And so what I want to do this morning is introduce you to the next piece of our church's puzzle. And I believe we are at a stage in life as a church that we need to begin seeking out a man or a number of men to serve with us as deacons in the offices of the church. And I believe if we have that need, we have a God that will meet that need. And so the question becomes, if we need deacons and if we believe God is gonna provide us with them, what's the process for searching out and appointing qualified men to the office of deacon? When we planted the church, we wrote and adopted a constitution that would help us with some of these things, and we wrote it in a way because we believe it's a biblical process to find qualified, gifted men who can serve in the church. Listen to how our constitution tells us this process will go at our church. Our Constitution says the congregation of Sovereign Grace Bible Church is free to make recommendations to the elders regarding future deacons at any time. When the elders believe a man to be qualified for the office, they will submit his name to the congregation. The congregation will be given a minimum of four weeks to examine the life of the man in light of the qualifications set forth in section 2 of this article. Should they see any disqualifying sin patterns in his life, they are required by scripture to go to him with an exhortation to repent, and the sins shall also be brought to the attention of the elders for their consideration in examining the man's qualifications. Deacons will be appointed by the elders with an attempt to carry the conscience of the congregation." So here's what our Constitution is saying. It's saying that the members in the church are free at any time to recommend a man for the office of deacon to the elders whenever they feel like there's someone qualified and gifted for that service. And then when that recommendation is made, the elders will begin a process of investigating that person, examining that person, a spiritual vetting process. And if the elders believe that person is qualified to serve as a deacon, they will then bring that name to the entire congregation. And the congregation has four weeks to examine that person's life to see if they meet the qualifications that are laid out in scripture for the office of a deacon. And if there's no glaring sins that disqualify that person, after four weeks the elders of the church will appoint that person to be a deacon. So that's where we're at as a church, but before I ask you to begin more intensely examining the men in the congregation to be deacons, what I want to do is take a break from the book of Mark for a couple weeks and look at the biblical qualifications for deacons, the biblical duties of deacons, what does the Bible tell us deacons should be doing, How do the deacons relate to the elders? How do the deacons relate to the entire congregation? How do their functions relate and overlap? And so we're going to take a break from the book of Mark for a couple weeks and have a few sermons that address the topic of deacons in the church. And then after I've had the opportunity to preach and to hopefully re-biblically inform you as to what are deacons, what should they be doing, what are their qualifications, then at the end of a couple weeks of teaching on this, I'm going to ask the congregation to submit the name or the names of people that you believe God could be calling to be deacons. The word deacon is a transliteration from a Greek word that simply means servant, one who serves. The word itself is used 130 times in scripture, and most of those times it's not talking about the formal office in the church of a deacon. Most of those times it's talking about simply one who serves. In other words, when we think about deacons, there's actually only 22 times the word is used in Scripture to talk about the formal office of a deacon. In other words, the idea we should have as we think as a church that we are going to, Lord willing, have some deacons among us, is not that great. We're going to have these servants that are going to do the work of the ministry for us. We were reminded in Sunday school this morning that when God saves a person, He saves them for the purpose of having a body, a church, where every member is a servant. Every person in God's church, in his family, has a role and a function where he calls them to serve. But 22 times in the New Testament, the word deacon is used in its technical sense, referring to the formal office in the church. And there it's describing really the overseers of the servants. They're the ones that come in and they oversee and they guide and they direct and they help with the service type ministries in the church. And so we're going to focus this morning on the birthing of the office of deacon as it's seen in Acts chapter 6 verses 1 through 7. So if you have a Bible, that's where we'll be. We'll be in Acts 6, 1 through 7. Acts 6, starting in verse 1, tells us, In those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Jews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the Twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, who we may appoint over this business. but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word." And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, who they set before the apostles. We're going to look at Acts 6, 1 through 7 under three main points. I'll give you those points, then we'll pray, and then we'll start with point number one. First, we're going to see the problem addressed. We see that in verses 1 and 2. Then we'll see the solution that's presented. We