Good morning. Act 6. That's where we're turning today. If you have your Bibles, turn to Acts 6, verses 1 through 7. That's what we're going to look at today. And I want to point you to something as we begin to read it. I want to just encourage you to see the goodness and grace of God. as the risen, ascended Christ, by His Spirit, is providing for the needs of His people. The thing I want you to remember as we're reading through this is that this is a passage that can help us with church policy. and how to do church. There's a real practical application there that I'll try to point you to. But we don't want to miss the reality that ultimately the book of Acts is about the acts of the exalted Lord Jesus. And so you don't want to miss that the Lord Jesus is showing compassion and mercy to his church, to a congregation who needs appointed servants. And that's a glorious mercy. And so I want you to see that before there are ministers of mercy and ministers of the word, there is the Lord of mercy and the Lord of his word. And he is the king who both defends his church, but also continues to advance his kingdom against opposing darkness through the preaching of the gospel. So note that we really see God's compassion and grace here in this passage that you want to take note of. So this is God's Word. Isaiah 66 reminds us that the person the Lord God takes note of is he who trembles at God's Word. It means to listen reverently and with care. Acts 6, verse 1. Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists, or the Greek-speaking Jews, arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the Twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. I want you to note their immediate reaction. Verse 3, Therefore, brothers and sisters, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them." And the Word of God continued to increase. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests, those who were members of the Sadducees party particularly, became obedient to the faith. Let's end the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you that you're the living God, the triune God. You're the God who is invisible. And you are the God who is the King of ages, the immortal one, the only wise God. And we say, glory be to you forever and ever. Amen. We thank you, dear Father, that from you and through you and to you are all things. To you be the glory forever and ever. And we thank You, O Father, that You cared enough for sinners, that You covenanted with Your beloved Son, that in the fullness of time He'd be born of a woman, born under law, that He would come and redeem those under law, that we might have the adoption as sons, as children. We thank You that Jesus willingly came and that You provided Him a body. conceived by the Holy Spirit of the substance of the Virgin Mary and the Lord Jesus in space and time at the right time he came to unite himself permanently as the Eternal Son to our nature from the substance of Mary and to be born and to live and to die in our place as a curse for our sins and transgressions, to be raised for our vindication, and to be enthroned as the Davidic king who sits on the throne forever and ever, who in the ancient of days promised would have that throne, promised to David that one of his sons would sit on the throne. And we thank you that Jesus Christ, you are Lord of Lords, you're King of Kings, you're the Davidic Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit to pour out your Spirit upon us now. And we ask that those rivers of living water would flow forth from the right hand of the Father to us this morning, that we might be filled with all the fullness of God, that we might know the depths and the height and the width and the length of the love of the Father in Christ Jesus, that we would know how you care for us, that we would know that you are with us, and that we would walk faithfully according to the calling to which we've received. We thank you. We praise you. We ask you now to help your minister as he preaches, that he may decrease And you would increase for your glory and our good. In Jesus name. And all the church said, Amen. So we're continuing through the book of Acts, the acts of the exalted Christ as he works by his spirit through real men and women to extend his gospel grace to the ends of the world. And so we pick up here, and just to remind you of the larger context of this passage, we have seen in the book of Acts a conflict that has happened within the congregation where discipline was required with Ananias and Sapphira. We have seen an opposition from outside the congregation that required the disciples to be prayerful, specifically that motivated them to pray and ask for God's power, ask for God's help, ask for boldness. And then last week particularly, We looked at the Sadducees, and more broadly the Sanhedrin, who was persecuting them, the Twelve, the Apostles and the Disciples in that early church in Jerusalem. That's where we are today. So there's been conflict from within, there's been conflict from without, there's been real persecution, and the end of the passage on persecution should encourage you. In Acts 5.42 it says that every day in the temple, that is in the precincts that were overseen by the Sadducees and the priests and particularly the