Forerunners to the Office of Deacon

Transcript

GRM 893
Forerunners to the Office of Deacon
Acts 6:1-5
03/14/04


We’ve been studying Paul’s letter to Timothy, and let me just remind you of something of the historical setting. About 30 years have passed since the church began in Acts chapter 2 when Paul writes the letter to Timothy that we’ve been studying together. The church would have begun in Acts chapter 2 around 30 A.D. with the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ, the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. Now approximately 30 years have passed and Paul is writing to Timothy and giving him instructions on how the church is to function. As you might expect, over a period of 30 years there has been development in the church. God has given revelation to the Apostle Paul in particular regarding the church. And even as Paul writes his first letter to Timothy, he is unfolding to him with more clarity and more details how the church is to function in a manner that is pleasing to God.

In chapter 3 of I Timothy we’ve been looking at the matter of church leadership. There God set forth in some detail the qualifications for men who would serve as pastors or overseers or elders. As we studied what God had to say about elders, we noted that there are a number of places in the New Testament epistles where elders were referred to or talked about. Titus chapter 1 being the other major portions, in addition to I Timothy 3. But in the book of Acts and Peter’s first letter and so on there are references to the elders. And that helps us get some better idea of their responsibility and ministry.

I Timothy chapter 3 verse 8 Paul says the deacons likewise are, and he goes on to list the qualifications for deacons. Now part of the problem we have with deacons is there are no other references to deacons in a clear way, except for one. When Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians in Philippians chapter 1 verse 1 he addressed it to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and the deacons. Then he goes on with the letter. So I Timothy chapter 3 verses 8-13 and Philippians chapter 1 verse 1 are the only clear, undisputed reference to deacons we have in the New Testament. And in I Timothy chapter 3 verses 8-13 what Paul unfolds are the qualifications for a man who would serve as deacon. But he doesn’t get into the whole issue of what are deacons, what is a deacon to do, why are there such high qualifications for a man who would serve as a deacon. And so we are left without answers to some of those questions in that passage.

However in Acts chapter 6 we have an event that occurs early in the church’s history, 2 or 3 years perhaps after the church began in Acts chapter 2. While I don’t think this is the beginning of the official office of deacon, I think what happens in Acts chapter 6 probably marks the beginning of men serving in the capacity of deacon. And with the passing of time in the development of the church, as always happens, things become more clarified and become more organized. So that by the time Paul writes the letter to Timothy 30 years later deacons are a normal part of the church’s ministry. It was already so before he wrote to Timothy because we saw them addressed in the letter to the Philippians. And the letter to the Philippians was written during Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, recorded at the end of the book of Acts. The letter to Timothy was written after Paul was released from prison and was free to travel again. Timothy had been traveling with him and had been left in Ephesus to straighten out some of the things in the church there that needed attention. So we do know that sometime over the course of the church's early history, deacons became identifiable leaders in the ministry, evidently under the authority of the elders. The elders had the responsibility for teaching and oversight, and in I Timothy 3 as we’ll see when we study that in our next study, the deacons by virtue of following the elders indicates that they are men who serve under the ultimate authority of the elders. And that fits with the role given to elders through the rest of the New Testament.

What I want to do is look with you in Acts chapter 6, a portion we studied a few years ago when we studied the book of Acts, and look at some of the things that are said here and developed here, which I think will give us, perhaps, at least some appreciation and understanding of how these deacons came into existence, something of the role and function they have in the ministry of the church. When you’re in the book of Acts and chapter 6, you are in that early period of the church, within about the first 3 years of the church’s history. These were times of great excitement and great growth in the church. The Holy Spirit had come to fill believers and enable them to testify with great power concerning Jesus Christ. Acts chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus told His disciples before His ascension, “you will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses.” And that has been taking place in Acts chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and now we come to chapter 6. Many thousands of people have come to know Christ on that first day in Acts chapter 2 verse 41. As a result of the preaching of Peter we’re told “that day there were added about 3000 to the church”, in Acts 2:41. Then you look in Acts chapter 4 verse 4, “but many of those who heard the message believed and the number of men came to be about 5000.” Then you look at chapter 5 verse 14,”and all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number.” So there’s been explosive growth in this early church. Now we have a church in Jerusalem of thousands and thousands of people. We saw 5000 men earlier, now we have multitudes of men and women being added to the church also.

