ACTS | Servants for the Sake of the Word | Acts 6:1-7

Our sermon text this morning comes from Acts. We're in chapter six now we're going to be just looking at the first seven verses of Acts chapter six.

Before we read God's word, let us go to Him in prayer, let's pray, Our Father, as we come to Your Word, we are completely and fully dependent upon you and upon your spirit to open up our eyes and our hearts and our ears that we might receive it, even as we will hear the apostles say that prayer goes along with the word.

And so Lord, we do pray that you will open up your word to us, lest we are wasting our time. We are less. We are here in vain. We pray that Your Word would go forth, and you have promised that as it does, it will do its work. It is sharper than any two edged sword. And Lord, I pray that Your Word would cut deep into our hearts this morning, all of our hearts, exposing our sin, exposing our worldliness, exposing the lusts of the eyes and the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life, that is not from the Father, but is from the world that we might repent of these things, but that we might turn to our Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and to know that all of our sins are washed away, and that we might celebrate with Much Joy and follow you all the days of our lives.

Lord, be merciful to your people. Now we pray in Jesus's name. Amen.

People of God, hear God's word for us this morning from Acts chapter six, beginning in verse one. 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 Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty, and we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. In what they said, Please, the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and procurus and the canor and teman and parmenas and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. They 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 the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. He who has ears let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated if you have been here the last few weeks, as we've been making our way through the book of Acts, pretty much every chapter that we have looked at since chapter two, the church has been under attack in various ways.

The church was being attacked from without being threatened by the Sanhedrin, the the rulers, the council, the chief priests, the scribes, they were being threatened, they were arrested, and then the church was then being attacked from within by hypocrisy, and we saw that with Ananias and Sapphira and lies, and then attacked again from without, not only Being arrested and threatened, but this time actually physically beaten and told, don't speak his name again, don't speak that name of Jesus. And as we turn to chapter six, there's another attack. And as we've kind of seen outward, inward, outward, now we have another inward attack in the church, another attack from within, and this is an accusation of racism, an accusation of favoritism, and the church here is in danger of losing its focus and priority.

And I think that's really what this text is driving at is what is the priority of the church, and we will see that the first priority of the church is prayer and the Word of God.

Now last week, I didn't have maybe a very good outline, maybe not very clear three points.

Since.

Not with alliteration. I decided to change that this week. And so the first point, we're going to have the peril of partiality.

Present, that's the problem. Second, we're going to have the solution, or the pattern of provision, provided I went the extra mile here.

And then third the outcome, which is the promise of productive proclamation.

That is the great commission is not going to be hindered. It's going to continue. It's going to go forth. And that's the duty of the church to make sure that the Great Commission is not being hindered. It is not being stopped.

So let's get into chapter six here in verse one, as we think about the peril of partiality present, don't sit too close, or else those peas are alright.

This verse one now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, and I'll just stop right there to note that the church is growing rapidly. And you maybe have noticed that in the last few verses in the previous chapter, 1000s of people are being added to the church, just here in Jerusalem, and it's happening rapidly by the power of Christ, who is at work right Christ is risen. He is alive, and he is seated and enthroned at the Father's right hand, and powerfully working through His Spirit as the apostles preach the Word of God, and in just a few months, there is an estimated, probably 20,000 people now in the church here in Jerusalem. And sometimes when children grow rapidly, children, maybe you've had this, or you remember this as you were growing up, as you grow rapidly, you maybe wake up one morning you feel aches and pains of growth pains. Well, the church is experiencing kind of these spiritual growth pains as they are growing so rapidly in such a short period of time.

The church, when you get more messy sinners together, there just happens to be more messy sin, and that's what we see happen. Here is a complaint.

There's a problem that arises that threatens to stunt the church's growth, and it's complaining. And this word here, complaint is a very loaded word. It is the same word that is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. That is the Septuagint of what Israel did in the wilderness. And you know what Israel did in the wilderness, when God would do these miraculous signs and wonders, provide bread from heaven, water from a rock, he would rescue them from their enslavement in Egypt. And what would Israel do the very next moment? Complain, murmur, complain, grumble. And that's the same word that's actually being used here, and that's this is the pattern, right? I mean, the last chapter, we've even verse 12 or verse chapter five, verse 12. You can look and see many signs and wonders are happening, just like in the Old Testament. And then what happens next here in verse one?

Complaint. And what's this complaint about it's by the Hellenist arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Now, the Hellenists are the Greek Jews.

That is, they were born outside the land of Israel. They had been raised outside of Israel, the promised land. They read the Old Testament in Greek, not in Hebrew, and they probably then had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate either the Passover or the Feast of Booths.