Sanhedrin, in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that The Christ, the Anointed One, the King of Israel, is Jesus. And I would encourage you to remember that. Whenever you see the Christ, that you remember that's the Anointed One. That's the Messiah of the Old Testament. That's the King that sits on David's throne. That he's taken his throne at God's right hand. And we'll see more evidence of his power and his grace today. So with that said, you want to know that in the life of this congregation, they've already gone through a great deal. The Lord has been faithful to be with them. But what is happening is that the church continues to prosper by God's grace and by God's power. And that's something we should expect of the Lord. If last week we focused on the gates of hell will not prevail against my church, this week's focus is on the first part of Jesus' saying in Matthew 16, that I will build my church. So he says, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail. And sometimes in the book of Acts, like last week, we saw that the gates of hell will definitely not prevail. In fact, what happens? There's more teaching and there's more preaching that Jesus is the king of Israel and the whole world. But there's also today, more particularly, the way that Jesus shows himself compassionate and merciful because he's promised that I will build my church. He's not just going to protect his church, although that's wonderful. He's going to build it. He's going to establish it strongly, more firmly in this community. But what happens to bring this about, beloved? Neglect. A need. As the church is growing, you've got growing pains. We know how they can be, whether we're growing physically in our lives and coming to a new stage in our physical growth. We know the growing pains. We know the things that we struggle against emotionally and physically. We know also, as we've gone through a few of those growing pains, that there's much to learn from them. Well, these are spiritual growing pains that happens in the body of Jesus Christ. to use that image of Paul. This is the body of Christ. And it's a body that's not fully free from sin. It's still being affected by the world and by sin, by threats from without, threats from within. It's not a holy, healthy, sanctified body yet. It's a messy place. It's a place where there are needs. It's not a perfect place, this congregation. And this is Peter's congregation. You know, the important thing about that is to remember that the only vicar of Christ on earth is the Holy Spirit to take care of our needs and our problems. We learn a great deal about the way the Holy Spirit is working here as the Lord Jesus provides. So there's conflict. In fact, it's conflict and diversity. They're growing pains because the people are a little different from one another. They don't all look the same. They don't all act the same. They haven't read all the same books. In fact, you've got some Hellenists who are Greek-speaking Jews. They've been reading according to Greek culture primarily, although informed, I'm sure, of the Jewish ways. But on the other hand, you've got Hebrews who are coming from a different background. They're having to learn to get along in a local congregation, having to look at their differences. And you know what? The Hellenist Jews are newer to the congregation and they have been neglected. Isn't that something that's easy to do? You know, you're a Hebrew. You've been saved. You're in Jerusalem. Why? Everybody's Hebrew, aren't they? And so you invite more Hebrews over, you help more Hebrews. Oh, the Hellenists have been overlooked. There's a neglect. Oh. And it's in God's wonderful sovereignty and by His providential ordering of things that He brings a need to the table. God ultimately is behind this. God ultimately is the one who wants to show and display His power and His compassion and His mercy and His kindness. What's the specific problem? Well, the conflict has to do with this. Some of the widows who are supposed to be provided for, they're being neglected. And we don't know why, but I'm sure it's because the Hebrews were more used to to looking over at their own and or their own in the sense of what they're used to, what's normal to them, what's what's what's familiar. And. This complaint is brought, it says that there was a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Now, I want you to see that this is an opportunity. And beloved, any kind of neglect in a congregation is going to be in the sinful world a normal thing. We wish it was not a normal thing. There's going to be imperfections. There's going to be messiness in a congregation. But what you want to note is that that is not the end of the matter. It's actually the conflict, the neglect particularly, is an opportunity for God to show his love, for God to show his power, for God to show his grace, for God to raise up servants to help. How do the 12 respond? Well, note verse 12 and verse 2. Very helpful to note each part of this, I think. Verse 2 tells us that the 12 summoned the full number. They got the church together. They had a congregational meeting. There's a need. We need to talk about it. We need to look at this. They saw it as an opportunity. But they continue as the leaders that they are casting the proper vision first. Their priorities in the right place. There's