With this growth, keep in mind, there is also difficulty. Some people like to selectively pull out of the first part of the book of Acts things they like. We all like to think the church ought to be an exciting place, a growing place, and everything there is going well. And it is an exciting place, the church of Jesus Christ is the most exciting place to be. It is a place where God is doing His work in the world today. But you understand along with this growth, this early church is experiencing intense persecution. And you can read chapters 3, 4, 5 and you’ll get a flavor of some of what is going on and the difficulties of the church. Believers are being arrested, believers are being imprisoned. The leaders of the church have experienced arrest and beatings. So they are difficult times. In fact the persecution is going to get so severe by the time we get to Acts chapter 8, the church in Jerusalem is going to be fractured. Many of those believers are going to have to flee to other places for their lives.

Any time the Spirit of God is working, the gospel of Jesus Christ is making an impact, there will be a rising level of opposition and conflict. We recognize that today. If you keep your testimony for Jesus Christ to yourself, if you don’t talk about the gospel with anybody you work with, anybody you come in contact with, you probably don’t have any tension with them over these things. But as soon as you start to talk about Jesus Christ and your testimony becomes move bold and more clear, now you find there is opposition growing toward you. Tension is created. So the early church has experienced that. We talk about we want our church to be like the church of the book of Acts. In other words we want to be persecuted, we want things to be difficult, we want people to dislike us, we want people to look for excuses to slander us, arrest us, try to destroy our lives. That’s all part of the church in the early part of the book of Acts. We want to be like that church, we want to be a church proclaiming the gospel. And whatever happens as a result of that is in the Lord’s hands.

Well that’s not the only things going on. You come to Acts chapter 6 and you are reminded the early church had to do with the everyday, ordinary, mundane things of life. One writer put it this way, the Christian life involves not only participating in great spiritual victories, it includes much of ordinary routine of matters physical and organizational. That’s where we get in Acts chapter 6. We just get highlights in a history, like the book of Acts. We have to remember these people were living ordinary lives day after day, just like you and I have to. And the church of Jesus Christ as it existed that day in one place, in Jerusalem, had to deal with the ordinary routine things of life. And you know what? The devil has attacked the church in a variety of ways up until Acts chapter 6. Now we are going to see dissension within. We saw the potential for that in Acts chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. That was dealt with very directly by the Spirit of God.

Now there’s a new problem. And of all things it has to do with taking care of the physical needs of the widows in the church. And this has the potential of dividing the church and causing a split. It had the potential of creating 2 churches, 1 comprised of Hellenistic Jews, the other comprised of Hebrew Jews. So we see how the Spirit of God directed in the resolving of this problem and how the office of deacon probably had its beginning. There is no danger so great to the church as conflict within. And some of these conflicts can become intensely personal. If they are not dealt with quickly and properly, they grow. And the longer they grow, the more they fester, the more difficult it becomes to try to resolve it in a godly manner that maintains the unity of the church.

Look at chapter 6 of Acts verse 1, “now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number.” And you ought to underline that. “While the disciples were increasing in number.” God’s greatest blessings in our lives and in the church have the potential, often, to cause the greatest problems. You know if the church at Jerusalem had not been experiencing the blessings of God in its growth, it would not have had the problem that it now faces, of a division. But while the church is increasing in number “a complaint arose.” Growth always causes problems, no growth causes problems, growth causes problems. People are in churches that don’t grow and don’t develop they say oh we wish we had your problems as a growing church. I have sometimes thought over the years of my ministry here, I’d say Lord there are times I feel like I’m going to be crushed by your blessings. We just sort of run out of gas, we feel like we’re getting overwhelmed.

So the church at Jerusalem. And you know what’s happened? As a result of the impact of the gospel you’ve had different kinds of people get saved, and different kinds of people get saved and bring certain baggage with them. We get saved out of different backgrounds. And you have two kinds of Jews, now. Remember the church is only Jewish at this point. The church began in Acts chapter 2 at the Day of Pentecost when Peter preached the gospel to Jews gathered in Jerusalem. To this point we basically only have Jews. That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a Gentile in the church, or a few, but it’s basically a Jewish church. The Gentiles won’t have the gospel taken to them until Acts chapter 10. The Samaritans who are mixed Jews, Jews who have intermarried with non-Jews, they’re not even reached until Acts chapter 8. So here we have a Jewish church, you think well at least at this point the church ought to be able to get along because you don’t have Jews and Gentiles conflicting with one another and Jews and Samaritans conflicting with one another. You know what you have now? You have Jews and Jews conflicting with one another.