see that in verses two through six. And then we'll see the results experienced in verse seven. But let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, how kind you are to give to your church, not only elders, to feed our souls the word of God and to pray. But Lord, you also give to the church deacons to serve to the material and physical needs of the church, to free up the elders to labor more faithfully and diligently in the word. And Lord, I am persuaded that we as a church have a need for a deacon or a number of deacons. Lord, if that is a need, we believe and we trust that you will give it to us. So Father, be with us as we are in your word this morning. Help us to understand better the office of deacon, and Lord, help us to make a God-honoring, biblically-informed decision as to who might serve this church as a deacon. And Father, we pray this for the same reason that the church in Jerusalem needed deacons, so that Jesus would be glorified, so that his word would run free, and so that the number of disciples would increase. And we pray this in Jesus' name. I want to begin by looking at the problem that is addressed in Acts chapter 6. We see that in verses 1-2 and it tells us, In those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. The first thing I want to draw your attention to is in verse 1, and it tells us that the number of disciples was increasing. Acts 6 is describing a period of time in church history that started in Acts 2 at the day of Pentecost, when you had all sorts of people from all around the world who came to Palestine for Passover. And in Acts 2, Peter stood up with all sorts of people there present for Passover, and he begins preaching on the day of Pentecost, and thousands of people were converted that day. That event in Acts 2 started a period of time that continued clear through Acts chapter 6 where God was daily, increasingly adding to the number of Christians at the church in Jerusalem. Many of the people who were there at Pentecost continued and remained in Jerusalem. Now that they've been converted, many of them stayed in Jerusalem, joined the church there and committed themselves to that body. Many historians have estimated that the number of converts made between Acts chapter two and Acts chapter six was well over 20,000 people that were added to the church. and many of them chose to stay in Jerusalem. But what happens when you have that kind of rapid growth in a church? Imagine if 500 people tomorrow decided to join our church. That kind of rapid influx of growth creates growing pains. This is not an exaggeration. I was literally four feet tall until I was 17. When I learned to drive, I had to sit on two pillows so that I could see up above the steering wheel far enough to know what was directly in front of me when I was driving. And between like 17 and 18, I grew almost two feet. What happens when you grow that fast, that much? Your body hurts. Life is not easy when you have that rapid kind of growth. And the church at Jerusalem grew so fast that unanticipated problems came forth. The first problem that arose is in verse 1, and it tells us there was a complaint made by the Hellenists against the Hebrews because the Hellenist widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. The Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews who were living outside of Palestine. They were part of the Jewish people who had been expelled from Palestine, and they were living in the Greek-speaking world. Because they weren't living with Jews, they had adopted the Greek language, and they had adopted much of the Greek culture. So they're ethnically and they're religiously Jewish, but culturally and linguistically, they're Greek. They really didn't fit in anywhere. And now a number of those Hellenists that were present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost were converted and added to the church. And those two people are now worshipping together, serving together, and doing life together. What happens when you have two groups of people like that worshipping together? Problems come up. The first problem was expressing itself in the daily distribution for the widows. the church at Jerusalem was committed in principle not only to ministering to the spiritual needs of the church through preaching and through prayer, they were also committed to the physical need of the widows and those that were in need physically, and they were doing this somewhat organized daily distribution of physical things like food and clothing or housing or whatever. Whatever the widows needed, they were daily meeting those needs. And somehow during the daily distribution, the Hellenist Christians were being neglected and the Hebrew Christians were being cared for. There are some commentators who would suggest that the neglect of the Hellenistic Christians was because of a language barrier that existed. And many people would say that, well, the Hellenists were not having their needs met because they couldn't communicate with the rest of the church. I think that's a weak interpretation that really misses what's going on. Imagine if there were somewhere around 20,000 people added to the church. It's hard to believe there couldn't have been an interpreter found. It's also really hard to believe that the Jewish Christians who are meeting the need of widows would have been so dense that they wouldn't have concluded if our widows have need, so do the ones that we can't communicate with. I don't think there's a language problem going on here. The most natural reading of scripture seems to indicate that there's actually an attitude toward the