And they embraced Christ, and they stayed. They made their life then around the church there in Jerusalem, they left their livelihoods to stay here in Jerusalem with the apostles and to hear the word proclaimed.

And then the Hebrews, then were the people who are born and then raised within the border lands of Israel. And they knew Hebrew well, and they would read the Old Testament in Hebrew.

But what's happening here is that there's no longer one accord in the church. Remember, we saw it was such a beautiful picture of one accord and unity and love, but now there is a US.

Uh, verse them, the Hellenists, verse the Hebrews, and the church is being divided. It's a this racial and and ethnic divide that the Hellenists are claiming that their widows are are being neglected compared to the Hebrew widows. They're not getting as as much as the Hebrews, the Hebrews the Hebrews here in Jerusalem, they're just primarily looking out for them, their own widows.

Maybe they're used to that, but now we have these Hellenists come in and we're not as we're not, you know, we're not as used to caring for them, and we're just, it's just easier to look to people that we know, and maybe they're not getting as much.

This is a constant problem in the church, not only here in the first century, but it continues to kind of be something that plagues the church, doesn't it divides, of racial or cultural divides, we sometimes have these tongue in cheek statements, but, but maybe there's a little truth in them. You know, you've heard it if, if you're not Dutch, you're not much, right?

Or this is another one I found that I like American by birth, Southern by the grace of God, right? And those are funny tongue in cheek, but those are maybe sometimes things that can divide the church if we put too much of our stake our identity and our cultural backgrounds and in our nationalities, rather than unity in the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's what the Lord has called us to, that we are to be one body. We are one in Christ.

We aren't to play favorites. We are to love each other as Christ loves us and children. You know that playing favoritism is wrong. You know if mom and dad ever play favoritism with you in that household, it's not right.

You know it's after dinner and it's time for dessert, and dad gets ice cream out, and he starts scooping ice cream into the bowls and and one bowl happens to get a little bit more ice cream. And then dad hands out the ice cream to the children, and then the children there just perfectly content for what they received, right?

No, that's not fair. They say, right, that's not right. I should have gotten more, and that's what's happening here in the church. That's not fair.

We're not getting the same amount.

I also just too want to know as we get further to that that mercy ministry is happening here in the church, even before chapter six and before the appointment of the serve servants, that mercy ministry was often being done by the synagogue and extended families, but people in need were being taken care of here, but there's a transition away from the synagogue because there's no need for the ceremonial law.

Christ has fulfilled these things. I also just want to note too that the first complaint and the New Testament Church, it's about money. It's about money again, so we've had two attacks from within the church.

And you know, we're in chapter six now, Ananias and Sapphira, and what what was really at their heart? It was greed, right? It was love for the worldly possessions. I'm going to keep a little bit for myself, and the church is still going to praise us. And for general, I need that. And here again, there's another complaint, and it's about worldly possessions.

So people are have been laying their goods at the apostles feet, and they were distributing these goods to the people.

Taking care of widows is important. James certainly tells us that. And I think also keeping taking care of our widows is is part of keeping the fifth commandment, to honor our father and mother, to take care of those who the Lord has called us to respect. And that the apostles here, they're they're trying to figure all this out now that you have 20,000 people, this is an important aspect in the life of the church. But not everyone is happy with how things are being distributed. And so it sounds like there's a church split that's about to happen, doesn't it? You're about to have now two churches here in Jerusalem.

You're about to have the Hellenist Church and the Hebrews church. And so the apostles, they take this very serious. It alarms them, so they call a congregational meeting. It would been interesting to see how that meeting was run. It doesn't give us all the details, but we have some of the things that are said there. In verse two, it said in the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. So.

Prayer, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Now that might sound harsh, but the apostles here are setting out clearly again, what is the priority of the church?

The first need and priority of the church is the ministry of the Word of God accompanied by prayer. The church has been commissioned by Christ in Matthew 28 so therefore go and therefore make disciples of the nations, of all nations, and disciples cannot be made, and the Great Commission cannot be fulfilled without prayer and the ministry of the word. And what we are seeing here is an attack by Satan on the church.

The apostles are the ones who are doing this, distributing they are becoming overburdened.

They're doing it all. They they've become the the chief administrators. They They cared for God's people, and they had the ability to do this. But what the apostles are saying is, should we be doing this?

