Deacon Ministry - The Plan in Selecting Deacons

Well, if you would take your Bible, turn back to Acts chapter six. We read verses one to seven earlier in our scripture reading. We'll read those verses again a little later on in the message. Now, it has been three weeks since we have been in our subject at hand, and that subject being the establishment of Deacon ministry in our church. Like I said earlier, I was out of town last weekend helping lead in the missions conference at Grace Life Church of Prior Oklahoma. It was a great privilege to be there. I thank you, Grace Life Brook-Aven, for sending me. I literally take you with me. I share all about you and what God is doing in you.

So it's not just me. When I do go and speak and preach and represent you in our Anchored in Truth network. And the weekend before, many of us were at the true church conference there in Grace Life Church of the Shoals. And I look forward to some testimonies that will be given. That's on the calendar on the schedule. I want you to hear from some who are there how the conference in Anchored in Truth has blessed them and ministered to them. But for three weeks, we have been studying Deacon ministry in the life of the church.

We have studied thoroughly the fact that we see three aspects of or three different types of Deacon ministry in the New Testament Scriptures. From the book of Acts on throughout the New Testament, we have seen how the church was full of men and women who were servants. Now they were not servants in the sense that they were in the office of the Deacon. They were Deacons in the general sense and that they were servants. They Deaconized, I like that phrase, in the church. In Romans 16.1, Phoebe was described as a servant or a Deaconess in the church at Sentria. Paul gave that description.

In Ephesians 6.21, in Colossians 4.7, a man named Tychicus was referred to as a faithful servant or a Deaconess in the Lord. And in Colossians 1.7, Paul described a papras as a faithful servant or a minister or a Deaconess in the Lord. And from Romans 12.47, we have seen that some of the church served, but they Deaconized in a very special way. They were Deacons, not in the sense that they were in the office of the Deacon, but their service was special in that they had the spiritual gift of service. Verses 6.7 of Romans 12 says, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let me pause there.

Paul's saying the spiritual gifts are grace gifts. Let us use them. If prophecy and proportion to our faith. If service, some translations, the King James says ministering. If service, ministering, and our serving are ministering. I love how John MacArthur says it here, and I'm quoting service or the spiritual gift of service is simple. It's a straightforward gift and it's broad in its application. What he means by that is this. It is a specific spiritual gift, but it's made manifest in the church in a whole host of ways as it's made manifest in different believers' lives.

And William McDonald says, and I'm quoting, "The person who has the gift of ministry "or gift of service has a servant heart." That's real simple, but it's true. And from Philippians 1.1 in 1 Timothy 3, 8 to 13, we have seen that within the New Testament church, there was and is the office of the Deacon. This service, this service and office was unique. It is unique in that the Deacon served in the God-designed, God-established office of the Deacon. And we saw that their office and their calling was to that of physical service. The Deacon does not govern or oversee church matters like the elders.

The Deacon is not required to have the ability in the gift of teaching and preaching like the elders. They are not required to have the ability to pastor and shepherd the flock like the elders. The Deacons actually work under the authority of the elders, putting into practice the preaching and the teaching ministry of the church. They put into practice the purpose, the direction, the ministries of the church by primarily meeting the physical needs within the church and within the body of believers.

And we have taken the time to examine the many qualifications that the Deacon and the prospective Deacon must meet if he is to be considered for the office and if he is to stay in that office. From 1 Timothy 3, 8 to 13, we have seen the five categories of qualifications for the Deacon and the prospective Deacon. And we have studied these qualifications well. I have taken my time, we've been methodical, so there is no excuse for any of us not to have these firmly affixed in our minds and hearts and in our notes. We saw first that he is to be qualified in his personal character, verse eight.

He is to be qualified in his doctrine and faith, verse nine. He is to be qualified in service in the life of the church, verse 10. He is to be qualified in his moral purity, verse 10 and verse 12. And then last, he is to be qualified in his home, his home life and the witness of his home in verse 11 and 12. And we saw that that includes the Deacon's wife as well. But all of this leads me to pose an answer to very important questions for us. The first question, specifically, what does the Bible say that a Deacon should do? Have you thought about that? Where is the list of what the Deacon should do in the church?