Hellenistic Christians that was causing them to be treated poorly and intentionally neglected by the Hebrews. Luke tells us there was a complaint against the Hebrews. It was a division. It was an interpersonal problem that was causing this division in the church that was leading to the neglect of these widows. A lot of people, if you read much on the early church and the book of Acts, a lot of people would try to portray the church in Acts as this problem-free utopia. We need to be careful in how we view the early church, because it was not a problem-free church. It was a church that had problems. It was a healthy church, and I think that's how we have to define a healthy church. A healthy church is not a church without problems. A healthy church is a church that's committed to dealing biblically with the problems when they arise. Maybe you look at the fact that we are a church with one church officer, we have a shortfall in our budget, we have not grown much, we are not seeing as many conversions as we would like, we have a building that we cannot use. Maybe you look at all of those things and you think, there's something systemically wrong and unhealthy about the church. Those things are things we need to be aware of, but there's something more important than that. What's more important than that is not being a problem-free church, it's being a church that is free to address its problems. And so Luke tells us that was the first problem. The widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. But that problem was creating a second problem. We can see that in verse 2, where the 12 apostles say, it's not desirable that we should leave the Word of God to serve tables. So the apostles are called to lead the church through the ministry of the word and through prayer. They're called to devote the primacy of their time to preaching and teaching and counseling and praying. And if they were to take their time and their efforts and invest them into this other task of caring for the widows, it would have removed their attention from their primary calling in life and the teaching and the preaching and the praying would have suffered. What's interesting is that the apostles don't conclude, as this problem is brought to them, the 12 apostles don't conclude that other ministry is unnecessary. They don't conclude, well, we just don't have the manpower and the time and the energy to devote to that, so let's scrap that ministry. They conclude this is an important ministry. The widows need to be cared for. They need to be fed. They need housing. They need clothing. They need to have their needs met. And so they don't believe, they don't adopt a philosophy of ministry that says, as long as you faithfully teach and preach the word of God, everything else will take care of itself. There are many in the reformed world who would say, as long as all we do is teach and preach the word of God, the rest of the church will take care of itself. The apostles didn't have that view. The apostles believed that the church's role is to meet both the spiritual as well as the physical needs of those in its group. So what do the apostles do? They create an office. They say, this is a ministry that is so important. We're going to create an entire office devoted to taking care of this other need. The other thing we need to point out is when the apostles say it's not desirable for us to leave the ministry of the word to wait tables, we have to point out what they're not saying. They're not saying waiting tables is bad. They're in no way demeaning the ministry of waiting tables or serving the material needs of the congregation. They're not saying that the office of deacon is an unimportant office. What they are saying is that in the order and the structure of how God has created His church, He's given some men to labor primarily in the teaching and preaching ministry of the Word, and He's given other men to free those men up to do that, to take over the physical and material needs, the administrative needs that arise in a church. In other words, the institution of deacons shows us that God is concerned not only with the spiritual needs of his people, he is also concerned with their material needs. And as we think about finding deacons amongst ourselves, I think that's significant. Because even though the historical situation that arose in Jerusalem is one of waiting tables and serving widows, the principle was that the deacons were given to the church to free those men up who labor in the word so that they can give the word their undivided attention. So even though the historical situation we find ourselves in is not one where we have hundreds of needy widows flocking to us every day who speak different languages, it is still undesirable that those of us who preach the Word of God would leave the preaching and the teaching and the studying of the Word of God to meet all the other needs that arise in the church. So as you think about the office of a deacon, don't think about it as a lesser important office. Often we think about deacons and elders and we think the elders are the really important ones and the deacons, they're kind of cool, we need them, but they're not that important. That's not a biblical understanding. There is a division of labor, and one of the offices is created to support and sustain and come underneath the other one, but both offices are essential in a vital, healthy church. In Acts 17, you have the nation Israel and they're fighting against the Amalekites. And Moses is on top of a hill, holding up a rod with his hands. And as long as his hands are held up, and as long as the