"The Ministries of Word and of Deed" (Acts 6:1-7)

Transcript:

Well, turn with me to Acts, chapter six. We'll be looking this morning at verses one through seven. If you're using a pew Bible in front of you, this is on page 1086. 1086. Hear now the word of the Lord from Acts, chapter 6, verses 1 through 7.

Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the 12 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. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to 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 Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas, 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 became obedient to the faith. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated.

And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together this morning in prayer. Gracious heavenly Father, we pray that you would give us your spirit as we attempt to study this passage. Father, we do not want your word to return void. We do not want your word scattered like seed to fall on hard hearts where the seed will be snatched up by the enemy and taken away immediately. Father, we want your spirit to break up our hard hearts, to remove any stones or weeds, that your seed would fall on good soil and that your Holy Spirit would give us hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

We pray this, seeking your help in our hour of need as we turn to your word in Christ's name. Amen. Well, in this morning's sermon text, we come to one of the first major leadership challenges that the church faces. Now, to be sure, the church in the book of Acts has experienced different kinds of challenges. They have experienced sin from within.

They have experienced persecution from without. But this is a very tricky leadership challenge that is brought before the apostles, that the apostles have to navigate. It's going to involve language and cultural barriers. There are Administrative challenges that stand behind this, There is a conflict here that rises to the level of complaints issued against the leadership of the apostles. Now sometimes sort of jumping ahead to modern day, maybe you have heard believers lament, boy, the church today has just gotten too complicated.

It's just too complex. There are too many bureaucracies in the church. We just need to go back to the simplicity of the early church like we find it in the Book of Acts. Now, there are often reasons that we should actually rethink some of the things that we are doing. Sometimes we do over complicate what we are doing in the church.

But often that complaint ignores some of what we see in our passage today that happens in the Book of Acts. That early on, the church indeed was very simple. It was very easy in many ways. But as the Lord continued to bring souls to faith in Jesus Christ, as the numbers of disciples multiplied within the church, so also the administrative challenges for meeting the needs of everyone in the church rose as well. And so there was additional organizational, administrative complexity that was created not just to have something for people to do, but to meet the real needs of the people in the church.

So ever since the beginning, there's been a tension between the simplicity of what the church is called to be and to do and the complexity of the need for administration to meet the needs of those simple ministries of the church. There was a book published about 15 years ago that I think captured this tension. Well, it was called the Trellis and the Vine. Maybe some of you read it. The Trellis and the Vine.

The idea is very simple. The title alone is worth the price of the book. That ministry in the church is vine ministry. In the Old Testament and the New Testament, God's people are portrayed with an image of a vine growing up and spreading out and eventually bearing fruit as God wants it to. But vines are not strong like a tree with a big trunk that can stand alone.

Vines need something to grow on, to put their tendrils on and to stretch up as the vine grows. And you need a wooden structure, a trellis for that vine to grow upon. And so you need to continue to build a trellis in the church with the organization and administration to meet the needs of the growing group of people who are spreading out their tendrils in a church. But at the same time, churches often tend to gravitate toward organizational and trellis ministry. It's kind of fun to do that.

It seems like you're doing something really important to make your trellis increasingly big and impressive and beautiful. And sometimes we lose sight of the fact that all of this is for the sake of, of people, of vine work, of helping individuals grow. Well, here is where we see that trellis and vine tension, that simplicity of ministry in the church versus the complexity as the church grows at tension. And what we are going to see here is not whether we should do one or the other, we should be simple or complex. But what this passage does is to clarify the priorities of the church that should shape and guide through every leadership challenge, every administrative, every organizational challenge as we try to bring the gospel to individual people.

Our theme then this morning in this passage is this, that Jesus builds his church through ministries of word and of deed. Jesus builds his church through ministries of word and of deeds. And so that distinction, ministries of word and deed is going to form the two parts to our sermon passage this morning. Number one, word ministry is the first part and then number two, deed ministry is the second part. Word ministry and deed ministry.

Well, we see a definition and a prioritization of word ministry in the first four verses of this passage. Now again, before we get into this, it's good to remember where we have been. This is a passage that is dealing with a question that arose in administering benevolence to the church, meeting the needs of people in the church. And so we should remember what happened at the end of chapter four in verses 34 through 37 and Acts chapter five, verse two, that there was a very simple organizational structure for bringing those who had plenty, those who had extra excess, who could bring that excess as a gift and bring it to the church, that that would then be distributed to those as they had needs. Whenever someone had extra property or extra possessions, they would sell those things to meet a need.

