Servants for the Savior

Man, great to see everybody here today. We got kids in the room, we got some guests in the room, we got our regulars in the room. We got a lot of talkers in the room today. That’s what I’m really picking up on. I’m hearing it from the kids. The kids are asking for everybody to stop fraternizing and connecting. That’s right, thank you sir, thank you. Awesome, hey for real, we’ll go ahead and start finding our seats back again. This is one of those signs that I was not destined to be like an elementary school teacher, you know, ’cause my voice is just not that commanding. And so man, I think back to some of those days and be like, man, Ms. Cruel, Ms. Hopkins, they could just really get everybody together. Man, wonderful.

Well, thank you all so much for being here. If this is your first time with us or first time in a long time, welcome or welcome back. Love to have you. We would love to connect with you later on in the week and just kind of introduce ourselves and get a feel for what your time was like with us. So yeah, if you still have your connect card to be able to just give us a little bit of your contact information on that, we’ll get with you later on.

And I wanna just kind of circle back to something, the Celebrate Recovery ministry. Yeah, so that’ll be kicking off Sunday nights in February. Super excited about that. Robbie, man, God has just delivered him and brought him to our church and we’re super excited about that. And he’s building a great team. So like Becky already said, Celebrate Recovery, it is a Christ-centered recovery program. It’s not just for the guy I’ve been saying, it’s not just for the guy that’s, you know, strung out on something with $5 left in his name. It’s really for anybody. If you’ve got some sort of hurt, habit or hang up, some sort of just demon man on you, and you’re like, I don’t know how to get past this family dysfunction. I don’t know how to get over this junk that’s going on in my life. It’s for you. And we’ve got a space for you.

In fact, Robbie is building a team and he needs some more servants and some more helpers for his team. What he’s praying for specifically, we need somebody to take care of childcare so that folks can attend if they have children. We need another man to join him to help facilitate conversations. And then we need somebody to lead worship for them. So every week they’re gonna worship as well as eat and do the study.

So what we’re gonna do right now is we’re gonna pray as a church for Robbie for that ministry and specifically praying that God would provide those three things. So if this is new to you, that’s okay. I wanna invite you to join us. We spend some portion of every Sunday morning praying out loud. And that’s what we’re gonna do right now. I invite you to grab a neighbor and pray that God would provide those needs for Robbie and the Celebrate Recovery ministry. Y’all take it away, I’ll put a bow on it. Thank you.

Jesus, the power of the cross is not just to forgive us of our sins. The power of the cross is also to transform us. The cross doesn’t just wipe away our debts, but it also makes us into new creations. Thank you. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for the promise of change. Thank you for the hope of transformation. Thank you that the Jeremy that embraced the gospel for salvation as a 15 year old, slowly but surely, is beholding Jesus with unveiled eyes and is changing from one degree of glory to the next and to the image of Jesus. God, thank you for Celebrate Recovery, which will take that truth and apply it in the lives of folks that wanna change. God, you don’t just save us and beam us up to heaven. God, you save us and you keep us here so that we can be agents of change for others. You use us so that we can help others embrace the life changing and transforming message of Jesus Christ. Thank you for that. Thank you for bringing Robbie here. Thank you for the freedom and the salvation he found through Celebrate Recovery. Thank you for bringing him here to Sauldam. I pray God that you would give him that fruit. Years from now that we would be standing back and looking at a sea of people who have found freedom from hurts, habits and hangups because you brought him here and he was faithful to the assignment you gave him. Lord, I thank you for Michael and Philip who are God stepping into the office of deacon today. Lord, thank you for how they’ve said yes, time and time again to you and to the assignments you’ve given them. I pray that you will bless them as they accept this assignment today. Lord, I thank you for this church. I thank you for what you’re doing here. I thank you that we are living the book of Acts. We don’t just get to study it. But this morning as we study it, I pray that you would make the words come alive. Pray that you would help all of us to leave here, not just thinking something interesting was said, but that we would all leave here just a little bit changed and a little bit transformed. God, we love you. And it’s in your great name that we pray. Amen.