rod is extended, the nation Israel is winning the war. That's how God ordained that battle to go. But what happens if you held your hands up like this all day? You get weak. You can't hold your hands up any longer. So listen to the solution that comes up in Exodus 17, 11, and 12. And so it was when Moses held up his hands that Israel prevailed. And when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses' hands became heavy. So they took a stone and put it underneath him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side and the other on the other side. And his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Moses is there and he's upholding the staff, he's upholding his rod, and as long as he's doing that, they're winning. But what happens? He gets tired and so these two men come and they support him. They hold his hands up so that he can continue doing his role. Is Moses more important than Aaron and Hur? No. They have different roles, they have different functions in Israel. But their role of supporting Moses and holding him up so he can do his task is equally important because without the one, the other would not have happened. That's the role of a deacon. It's to come alongside the elders and the leadership of the church to support them so that they can uphold their arms in prayer, so that they can uphold their arms in the preaching of the word without being wearied, without being distracted, or having their attentions diverted. And so as you look at the men in the church, find men like that. As you look at the men in the church, find men who are already supporting the ministry, coming alongside the ministry of the word, supporting it with faith, supporting it with zeal, supporting it with prayer, supporting it with a willingness to serve wherever they're asked. We don't need deacons simply for the sake of having warm bodies filling an office and saying we have both officers in the church. We need men who will roll up their sleeves and labor diligently in the material and physical and administrative needs of the church so that the preaching ministry of the word will not suffer. But there's one more thing I want to point out in verse 3. And it tells us the apostles are the ones who are going to appoint the deacons over the ministry. So the apostles are going to not only appoint the deacons, they're also tasking them to this ministry. Again, that's instructive for us in how we formulate our church government. Because in many Baptist churches, the elders serve at the discretion of the deacons. In many Baptist churches, it's the deacons who task the elders, it's the deacons who select and appoint the elders, and it's the deacons who really run the church. But in Acts 6, we see it's the apostles. It's those that labor in the preaching and teaching of the word who are not only appointing the leaders, the other leaders, they're also tasking them with the ministries where they will serve. Select seven men so that we can lay hands on them and appoint them to this ministry. In other words, the deacons, they have a legitimate and a real position of leadership and authority in the church, but it's a delegated authority and a subservient authority underneath the ministry of the elders who are called to shepherd and lead the church. So that's the problem that's being addressed in Act 6. It's a problem of the widows are being neglected, and it's a problem of the pastors and the elders and the teachers of the church are having their attentions divided. Let's move on to see the solution presented. We can see that in verses two through six. Then the 12 summoned the multitude of disciples and said, it's not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, who we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the Word." And this saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, who they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. So, how did the apostles respond to the problem that's presented to them? The first thing they do in verse 2 is they call the entire congregation together. They called the church meeting. They got every member together and they informed them of the problem and they also included them in the solution. They instructed them to look amongst themselves and to select seven men who they could appoint to the office of deacon. I think it's instructive to us that the apostles called the whole church together and they didn't just make them aware of the problem, they also included them in the selection of the future leaders of the church. That's instructive to us on a number of levels. On one hand, it teaches us something of what biblical church government looks like. It's the apostles who are going to make the final decision and appoint the deacons, but they don't do so in a way that is detached from listening to the voice of God as he often speaks through the entire congregation of his people. In other words, if Act 6 is teaching us a form of church government, it's not teaching us a top-down hierarchy form of church government where the elders unilaterally make decisions and then just impose them on the congregation. They're there, and they're leading, and they're directing, and they're making the final decision, but they're doing so in Act 6 in a way that includes the congregation in the decision-making process. So the elders are hearing the people, they're engaging them, they're including the decision-making process, they're taking whatever the congregation says into account and they're using it to help them understand what is the will of God. That's something we as a church seek to do as we make decisions in our