And they would bring that money from those sales and lay those at the apostles feet. And from there it would be distributed to those with needs. In other words, this ministry up to this point has been under the direct of oversight of the apostles. The problem arises in verse one of our passage, in chapter six, verse one, when the disciples were increasing in number. These are good problems to have you might say, because this is about growth and growing pains in the church.

Now remember what needs to happen here. What needs to happen is the needs of people need to be met. That's vine work, caring for people work. But now what's happening is that the needs of these people are outstripping the available trellis. They have gone beyond what the apostles can manage on their own.

And so there needs to be a little bit more trellis work, a little Bit more organizational work to be able to rightly meet the needs as they arise. The issue in this particular case deals with a complaint that arises among the Hellenists. The Hellenists were, you know, the biological descendants of Abraham who had been born and raised outside of the land of Canaan. And so they, these were Greek speakers who had eventually moved back to Jerusalem, but they were having a difficulty and their complaints arose against the Hebrews. These were those who spoke Aramaic in the land of Canaan.

And these were people who, because there were no language barriers, no cultural barriers, their widows seem to be more readily taken care of than the widows of the Hellenists. Now what we are seeing is that the widows of the Hellenists were being neglected in the daily distribution. Now we have to ask ourselves what's really going on here and whose fault is this? Now it does seem that there is some kind of administrative challenge. Something is not quite working, something is not quite clicking.

The needs are not quite being met. The vine work is languishing among these Greek speaking Jews. But the word here for complaint might give another shade to this. The word here, complaint, is the word that we find in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to describe the murmuring of the people against the leadership of Moses in the Old Testament, particularly when there was not enough food to go around and not enough water to drink. And so here we have the same kind of an issue.

There's not enough food to go around for those who are in need. And once again, just like in the Old Testament when there was murmuring against God's appointed leader, Moses, now there is murmuring or complaint that is brought against God's appointed leaders, the apostles. Now there's probably legitimacy to this and there's probably, like in the Old Testament, some sin in the way these complaints were brought up. But regardless, the apostles have a real challenge. How do they sort through what's happening here and meet the need?

Now I think what we see in verse two is a tremendous model for leadership anywhere, but particularly in the church. Leaders are people too. And leaders, like everyone, face probably three different instincts when they're confronted with challenges, especially when fault is being brought to them. You are not doing a good enough job in this area. Those tendencies typically be toward fighting, fighting or flight or freezing.

You notice that the leaders don't fight. We're doing the best we can. Can't you see how many people there are? Leave us alone while we try to work this out. They don't do that.

They also don't flight from this the leaders have decided to take sabbatical. We're going to take a retreat and we're going to pray about this while you all deal with this. And hopefully things die down by the time we get back. Not that there's anything wrong with some time off. I'm going to take some next week.

But if it's to escape a problem, that's a wrong leadership approach. And neither is this to freeze just to sort of be paralyzed by indecisiveness. The apostles model right leadership by first of all, they deal directly with the problem. They summon people directly. They summon the full number of the disciples.

They want to deal with this with everyone present, and they get right to the issue. They're not trying to be people pleasers. Okay, we'll work a little bit harder at this, and we'll just try to make this work. They right away declare the priorities. They say it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Now don't let that sound as though they're fighting back. This isn't worth our time to handle. What they are rather doing is declaring the priority of the calling upon the apostles in the apostolic ministry. And this continues through all ministries of the word elders, and particularly teaching elders pastors that there is a priority given to those who can teach the Word. That that should be the priority of what we do.

Now, this word, it is not right, doesn't mean that it would be immoral for a pastor or for these apostles back then to serve the tables in any sense. The whole point is that they had been doing this. The issue now is not they realize they've been doing the wrong thing. The issue now is they cannot continue to do both. Something has to give, and so they say it's not right if something has to give.

For us to neglect or to give up preaching the Word of God, which is our primary calling, in order to continue to do this work, the Word of God has to continue to be the thing that they devote themselves to.

But in verse three, the solution they offer then continues to just illustrate the tremendous wisdom of the apostles. Here they avoid two other pitfalls, particularly of leaders. On the one hand, some leaders are tempted toward hoarding work. No one can do it as well as I can do it, so I'm not going to let anybody do it. Or on the other hand, delegating dismissively, I'm sick of this, I don't care about it anymore.