Well, today is a special day. Whether you knew it when you came in or not, this morning we have the privilege of ordaining two incredible men into the office of deacon. We’re super excited about this. So Michael and Philip Cordray, they have just proven themselves time and time again to be men of really high caliber, men of incredible character, men who follow the Lord as best they can with all their heart. And we’re really excited about that. So this morning we’re pausing the series that we had started last week. And we are just going to look at the biblical foundations for what being a deacon is.

If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to go ahead and open them up to Acts chapter six. Acts chapter six. This passage that we’re going to be studying, I’m going to mention this in a moment, doesn’t actually use the word deacon, but it is the biblical foundations of what we understand deacons to be. This is a moment in the life of the early church that is extremely important for us today as we continue to seek what in the world does it look like for a body of believers to really be ruled by this book. So that’s what we’re going to look at today. This New Testament foundation of deacons found in Acts chapter six.

If you don’t have a physical Bible with you, the scripture will be on the screens. I’m going to read verse one of that chapter now. In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, there arose a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution.

So what you need to understand right off the bat is that the success of the word had created a problem for the church. I want to say that again. The success of the word had created a problem for the church. See this story, this moment is all about the church that’s in Jerusalem. And there’s two groups of Christians there. You’ve got so far, they’re all of Jewish background. Some are Hebraic Jews and some are Hellenistic Jews. Hebraic Jews are Jews that come from a Jewish background. Hellenistic Jews are folks who have come to embrace Judaism, but may have come from a Greek background, Greek culture, Greek language, those types of things. So in that one church, you have Jews, but these are two very different types of Jews.

And what was happening is that in their daily distribution of giving foods to these widows, just caring for the widows, you’ve got some issues. There’s so many people being added. There’s so many, so much growth going on that the Hellenistic Jews are saying, “Hey, our widows are being overlooked for the sake of these Hebraic Jews.” Now you’re in Jerusalem, it’s the epicenter of the Hebrew people. So the Hebraic Jews is probably a larger group. They would have naturally received a little more attention. The Hellenistic Jews, a smaller group, they’re like, hey man, what gives? We’ve got people that are struggling. We’ve got folks that are in need and all the success of the preaching, all the success of evangelism, the success of a word had created a problem. There’s a problem with this daily distribution for the widows.

I’ll put it this way. The sheer number of new disciples in the Jerusalem church on top of an existing cultural rift led to a failure to make sure the Hellenistic Jews and their widows are being taken care of. Conflict, conflict was coming up in the church. Conflict in this moment was an unintended failure to take care of the vulnerable. It was not a theological disagreement. It was not some huge argument that happened over properties and buildings and grounds. It was simply a matter of, is everybody being taken care of or not? That group of everybody, that’s significant.

This passage begins, in those days. Let me tell you a little bit about what was going on in the life of this church in those days. Acts 2, verse 41. This is the first message of the Christian group in Jerusalem. Peter is preaching and it’s incredible what happens. Those who accept the message of Peter were baptized. And that day, about 3,000 people are added to the church of Jerusalem. The original group of Christians in Jerusalem, about 120. That’s this. Imagine 3,000 people show up to church next Sunday. We would have some issues. Good issues, but we’d have some issues.

But not only does that happen. Acts 2, 47. The life of the early church is just stoking so much zeal for Jesus that every day people are praising God and enjoying the favor of others. Every day the Lord is adding to their number those who are being saved. So on top of that 3,000 people, every day more are being saved. What if next Wednesday night is not 3,000? It’s like 3,500 show up for Bible study.

Acts 4, verse 4. Continuing, Peter and John, they’ve been arrested. They give a good defense. They are released. And then many who hear the message of Jesus Christ believe, and the number of men only come to about 5,000. And I know men typically aren’t going to church without their wives. And if they’ve got kids, they’re bringing their kids along. So that group of 5,000, probably more like 10,000.

Acts 5, verse 14, where I’m gonna stop this. Believers are being added to the Lord in increasing numbers. This is huge. The apostles are preaching and God is giving success to the word. But as that’s happening, people and their needs are falling through the cracks. So while the church is growing, procedural issues are manifesting.