Satan is trying to rip the church apart by pulling the apostles away and making their ministry social and physical problems and struggles. And this is, again, still maybe a challenge of the church, the struggle of the church, where the church's mission simply becomes taking care of the poor or meeting injustice or figuring out divisions and fights and family issues and marriage issues and children issues. And it's very, very easy for pastors to get burnt out and overburdened. Who's going to make the copier work? Who's going to visit the sick in the hospital? Who, who's going to take Sure, make sure social media is up and running, and website design, we gotta have a website. Who's going to take care of the website, who's going to answer all the church emails.

You know what? We went to this church planners conference, and was a bunch of pastors like myself, and there was a whole seminar about websites. And all of us look at each other and we're like they didn't teach us that in seminary, there's so many things, so many needs in the church, and how was the pastor posted to do them all and also raise a family and have a healthy marriage and then, and hopefully, certainly not least, To preach a biblically rich sermon Satan wants the church to have those who have been called to minister the word to leave, the word to do anything else but the word to distract them all with not necessarily bad things. These are good things. The widows need to be taken care of, but to distract and and take so many things that the focus is no longer here, but on other things, Satan wants to undermine the key to the church's ministry and success. How is it that the church had grown so rapidly? How well acts actually tells us, and you can look there for yourselves. Look at Acts, chapter two, verse 41 so those who received the word were baptized and they were added to the that day, about 3000 souls. Turn to chapter four, verse four, but many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of men came to about 5000 so you see what is happening, that the church is growing rapidly because the word of God is being proclaimed and preached to them, and now Satan is trying to divide the church by these racial and social divides, so that the apostles will get distracted to focus on those things and No longer the Word of God the modern church, many churches have gone away from the priority of prayer and the Word being preached as the centerpiece of the church's work, but the mainstays of The Church have now become programs, music programs, youth programs, single programs, family programs, this program that ministry, this ministry. And I've sadly heard many people say, you know, I really like the preaching at this or that church, but this other church just has this really great program. You.

It, but what is truly best for us and even what is truly best for our children, when we get pounded with life's problems and when our children face struggles, what we really need is just that regular, ordinary ministry of the Word of God in prayer, because that is the power of God to salvation.

That's what Paul says in Romans.

Are you stressed about your sin?

Are you weary about life? God's Word gives us the answer. It gives us rest. It gives us peace. The late RC Sproul theologian pastor said, God has chosen to change the world, not through entertainment, not through public relations, not through marketing, but through the foolishness of preaching.

The apostles then say, Therefore, brothers, pick out from your from among you, seven in verse four, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

They say, here's the solution.

The bodily needs of the people are not to be overlooked. And I also, I want you to notice here the apostles are not saying that's not important. We don't need to do that somehow, like we're just these physical creatures. But the body is not important. They don't do that at all. They said this is important. And just notice that the father's compassion to you and to his people to make sure not only are your physical need or spiritual needs taken care of, but your physical needs too.

And he's going to create an office to help you make sure that your physical needs. God is so compassionate and so loving towards his people here to feed us, both spiritually and physically. But the apostles say this is important, but have someone else do it and but not just anyone. Here are the qualifications. There are qualifications that the apostles lay out, men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. These are to be spirit filled men, not perfect men, but men that model repentance and faith, men that showed the church the conduct that the gospel produces. The word has been preached and proclaimed, and now what does a life look like of one that is living out the gospel? Well, these men should be modeling that of what that looks like.

These are Grace filled men. I also, I just want to stress you stress that's the emphasis here in the ministry, is Grace filled men, not even necessarily gift filled men. It doesn't say at all. Make sure, as we are dealing with the finances of the church, that you pick out men who have good financial capabilities and backgrounds, businessmen who know how to handle money. It doesn't say that at all. It doesn't say pick out men who are really good at logistical challenges and over, you know, adapting, overcoming.

It doesn't say that. It doesn't say pick out men who are really good with administrative abilities. Doesn't say that at all. We need grace filled men.

We need men to serve who are willing to lay down their lives that the word of God might go forth. Men who are are willing to move barriers aside that the word might continue to be proclaimed. You.

Yes, these men will work to be an extension of the elders. I also note, too, if you don't have the preaching of the Word, you don't have holy men. You don't have men who are ready to even take this office, because it's the preaching of the word that you have these men who are ready to serve the word, not only just saves souls, but the word sanctifies and changes souls and makes holy souls. So if the Word of God is not preached, you don't even have people who are ready to serve. In this way, Jesus raises up those who are ready to serve at the Lord's table, and also here to serve at physical tables. And as Jesus said, it said, Anyone is to be great, he is to be a servant.

And this office here, we sometimes call it Deacon, though there's these men I might argue a little bit later are slightly different than deacons we have now. This is a transitional period in the church, because we're going to have some of these men actually baptize and preach, but we'll get into that later as we get there.