Verse 1 tells us a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews. You have the Hellenistic Jews. And Hellenistic Jews were Jews who had lived outside of Palestine. Remember Israel was deported from the land, the northern 10 tribes, by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. Then about 586 B.C. you had the Babylonian captivity and the rest of the Jews experienced a deportation. Then some of those Jews returned to Palestine, but many of them remained settled in other places in the world in other countries. They had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on. But over time you had many of these Jews return to the land. Similar to what you’ve had in the land of Israel today, where you’ve had Jews from other countries in the world returning to the land of Palestine. But when they return they bring their baggage with them. If they’ve been living in Russia they bring their customs, their language and so on, or whatever place in the world they come from.

Now there were also Jews who had been in Palestine for a long time and raised children and grandchildren in Palestine. They were the Hebrew Jews. They had maintained their language and their customs. They you have the Hellenistic Jews who had adopted the Greek language and Greek customs and they come in. They have to learn the language of Israel and adjust their customs. Similar to people who come we have believers from other countries who move to the United States. What happens? They come, they love the same Lord, they serve the same Savior, but they want to maintain their customs and their language. They’re looking for ways to conduct church, but not get assimilated into American ways. Periodically we will have different groups, Russian group, Spanish group, whatever say we would like to use your building. We want to have our customs, our music, our language. Well you can understand the problem they had here, Hellenistic Jews, Hebrew Jews. They have been brought together in the same church. There is only one church, they didn’t have another church. They couldn’t say well we’ll go to this church. There’s only one church at this point, it’s the church at Jerusalem under the leadership of the apostles.

So a complaint arose. The word complaint, I’ve shared this word with you before. I don’t know why I like this word, goggusmos. That’s our word murmur, the English version of this. It has the sound of what the word means. Doesn’t goggusmus sound like murmuring and complaining? So when I tell somebody don’t goggusmus, it means don’t murmur, don’t complain. There was complaining, and this is a serious word. It means complaint, displeasure, expressing murmur. It was the word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament when the Israelites murmured against Moses, Exodus 16:7, Numbers 14:27. You see it’s a word that is a serious word. It was a serious matter. When Israel complained against Moses God said they’re complaining against Me. Now you have 2 groups of God’s people, Hellenistic Jews who are believers and Hebrew Jews who are believers, and there’s a complaint lodged one against another. We have sin in the midst, we have the potential for real trouble. Not easily resolved because we’re not only now bringing a personal disagreement, we’re bringing different backgrounds of people into this issue. Things which are a little more difficult to resolve.

The complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews. Remember Philippians chapter 2 verse 14, “do all things without murmuring.” That’s our word here. Or complaining. There ought to be no murmuring, no grumbling at whatever we’re doing. I mean is the Spirit of God divided against Himself? Is He a Hebrew Spirit versus a Hellenistic Spirit? No. There’s something that needs to be resolved in the church here. And the problem is the Hellenistic Jews think their widows are being overlooked in the daily serving of food. These are Jews that come out of an Old Testament background. The Old Testament specified that the Jews were to take care of the widows and orphans, Deuteronomy 14:29, 24:19, 26:12. These passages talk about the responsibility of the Jews to take care of the widows and orphans. That is also true in the church of Jesus Christ. We’re not going to get into this now, but when we get into I Timothy chapter 5, Paul is going to give rather detailed instructions on the responsibility of the church toward widows. The church has a responsibility here, has a ministry to carry out.