Thus, what we see in verses two through four, the apostles propose a solution to serve the word. It starts off, there is a success of the word creates a problem. Then the apostles propose a solution to serve the word. Acts chapter six, verses two through four. The 12, the 12 apostles, summons the whole company of the disciples. How in the world they got thousands and thousands of people together in one place quickly, I don’t know. But they did it. And they said, it would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

So the 12 propose a solution. In the solution, there’s a commitment, there’s an offer, and there’s a call.

The 12 make a commitment. They say, God has appointed us to shepherd. We are doubling down in that commitment. We are devoting ourselves to preach the word and to pray. It is not right then for the apostles are recognizing it’s not right for them to get away from preaching and praying to wait on tables. That’s a legitimate need. But these are needs that God has called them to.

So after their commitment, they make an offer. Let’s select seven men whom we can appoint to this duty. Let’s find some men that can take care of this problem. And this is what I mentioned earlier. There are some absent terms in this passage. The title of deacon is not actually used in Acts chapter six, but the word deacon is. When in verse two, they say it would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God, to wait on tables. That word wait on is diakonos from which we get deacon. Deacons are not specifically mentioned in this passage, but there is a clear foundation for what we aspire to have here at Sauldam Baptist Church. Men who are full of the spirit and wisdom that we can appoint to the duties of taking care of the needs of our church.

So after the commitment and the offer, there’s a call. Let’s find servants. Let’s find men that can do this. These servants are not supposed to be bosses or bozos. All right. There’s three incredible qualifications. Look at this in verse three with me again. Select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and full of wisdom. It seems really simple, but that’s actually really hard.

to live by. Imagine conducting yourself inside the church and outside the church in such a way that whether people believe in Jesus like we do or not, whether people agree with your politics or not, whether people appreciate who you are on the job site and what you bring or not, you would have a good reputation. That’s hard. It speaks of having integrity, having good work ethic, having high character.

But not only that, these are men that are full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. Being full of the Holy Spirit at least implies it demands a living relationship with Jesus Christ. To be full of the Holy Spirit would require that you are daily drinking from the living water that Jesus placed inside of you at your salvation. To be full of the Holy Spirit means that you are yielding to God’s direction and leadership in your life. And you are saying no to me, no to Philip, no to Michael, yes to the Holy Spirit.

Being full of wisdom would mean that it’s not just your own ideas and intuition that lead your life, but it is true wisdom. It is applied truth. It’s recognizing your mistakes and your failures and saying I’m gonna course correct because I don’t wanna keep repeating these things.

The deacons, you have to look at this and this is where I might get in trouble. Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and wisdom whom we can appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

These deacons is not a board of directors. The apostles were not looking for a group of guys to run this church like a CEO. They weren’t looking for bosses. They were looking for servants, looking for men that they could appoint to this duty and know that relational needs are being met. Man, sometimes in the church, what we find is that American business practices influence our leadership structures. So that we get caught up in all of the ways that a typical business would be ran instead of just trying to live by how God’s already told us to operate.

The apostles, they’re preaching, they’re praying, they’re leading this church. They need some men to come alongside and look for these needs and to handle these needs and make sure that everybody’s being taken care of.

At the end of the day, when I look at these qualifications, I look and I immediately just think of Jesus. This is how Jesus is described in Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. Paul is writing and he says, adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. No, instead, Jesus emptied Himself by assuming the form of a servant, a diakonos, a deacon, taking on the likeness of humanity and when He had come as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, God then highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that’s above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Man, when I think about men that are full of the spirit and wisdom, when I think about men who pray, prioritize serving so that others can be saved. I think about Jesus Christ, who came as the ultimate servant, full of wisdom, full of the Holy Spirit, who lived His life by emptying Himself, taking on the form of a servant, and He did the ultimate service for us that we can never do for ourselves, but we are desperate for. Jesus took care of the ultimate need that you and me and every church and every person in this world has.