church. At the end of the day, it's the elders who lead the church, they make the final decisions for the church, but they don't do so as dictators. They do so with a humble understanding that God often uses and speaks through the entire congregation of His people, and we don't want simply the mind of one man. We want the mind of God. We want God to speak to us. He often does so through the voice of the congregation. It's also instructive to us as we select a man or a number of men to serve as deacons in the church, because the congregation is called to examine the lives of its men. Are these men filled with the Spirit? Do they have wisdom? Are they men of faith? Are they men who have a good reputation? By including the entire church in the decision-making process, one of the things it's doing is it's isolating the existing leadership from selecting men simply because they're a part of the good old boy club. They're not just selecting men like, yeah, we really like this guy and we golf with that dude and these are our buds and so we want these people. It avoids that by saying, here church, find our deacons. We don't want a deacon because he's part of a good old boy club or because he goes golfing or fishing with the pastors. We don't want deacons because they've gone to the church for a long amount of time. We want a deacon or a number of deacons because they are the men that God is giving to His church. And we want the mind of God. We want to know, what does God want for our church? And one of the ways we have clarity in that is by including the entire church in the decision-making process. So when we started Sovereign Grace Bible Church about six years ago, when we wrote the Constitution the way we did, that's why we wrote that the congregation is free to make recommendations to the elders regarding deacons at any time. And then we said once the elders have had the chance to vet a person and once they believe a person is qualified, they don't unilaterally say, now this person will be a deacon. They then bring that name back to the congregation and say, we want the entire congregation to examine this person's life because we believe they could be a potential deacon. So that's what the church at Jerusalem did. And what's amazing about the process we see in Acts 6 is that verse 5 tells us this saying pleased the whole congregation. That's amazing, because remember what started this selection process. What started this process was a division in the church. They're addressing this problem of division. The Hellenists and the Jews are divided, and now the apostles come in and say, we need deacons to fix this problem. And what started as division now ends in unity. This saying pleased the whole body, the entire church. That's been my prayer over the last several months as I've been planning to preach and to lead us through the process of selecting deacons, that God would use this process to unite us. That we would guard our hearts against seeking our own wills, our own minds, but that we would all desire to know the mind of Christ. When we all have the mind of Christ, what is the fruit? The fruit is this saying will please the entire congregation. That should also be your prayer as we move forward in the weeks and months ahead, selecting a deacon or a number of deacons, that we would be united. That this wouldn't be an opportunity for party spirits or for rivalry, but that we would all seek together the mind of Christ. The other thing we see in verse 5, where the church actually selects these seven men, the names of the men are really all we know about most of them. Most of them are unimpressive. We'll see why their names are important in a minute, but first notice the description that Luke gives us of Stephen. I think he describes Stephen this way because Stephen rises to a place of prominence among the deacons, but he describes Stephen in verse 5 as someone who is filled with the Spirit, a man full of faith. Why does he describe Stephen as someone who is filled with the Spirit and a man of faith? To be filled with the Spirit is to possess the fruit of the Spirit. It's to possess the actions and the attitudes, the godly characteristics that are described in Galatians 5. He's a loving person. He's a joyful person. He's a peacemaking person. He's a patient person. He's a kind person. He's a good person, a faithful person, a gentle person. He's a person who's filled with self-control. Those are the fruits of the Spirit, and when it tells us that he was a man of the Spirit, or that he was filled with the Spirit, it means that the abiding presence of God's Spirit in his life was evident in those ways. The abiding presence of God's Spirit was causing the church to look at this person and say, it's obvious the Spirit of God has taken up residence in his life. And so as you look at the men in our congregation, find men like that. Find men who clearly demonstrate the Spirit of God has taken up residence in their heart and is producing those fruits in their lives. But Luke also tells us he was a man of faith. When Luke tells us Stephen was a man of faith, he's not merely saying he was a Christian. We would take that for granted. Of course he's a Christian. He was certainly a man who was trusting in Christ and has faith in that sense. Luke means more than that. He means Stephen was a man who lived with a noticeable confidence in the power and promises of God, and his confidence in the power and promises of God propelled him into action so that you could look at his life and say, not only does he believe in God for salvation, he believes in God in every other aspect of his life. For