a need to summon all the people. There's a need. Summon all the people. But the first response is. We. It is not right, verse two, that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. You might think that's a little rude. But it's not. You see, because what's happening here is a further revealing that at the heart of any faithful Christian leader is to know that what is most important in the congregation is the spiritual health, is the spiritual food and feeding that is necessary. that yes, there are physical needs and God meets them graciously, but the first need, the first priority is always going to be on preaching, on ministry of the Word particularly. Now, why is that? Well, they're living under a command, beloved. Let me remind you of the command from Matthew 28. It's worth going there for a moment and remembering the command that they're living under as the leaders, as particularly the foundation of this congregation, as they are apostles but they're also elders. They're the first leaders. They're the first elders. They're the first ministers, particularly, of the local congregation. And they're living under this command that they must remember, that we must remember. It's in Matthew 28. Jesus says in verse 18, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, go and make disciples of all nations. And we see a bit of that. The Hellenists, the priests, the proselytes to Judaism. We see all of those. The nations are coming to faith in just these seven verses that we have before us in Acts 6. The nations are being reached with that gospel. And he goes on to say Jesus, the ascended, the king with all authority, says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them, verse 20, teaching them particularly to observe all that I have commanded you, everything that I've commanded you, remembering that I am with you to the end of the age. Now, it's worth remembering that this congregation is still going. It's still making known the gospel to particularly the nations. And they are teaching. That's their primary calling. The rulers of the congregation, the elders, the apostle elders, if I could put it this way, at this point in redemptive history, they are doing the work that God's given them to do, that Jesus particularly has commanded them to do. Making disciples and knowing that he's with them to the ends of the age. There's a couple things you can note about that, is that the elders understand that there's a need, but first and foremost, spiritually, it is to make disciples, you see. It is to continue the work of making this Word known, teaching them everything that Jesus has commanded them to teach, and knowing that He's with them. And so, as this happens, They put that priority where it should be on the word. Furthermore, they say in verse four, we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Now, just stay in there for a moment. Why are the apostle elders so devoted to prayer and ministry of the word? Because that is how the Great Commission is fulfilled. It is through the prayers of the people to God for themselves, but also to struggle and wrestle in prayer for the congregation. As we've already seen in Acts 4, prayer is a priority. in their lives as leaders and elders. Every faithful apostle elder, every faithful elder of the congregation is a praying man, or put more particularly, is a man learning to be more of a praying man, to put it graciously and realistically. But he's also one as you see, giving themselves devotedly to the ministry of the Word. Now, why, beloved, is that word so important? Why? Well, one, it's in response to Jesus' command. That's very clear, isn't it? And that's what Jesus has clearly said in the Great Commission, as we know it, to be what glorifies Him and brings the most good to the world. It's also the word that he uses to save sinners. Very particularly, we see here that the Spirit of God is particularly interested in using the means of the ministry of the Word as a primary means to save sinners. That's what we see throughout the book of Acts, remember? Back in chapter 2, verses 41 and following, remember that the people gathered around and gave themselves to the ministry of the apostles, to the teaching of the Word. Remember when Peter and John were opposed for their faith. They said, we will obey God rather than men. And they went on to preach and make known the ministry of the word. They told them the good news of the gospel, that Jesus was the Christ and the only hope for Israel and for mankind. That ministry of the word is is the saving primary saving instrument that the spirit uses to call sinners to himself. We see that all through the Scriptures. We see it particularly in the New Testament. We see it particularly even with the Apostle Paul in a wonderful way when he commenced the Thessalonians for receiving the Word of God, not as the Word of men, but as it really is, the very Word of God. And so the Word, the ministry of the Word and prayer is the primary mission of a congregation. of a denomination, of a faithful church. It's the first mark of the church, as it's known in Reformed and Lutheran circles. That's the preaching of the Word. And this is going to connect me to the next part. It's not just for the saving of souls. Beloved, the Word is the primary means for the sanctification