Well, the scriptures do not say specifically what the Deacon is to do. The scriptures don't give us a list. Get this church. God has told us what the Deacon is to do in a very broad and general way. But God has left it up to the elders and the church to determine what that looks like specifically according to the needs in the church and according to the wisdom and the direction of the elders. And we see the very same thing in elder ministry. Let me explain. The New Testament tells us that elders are responsible for three broad and general responsibilities.

They are responsible to govern the church, to shepherd or pastor God's people and to preach and teach God's word. But God does not specifically explain what that is to look like. God leaves that up to the elders and the church to determine specifically what that looks like for each church. I don't have time to go very far here, but this will help you. If you go to Grace Life Church or prior Oklahoma, you will see Pastor Derek and those elders and the way they flesh out those responsibilities can be a little different for them than it looks like for us.

If you go to Lake Butler, First Baptist Church and see Pastor Jason Johns and the elders there, how they flesh out those responsibilities in their church, it can be a little different than you see at prior and in our church, you see? So here's my point. As the pastor of our church, I see certain physical needs in our church that I see our future deacons fulfilling and organizing and overseeing. And our other elders do as well. We've had quite a few conversations along this line.

And as the elder body, we will continue to come up with a plan to meet the physical needs that we see in the life of our church in our body through that deacon ministry. Now the second question, how is the church to establish and appoint deacons? Where is the plan in the New Testament for electing or appointing or selecting deacons? Well, the scriptures do not give us such a plan. God has left that up to the pastor and the elders and the church to determine how that should take place. And again, if you were to go to Grace Life Church or prior, you would see that they select or appoint deacons maybe in a little different way than we do.

Now, this leads me to where I wanna go in our message this morning. If there is any plan or example of a plan in the scriptures to indicate how a church is to select deacons, it is found right here in Acts 6. And on top of that, we can find deacon qualifications here as well. Of course, that is assuming that Acts 6 is at least deacon ministry in preview, if not the beginnings of deacon ministry. So this morning, I want us to look at Acts 6 verses 1-7 to see more of who the deacon should be as a man and to see how we will make this happen. Now, before we get into our verses, dividing the verses, I do need to give a bit of context.

Now, I will not be exhaustive here. I preached on these verses back on July the 9th on a Wednesday night in our study through the book of Acts. And I would advise you to go back and listen to that message that will help you, 'cause I'm not gonna cover everything here this morning. But here we have the New Testament church in her infancy. The church was born in Acts chapter two at Pentecost and the church had grown rapidly in a very great way, all the way up to Acts chapter six. Well, in those early days, the church faced many different tests and all were different. The first test was an external test, which was persecution from the Jews.

The second test was an internal test and that was when hypocritical giving came into the church through Ananias and Sapphira. But here in Acts six, they faced their third test, which was all about division and dissension that came into the church. The Hellenistic Jewish widows were being overlooked and neglected in the daily distribution of food. But the native or Palestinian Jewish widows were not, so a very dangerous division came into the church. Now, when we look at how different scholars approach these verses, we can see that some have a different approach. Some make the main point a little different.

Some make these verses all about the deacons or what they see as deacons. Some make this all about Stephen and in his great ministry there, an example. Some make the main point all about the organization and the reorganization of the church and others make the main point all about the problem, the division that came into the church. Now, this will be my approach this morning. Obviously, we will see the division that came into the church. We'll see the reorganization of the church, but I will make it about deacons. I will make the main point about deacons. Let's read the verses again and then I will share with you my outline. Verse one.

Now, in these days when the disciples, we could say the believers, the church, were increasing in number a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected, overlooked in the daily distribution. That would be the distribution of food. 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 or wait on tables. "Therefore, brothers, brothers or 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 to the ministry of the word "and what they said pleased the whole gathering." That would be the entire church. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenius and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. And they, this would be the men, they sat before the apostles and they prayed and they 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, that would be Jewish priests, became obedient to the faith.

