. He's cool. He's attractive. He's this. Look at his wife. Look at his family. Pastoring today is all about personality and so little about authority. And personality is thought to be humble. He's humble. He's charming. He's nice. I like him. He doesn't yell at us. And authority is said to be proud.

He tells us what to do. He acts like he's in charge. But authority is what God has given you, and personality is what God wants to erase from you. I'm not saying that your personality is bad or evil or wrong, but you do not want to live on the basis of your personality, because it will fail you. You want to live on the basis of the authority of God found in his word, given to you in the laying on of the elders' hands. the authority of the Holy Spirit that enables you to stand and speak to people and say, this is the word of God. For those of you who are part of Clear Note Church in Indiana, I want to say to you, God has given your pastors and your elders authority. They have authority. You may want to say it's their personality. It's not. It is the gift that God...

gave Moses. It is the gift of authority. Moses, at the end of his life, at Kadesh, Barnea, relies on personality. Somehow, in some way, he's gotten so tired, he's at the end of his tether, and he yells at the people, and he starts saying, must we do this? And he's begun to see himself in a way. You never see him do before. He sees himself as like this with God. You know, me and God are tight. I can speak for him. And instead of speaking to God for the people and saying, don't kill them, he's now saying, I'm with God and we're against you. What a sad thing it is. How serious it is when the leader of God's people starts acting like a personality rather than starts.

expressing their own thoughts as though they're God's, starts treating their own character as though it's precious rather than God and his truth being precious. I'm always struck by the words of Isaiah who says of Jesus that he had no form or comeliness, that he grew up before God like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. He had no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. You know what it is that caused people to follow Jesus. They didn't say he was good looking. The Bible says he wasn't especially attractive physically. No stately form or bearing. He didn't walk around like a king of the earth. Certain pastors walk like they own the world, right? Certain business leaders do this. It's an ability, and we call it leadership. It's not. Jesus did not walk like a secret service agent strutting around the stage where the president is, right, Andrew?

He did not act like that. He had no stately form, no glory. But what did he have? The people said, we have never heard such authority. He spoke the word of God. You don't need more than Jesus needed. You don't need to be good looking, though you are. You don't need to be winsome. You don't need to be charming. You don't need to be intelligent. You don't need to be couth. You can be gauche. You can be all sorts of things. You can be John the Baptist. You can be a man who's as crude and rude as the day is long and have full authority because it's not about you. It's about the Word of God. And so we pray today that God bestows his gift of authority on you. We've gathered to lay hands on you. We're calling you as a congregation. There's going to be an installation probably. I don't know how it works right now with you all.

probably an installation where you will take vows of submission. But even in this ordination, the fact of submission is implicit. You're receiving a pastor. Love your pastors. Heed them. They aren't doing this for their good. They're doing it for you. You may not want to believe it, especially when they're hard on you, but they're your shepherds, and they've been given this authority by God. To save you from destruction. Let's pray.