And as you might think here are the foreigners who have gotten back into the land. They’re not real good yet with the language, they’re a little different in their customs. Now they’re thrown together in one church. There are problems that have to be resolved. One of the sad things we’ve done with the church of Jesus Christ is model it like the world. We like our own kind, is the thinking of the world and the thinking of church growth. Remember taking church growth classes almost 30 years ago. One of their principles was homogeneous units. People are drawn to their own kind and so we want our church …. You have to decide what kind of people will you have in your church. You know that’s another way of saying we function like the world. Don’t start a Hellenistic church here because Hellenistic Jews have their own ways and their own issues, and Hebrew Jews have their own issues and their own ways. So let’s have a Hellenistic church and that will draw Hellenistic Jews to that group, and we’ll have a Hebrew Jewish church and that will draw the Hebrews. And that resolved it. No. You know what they have to do? They have to submit to the Spirit and resolve this and learn to live together as the people of God. We oughtn’t to have a church for the rich and a church for the poor, a church for this and a church for that. Because the world does that, they learn to like their own kind, to get along with their own people. We ought to say these things are non-issues to us. We have a common relationship in the Spirit of God. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t have to work hard at some things and in some areas to work it out and resolve it, but that’s what God does because we are one body in Christ. So if we’re rich or we’re poor, that’s not the issue here. The issue here is our relationship to Christ. So you don’t find their solution is not going to be let’s start another church. The issue is going to be let’s get this resolved in a manner that honors our God.

They’re being overlooked in the daily serving of food, the ministry to meet their needs. So the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples, the believers, and they said, it’s not desirable for us to neglect the Word of God in order to serve tables. This has a potential to divide the church. How are we going to resolve this? And this is a church that is still early enough you know who the board is of this church. It’s the 12 apostles. Surely that early church wouldn’t have this kind of dissension already. I mean this is the church where the disciples who sat under the ministry of Christ for 3 years, now for about 3 years of the early church’s history have been leading the ministry and seeing explosive growth. And this church has this kind of conflict over how you take care of widows? It does. So you call the church together. And the 12 apostles say it is not desirable for us to neglect the Word of God to serve tables. Now note they don’t say this is not an important issue, so we oughtn’t to have to spend time on it. Let’s forget it. Just doesn’t rebuke them for having a conflict, but the apostles make clear what the priority in the ministry of the church must be. Here we have 12 apostles, we have a church that has mushroomed. What is it now? 10,000? We saw 5000 men in chapter 5 and then in chapter 5 verse 14 we saw multitudes of men and women being added on top of this. You have 12 men and now you have all the details of a church this size. The ordinary, routine things of people getting along and needs being met. These things have to be taken care of, but the 12 apostles say we cannot turn our attention and neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to serve tables.

Serving tables here just doesn’t mean making food, giving the food out. The word tables is used and was used then and is used in the New Testament in the gospels, Luke chapter 19 verse 23, Matthew chapter 21 verse 12. There the word tables is used of moneychangers, because the moneychangers sat at tables and that’s where then financial transactions took place. What we’re talking about here is making provision for the needs of the widows. We don’t want to get involved in that because that will take time from the Word. So somebody else will have to do it. And that’s what’s going to take place here.

Now what’s going to happen, we have apostles here. With the development of the church and the church being driven out and being established in other places besides Jerusalem, you won’t have apostles leading those churches. There are only 12 of them. Paul is going to become an apostle, but that’s the end. We have churches being established in various places in the world. The responsibility of the apostles will be passed on to the elders. There are certain things that the apostles had that the elders won’t. The apostles received direct revelation from God, they had that ministry of direct revelation validated “by miracles and signs and wonders”, according to II Corinthians 12:12. But the teaching of the Word of God and the communication of the Word of God is passed on to other men who will provide leadership and oversight. So the elders or pastors, the overseers, stand in the role of the apostles. They are the successors of the apostles in a Biblical sense, not because they have the apostolic position, but now they carry on the role of teaching and communicating the truth that has been given to the apostles and prophets. It becomes important in seeing the relationships that are going to be developed and established here. Those responsible for the oversight of the church are entrusted with the teaching of the Word of God. Nothing must detract from that. We’re not going to do anything that will cause us to neglect the ministry of the Word. Note this is a good thing. They’re going to appoint godly men to do this, it is just not the best thing for the apostles to be doing. Keep that in mind as we move along here.