Now let me give you the outline of the verses that we'll use this morning. First, I want us to look at the problem, that's there in verse one. Second, I want us to see their solution in verses two to six and then third, the results in verse seven. Really, you can summarize that outline in three words, problem, solution, results. Real easy for you to follow. So number one, the problem that came into the church. We see that in verse one clearly. The problem that came into the church. Now verse one tells us quite a lot about the church, which was there in Jerusalem.

And one thing it tells us is this, although God was with them and their church was growing wonderfully, a problem came into the church that could have devastated their testimony. It could have devastated their body and their ministry. It was simple. One group of widows was being neglected. The legacy standard Bible says overlooked, the English standard says neglected. And this phrase means to have matters set side by side, one another and to overlook and neglect one. And get this, language scholars tells us, language scholars tell us this was in the imperfect tense, which means this was something that was habitual.

So one group of widows in the church was being overlooked and neglected, not just once, but over a period of time. Now I will not get into detail like I did in July, but I want us to see who was being overlooked. Simply the Hellenistic widows were Jewish widows who were from outside of the land of Israel or Palestine. They were Jews racially and religiously, but they were born in a Greek world, culture and language. And they spoke the Greek language. That is why they were called the Hellenists.

But the Hebrew Jews were Jews racially and religiously, but they were born in the land and the culture and the language of Israel, and they spoke Hebrew and Aramaic. But I want us to look into two specifics here. First, this was a legitimate need. This was a very, very legitimate need. Basically, if a widow in this day had no family to care for their physical needs, they were left completely destitute. That is because women and even widows had very, very limited rights to earn money and to own property in their time and culture.

So this was a very legitimate need, and that is why Christians were urged to care for widows all throughout the Book of Acts and over into 1 Timothy. Second, this was also a biblical need, a biblical need. These were Jews who would have looked at the Old Testament scriptures as the word of God. And the Old Testament gave and gives clear instructions to meet the needs of widows and orphans. Of course, these believers were not bound to and under the Old Covenant, but they certainly would have looked too much of what the Old Testament said for guidance and for example, in many such matters like the one before them in that day.

And then third, this was a need that the apostles should have met. Yes, they should have met. Now, we need to know that according to Acts chapter four, verses 35 to 36, the apostles were responsible for the money that was given for the physical needs in the church. That is clear, that is plain to see in Acts chapter four. So if the money was brought to the apostles to meet those physical needs and they were not met, then the blame lay at the feet of the apostles. And this brings us to a much needed fact that we need to understand. The apostles were not perfect men. They were flawed, they were sinful men.

So if they were responsible for these needs and they were not met, well, the question has to be asked, were the apostles sinful? And if they were, was this a willful sin or was this a type of unconscious sin? Now to me, it really seems that this was a problem that snuck up on them. It seems that this was a problem that the apostles were certainly responsible for but they were not in any kind of willful sin or willful neglect. As a matter of fact, if you do some study on your own, you'll see that many scholars have the same position. So I believe this was their responsibility but I do not believe that they were in some kind of a grievous sin.

And look church, there is a very, very valuable lesson here that we must learn and live by. And although I may sound a little self-serving, I say this for the overall health of our church and our body here. In the church, we must give the pastor, the elders and other leaders the room and the grace to make mistakes like this. Churches grow, churches change, ministries grow, ministries change, leaders have strengths, leaders have weaknesses, churches and leaders go through all sorts of experiences in the day-to-day life of the church. So growing pains are bound to come. Problems are bound to come about. Decisions can fall through the cracks.

Responsibilities can be overlooked. Issues and problems can just sneak up on the pastor and the elders and the leaders of the church. And it is important for the overall health of the church that the body understand and give grace when things like this happen, you see? But back to this problem. Even though we give grace to the apostles because they overlooked or neglected these widows for some time, we cannot overlook the fact that this was a potentially deadly problem. This division literally could have divided this church. Their oneness, their unity could have been destroyed.