But this office is such a blessing to the church, it's this physical outworking of the.

Gospel on display, and just here at our church, we are so grateful for our deacons.

There's one deacon in particular who's constantly telling me, Dan, you don't need to worry about that, you don't need to do that, and you need to focus on what God's called you to do. And I'm so grateful for that, because we're not that big of a church, but there were needy church. We're we're a needy people, and the Lord has provided men for us, and we need to pray that the Lord would continue to raise up men to help us in that way. In verse five, here's something that's wonderful, too. And what, what they said, pleased the whole congregation. The congregation agreed. You know what? That is, the priority of the church. It needs to be that we're freeing the apostles up to pray, to pray, to pray and to preach, and we're happy for these other men to serve in that way, the church agreed.

And then they are. These men are set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. So the this is the ordination that God is setting these men apart for his work.

These are now servants of Christ to His people.

And then the third point, the promise of productive proclamation, verse seven, 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.

It says the Word of God continued to increase. And that's an actually surprising statement, because it doesn't say that the church grew, but it says the word grew.

And why is that important?

Because it's the word of God that awakens and sustains our faith. It's through the word of God and prayer that the Holy Spirit comes. It's the word of God that creates life and and gives hope. It's the word of God that leads to freedom and defeats the devil. It's the word of God that fills us with everlasting joy, and it's the word of God that directs us to our Lord Jesus Christ, that says, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith, and that's important, because the priests were part of the Sanhedrin, the Sadducees.

These are people who are directly responsible for the death of Christ. These are people that hate Christ more than anything, but as the word of God is grown and proclaims and is proclaimed, the worst of the worst are drawn and converted, and they are drawn to Christ now, and they are are made part of the people. There's no one who is too far gone. You and me. It is not too late that we embrace the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know in the news, you've probably seen it. I don't know how you couldn't if you have any kind of social device or TV, someone's lives being placed on a jumbotron of the world to see you've seen that right?

And it's important to remember that God has seen every one of your actions, every one of your thoughts, is on display before God. Every word that you have uttered is before the face of God. And if our sins were displayed before us, I would be ashamed.

It would be disgraceful, and our sins deserve not just ridicule but death. The wages of sin is death. But this is what the word of God tells us, that Jesus comes. He doesn't come just to point fingers and to laugh, but he comes to die to wash away my record of guilt and my sin, to know that everything that is displayed and before the face of God has been cleansed, that Christ has died for my sin to heal.

This is why we have to preach.

We have to preach Christ. That's what the word of God is directing us to. Ultimately, is pointing us all to Christ, showing us our sin on display, that we might point to Christ and say, it's been paid for. It's been washed, it's been healed, that I might live a life freely and fully with much joy before God.

You know the apostles when they were threatened, don't preach that name again. Did they stop?

And they didn't stop because they knew the word had to be preached. Christ had to be proclaimed.

And here, if the apostles are not going to let stripes on their backs or threats stop them from preaching, nor is money matters or divisions in the church, we have to preach the gospel. We have to preach Christ because our only hope of even, of unity, of divisions in the church being healed of racism or cultural changes or whatever it is that might seek to divide us as a church be Haven. It's the word of God that's going to heal us, because it's going to point us back to Christ.

To show us our sin, to show us his sacrifice, to show us his love, that we might love one another.

This is why, also we must pray fervently for the Lord to continue to raise up more deacons.

You know, during the Protestant Reformation, one of the lesser known, yet powerful reforms that occurred was that recovery of the Office of Deacon Geneva received 1000s of Protestant refugees who were fleeing from persecution from other countries in Europe, Like France. But rather than becoming simply a social crisis in Geneva, deacons were raised up there in that city to faithfully and help to provide housing and food and care.

And what was the result that allowed Calvin to continue to preach boldly that the word of God continued to grow there in Geneva, and Geneva became a vibrant center of the gospel.

And let that be our prayer too, that the gospel might continue to go forth, and that the God would use that to raise more and more people up to build his church, let the Great Commission go forth and let nothing stop it. And thank the Lord for raising up servants among us. And pray for more.

Thank your deacons today, and let's pray, Father, we thank you for giving us your word. I pray you'll help us to see it's importance to remember that it is worth more than much fine gold. It is your word that gives life, and nothing must come in its way. But Lord, we are good at putting things in its way, and so Lord, I pray that you will continue to raise up more men to help in that ministry of service, and continue to raise up more men to preach the gospel as well. Lord, we thank you for your compassion to feed us as a people, both spiritually and physically.

Lord, bless your people, and it's in Jesus' name we pray amen.