So what do the apostles tell them? Verse 3, “therefore brethren select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom who we may put in charge of this task.” The solution is not, note they don’t say look anyone can take care of this. This is part of the ministry of the church. It is of great importance. Select seven men and here are their qualifications in summary. Note the summary here. They must be men of good reputation, well-spoken of, honorable men, respected men. They must be full of the Holy Spirit. Men whose lives have evidence they live under the control of the Holy Spirit, they are godly men. And they are full of wisdom. They have demonstrated the ability to sort through these kind of matters and make wise decisions on how these things ought to be done. It’s important. I believe these men are the forerunners of what we call our deacons. They’re not called deacons here, but the form of the word deacon is used several times in this passage. Like we talk about the daily serving at the end of verse 1. That word serving is a form of the word deacon. Talk about serving tables at the end of verse 2, that’s our word deacon again, form of the word deacon. In the context we’re talking about this area of serving. Deacon is just a form of the word translated serve. That’s the basic meaning of the word deacon, serve. And it’s used many, many times in the New Testament just of serving. Like serving tables mentioned here. It’s a normal word for serving.

We will put these men in charge of this task. Because they are deacons, not elders, doesn’t mean they won’t teach, preach and oversee things. But they will do it under the authority of the elders. We’ll see these men in a moment. But they will oversee, they’re put in charge of this task. It will be their responsibility to see that the widows are taken care of fairly and properly, and we’ll continue the ministry of prayer and the Word. Again, it seems to me in light of where we come to 30 years later in the book of I Timothy, these are probably the forerunners of the deacons. This becomes the pattern that will be developed in the plan of God for the church, to be sure that the church keeps its focus on what is important and absolutely essential.

Look at verse 4, but we, the apostles, will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. You’ll note this brackets the end of verse 2, it’s not desirable for us to neglect the Word of God in order to serve tables. We’ll put godly men in charge of these material matters, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. A division takes place here. The apostles continue with overall authority and responsibility for the ministry. They are going to see that this area of ministry is taken care of, and the way they’re going to see it taken care of, they appoint godly men who are given that responsibility. They are exercising their oversight, seeing that the widows are taken care of, not by doing it themselves personally but seeing that someone is responsible. And it will be taken care of so that the ministry of the Word continues on. You’ll note, we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. The church is going to become progressively more organized, structured if you will, sometimes thought of as bad words in some churches, so that the ministry of the church can be more effective, so that the ministry of the Word can receive the attention it must, and so that the other areas of ministry in the church receive the attention that they must. So organization is not a bad thing. Some people think oh we just ought to allow the Spirit to work. We do, and the Spirit of God works through the Word of God. And one of the things that becomes clear in the Word of God is that there is organization given. Now that’s not the sole end and the church of Jesus Christ is in danger now of going to the other end. I just filled out a reference for a man for a church looking for a pastor. It was a good reference form. Some that you get, they’re looking for a CEO, they’re not looking for a biblical pastor. What they’re really looking for is someone who can make something that looks like a church, but it will be more successful. We need to have men leading the church who devote themselves to the ministry of the Word.

One of my challenges in the responsibilities given to me called to the pastorate of this church has been to try to keep myself out of other things. That continues to be a challenge. I like to do much of my study at my home study, because when I come here I have a way of sticking my nose into things I don’t need to be into. I come here and I’ll get involved in this, I’ll get involved in that, I’ll talk about this, I’ll talk about that. I’ll get home and Marilyn will say how was your day? I’ll say I don’t know, it was busy. Did you get any studying done? No. Well what’d you go there for? To put my nose in other people’s business, give them my needed opinion. Well how many days can I do that and then not be able to teach the Word? So pretty soon churches hire pastors to do what? Everything. Marry, bury, visit, comfort, counsel, study, teach, be a friend, go golf, ride the tractor, fill in the blank. How is he going to study and teach the Word? I mean the original apostles said we only have time to do two things, devote ourselves to prayer and study of the Word so they can teach the Word. How do you expect me to do any better, and I’m not an apostle. And how can other men …. I feel for other men. They’re in a job, and they’re not visiting the sick on schedule and if they’re not at somebody’s home and if they’re not available when somebody wants to walk in and sit down and talk, they’re not a good pastor. And then people complain they don’t preach very well. You get what you want. You didn’t want a pastor, you wanted a personal friend. Doesn’t mean a pastor can’t be a friend, but we need to understand what the Word says is the priority in the church, here. And a church oughtn’t to be hiring CEOs that oh I read one man who said he is pastor in one of the longest churches in the country. He’s thinking about giving up preaching and he’ll just run the operation. What do we have? I mean we have the world’s model of a corporation. We come here we find the apostles say well I guess we’ll give up the study and preaching because you know we got to keep this machine oiled so that it will continue to grow and expand. They leave that in God’s hands, and yet they do what God would have them do.