Stephen, and I believe all the other deacons, faith was not merely a theological theory. It's not merely that he believed God is capable of doing what he says he will do. It's not merely a theological theory that says, I believe in the promises of God. It was a faith that propelled Stephen into greater action and service. We know that's what Luke means because look at verse eight. It says, Stephen, full of faith and power, did. Because he was full of faith and power, he did great wonders and signs among the people. And so because Stephen was a man of faith, he did great signs and wonders amongst the people of God. That's how you know you have a man of faith. You don't know you have a man of faith because of his words. You know you have a man of faith because of his actions. Because you can look at his life, the activities of his life, the decisions he makes, the way he makes decisions. You can look at his life and you say, there's a man who has embraced the promises of God. There's a man who has embraced God himself as the one who keeps those promises. And he directs the entirety of his life in a way that says, we are going to do. Because this is who God is, because this is the promise God has made, we are going to follow him in an action that says we are totally and utterly reliant on God to do what he says he will do. I would also suggest that a man of faith is a man of prayer. A man of faith is not merely a man who we are willing to charge headlong into the realm of the unknown as we believe the promises of God. He's also a man who spends time in his closet. He's a man who brings his heart, his family, his church, his ministries, the lost, all of life before God, because he knows that in every area God has called him to serve, he is utterly powerless to act unless God acts for him. And so as you go through the congregation of Sovereign Grace Bible Church, as you look at the men in the church and you ask, who could God be giving us as a deacon? Look for men of faith. Deacons will be active in serving in the finances of the church. They will help set budgets. They will assess personal financial needs of people. They will be active in assessing what is God's plan for the building He's given us. They'll be active in developing and expanding ministries that are geared towards benevolence, They will spearhead new ministries. They will be active in the administration of the church. And as we think about ministries like that, we need men of faith and I cannot emphasize that enough. We need men of faith and we need men who are filled with the Spirit. If you've ever seen a deacon who does not have faith and does not have the Spirit, you know it actually has the opposite effect on a church. A deacon should be a man who propels the church into greater ministry. but a deacon who does not have faith, a deacon who does not demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit will be a cold bucket of water on the church. And I belabor this point because I have seen up close and personal how a deacon who lacks faith, a deacon who is not filled with the Spirit actually has the stifling effect on the church and hinders them from going further into service. Spurgeon had problems with deacons in his church, There's one instance where he made the deacons aware of the fact that the afternoon service in his church was so hot that he wasn't preaching the way he wanted to. The congregation was falling asleep and distracted. And so Spurgeon kept telling the deacons, open the windows and let fresh air in. They ignored and they resisted and it became this fight between them. One day the deacons showed up and a number of the windows in the church were broken out. You can imagine, once they replaced the windows, how the deacons thought about that. But in his book, Lecture to the Student, Spurgeon said this, "'You shall not yoke the ox and the ass together' was a merciful precept. But when a laborious ox-like minister comes to be yoked to a deacon who is not another ox, it becomes hard work to plow." So as you look at the congregation of our church and you pray about the names that you might submit, look for an ox. Look for a man of faith that will be equally yoked and put the yoke on his shoulders and put his shoulder into the plow and take the work seriously because he's a man of faith and a man filled with the Spirit. There's something else we should notice about these seven men. The seven men that the church chooses. As you look down at all seven of those names, Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, all of those names are Greek. Why does that matter? Why is it significant that these seven men are Greek? It matters because, remember, the problem that's being addressed in the church. The problem was these Hellenists, these Greek-speaking people in the church, these culturally Greek people, are being neglected. And now the church comes and says, yes, that's a problem, we acknowledge that problem, and we are going to select seven men who are Greek-speaking, who have Greek names, who are, some of them even Hellenists for sure, and we're going to appoint them to this task. So the church is responding to the problem of the Greek women being neglected by selecting seven Greek men to go to this ministry. In other words, the church is using wisdom in the selection process. They're looking at the problem and they're looking for the men that would be well-equipped to fill the need. They're looking for men that would have had a heart for the ministry. If they would have picked seven Hebrew people and put them into this place, they may have had the same problem they started