Let's pray, please. Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your word and giving us clear instructions on your church and the officers in it. And we pray that we would understand this passage and take it to heart and learn from it. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Please turn to Acts chapter 6, verse 1, is our sermon text, verses 1 through 7 in Acts chapter 6. Our scripture reading and sermon text for this morning, Acts chapter 6, verses 1 through 7. Acts 6, verses 1 through 7. This is God's Word. Now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. The statement found approval with the whole congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte from Antioch. And these they brought before the apostles, and after praying, they laid hands on them. The word of God kept on spreading, and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. May God bless the reading of this holy word. This morning we look at the divine rationale for the diaconate and its vital work in the body of Christ. For churches to glorify God and what they do, they need to have godly elders, and they need to have godly deacons, and they need to have godly people in general. As it goes with the elders and the deacons, so it will usually go with the church itself. When we consider the occasion that gave rise to the formation of the diaconate, we ought to be encouraged. Why was the diaconate created? Because the apostles had dropped the ball on something very important, the proper care of widows. So now think about this, the apostles of Christ dropped the ball on something really important in the church. They messed up something related to ministry. Lo and behold, it happens. If the apostles of Christ could do it, rest assured your own elders can too. Ruling elders, teaching elders can drop the ball. Before we begin, let's think about the question, how important are widows and how important are people in need to God? Well, one only need to read a little bit of the prophets to know how important they are. Just a couple of passages, Isaiah 1, verse 2. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow come before them. Later in Isaiah chapter 10, that widows may be their prey, talking about the wicked that are dwelling in the land and robbing the fatherless. The Christian church must always and has always led the way in mercy ministries. These mercy ministries first to the people of God, to other Christians. They're led by deacons in the local church. The elders ought to be focused upon the ministry of the word and prayer. And as we will see in the passage, that's exactly what they do. And that's why the diaconate is formed so that deacons can do their thing and elders can do their work of the ministry of the word. A problem that we have in our day is so much of what used to be done by Christians and charitable individuals has been taken over by the state. Welfare doesn't work. For one simple reason, you can't throw money at people without having relationships with them. If people know they can get something for nothing, do you think that they will take it? Yes, of course. Charity used to be done by individuals and by the church. Charity is not the duty of the states, which is why they've broken that too, and have broken a lot of people in the process. If the government incentivizes laziness by free handouts and free lunches, then you're gonna get a lot of laziness as a result. The scripture teaches us on the contrary, 2 Thessalonians 2.10, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. If people need help because of life circumstances, because of illness or hardship, then individuals and the church, if need be, ought to step in and help. but a personal relationship with the person being helped is absolutely essential to the help itself being helpful instead of harmful to them. So the first thing we have to point out is state-sponsored welfare has been an unmitigated disaster because the state does not have personal relationships with the money it gives to those people. And that brings us to a vital point right out of the gate. In the local church, the first line of defense for people if they have a need, if there's a crisis or an illness, the first line of defense that people have is always their family. Family's the first line of defense, not the church, their family. If widows and people in need have family willing to provide for their physical needs and to take care of them, the church ought to encourage and allow those people, their family, to do so. Listen to scripture, listen to 1 Timothy 5, and all of these passages are in your thoughts for Sabbath meditation. I would encourage you again, please look these up together as families and read and discuss these today. 1 Timothy 5, 3, honor widows who are really widows, but if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents, for this is good and acceptable before God. You hear that? If there's a widow, if there's someone in need, let their children and grandchildren take care of them. That is their God-given responsibility, to take care of their family. It goes on in verse five of first Timothy five. Now she who is really a widow and left alone, trusting God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. And then down in verse nine, do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number. And not unless she's been the wife of one man, well-reported for good works. If she has brought up children, if she's lodged strangers, if she's watched the saints feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work. But it's the family that helps first, not the church. So remember these biblical principles about mercy ministry to people in the local church. Number one, the first line of defense is always family in scripture. Number two, if family doesn't exist, or if there's family and they're ungodly, they're not willing to help out, or they're unable to take care of widows, the church