of souls. It's for the primary means to make people Christ-like. And an important benefit of that is that men will be sanctified to take holy office. No preaching of the Word, no holy men. And so, it's not just the word for saving. It's the word for sanctifying. It's the word for growing people into Christlikeness. And it's because of their faithfulness that you have seven men of good repute who are faithful, able, and teachable. Who are ready and willing to serve. Who are appointed servants. A blessing from the ascended Jesus. Now, I don't want you to forget something as I move to the appointed servants themselves, that everything we see in this passage, everything we see when there are appointed servants that have been raised up in the local congregation of the church, those are Jesus's gifts to the church. This is, beloved, a very important way of seeing the compassion and mercy of God in raising up servants both to minister at the table of the Lord and to minister at tables. Jesus raises up those who would serve the table of the bread of life through preaching. And Jesus raises up those who would serve at the table of the bread. that is needed to sustain our bodies. And so Jesus does this. Ephesians 4, 11 and following, remember? The resurrected, ascended Christ gives gifts to men in His ascension. And He's this glorious victor picture, where the glorious victor now gives gifts to His church, and His church is given gifts of ministry and of service. And the ministry is driving, has the priority in that it's given to equip the saints for works of service so that the body of Christ would be built up and come to maturity. And that's what's happening here. And so as good and faithful apostle elders and leaders of the early church, the ministers know that You gotta preach. We gotta preach. We gotta pray. But they also know you don't leave someone who has a need neglected. And so, they call for men who are of good repute. In fact, what they say is, and I want you to feel the the contrast here in the comment. This is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And it says at the end of verse two, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. But then look, three, therefore, that is as a consequence, That is because it is still necessary to meet the needs of the people in this congregation. Therefore, brethren, brothers and sisters, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. Now note something. The foundation is still with the apostle elders. But there's now this distinct office of appointed servants who will primarily give themselves to the bodily needs of God's people. You note that. Note also in verse 3 that they're called seven men particularly that have good reputation among the people and they're described as full of the spirit and of wisdom. All right, I'm going to go to that in a second, but talk about the characteristics. But let me step back for a moment. What's going on here in the larger passage? This is what's going on. So the resurrected, ascended Christ has anointed certain men. They're in the midst of the congregation. They're anointed. And I'll talk about in a moment how that anointing is particularly known. They're filled with the Spirit. So what does the congregation do? Well, the elders call a congregational meeting. And then the elders say, congregation, you have a big part. These men are going to be your servants. And so we need for you now to approve of seven men and we'll give you some descriptions of what you should look for. And then no, don't miss it. The apostle elders appoint them. And it's no mere ceremony when they're laying hands on them. That's serious business in the before the face of God. That's serious business. That's not just a ceremony. That's a big deal. That's what we call ordination. They're being set apart to do a particular work, to be Christ's servants, to be stewards. But all that that means, you know, you feel the weight of that before you take the office, before you say, I'll do it. They're the steward. So three things I want you to note. Notice the anointing, as I'll look at. Notice the approval of the congregation or recognition. I used approval because it's alliteration that's helpful sometimes. But they recognize them. And then the particularly appointing of them. So what's the anointing look like in these men? They're in their midst. The anointing is particularly described as good reputation, full of the Spirit, and of wisdom. Let's talk about that for a moment. What does that mean, this anointing? What does it mean? This is language of Isaiah 11, verse 2 and following, that the Messiah, the anointed one, would have the very Spirit of God and wisdom, particularly. So what they're saying is these are spirit-filled men. These are blameless men. There's no one that has anything on them out in the community. They're not perfect men, but if they've made some mistakes, they've asked forgiveness for those mistakes. That's what blameless means. Of good reputation means that they won't fall under the accusation of the evil ones so easily, although he will try to get anything to stick on God's offices. But beloved, I want you to note something in this passage. It's extremely important for all of us. The anointing is not first and foremost known by the gifts. The anointing is first and foremost