You do it instead, and I'm going to ignore it from now on. What they do is something very wise. They say, this is important work. They give their attention to the trellis work of organizing what's happening. And part of what that means is bringing other people who can come alongside them to do very essential vine work of meeting the real needs of real people in this particular area.

And so what they do is they insist that others must be selected, but not just anybody. We just need warm bodies to do this. They tell the congregation, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. Now, notice the tension here. The congregation picks out these people, but then they are brought to the apostles, and the apostles are the ones who appoint them to this duty.

And then in verse four, he says, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. So this is an important work to do. These are going to be people who are going to be doing real vine work of meeting real needs of real people in the congregation so that the apostles cannot just get rid of this task that they no longer want to do, so that it can be done well. And so they can give their attention to what must take first priority in their life, to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Why the ministry of the Word?

Well, for two reasons. First of all, because the Word of God declares the gospel of God, outside of which there is no salvation, the apostles have to be consumed with communicating what they have been witnesses of. These apostles had known and walked with the Lord Jesus Christ himself in his earthly ministry. They had seen his care and compassion for people when he met the needs of people. People healing them, multiplying food to feed them, casting out demons.

They had also seen their Lord teach and preach the gospel of the kingdom. And particularly they had seen their Lord willingly, voluntarily give his life up on the cross as a ransom, as a substitute, as an atoning sacrifice for sinners. And they had seen their Lord raised from the dead on the third day. They were witnesses of that, to declare to all those who would hear that there is forgiveness of sins, to anyone who turns from their sins and looks to Jesus Christ through faith. There are a lot of people who can serve food now, that doesn't mean that this can be done in a sloppy way.

But they had a particular calling on their life to proclaim Jesus Christ to anyone who would listen to them and to many who would not listen to them. And they had to do this first and foremost because there's no salvation outside of this. But notice, it's not just the ministry of the Word, it's to prayer. They knew that the ministry of the Word did not depend upon their knowledge or their skill in speaking. It depended on the work of God.

God to give hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear, everything contained in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so they gave themselves to that. So this first part of this passage is identifying a real need. There needs to be increased trellis, there needs to be increased organization and administration to care for the real needs of real people. But they have to give themselves to the the priority of the Word.

That's their vine work to which they are called. And yet there's other vine work that cannot be neglected, of meeting benevolent needs in the church. And this brings us to the second section, how they ensure that the deed work of the church will be done correctly, because this also is vine work. So number two, the deed ministry in verses five through seven, after the apostles and lay out this plan, at this congregational meeting, they've brought up this motion, this proposal. And in verse five, what they said pleased the whole gathering.

It was acclaimed. They got a majority vote. And from this we read that the congregation chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. And Stephen gets particular attention because he, in the next section is going to bear powerful witness for the Lord and is going to become tragically and gloriously the church's first martyr. Then of Philip.

Philip is also put to the head of this list because he will become important later, in Acts, chapter 21, verse 8, we will see that he also takes up the office of an evangelist. And we'll talk about what that means when we get to it. But we have Stephen and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. Now, these are all Greek names. Now that's important because remember, there was a language barrier here.

Probably some, if not all of these are Greek speaking believers in the early church who could help to sort of navigate that language and cultural barrier. However, not necessarily all of them are Greek speaking. Because even in Jesus disciples, his band of disciples, there were two, Andrew and Philip, who were not, who were Greek names, but not necessarily Greek speakers, they were not necessarily Hellenists, they were definitely Hebrews, they definitely would have spoken Aramaic. So it's difficult to discern the entire makeup. But we can see that there's an emphasis here to meet the particular need of crossing this barrier with those who are Greek speakers.

And so we read in verse six that they set these before the Apostles. And they. The apostles prayed and laid their hands on them. In both the Old and the New Testaments. To lay hands on someone is the ordination way of laying setting someone apart for a particular role, for a particular office in the church.

Now, there's nothing superstitious about laying hands on someone when you ordain them to a ministry. Notice here that they are praying here. It's not their hands that are magically doing something any more than when we experience the sacraments. There's nothing magical about water or bread or wine. It's what God is doing by his Spirit through those actions.