has to do it. It is their responsibility before God to do it then. The apostles knew this, and you know what they did? They tried to do it themselves. But it was just too much for them. It was too much work to do it alone without neglecting their other essential responsibilities. The apostles understood this, and then they acted accordingly. And all of us need to understand and embrace a simple principle. And I know for some of you, this is gonna come as quite a shock, but nobody can do everything. Elders and deacons, you're not Superman. The apostles themselves couldn't handle it. Often in ministry, ruling elders, teaching elders, they can get to the point of believing that they can do everything, but you know what? They can't. And as I've said to the younger guys, and as my older elders have said to me when I was younger, I guess I'll always will be younger. There's no end to all the good that you could do. There's no end to all the worthwhile things that you could invest your time in, but you can't do everything. You gotta pick a few things and do them well. The ministry of the word and prayer. Those are two things that for the elders that cannot be neglected. You can't drop the ball on those things. Deacons exist so that the elders ministry of the word and prayer are never neglected. Do a few things well. Try to do too much and you'll get burned out and you'll become ineffective. Try to do too many things, and other very important things in your life will be neglected, like your marriage, your family. If you're married, that's always the first thing in this life outside of your walk with Christ. For elders, when it comes to what God expects of you, and when you take those vows, the ministry of the word and prayer are your God-ordained tasks. The ministry of the word and prayer are plenty and they will take up a lot of your time as an elder and then some. And as we've already seen, we have to study a lot. You have to know scripture backwards and forwards and you've got to teach sound doctrine and you've got to understand where the false teachings are coming from and you've got to know how to refute all that stuff. And you know what has really made that more complicated now than ever? The internet. Everybody's exposed to everything now. And I regularly, especially once the internet became a big thing, when I was about halfway through my life, now it's, have you heard of this guy? Have you heard of that guy? Have you heard of this person, that person? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And then you got to look it up and you got to follow the ministry and the doings of every wackadoodle in the world. There are many insubordinates, we're told in Titus 1. Remember that? Why does the elder have to hold fast the faithful word? Why does he have to make sure that he can teach sound doctrine, refute those that contradict it? There are many insubordinate, and that many insubordinate has been raised to a factor of a thousand on the internet. Rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, especially false gospels. Watch out for those. That's a huge task. It takes a lot of reading, a lot of studying, a lot of work. Elders, rebuke unrighteousness, defend Christian liberty, teach sound doctrine, refute those that contradict it. That is a monumental list of tasks. No elder can do that and oversee mercy ministry in the church. It cannot be done. Elders can participate in that work, but they can't run and oversee it. You've got to have deacons. And we are blessed with wonderful deacons in this church. So look at the passage, there's just some introductory comments, but look at the passage here. A lot contained in these seven precious verses of God's word. There really is a great need for the church to get back to understanding diaconal ministry and how important it is. I'm serious, how important it is to the future survival of Christianity in America. Okay, look at verse one. Now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily serving of food. Okay, stop there. So the church is growing. It's multiplying. Disciples are multiplying. And the apostles and the elders at this time, they were the ones who did everything in the church by themselves. Everything related to the spiritual and physical aspects of ministry, they did it all for all those disciples. And there were a lot of them there in Jerusalem after Pentecost. While all this was happening, a complaint arises against the Hebrews by the Hellenists. That would be the Christians of Greek descent. The Greek speaking Christians, the Greek Christians are complaining against the Hebrew Christians. And here's their complaint. Our widows are being neglected in the daily distribution. Our widows are not getting what they need to live in this world in the daily distribution of the offerings of the church to help them out. Now there's an author, Alexander Strauch, who wrote a wonderful book called The New Testament Deacon, Minister of Mercy. He said this, quote, the church in Jerusalem was growing quickly. Of course, this growth was good. The spirit of God was mightily at work in Jerusalem and many people were being converted. The church was not only growing in size, but its social character was changing. A great number of Hellenistic Jews, that's Greek Jews, began to enter the company of the disciples. Hellenistic Jews were Greek-speaking Jews who had immigrated to Jerusalem from foreign lands and who were often culturally and ideologically broader in outlook than the Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews. Because of these differences, the Hellenistic Jews naturally formed a socially distinct group. This made them somewhat suspect by the more conservative native Hebrews who were native born Aramaic speaking Jews. Have you ever noticed ethnic groups tend to kind of congregate together, even today? I mean, you have like different people from different parts of the world that tend to be part of the