with. They're looking for seven men that are loving both the Hebrews as well as the Hellenists, and they're saying, we need men who will come in and fix this problem, who will take it over and do so with a heart for the entire body. Each of these men, because they are Greek, and they're fixing a Greek problem, they would have had a heart for the ministry. They would have been naturally equipped as well as graced by God to step into this position and to represent both the Greek women as well as the Hebrews and to minister and to carry out this need in a way that would have honored God. And so as we look at the challenges we're going through as a church, as we look at the ministries we're involved in, as we look at ministries we would like to be involved in, find us men that have a heart for the ministry. Find us men who would not be reluctant servants, but who have an eager desire to jump in and to serve God's people with us. What happens when a church selects men like that and gives them the freedom of an office in the church to carry on ministry and to serve God's people? What happens when a church selects men who are filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom and appoints them to labor with the pastors? Notice the result experienced in verse 7. Verse 7 tells us, Notice the word, then, at the beginning of verse 7. The word, then, is there to show us that whatever is happening in verse 7 is a result of what happened in verses 1 through 6. In other words, the blessings that the church experiences in verse 7 are the direct result of taking the problems in the church seriously, addressing them, appointing deacons into the office to take care of those problems and to free the elders up to do their work. In other words, God blesses the office of deacon. God blesses the church because they appoint men to the office of deacon. And we should expect God's blessing, shouldn't we? When a church is biblically ordered, when it is ministering faithfully and diligently to both the spiritual as well as the physical needs of its people, that is a church that should expect God's blessing. The first blessing that's described in verse 7 is that the Word of God spread. The translation spread is unfortunate because it carries the idea that it went somewhere. It's not just that it spread, it's that it kept on spreading. The revival that began in Acts chapter 2 is now continuing and even accelerating in a faster way because the church has deacons. because the apostles are not divided in their attention, because they are diligently and faithfully taking the ministry of the word seriously, because there's people now appointed to the office of ministering to the physical needs of the church, the word of God is spreading in a much faster way and it's continuing to do so. And not only did the Word of God spread, verse 7 also tells us, So as the Church of Jerusalem grows in its faithfulness to order herself rightly and to minister both to the physical and material needs of the Church, God uses her faithfulness to advance his gospel and to save people that he was otherwise previously not saving. That's what it's telling us when it tells us that many of the priests also believed. That as the priests look and see what's happening in the church at Jerusalem, as they're meeting the needs of the widows, both Hellenistic as well as Hebrew, as the watching world sees that, it becomes a compelling testimony to the validity of the gospel and the church grows in conversions. Why is that? Why did the church at Jerusalem see an influx of new converts as a direct result of appointing men to serve as deacons? Act 6 doesn't tell us. I think there's a couple suggestions that are consistent with the rest of scripture that might help us. First one is that a church that has men serving not only the spiritual needs of the people but also the physical needs of people gives credibility and is a powerful testimony that we are not just here because we want souls to be saved and we want people with checkbooks to come give us a tithe every week. We exist as a church because we want to honor God first and foremost, but we also exist as a church because we love people. All people. different colors of people, different ethnicities of people, Greeks, colonists, you name it, we love people. And when the church in Acts is willing to say, we love people enough that we're going to select men to serve not just the spiritual needs of the church, but also the physical needs. That's a powerful testimony to the validity of the gospel. Justin Martyr, during the second century, said this, We used to hate and destroy one another and refuse to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and we pray for our enemies. As a watching world sees that taking place in the body of Christ, what can they say about our gospel? is they see this is a church that loves people. This isn't just a church that wants to puff up our numbers and get tithing members sitting in the chairs. This is a church that genuinely cares about its people. They care about their spiritual needs, they care about their physical needs, and they have officers in the church that are committed to both. What a powerful testimony that is to the gospel. But there's a second reason I think closely related to that. A well-ordered church that has two offices, both elders as well as deacons, is a church that best displays the heart of Christ in the gospel. How did Jesus come into the world? He did not just come as a teacher. He came as a deacon. He came as a servant. He says of himself in Matthew 20, 28, Similarly, you have that time when John the Baptist was in prison and he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask Jesus if he's the Messiah. And what does Jesus say? people have their needs met. The gospel is preached to the poor, the blind see, the lame are walking, physical as well as spiritual needs of people are being met. In other words, the service that Jesus came to do, the Son of Man did not come to serve, to be served, but to serve, was a service where he ministered to the physical as well as the spiritual needs of the church. Matthew 11, four and five, Jesus answered and said to them, go and tell John the things which you see and hear. Notice the physical and spiritual needs being met. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Jesus is clearly not only interested in meeting the spiritual needs of his people. He is also committed to seeing the same gospel that ministers to our spiritual needs meeting our physical needs. Jesus doesn't just redeem our souls, does he? He also redeems our body. He also redeems the entirety of the created order. And when we as a church say we have adopted the same priorities that Jesus has in the gospel, it is a powerful testimony to the gospel. I would suggest both of those are the reasons the church in Acts 6 grew more after having deacons than before. Because the serving of the widows not only gave credence to the gospel message, it also put the gospel on display. It displayed this is the heart of God towards needy people. And so as we move forward, seek out from amongst ourselves men who will serve as deacons, should we also in faith expect that as God adds to the leadership of the church, he will also bless that addition by causing the church to grow, by causing the gospel to advance into places it is not currently doing so. I want to close by giving us one final way we can apply Acts 6. We are now formally entering into a process that will likely take us a couple months where we are prayerfully expecting God to add to the leadership of the church. And that's a process that will involve each and every one of us. So Thursday night, I sat in bed for an hour or two, and I made a questionnaire. I'm going to leave it on the back counter by the coffee. And my request to you is that you will take one of them, take two of them, take three of them, take a number of them. They're four pages long. And they're an opportunity for you to fill out a questionnaire and to give you the names of people you believe that are qualified and called to serve as deacons in the church. And I would encourage you not to fill those out today, not to fill them out next week, but to read them today and to familiarize yourself so that you can begin prayerfully looking and examining the men in the church and saying, do they match up to this? Everything on this list is a biblical qualification that'll help you assess the men in the church. Begin that process today. Begin praying, begin going through it and studying the men in the church. Are they servants? Are they men of faith? Are they men that are filled with the Spirit? Are they men that God would use to grow and to sustain and to propel the ministry of His gospel? And so take a number of these. There's plenty, I believe, for everyone to take a couple of them. One thing I will say to clarify this, I designed this the way I did because, so the third question on it says, according to 1 Timothy 3, a deacon must be reverent or dignified, worthy of respect. Then it says, do you believe this person you are recommending demonstrates this character trait? Then there's four boxes you can check. One of them says excellent. One of them says good. One says satisfactory. The other says need improvement. And I didn't make that a yes or a no on any of those for a reason because, and we'll talk about this more next week, but as you pray through that even this week, the reason I gave four options there is because there's a tension and a balance between saying we want perfect men And we want men who possess graces. And in that tension, what we're not asking is, does this person perfectly exemplify reverence? Like when you look up reverence in the dictionary, is this person's name there? That's not what we're asking. What we're asking is, is there some measure of this grace? Is there a substantial satisfactory measure? Is there not enough that this would be a disqualifying thing? Is there a big question mark? Is this person excellent? Where does this person rank? And we're doing that because we want to recognize there's a tension between a biblical ideal or perfection as well as this is an area where God is growing. and a number of the questions on there have that. So take one of these, take two of these, take three of these home, read through them, pray through them, and begin over the next couple weeks as I preach through the qualifications of deacons to examine the men in the church and come prepared in a couple weeks with these filled out. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would supply us with men who will serve well and gain an excellent standing and great assurance in the faith because they are faithful, godly deacons. Father, we pray that as we move together through this process of selecting new leadership, that it would be like it was for the church in Acts, a unifying experience. That it would be an experience where we seek not our own interests, but the mind of Christ. Lord, we pray that you would bless this process. Help your will to be made clear. Lord, we pray that as we do in faith add to the leadership of the church that you would cause the effectiveness of our ministry to increase. And we pray this in your name. Amen.