Their witness within the community in the world, that could have been destroyed. And their ability to work and to fulfill the great commission to the uttermost parts of the earth, that could have been hindered if not destroyed. Now church brothers and sisters, always remember that division is dangerous and has the potential to destroy the unity of the church, the witness of the church and the mission of the church. But let's keep going. Next, number two, the solution offered by the apostles. The solution offered by the apostles. And this is where we will spend the majority of our time. Let's look back at verses two to six.

And the 12, that's the apostles, 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, 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 to the ministry of the word." And what they said, "Please the whole gathering." And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procorius, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenius, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.

And they sat before the apostles, and they prayed and they laid their hands on them. Now we must remember that at this time in the life of the New Testament church, the apostles were the spiritual leaders of the church. The office of the elder had not yet been established. So we can truly say that the church was being pastor by the apostles. You see that? You ever thought of that? This church was truly being pastor by the apostles. But notice how the apostles led out in this problem. They called the church to do three things. First, they called the church to meet. Verse two says that they called the full number of the disciples together.

And I personally do not know how they did this because the church numbered in the thousands. In the thousands. Second, they called on the church to serve the problem. In verse two and three, the apostles told the congregation that they did not have the time to meet those physical needs. And they went on to explain that they could not give up the ministry of the word to wait on tables. And they called the church to serve the problem. You see that? They called the church to solve the problem. And third, they called on the church to appoint and meet the need. They called on the church to appoint men to meet the need. Look back at verse three.

"Therefore brothers," that can read brothers and sisters. Many translations have that footnoted for you. Pick out from among you seven men. Here the apostles called the church to appoint seven men to this responsibility of feeding and caring for these widows, therefore solving the problem. And this word tables here in verse two. In our English Bibles, it says serving tables. This means a table with food placed on it to serve food or wait on tables in serving. And this could involve the use and responsibility of money as well. And notice something else. They were not to choose just any man from the congregation. They were to be qualified men.

And the apostles laid out three character qualifications. You notice that? First, they were to be men of good repute or good reputation. This means they were to have good reputations for being men of Christian character, behavior and Christian living, both inside the church and outside the church. Second, they were to be men known to be full of the Holy Spirit. Now this does not mean they were to possess the power to perform great miracles. This simply means they were to be men known to be filled with the Spirit, controlled by the Spirit, guided by the Holy Spirit in their lives. And third, they were to be men of wisdom.

This means they were to be men of spiritual skill and ability. You need to see that? They were to be men of spiritual skill and spiritual ability. They were to be men who had the ability to decide and to act and to live skillfully in spiritual matters and in physical matters. Again, notice that these are character qualifications. The apostles did not say they had to be able to work with their hands. The apostles did not say they had to be able to run a business or to work as an accountant. They made no mention of any physical skills or physical talents. They only focused on character. Doesn't that sound familiar?

And church, I call you to add these three qualifications to the ones we've studied in 1 Timothy 3. I do. I hope you have your list. I hope you've been studying over those qualifications. I hope you're praying over those qualifications. Maybe you need my sermon notes, but I call you to take these three qualifications and add those to the list. Why? Because we must, we must only select men who are of good reputation, known to be full of the Holy Spirit and men of wisdom. But notice what the apostles were doing in the way they offered a solution to the church. First, they were establishing congregational governance in the church.

Let me repeat that. They were establishing congregational governance in the church. Look at all that happened. The apostles certainly had apostolic authority over the church, but in this situation, they handed over authority to the body, to the church. They established, they instilled, they determined congregational authority in the body, in the work of the church. And look, church, this is one of the passages we use to establish how we approach church governance. We are elder led, we are elder governed, while at the same time, we are congregationally led and congregationally governed.

And if you pay attention to what we do around here, you see a little bit of both. It goes hand in hand. And we see it all throughout the scripture. And look, I want you to see something, church. You have a great responsibility in this work. Do not sit back and say, well, I trust the elders. They'll take care of this thing called Deacon Ministry. Oh, the elders have a part to play, yes. But do not sit back on your responsibility. You need to go study those qualifications. You need to go back and listen to those messages. You need to pray over these things. You need to take all of this material and pray.