same denomination together, right? That's not unique to our day and age. Okay, that was happening here too. Now, here is this large congregation, its first divinely given test of their love. How are they going to do with this? Would these cultural differences cause a rift in their fellowship? Cause two warring factions? Would their Christian witness be maligned before the watching world? Do you all know that when Christians bite and devour one another, speak ill of one another in a local church, and they don't resolve conflict according to the words of Jesus in Matthew 18, that we make Jesus look bad to the world when we do that? If you're ever offended by someone at all in this church, I beg of you, no matter how old you are, go to that person alone. And don't talk to a single other living human being about it. Go to that person alone. There was a church in Cincinnati that needed pulpit supply when I was studying for the ministry at a larger Presbyterian church. And they owned a big building, it was bigger than this. And they needed the pulpit supply regularly. I started doing more preaching. I was trying to get better at preaching. And so when they would call me and ask me to come preach, I would come to their church and preach. There were 12 people there on a Sunday morning, 15 people on a Sunday morning, there were two elders there. And the third or fourth time I was with them, we sat in the little room on the side, they would pray for me before I would go preach. And that one Sunday, I said, may I ask you guys a question? Because I remember that church at one time had been a big church, that whole building was filled with people. I said, what happened here? And both of these guys, they looked weathered. They both simultaneously put their faces into their hands and looked at each other. And the one of them looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, we failed to love each other. We didn't resolve conflict the way Jesus said to. We didn't follow Matthew 18. We talked to other people and it died. And they felt compelled to, we gotta try to salvage something out of this. And they have since then. I've heard that that church has come back, but it was devastating to hear that. This church here in Jerusalem has a big conflict going on. Are they gonna resolve it biblically or not? What is wonderful about this here in Acts 6 is that the leadership of the church didn't ignore the problem. They did not fail to act. They didn't just brush it under the carpet and hope it would just kind of go away on its own. They heard about the problem and they addressed it directly and fixed it. And that's how godly leaders function in local churches, says Alexander Strauch. Good leaders always distinguish themselves by their ability to skillfully confront troublesome issues and to be decisive. Running away from problems creates worse problems. End quote. The leaders recognized that they had a responsibility before God to address this issue. The glory of Christ was at stake before the watching world with these neglected widows. They couldn't allow this to go on. There's no reason for a man to desire the office of elder or deacon if they don't want the responsibilities and often difficult times that come with those offices. Look at verse two. So the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Okay, stop there. The apostles summoned the multitude of the disciples to address the situation. Now there are many things Christian people might complain about, some which are better ignored, but the neglect of widows is not one of those. It's a major problem and it demanded an answer and it could not be allowed to continue. And the apostles recognized that their own responsibilities to teach the Word of God and pray, that would be hindered. If they take on this responsibility, then the lifeblood of the church is going to suffer. One of the hardest parts of living a balanced Christian life is learning how to prioritize things. As was already said, there is never an end to the very worthwhile things that you could do. And there's always more that you could take on. Prioritizing is of the utmost importance. I wanna encourage you, you have to learn how to say no without guilt. That's a big, important skill. That's a skill my father encouraged me to have. I didn't have that skill when I was young. My dad has had it his whole life. If he didn't want to do something, no, I don't want to do it. Why? Because I'd rather go fishing. And he didn't care. And he said, son, you have a problem. You say yes to everything everyone asks you to do, and then you get overwhelmed. I've overcome that, by the way. Right, Jim? Many people will never say no to anything that they're asked to do if it's worthwhile, even if they don't have time to do it. And even if the people asking them really believe that they've got time to do it, that's not good. You have to learn how to say no without guilt. Why? Because if you don't, other really important things are going to suffer in your life. It's better to do a few things well than to do a whole bunch of things poorly and be stressed out all the time. When it comes to the ministry of the church that Christ founded, Jesus established an order in it. God is a God of government. He's not left the church on its own to simply figure out how to govern itself and minister to its members. God gives us very simple, clear directions in Acts 6, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1. They're there to explain the specific offices of the church, elder and deacon. And these passages, as we've seen, are really simple, straightforward passages. You just got to listen to what they say and follow them. The 12 apostles knew they could not take on overseeing mercy ministry to widows in the daily distribution, because if they did that, they would have to neglect their duties of teaching the word and praying. They didn't have the time or the energy to do that along with