And so the laying on of hands, not a sacrament, but an action of the church, sets someone apart as we pray that God will work in and through this servant to build up church. Now, these are the very first deacons installed in the church. However, if you notice there, the word deacon does not appear here. The Greek word for deacon is diakonos. Diakonos.

And that's. We just. Our word is directly sort of an Anglicization of that word, diakonos. But back in verse one, that word for distribution was diakaneia, diakonia, the need for a distribution, the daily distribution was diakaneia. And in verse two, when the apostles talk about to serve tables, that word to serve is diaconaim.

So who is going to diaconaim the diakonia? Well, it's going to be the diaconoi, the deacons. This is a passage about the deacons. Some have argued against this, but it's very clear that that is what is happening here. These are ordained deacons serving in this task.

And we see that when the deacons are able to help and come alongside the apostles in this ministry. Notice in verse seven, the fruit of this and the word of God continued to increase and the numbers of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. This is the fruit of this. When the right vine work is done, when there's enough administrative trellis for an organization of bringing other officers and formally setting other officers to the task of serving and assisting and helping.

And so that the word of God is not hindered in its proclamation and preaching, working together in vine ministries of deed and of word, we are seeing that the whole church is built up and the word of God is increasing greatly. And notice particularly this is where the priests are starting to convert in mass. They've been holdout so far, but now many of the priests became obedient to the faith. We are seeing the gospel continue to make its inroads and really come as far as it can in the city of Jerusalem itself. This is the beginning of a turning point that is going to cause a persecution, starting with Stephen, the first deacon, that is going to then lead to a greater persecution that will cause the Christians to scatter out from Jerusalem into Judea and into Samaria, until later they eventually move to the ends of the earth, just as Jesus says, you will be my witnesses, first in Jerusalem, then in Samaria, then to the ends of the earth.

This is what happens to start the process, process of scattering them out. As the word of God increases so much that even priests are starting to believe well again. This is a important history that shows us that even in the early church there was this tension between the simple ministry the church had been called to do and the simplicity of what the church had been called to be versus the need for an increasing complexity of organization to make sure that that the vine of the people of God are taken care of in every need that they have. So how then do we apply this today? Well, application is this.

Find your place to serve in the church's ministries of word and deed. Now, the primary application of this is going to be for those men who are gifted and qualified and called into the offices of elder and deacon. There's a particular calling on particular men for that ministry of word and the ministry of deed. But it's not limited to officers. Officers are not the only one by far, not the only ones who serve in the church.

We need to think about a whole church vision for what we are seeing here. And we need to go back to with what I said would be the theme for this morning, that Jesus builds his church through the ministries of word and the ministries of deed. Now we need to start not just with that theme, but really with Jesus himself. Jesus was the ultimate minister of word and of deed. Now, in the New Testament, you can find Jesus called a minister.

When you find Jesus in our English translations called a minister. The word there is Diaconos, because the word there that we get our word deacon from Diaconos. This word is a general word that means a servant in some kind of broad sense, a minister, someone who's doing something on behalf of someone else. It's the word that we find in the Gospel of John at the wedding of Cana, when Jesus mother tells the servants that the Diaconoi, the deacons, do whatever my son says. And Jesus says, fill them jars up with water, and that water is eventually turned to wine.

Those table waiters, those servants at the wedding feast, those are called deacons. Jesus himself is called a deacon, a minister. This word has a really wide range of usage. But when we think about Jesus, why is he called this? Well, because Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.

And Jesus came as a servant in both Word and in Deed. All of our ministries, all of our offices are found ultimately in Jesus Christ Himself. He is the main minister of the Word. He's the one who preached. He served by teaching us throughout his earthly ministry.

He came as our final prophet, but he also was given to ministering to physical needs of people. He healed them, he fed them, he cast out demons from them. Ultimately, Jesus then performed the ultimate deed ministry that has ever been done and it's unrepeatable by laying down his life as a sacrifice once for all for sinners so that all those who look to Jesus Christ in faith, we're not trying to model our lives on him so that hopefully we can ascend to his level. We are looking to what he did and his ministry of deed in dying and rising for sinners as the only hope of salvation we have. And what Jesus did as his ministry of deed by dying and rising for sinners now forms the basis of the ministry of the Word that we proclaim and preach and teach week after week after week.