All right. We’ll devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. That doesn’t mean you neglect the others, that means there are others who can minister beside pastors or elders or apostles. And we’re going to appoint godly men. The statement found approval with the whole congregation. And we see the men they chose, Stephen being the first name here, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. They chose top-notch, quality men. All of chapter 8 will be about Stephen, he’s the first martyr. What a preacher. It doesn’t mean these were men of inferior abilities, but they are men assigned certain responsibility and so they will see that gets done and gets done well. But it doesn’t mean they won’t do other things. Oh I’m a deacon, I don’t teach. Look at chapter 8 and see what Stephen did, the impact he had. We want to be careful in our view of deacons, they are godly men that God will use in a variety of ways. They do have certain responsibilities that may be different from the elders. The elders must do certain things, the deacons will have responsibilities they must do. The church is an organism, our body is organized. It is an organism with organization and when all the parts function as they should and are coordinated as they should, then the body is effective. So the church of Jesus Christ is to have its proper structure and organization.

Interesting here, they have seven men, and you know what? They all have Hellenistic names. How would you resolve this problem? The Hellenistic Jews think the Hebrew Jews aren’t treating their widows fairly, so the apostles say fine, we’ll resolve that. And they appoint seven Hebrew Jews and the Hellenists are going to say what? Hasn’t resolved the problem. But it’s the Hellenistic Jews that have the problem. All right, let’s appoint seven godly men. Since the Lord has provided seven godly men who are Hellenistic Jews, let’s appoint them. Now where is there going to be a complaint among the Hellenistic Jews? Surely you won’t think these Hellenistic men, godly men who are Hellenistic Jews are going to favor the Hebrew Jews. I think these are godly men, resolves the conflict. We can get on with the ministry. So these men are selected, they are appointed by the elders, indicates they are under the authority of the apostles. Not called elders here, although later Peter when he writes his letter in I Peter chapter 5 he’ll refer to him not only as an apostle, but as an elder, evidently functioning in the church.

These men are appointed. Philip will be mentioned in Acts chapter 21 verse 8. You know what he is called? Philip, the deacon. No, Philip, “the evangelist.” He fulfilled the role of deacon in the church but you know what his gift was? Evangelist. And evidently he was used of God in carrying the gospel to other people. We’ll have more to say about deacons, but keep in mind the high role and office these men had as they start out. And here you say we’re going to serve tables, we’re going to take care of widows. Not something anyone can do, these are significant responsibilities. Everything done needs to be overseen by godly men who will do it in a way honoring to the Lord.

Verse 7, what’s the result of this? The word of God kept on spreading, the number of the disciples continues to increase greatly in Jerusalem. A great many of the priest were become obedient to the faith. Do you know what happened here? The organizational structure, the continual development of the ministry enabled the church to continue its ministry. The Word of God continues to go out. People continue to be saved, even some of the priests are turning to the Lord.