everything else that needed to be done in the church. And when it comes to the office of elder in Jesus's church, the ministry of the word and prayer are the top priorities. They're the top priorities. Teaching the faith to the people, discipling the people, teaching the doctrines of the faith from scripture and praying, that is the work that elders must do and it cannot be neglected for anything, no matter how noble that cause. ministering the word and praying. That requires close proximity to the people of God, to the congregation and relationships with those people. If in our churches today, if the only way that you would ever really get to know a pastor or an elder is if you step out of line or get in trouble, then that church is seriously dysfunctional. People cannot truly live without God's word, without the true gospel consistently and clearly preached, and without the word of God opened, exposited, and applied to them. Had Christ's apostles neglected the doctrines of the faith and neglected prayer, the loss would have been incalculable. Christianity would have ceased to exist. Listen please, when physical needs become the sole or even the driving purpose of the church's existence, apart from the Bible's theology and the truth of scripture in the world, if causes become more important, even really good biblical causes, become the driving force behind the church, the gospel will quickly be lost, and the faith will quickly be lost, and these buildings that we call churches will be repurposed for something else. I'd like to suggest to you that's exactly what has happened in America. Why does that happen? Why are churches sometimes far more inclined to focus on social causes, poverty, and physical needs? Why are we so inclined to do that more inclined to do that than we are to focus on theology and the truth. Because we know Jesus said, it's the truth that sets men free, right? Why are we so inclined to social causes and social justice and things like that? It's because the law of God is in us by nature. We know there are things we ought to do. We ought to be concerned about injustice, poverty, the sick, people with physical needs, et cetera. The law of God is written on every heart, regenerate and unregenerate alike. Listen, but the gospel is not on people's hearts by nature. The gospel is only on the hearts of regenerate people. The unregenerate have little to no use for the theology of the Bible until they're effectually called. And sadly, what many miss is that it is the theology that undergirds our view of ethics and our understanding of what's right and what's wrong. Our desire to alleviate suffering and to correct injustice in the world is built upon the Bible's theology about God and grace and sin and salvation. You lose that, you'll lose every social cause under the sun. And that's why the mainline denominations are all pro-choice, pro-LGBTism, and pro-everything else that God hates. Lose the theology, you'll lose what's right and wrong shortly after it. Many, if not most people are uninterested in spiritual truth, the cross of Jesus Christ, how they fall short of God's glory in every moment of their lives and how they can be saved. But everyone here knows that there's a lot of work that needs to be done in this world. There's a lot of things that are wrong with this world. Listen, Christians and churches ought to be engaged in both activities. learning the doctrinal saving truths of the Bible and special revelation and alleviating the suffering of their own members and of people outside the church too. The church must never emphasize one to the detriment of the other. And we have to know that our interest in social causes and the wickedness of our culture and doing away with it is built on theology. Without justification by faith alone, we will have no impact on the society at all, none. If we don't understand that truth and embrace it, we're not going to be able to see any culture transformation at all. We have to have correct theology. We have to have an understanding of what's true first. And we must also take care of our own brothers and sisters physically and try to have a hand in our communities as well, if possible. There was a book written not too long ago called Already Gone, Why Your Kids Will Quit Church and What You Can Do to Stop It by Ken Ham and Britt Beamer. The opening pages of that book shows picture after picture after picture after picture of beautiful old church buildings in the UK, which have all been turned into restaurants, nightclubs, museums, clothing stores, liquor stores, and tattoo and piercing studios. One of the beautiful churches they show a picture of has even been turned into a Hindu temple and others into Islamic mosques. How'd that happen? How could a church that once preached and proclaimed and loved the truth go from that to being a mosque, to being a Hindu temple? Here's why. The ministry of the word and prayer was lost. That's why. You lose that, you don't have the power of God unto salvation. Lose that, nobody's gonna be converted. There is no life transforming power without the accurately preached and taught word of God and the gospel of Christ. Do you see why deacons are so important? Because if the elders try to do all that other stuff too, the ministry of the word and prayer is neglected. And without the truth, cultures can't be saved. People can't be saved. Once Christian nations where economies flourished, God-given rights were protected and where great revivals took place. They're now spiritual wastelands in Europe. Why? The liberal rejection of all things supernatural. It gutted the Christian faith of all its essential supernatural doctrines. They stopped ministering the word and praying. They stopped preaching the gospel. They stopped aiming at heaven and they lost earth as a result. Look at verse three. Therefore, brethren, select from among yourselves seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. Okay, stop there. The multitude of disciples, they were told, you guys select men for this service. Select seven men. who have good reputations, who are full of the Spirit, and put them in charge of this task. You hear that? They're gonna take over leadership of it. The apostles need to focus on the ministry of the Word and prayer. They're gonna take care of this other stuff. Put them in charge of it. Give it to them and empower them to do it. Look at verse four. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. You know, listen, Alexander Strauss wrote this wonderful paragraph. Please weigh this carefully, thank you. He says, I am convinced that Acts 6 verse 4 is one of the most important verses in the New Testament for church shepherds, for elders. It enunciates the fundamental priorities of all church shepherds, prayer and the ministry of the word. Church shepherds are so easily sidetracked. So many good things demand time and energy. There are always many people who need counsel, programs that need administering, and meetings to attend. Thus, the shepherd's time for prayer, Bible study, and teaching the word of God is slighted. And then he shares this story. Listen. A pastor of a small church told me it took him from Monday through Thursday to perform his administrative duties, which left only Friday and part of Saturday in which to prepare a message from the word of God. My response was to encourage him, read Acts chapter six and reorder your priorities. We must remember that the true priorities of church leaders are always under attack. There will always be too much to do. Over busyness is destroying the lives of many servants of God, as well as many churches. Church shepherds must radically insist on a schedule that affirms the spiritual priorities of prayer and the ministry of God's word. The deacons of the church also need to fix these priorities firmly in their minds. This is what the apostles were doing in their pronouncement to the congregation." I remember hearing a reform minister say on a radio program that every church should have an armed guard that stands in front of the pastor's study, threatening anyone that tries to interrupt him. I was like, we could probably actually do that here, couldn't we? The crisis here you see was actually twofold. Why were the widows being neglected? Well, it wasn't because the apostles were lazy. It wasn't because they didn't care. They were busy. They're busy trying to take care of all these brand new Christians and trying to teach them and get them established in the gospel and trying to rid them of all remnants of legalism and antinomianism and trying to teach them the clean biblical categories of salvation and how it all works. That was a monumental task. The ministry of the word and prayer, they didn't have time to do this. Knowing scripture and what it teaches and becoming equipped to teach that to others and then doing it, it's very time consuming. Being faithful to the prayer needs of a church is also very time consuming if elders take that seriously. And so we have a precedent here to divide up the work. Divide up the work. No one person or group of elders can do it all, they can't. Remember in the Old Testament, remember Moses? Moses, I think, was one of those guys that had a hard time saying no. And he was trying to do everything himself. And you remember his father-in-law, Jethro, ruined forever by the Beverly Hillbillies, that name. His father, Jethro. You always think of Jethro. But Jethro gave him some really good advice, right? He says, surely you will wear yourself out. He said, the thing that you do is not good. In Exodus 18, he's telling his son-in-law, you're killing yourself doing this. You can't do all this. For the thing that you do is too much for you. You are not able to perform it by yourself. Listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel and God will be with you. Stand before God for the people so that you may bring the difficulties to God. And then he says, moreover, you shall select from the people, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place them over to be rulers of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. He's saying, delegate And you handle only the most difficult cases. And that was really good advice for Moses. Very same thing happens here in Acts chapter six. The diaconate, the servants of the church, the ordained servants of the church were appointed because they were spiritually qualified to take this ministry of physical mercy to widows upon themselves so that the ministry of the word and prayer would not be neglected. Now does this mean, does this mean that all service in the church is only to be done by deacons? The elders minister the word and pray, the deacons do all the serving, and everyone else just attends, right? The fact is all believers are called in scripture, diakonia, we're all servants. Now there's a special ordained office of deacon, but we are all to be equipped by our leaders for the work of ministry, the work of service, Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 tells us. So deacons then are examples of service to the body of Christ. However, we all serve each other. We all are to take part in that ministry, that service. If an elder of our church lives near someone who could use some help, that elder ought to pick up and run with that service. Let's say that there was a disabled church member or someone elderly who needed their grass cut because it's too difficult for them to do it. And let's say that I live near them. The deacons should call me up and ask me to mow her lawn. And I'd say, one of my kids would love to do it. We're all called to service. I'm just kidding, I'd probably, I'd help him a little bit. I would cheer him on, so. We're all called to service, but the organization carrying out and at times delegating of service that can't be run by the elders. It's got to be overseen and run by the deacons. With