known by the grace. And the progress and sanctification that's been made. There's a big difference between gifts and grace, beloved. You know, Jesus says that some will appear on his holy doorstep one day and will say, I cast out demons in your name. I did many miracles. I preached. Those are gifted people. And he'll say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. There's a big difference between someone who's gifted and someone who's got grace and growing in grace under the preaching of the word, under the ministry of the word. These servants are those who've grown. They're being sanctified. Now, beloved, listen. Any time you want to talk about the progressive nature of sanctification, any time you want to talk about people making progress and perhaps more progress than other people in their congregation, you want to be careful that you make a really important distinction between justification and sanctification. Everyone in this congregation who has believed in the Lord Jesus is justified, that the perfect, imputed righteousness has been given to them by Christ alone, received by faith alone. They're righteous in God's sight and always will be, and no one can snatch them out of God's hand. But some of the men have cooperated with that grace more fully that has been given, particularly as it's ministered through the Word and through prayer. Some of them have made progress in sanctification to such an extent that people can recognize it. They see good reputation and everything that goes with it. They observe the grace of God in that they're full of the Spirit and wisdom. Full of the Spirit elsewhere means to be full of God's Word. Be filled with the Spirit. You think of Ephesians 3, 16 and following, how we're told that to be filled with the Spirit, or Ephesians 5, 18 actually, verse through 20. to be filled with the Spirit. We think of Colossians 3, 16 and following. That the Word of Christ would dwell in you richly, being filled. That's what being filled with the Spirit is. The Word is dwelling in them richly. And they're growing in grace. And these men are chosen. They're recognized by the congregation. And those are the kind of people we want to pray for in our congregation. We want to be those kind of people ourselves. We want to pray that God particularly gives us eyes to recognize godly men whom God has put among us, who has good reputation, and who's full of the Spirit and wisdom, progressing and growing, because they have been put here by Christ! 1 Corinthians 12, 7 tells us, beloved, that every gift, every person here has been given a gift by the Holy Spirit. And it's not for yourself. It's for the common good. It's to edify, it's to build up, it's to make stronger the church. And how do we come to that place? Often it's through a need. Often it's through a neglect. Often it's that something arises that cannot take the time from the minister or the elders of the congregation, but there's other needs. And these are servants. Beloved, you'll notice something in this passage. You'll notice that while we call these deacons, the Bible doesn't call them deacons yet. You may know of these men as deacons, but they're not called deacons here. In fact, in the original language, diaconate, or the word that we use called diaconate, is used of both, first the apostles and the elders, and then of those who will be deacons. Why? Okay, I think I have a reason. I think, not sure, but I think it's helpful. All authority comes from Christ. And that authority that's ministerial is founded on the apostles and elders first and foremost. It's what gives them ministerial authority to lay hands on servants. Particularly servants we call deacons. And so, if there are no deacons in the congregation, why it falls upon the elders to be those deacons. Because they're first and foremost servants of Jesus Christ. When I came out here to plant this church 13 years ago, that's hard to believe. They told me to be ready to wear all kinds of hats. You're going to be an elder, you're going to be a deacon. You're going to do a little bit of everything until God raises up godly men to serve and help you as elders and for deacons to serve with you. And until then, you're a deacon. And if you don't have deacons on a local session, who does the deacon work? The elders. because it is the default, if I could put it that way. It is the servants, the deacons as we know them, who come forth from the elders. They're an extension of the session under the session's authority, particularly the session or the elders as the session has ministerial authority, never magisterial authority, only declaring what the Word of God says. I think another thing you can note is, of course, Scripture interprets Scripture, and this is a transitional period. As I've told you, we need to be careful how we're interpreting Acts. I'll bring as much application as I can in real space and time, right here, right now, as I'm able to do, where I think there's application to apply. We also have to remember that there's a transitional period, and so, therefore, there are unique things about this passage. In other words, the deacons aren't called deacons yet. In fact, what can be confusing is one of the deacons, as we know them as to be deacons, Stephen goes off a preaching and becomes the first martyr. And Philip