So really we want to do things God’s way so that the work of God can continue unhindered, so all things always go on. We’ve experienced that in the growth we’ve just come through. We’ve built an education wing here a couple of years ago, required sacrifice on top of sacrifice of God’s people to pay for that. Why? Well the same reason we’ve built other buildings. You know no one lives here. I never sleep here. Some young people with sponsors sleep here once in a while. But you know this is nobody’s house in that sense. So when we build this, and we built an education wing, we don’t build it for ourselves in that sense. Why do we build it? Because we don’t want the work of God to be hindered in a way it doesn’t have to. We don’t want people to stand at the door. We started out in the chapel over here when I came and you know we had 60 people or so. It was wonderful, it was like a family. Everybody knew everybody, everybody knew everybody’s business. When a family didn’t show up for church someone said oh well they went to see their relatives in such-and-such a place. Oh. Everybody kept track of everyone. Sunday night everybody came back like they came Sunday morning, just what we did. You know we were all together. You know what? You have to leave and grow beyond our comfortable group. You know what happened then? Pretty soon that chapel wasn’t big enough. We had to decide, are we going to tell people look, we’re full. Maybe it would be good if you looked someplace else. We say we want people to come to know the Lord, so we don’t want our facility to limit us. So we’re going to have to pay a price. We have a seat, but if we want more people to come there are no more seats. So then we built an auditorium which was over here. Pretty soon that wasn’t big enough and we went to multiple services as we had in the other place. We say you know we’re going to have to do something to make room for more people. So people paid the price and there were education buildings in between that and so on. That’s the physical side. People have come to me and said we don’t want to put money into bricks and mortar. I don’t want to put money into bricks and mortar either, but I look out here and you people sitting here with Bibles as we study the Word of God together, I don’t look at this as bricks and mortar. I look at it as the place where people can hear the Word of God and be taught the Word of God. So it’s always difficult. You say oh we have to be stretched again, we do. We do those things. When I came we didn’t have small groups because our church was a small group. You know, bigger than our small groups that meet in homes, but it was a small group. But you know what as the Word grew we needed what? More people to be able to be involved in more ways, people opened their homes, there were meetings going on in that way. People decided they would do the work to expand the Sunday School for more children to expand the ministry to children, and children’s church and nursery and on it goes. Why? To enable the work to continue to develop in a way that honors the Lord. And on it goes. And we want the Word of God to be what is being used in lives. So that can never divert us. Everything we do we want to look and say why are we doing this. We did it when we built our most recent building. Why are we doing this? I still go to my same office. I don’t teach over there, either. But there are people studying the Word of God over there in those rooms. We wanted to make it more available to more people, more conducive to the ministry of the Word.

I take it that’s all that’s going on here. We talk about elders, we talk about deacons. We say I don’t want to get into all those structures, I don’t see why we have to do that. We’re all believer priests, we all have the Spirit of God, we ought to just operate as the Spirit directs us. But how will the Spirit direct us? Through the Word. So here we are, studying how the church is to conduct itself, how we are to conduct ourselves in the church according to I Timothy 3. And we read about elders, we read about deacons. So we go back and sort out the scripture, trying to search it out and find out what does God have here. So we know how to move forward, how to be a place where God can work in the greatest possible way. It’s been my blessing in the ministry here to have the body respond as they did in Acts chapter 6. I realize that my responsibility in teaching the Word was a priority and that meant they accepted others coming to visit, not necessarily pastors, but others, and sometimes then pastors. Other ministries that go on, say well we recognize and appreciate there is diversity in the body and the body moves on as the various parts of the body function as they should. We have order, we have structure, we have elders who are responsible for oversight. Part of their responsibility is to appoint deacons. And the deacons are involved in the ministry in key ways, others, entrusted with the responsibility. Elders to see that the doctrine of the church remains pure, that other things that we take on are consistent with the ministry God has given to the church in the New Testament. And we can continue to develop and go forward.

So the deacons played a key role very early, it seems. Now they may not have been called deacons at that point. They were called to a particular ministry of serving in a unique way of oversight in that area of the ministry. So some 30 years later when Paul writes to Timothy we can appreciate the role that they are to play and the importance of their qualifications.

All of this reminds us of what? The church is the body of Christ, it’s the church of God. It’s the place comprised of His people for His glory. People being saved here, from among the priests in verse 7. Very religious people, but lost. Not part of the church of Jesus Christ. Jewish people, in Acts 6, but lost. But now getting saved. That’s the glorious ministry of the church, to offer the gospel of Jesus Christ to religious people, to religious leaders, to unreligious people. People wherever they are need to hear the truth that Jesus Christ is the Savior, He’s the one who came to this earth, suffered and died to pay the penalty of sin, and only by believing in Him can a person experience true transformation of life. I want to talk about the terms of the gospel tonight so we’re clear on what the Bible does say about salvation by faith, the receiving and acceptance of Christ as Savior. That’s something that everyone must do, otherwise you attend a meeting. But only those who are believers in Jesus Christ are truly members of the church.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your grace. Thank you for the truth revealed concerning your church, the church we are privileged to be part of, but a church that does not belong to us. It belongs to you. So we desire to carry out all the details of the functioning of this local church in a manner that is consistent with your will as revealed in your Word. Give us sensitive hearts to the truth, ready minds to obey. Lord, may the gospel of Jesus Christ continue to go forth that many more might be added to the church of Jesus Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.