the session's direction and input and working together and being in consultation with one another, the idea is to keep the elders free to pursue the ministry of the word and prayer with the disciples of Christ under their care. The deacons are there to help create an environment where the needy are not neglected and the spiritual needs of the congregation are likewise not neglected. And when I took church polity, when I was in seminary, which is the course that you take to learn church government and the specific details of elders and deacons and things like that, Dr. Rick Canada, the guy that taught that class, I remember writing down a little phrase, a little question, a little answer. He said, you guys want a good summary of diaconal ministry? He's like, there's whole books you could read about it, but what do the deacons do? They help the elders. That's a great way of summarizing it. They help the elders so they can stay focused on the specific tasks that God gave them, the ministry of the word and prayer. And Dr. Canada went on to describe how the office of deacon exists to allow elders to stay focused on preaching and teaching, studying theology, understanding the various trends, the theological movements going on in their day that are gonna be influencing the people that they shepherd and things like that. Elders are to be devoted continually to prayer and the ministry of the word. And I want you to think about the second part of that, prayer. No one is delivered from the bondage of sin. Listen, no one can be delivered from the bondage of sin by great orators, by great public speakers, charming personalities, the charismatic speaker, the super talented guy, Madison Avenue techniques. It doesn't do it. The only thing that can do it is the word of God. The priest and proclaimed gospel of Christ alone does this. And that's why we have to pray. We have to pray that God would bless the ministry of the word in our church and pray that God would bless the ministry of the word on the part of parents to their children and their homes when they read the Bible to them and when they evangelize them. 1 Peter 1.22 says, Since you have, in obedience to the truth, purified your souls for a sincere love for the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. You see, we in the church, we're so quick to just do, do, do more stuff. Witness, and preach, and teach, and evangelize, and disciple, and read, and write, and study. And yes, we have to do those things, but we've got to bathe all of them in prayer. We have to continually be in prayer that God would open a door for the Word, that God would save our children, that God would make His Word not return void, and would bring people to Himself. Prayer is a lifestyle. You wanna see that in action? Read the book of Nehemiah again. Remember Nehemiah? All the way through the whole book, he's constantly throwing up these little prayers to God. All the way through, no matter what he's got going on, if there's a crisis, before he even opens his mouth to talk, Lord, remember me. And then he speaks. He realizes, God has to help me. It doesn't matter how great my gifts might be. Without the blessing of the Spirit of God, it's for nothing. Prayer is a lifestyle. Prayer is constantly going up from the heart of an elder about all the troubles and all of the people and all of the wayward souls in his congregation. We've got to constantly be talking to God. Lord, save this person. Lord, help this person. Lord, grant repentance here. Pray, pray, pray. A prayerless church is a powerless church. A prayerless church, prayerless elders cannot expect much from God and their work. We must humble ourselves and pray. We don't see as we should how utterly dependent on God we really are. We need more of what only God can do. And dear ones, I tell you, we don't have because we don't ask. I think if God could be surprised, obviously he's not surprised by anything, I think he'd be surprised at how little we ask of him. Pray and ask God. Break through the fallowed ground. Awaken people. to their need for Christ. Now look at verses five and six. The statement found approval with the whole congregation, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. Verse six, and these they brought before the apostles, and after praying, they laid their hands on them. Hey, stop there. These men had hands laid on them to be set apart. They were ordained to the special office of service to the church. Now, we don't lay hands on people for every task that people might do in the church. I mean, the cleanup crews after our fellowship meals, the elders don't bring them up here and lay hands on them to set them apart to clean up the fellowship hall. This is ordination to an office. That's the point here. Why do they bring them forward, pray, and let the apostles, the elders, laid hands on them? If God grants us some elders and deacons, we'll be doing that. Myself and the elders will be laying hands on these guys, praying for them in direct obedience to this passage. That's how you set people apart for that office of service, a deacon. Notice also that the deacons are all men. Look at verse three again. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, et cetera. And notice also they were selected by the multitude. They were selected by the congregation. So the power lies in the hands of the membership of the church. Okay, now verse seven. The word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. Okay, stop there. Once the problem was solved by the setting apart of men after they were selected by the multitude and they had hands laid on them by the apostles, notice the result, the word of God spread. You see how important that is? The word of God was not neglected. And what happens as a result? The number of disciples increases. See, if all we do is mercy ministry, then you're not gonna have new disciples being made. You're not gonna have people being converted. We need the truth. We need the gospel preached. Taking care of the needy, the widow, the orphan, the destitute is a powerful testimony to the reality of the life-changing power of the gospel of Christ. Life transformation, priority transformation, cultural transformation brought about by the heart transformation of individuals through the word of God. That's something the church must not, cannot ever allow to be neglected. We have to be a theological church because if you're not, you're not a church at all. Might as well be a local Kiwanis club or something like that. The intimacy and depth of our walk with Christ, however, will be measured very much also by how well we treat each other in our church. Do we resolve conflict the way we should? Do we care about people in need? Do we have concern for those that have physical needs, financial needs? Are we aware of those things? Are we trying to stay on top of those things? That says a lot about where we are with the Lord. 1 John 3, 14, we know we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. Do you love your brethren? Do you love your brethren enough in our church here that if one of them offends you, you will talk to not a single living soul on this planet except them until it's resolved? Please do that. Now what deacons do, just to finally kind of wrap up here, If you look back at verses one and two again, I want you to see it again, Acts 6, verses one and two. Now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows are being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Now that Greek word that's translated as tables there is the word trapeza. And the passage seems to indicate that it was about food and also about money. The distribution of food and the distribution of money is in view here. Now I want to read another quotation from Alexander Strauss. Listen to this. He says, the task the apostles gave to the seven was specific. Its nature is partially described as the daily serving and to serve tables. The Greek word for tables, trapeza, is often used figuratively to mean food or meals. But the term tables is also used figuratively for finances, a money table, or a bank. For example, the Good News Bible translates Acts 6.2 this way, it is not right for us to neglect the preaching of God's word in order to handle finances. It also renders the end of Acts 6.1 as the daily distribution of funds. In the New Testament, in modern English, J.B. Phillips gives his rendering of verse two, it is not right that we should have to neglect the preaching of the word of God in order to look after accounts. If tables here means money tables, then the seven were to distribute money for food daily to the widows and keep careful accounts of their expenditures. If not, the seven were to administer communal meals for these widows, which of course would involve money and accounting as well. It is difficult to be certain, but Acts 4, 34 and 35 suggests that we are to understand tables to mean money tables, where money is distributed and collected in detail, the seven deacons, Number one, were to collect money and goods contributed to the needy. Number two, to distribute the money or goods to the needy. Three, to ensure that the church justly and fairly distributed the money. And four, to coordinate the church's overall charitable services to the needy. The seven, in other words, were the church's official ministers of mercy. Through them, the church's charitable activities were effectively centralized. Now, do y'all understand why that was so important? The apostles, the elders, they didn't have time to do that. Their tasks, the ministry of the word and prayer made it, they can't do that too. We can't oversee how much money's coming in and keep track of expenditures, the people in need and everything. We can't do both. And so with the diaconate, you have it centralized with the seven. In the last sentence there from Alexander Strauch, he says, it was imperative that the new community of the risen Savior care for its needy, end quote. So think about that. How does Jesus look to the world if the needy believers who are part of our local churches are neglected by us? It makes them look really bad. It makes us look really bad. If the love of true Christians is truly supernatural in origin and it animates us with an ability to love one another in a way that no unbeliever is able, how does the love of Christ, how does the name of Christ look to the watching people of the world if people who claim to know and love him don't take care of each other when their basic necessities aren't being met? The problem arose, the apostles addressed it, the diaconate is formed, and then this happened, and look at verse seven again. The word of God kept on spreading, and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. There's a division of labor in the church. The ministry of the word, the teaching of the Bible, its doctrines to the people, and prayer, those are the tasks of the elders. Mercy ministries and managing finances is the task of the deacons. We are a needy church. We ourselves here at Myrtle Heights, we are a needy church. And we need to pray that God would raise up more elders and deacons. And we're gonna be opening up nominations next Sunday. We'll be explaining that process to you. Please pray for our church. Pray that God would raise up such qualified men for each office. And let us all pray that the word of God will continue to spread and that the number of disciples would increase and that more and more people will become obedient to the faith. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this great passage. It's very short, and yet it tells us so much about the division of labor in the church between elders and deacons. Help us to follow it, to obey it, and we do pray that you would give us such men to hold those offices and execute their duties as would please you, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.