goes off a preaching and baptizes. So this is very important to understand that in a transitional period you don't want to make any unnecessary doctrine or teaching when there is a transitional period. What I will note for you is that in God's progressive revelation we have, and this is beautiful, this is glorious, one of the appointed servants who will be God's instrument to reach another appointed servant who will be the Apostle Paul himself. And he will give us sacred writings, sacred scripture on the distinction between elder and deacon when God's time is ready to reveal that clearly. Isn't that beautiful? You could think that what they're doing is being minister servants and helps to the elders. That's what you should see as we get into chapter 7 and chapter 8. is you're going to see them doing what we call non-deacon activity. That's why we rely on later sacred scripture to give us more fully the distinctions. And we have that. Let me give you a couple. Philippians 1.1, to the overseers, to the pastors, to the ministers of the words, and the deacons. And then 1 Timothy 3, verses 1 through 13. We've got very clearly, first six verses, first seven verses are to elders. and what we should expect out of elders, and their ministry. And then, what do we have? Verses 8 and following, we have the deacons. So it's right that we practice having elders and deacons. Very good. But I want you to know that at this time, these are appointed servants. And one of their most important works is to see that the bodily needs of God's people are not overlooked. Beloved, see the love of the Father. While a priority for God the Father and the Son and the Spirit to feed our souls the bread of life, He's also very interested in feeding our bodies and helping us and showing mercy to us and showing His grace that He's the one who ultimately puts all the bread and butter on our table. And these appointed servants are wonderful hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, who later will function very specifically in this way of serving God's people, primarily as ministers of mercy. But God can use them for other things as well. That's where we have to let the Scriptures speak and have the final word. especially in Stephen and Philip's case, because we have Acts 7 and Acts 8, and we dare not overlook it or just merely read into it our decided interpretation. We're always to be allowing the Holy Scriptures to change us. At the end of the day, it's the Scriptures that has power. The Scripture is the Word of God. There are some implications. God in his compassion cares for the souls of men. And he's committed to sanctifying every one of us. But he's also committed to our bodies. Because his work of salvation is just the beginning of glorified people. We're just beginning to be glorified with the coming of the Holy Spirit. At the coming of Pentecost, the beginning of the end has started. And what is the end? What's that ultimate goal that we look forward to? Seeing Him face to face and having glorified bodies that are just like His. Having glorified souls, bodies. As Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24, I pray you be sanctified soul, spirit and body. That's an all-encompassing sanctification, isn't it? And how does he do it? He does it through elders and deacons primarily. In the church, he does it primarily through elders and deacons. And look at verse 5. This pleased the people. All good servants of Christ's church, all elders particularly, know it's important as they're leading, to have the congregation being on board with something. Leading backwards, as my friend Jack reminds me. Leading backwards, not going ahead whole hog, like a freight train, not taking note of anybody. Come on and get behind me. I've got my thing to do. Minister the word prayer. Get out of here. It's leading backwards. It's listening and learning as one follows. And that's an important point, that what they said pleased the whole gathering. Now, what elders say sometimes will not please the whole gathering. We see that in Acts 15 too. But it is important that it's sought out, that the congregation's on board because the congregation has these servants who are ordained to serve in the congregation. So it's very important. And there's always the case of wickedness with overseers who are tempted rather than to be gentle and lead by example first and foremost and lead through the word first and foremost to lead just in order to control. History's full of that. We dare not let that happen here. But notice what happens. Stephen is chosen and he is particularly described as full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Isn't that wonderful? He's a man who's grown under the preaching of the word. And he's a man who's ready to serve. That's what we want to pray for here. Jesus is very pleased. Remember that he tells us to look out and see the fields that are white for harvest. And he says, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he'll raise up those who can serve in the harvest. We want to have that kind of expectation. Here were seven men in Jerusalem. A man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, then Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Chimon, Parmenas, Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. They set these before the apostles and they prayed and they laid their hands on them. And as the apostles set them apart formally with the laying on of hands, they are giving their ministerial approval as best as they can. that these servants are Christ's servants, and these servants are committed to the good of God's people for His glory. That is important in appointing servants, that we don't lay hands on someone quickly. And so there's an implicit here, not only a character observation, but a time of testing that is important. But you notice with this now in place by God's grace, Look what happens in verse 7. I will build my church. The word of God continued to increase. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many even of the priests became obedient to the faith. We looked at the priests last week. Now let me put this in the best kind of terms. The priests were part of the Sanhedrin generally, but particularly the Sadducees. You understand that these are men, I'm just going to put it this way, who are the ones who are, humanly speaking, guilty for putting Christ to death for blasphemy. And they're being loved upon. The Lord God is loving them. He's drawing them to Him. He's bringing them to repentance. He's bringing them specifically to the obedience of faith. And we see that there's no one too far gone Listen, with our friends, there's no one who's caught up in a false religion. And let me say it again clearly as I did last week. Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament. Judaism is a false religion as much as Islam is a false religion. The Old Testament religion is Christ and his apostles, his church. The church is the new Israel, reconstituted Israel, reconstructed Israel, renewed Israel, spirit-filled Israel. There's no Old Testament religion Without Christ, no true Old Testament religion. So these are false religious people. These are hardened people who are losing power and position. But that's another reason why. When there was a need, the apostle said, I can't get myself to bread, I can't get myself to waiting on those tables, I got a job to do, I got to preach the gospel, I got to preach. I've got to make known God's Word, because it's the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile. And that kind of faith, by God's grace, and that kind of priority, what does it bring about? It brings about the salvation of souls, even the hardest of souls, even those who are caught up in a false religion, such as Judaism. They put their trust in Christ. Now, we all are guilty for the crucifixion of Christ Jesus, but they were there to do it, to put it a little bit more strongly. It's like hearing that Pontius Pilate got saved. But that's what happened. And I want you to note two things about the power of this. Jesus is building his church, and there's conflict without, okay? the struggle within, there's even some neglect, some imperfection, but it's all a means through which God uses in his grace to bring opportunities for change and ultimately salvation and sanctification. And there's something I want you to note, that in this, God is showing his mercy and his grace. And two of these men, just focusing on two of them, one will be a bridge, Stephen, who will actually be the Spirit's instrument to bring the salvation of the Apostle Paul. We'll see that later. And one will bring the gospel to Africa through an Ethiopian eunuch. And one will bring the gospel to Samaria. And you know what? There you have the continuation of God's promise. Go into the world making disciples out of the nations. And as the church grows, God is faithful to feed the church spiritually and to feed the church physically and provide for all their needs because of what Jesus says to them and to us today. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for your goodness and grace, and we praise you that we could see your acts here in the way that you providentially order the circumstances to bring about good. Hellenistic women were fed. Praise your holy name. Appointed servants were raised up, recognized, and appointed by your elders properly. as the congregation approved of it. And your word just kept increasing as you promised to build your church. And even those most hardened souls were saved through the preaching of the word. Father, sometimes it's easy for us to forget that it's not just the office of ministry of the word and prayer that's needed, but it's also the appointed servants. And we know as deacons today, Because at the final part of that verse, we see that both are needed. The Word of God could not have continued to increase without the service of those we know as deacons. And so give us grace to serve in this congregation together, knowing that we have a mercy ministry to the souls and the bodies of men. and that we would expect for you to raise up godly men as the word is preached. That you'd save the lost, but you'd also sanctify us further. Make us full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Give us those who can help serve in this congregation. And let us see that that is a way that you caused this congregation to flourish. This little congregation in Jerusalem that was growing bigger and bigger. became your means to put the gospel on another continent and all the way to Rome itself. We thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.