There's an integration here. Notice then that when we talk about Jesus building His church, we do not build Jesus kingdom. Some well meaning people say that we're going to build Christ's kingdom or build his church. We don't do that. Jesus builds his kingdom, but he uses us and he uses the ministries he has appointed us, particularly the ministries of Word and the ministries of Deed.

Now again, there's sort of a primary application to those minutes men who are gifted and qualified and called to the offices of elder and deacon. This idea of word ministry and deed ministry stands behind these two perpetual offices in the church. The elders are given to overseeing the ministry of the Word and to administering the Word in various capacities. The deacons are given to the ministry of Deed to serving and meeting benevolent needs and caring for the physical needs of the church and the buildings and the budgets and everything along those lines. Now, in all of these officers, again, these are chosen by the congregation and we're coming up in a couple of months to another officer election.

Please be in prayer for that. Please be in prayer for the current officers of this church and those who will be elected to serve over the next term. You must choose who will lead in word and deed ministry at First Church and I would exhort you to choose men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom to serve in these roles. But though there is a primary application to officers, there is also a secondary application that applies to every last man, woman, boy and girl in the church. We are all called to the ministries of word and deed.

Again, the Scriptures primarily teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, word and deed. And some of you, as you think about your gifts and you think about your desires, some of you feel this burden to teach. Whether it's children or women or men in Bible studies or wherever it is, young adult or the youth. If you feel a burden to teach, seek to be qualified according to what the Scriptures call you to and go teach. Find ways to teach as whatever appropriate for your age, whether you're a man or woman, and for whatever your status is in the church, find ways to teach.

Because we need the word of God spread in all kinds of ways to meet divine ministry needs of every individual's need for growth in grace through the word of God. Others of you don't necessarily feel a burden to teach, but you feel a burden to serve when there are needs that arise, you just want to be there and use your hands and fix things. That's such a great need, especially someone like me who cannot fix anything. We need people who can do all these kinds of things. We need people who come alongside and serve in various ways and capacities.

Now, this doesn't mean it's not a watertight distinction. It doesn't mean that pastors should stand back and refuse to help when there are needs that are needed to be administered. But it means we all need to think about what's the best use of my calling, what's the best use of my gifts at this exact moment? And what this does is this not only glorifies Jesus, it's dependent upon Jesus. Again, he's the one who possesses all the gifts and he distributes all of those gifts to everyone in his church.

As each as a gifting, let us seek to use those. The Scriptures encourage us. So I want you to imagine what the church would be like if every single person in the church was really wrestling what is my calling? Where do I serve? What are the gifts that God has given me?

How do I grow so that as I serve in these ways that I'm not doing hypocritically, but doing so out of a dependence upon Jesus and to glorify him, how would the number of disciples multiply greatly in our midst according to God's will. How would God's word gain greater depth as the word of God is discussed and considered and wrestled with in every small conversation in every pocket of the church? And who would surprisingly become obedient to the faith? It was the priests in verse seven. But who would surprise us as they started flooding into the church?

At the end of the day, there's no way to program growth. The work that we are doing does involve trellis work. But trellis work is in some ways easy because there's some organization, there's some engineering, there's some administration, just sort of plan planet from afar.

But the ministry of the church that involves that trellis work is always for the sake of people. People are unpredictable and people need the work of the Holy Spirit working in their lives. We are called then only to plant seeds, and we're called to water and as needed to build trellises on which the vine can grow. But then to look in prayer to God's Holy Spirit Spirit to give the growth. We can't do this.

God does it in Jesus Christ and through his Spirit. But I want you to think about and wrestle with what is your role, whether in word or deed or both in that work. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we pray that you would lead people to faith. That is just the burden of our hearts.

We want to see people come to know Jesus. And at the one level, this is simple. We need to preach Christ and the gospel, that sinners can be saved through faith in Jesus. And we need to serve them and meet their needs so that you would build up your church. We do pray for those who are qualified and gifted and called to serve as an elder or deacon in this church.

Some of them who are wrestling with that calling right now as they prepare to go up for our potential election. But we also pray for every individual in the church who is wrestling with his or her role in serving in various ways. Father, we're all called at some level to word and deed. And we pray that your word and the deeds of service would just build this body up in grace and in love and in the gospel of Jesus. And we pray this for the glory and sake of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the one from whom we gain all good gifts and the one that we seek to glorify with every aspect of our lives.

It's in his name we pray. Amen.