Our ultimate problem is not food with a daily distribution to widows. Our ultimate problem is not affordable housing. Our ultimate problem is sin. It’s this cancerous disease of our souls which eats away at us and our lives, damaging everything it comes in contact with. Man, sin is what transforms a perfect world that God created into a place with devastating tsunamis, and hurricanes. Sin is what takes people who were made to live in harmony with God and each other into arguers, into covetors. Sin is what has so deeply affected our homes and our families so that when we look at people we are related with, we hate them with everything in us. Sin is what has gotten a hold of you. It’s why you don’t live with the happiness you crave. It’s why you do the things you don’t want to do, but you can’t do the things that you do want to do. Sin means everything we do to disobey God, to go against God’s standard for us. Jesus came and took care of that need. He fed people. He healed broken bones. He even interrupted. I was talking with Mike Fox yesterday. Jesus messed up every funeral He ever went to. Jesus did these things. He took care of all these other needs, but when Jesus came, He took care of the greatest need, which is our sin, to save us through dying on the cross.

So when the apostles are calling for servants for the church, they’re saying, “Hey, let’s find seven men that remind us of that. Let’s find seven men that humble themselves. Let’s find seven men who have a vibrant relationship with Jesus. Let’s find seven men that can see through the heart of a problem and meet it so that more and more people will continue to get saved and discipled.” What happens next? The deacons catalyze the success of the word. This passage starts with the problem that goes to a proposal. Now there is more success. The deacons catalyze success of the word. Catalyze, it just means to bring more of, to make something happen faster. See the apostles in verses two and four, they make this proposal. Let’s read what happens in verses five through seven.

This proposal pleased the whole company. That’s how you know God’s in it. Everybody agreed. The proposal pleased the whole company. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolas, a convert from Antioch. They had them stand before the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread. The disciples in Jerusalem again increased greatly in number, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.

After the proposal pleased the whole company, they implement it, and it begins to bear fruit as it takes effect. That word “pleased” in verse five is the same as the word “right” in verse two. It was not right for the apostles to give up their assignment, but everybody saw that it was right to establish deacons to take it on. These seven men are chosen. They are spiritually commissioned for the task when the apostles pray for them, and they lay their hands on them. And look at what happens in verse seven again. The word grows, which means the apostles resumed their role of preaching and teaching and evangelizing. When the word grows, the disciples were increasing in number. Look at that. Growth begins and ends this story. And as the disciples are increasing in number, there’s even a group of priests who became obedient to the faith. The priests in Jerusalem were the number one opponents of Christianity. The first wall of opposition to the growth of the kingdom. They even were realizing what was going on. Look at this. When the Jerusalem church established a way to take care of their own, it had fruit in evangelism with the enemies of Christianity.

Man, as we appoint deacons to this office this morning, we should expect our church to continue to grow in fruit because that’s the model. That’s what happens. When deacons are added to the church, the success of the word continues. What does all this show us? This is the main thing I want you to take away from today. The success of the word, I believe, requires shepherds and servants. Shepherds, those would have been the apostles, and servants, those would have been the deacons. The success of the word requires shepherds and servants. Imagine a church without deacons. Needs are not met. People get frustrated and they have to leave. And any momentum and movement stops. You have to have deacons. But also imagine a church without pastors, without servants, without shepherds, I mean. The Bible’s not taught. Faith isn’t reproduced. And the movement stops. You need both. You need those that will proclaim the word and teach people how to follow Jesus. And you also need those who will meet the needs of the church so that they can grow together.

Man, my message this morning to the men in the room who call on Jesus Christ as your Savior. Here’s the deal. God might call you to become a deacon one day. Are you ready? The trajectory of your life, is it towards Christ-likeness? Are you growing into the image of Jesus? Are you already serving our church in a way that appointing you to become a deacon is just a continuation of what you’re already doing? It is for Michael and Philip. And I imagine in a room this size, there’s a couple men who still are not fully there about Jesus. You may not have actually placed your faith in Him for your salvation yet. You may still be wrestling with what you believe. I want you to think about this. Why would you not give your life for someone who gave their life for you? Jesus died on the cross for you. He paid for your sin. He made a way for you to be transformed from the inside out. He made a way for you to be reunited and reconnected with the God who loved and created you. Jesus is even in heaven right now making a place for all of us who have placed our faith in Jesus. Why not give your life to Him? Be the greatest decision you ever made.