You have a heavy, a weighty responsibility. Second, they were exemplifying and portraying Deacon Ministry. Now I have said this many times through the years, but if we are honest with the biblical text, we will see that these men were never called or named Deacons. The office of the Deacon is never mentioned in verses one to seven. It's just not there. We know that the office of the Deacon is only mentioned or named in two places in the scripture. You should know this by now. Philippians 1, 1 and 1 Timothy 3, 8 to 13. But we will see that these men served in Deacon-like ministry attending physical needs in the life of the church.

Warren Wiersby gives a good explanation of these things. I know I quoted this in the message back in July, but listen to what Wiersby says. We commonly call these seven men of Acts 6 Deacons. Because the Greek noun Diakonos is used in Acts 6, 1, the verb though serve is used in Acts 6, 2. However, this title is not given to them in this chapter, although you find Deacons mentioned in Philippians 1, 1 and their qualifications given in 1 Timothy 3, 8 to 13. The word simply means a servant.

These men, these seven men were humble servants of the church, men whose work made it possible for the apostles to carry out their important ministries among the people. Well, what is my position here? I've said this many times through the years. I believe the men of Acts 6 were Deacons in prototype. Their ministry was Deacon ministry in preview. We have to understand that the church was in her infancy and the church was not fully developed at this point. So many of the things that we see later on in the development of the church are just not seen in the early portions of Acts 1 to 11.

But we certainly can learn from their example and apply these things to Deacon ministry. But then third, notice that Apostolic ministry was protected. Apostolic ministry was protected. Look back at verse three to five, but I'm really focusing on verse four and five. The apostle said, 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. But notice what the apostle said, but we will devote ourselves to prayer into the ministry of the word and what they, that's the apostles said, please the whole gathering. That's the church.

And we see that they went on to select the seven men. Here we see that the apostles and the entire church protected the very important life and death ministry of the apostles. And their ministry was that a prayer and the word are studying so as to preach and teach the word and the life of the church. And the text says that this plan pleased the whole gathering. Isn't that sweet? This pleased the whole gathering so that the apostles were totally devoted to prayer, totally devoted to the ministry of the word of God in the church. And this phrase in verse four devoted ourselves. The King James says we will give ourselves continually.

This is a very important and very strong phrase in the original language. In the language this speaks of a strong and intense persevering and unwavering effort. This simply means that the apostles in the entire church inspected the apostles that they would be unwavering and totally committed to their commitment to the work of prayer and their commitment to the ministry of the word. You see? In this prayer would have been both private and public prayer. In this ministry of the word would have been the study and the preparation for preaching and teaching and the life of the church. I like something that John MacArthur says here.

He shows how prayer and the ministry of the word are inseparably linked, they're connected together and I'm quoting, "Prayer must permeate "the pastor's sermon preparation. "Or his sermons will be superficial and dry. "He must also pray constantly that his people "will apply the truths he teaches them. "The man of God must also pray that he would be "a pure channel through which God's truth can flow "to his congregation." And this reminds me of my sermon preparation. I think most of you know that my office is in my home. That means that I work where I live and I live where I work. That gets confusing sometimes.

But I have a routine, my wife will tell you. I have a routine that I adhere to in sermon preparation. I'm studying the scripture. I'm doing language study. I'm looking at what the scholars say. I'm writing, I'm praying. Many times I'm writing phrase after phrase, praying over what I'm writing, praying over the text. I'm thinking of you, what's going on in your life. I'm praying for you. My sermons are saturated with prayer because I cannot do this work alone. I need God the Holy Spirit to help me as I'm trying to understand the scripture, as I'm working hard to teach God's word on Wednesday night and Sunday morning in anywhere in between.

And I take very, very serious how the preaching ministry is at the very center of the life of our church. Y'all all know what the Grace Life Wheel looks like at the True Church Conference in our little goodie bag. They had a little cute round version. I just stuck it in my Bible. You know, right there in the very middle, the preaching of the word, everything in the life of the church is connected to and emanates from the preaching of the word. We take this serious here. Fourth, we see the reorganization of the church and the leadership that was established through this reorganization.

Here in verse five, we see that the plan that the apostles put forward was pleasing to the entire congregation. Again, that's wonderful. In the result, the church was totally reorganized and this reorganization shaped and formed the church for the ministry and the growth that was right around the corner for them before the apostles were responsible for the ministry of prayer and the word and making sure that all the widows were fed. Remember now in Acts four, we see that the money brought into the church to meet physical needs that was brought to the apostles instead of their feet. So they were responsible.

But in this new plan, which was God's plan, the apostles will be totally devoted to the ministry of prayer and the word and free from the physical needs in the church. Physical needs, especially those pertaining to the feeding of the widows were turned over to the seventh, those qualified men, those God appointed, church appointed men. And note this church. This is the organization and leadership structure of the New Testament church exemplified in preview and prototype. The apostles here are pictures of the elders to come and the seven men are pictures of the deacons to come.

If we fast forward to when the New Testament church was more fully developed and we see two things. We see the implementation of deacon ministry and those deacons took care of the physical needs in the church and we see the implementation of elder ministry and the elders took care of the spiritual needs in the church. So notice what we see here in verses two to six, quite a lot. Verses two to six are all about the solution to that problem of the dangerous division that had come into the church. The problem arose, the apostles offered a solution. The entire church accepted their solution so the church solved the problem.

They solved the problem. And this leads me to restate my job as pastor of Grace Life Church. My number one job as the pastor, which would be the primary preaching pastor is to pour my life into the preaching and the teaching of God's word. Again, look at the wheel. I was affirmed in that a while back by one of our elders. He was referencing how he had studied to preach very close to two times in a row when he talked about how laborious it was and time consuming it was, how it was a mental job and a heart job. And he looked at me and he said, "Brother, I don't see how you do it "week in and week out." I just said, "Well, that's what I do.

"It's what God's called me to do." Most of the time I feel like I'm a failure. But that is my number one job and that is to study and study and pray and seek God and study so as to preach faithfully Sunday morning and Wednesday night. And right behind that is to shepherd you and to pastor you and to help lead and govern and oversee the ministries and the direction of our church and the elders are right there with me and behind me in all of these things. You see it. But notice, I'm not called to be a deacon. I am not called to be a deacon. And that has been one of my hang ups in the past because I can do deacon ministry. I can do deacon work.

As a matter of fact, one of my mentors within Anchored in Truth, Brother John O. Sims, there have been two or three times when I've talked to him about changes in the life of our church. He'll say, Chris, don't revert back to being a deacon too. You can't do both, brother, it'll kill you. I think back to a few months ago, I was in the hallway and I saw a need. There was a doorknob that was loose and I made the comment about fixing it and one of the men, one of our leaders said, don't you dare touch it. Don't you dare touch it. I didn't touch it. What am I trying to show you? It's not my job to be a deacon. Oh, I'm to be a servant now.

I'm to be a whoop-a-rate a slave and I do and I am. But I am to make sure that I lead you to select biblically qualified, God-called men to be deacons. And along with the other elders, I am to make sure they tend to the physical needs in the church. I am to pastor and to shepherd our deacons in that work. You see, in Luke Church, if we do the work of the church, God's way, let me pause here. Some of you may be contrasting what's before us with what you grew up with, what you've seen exemplified somewhere else. And some of you may be saying, wow, what I see at Grace Life and with Pastor Chris is a little different.

We must die to maybe what we've grown up with, what we've seen and lash ourselves to what God's word says here. If we do the work of the church, God's way, according to God's word, for God's glory, the church will work. It will work. And Deacon Ministry is a part of that work. Number three last, the results. We see the results in verse seven. Now, I want you to look at verse seven in your copy of God's word, but I'm gonna read from the Amplified. Follow along, I think you can. Verse seven, and the message of God kept growing, kept on growing and spreading.

And the number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a large number of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith, accepting Jesus as Messiah and acknowledging Him as the source of eternal salvation. Well, I will not spend quite as much time here. Really the results, they're easy to see. Because the apostles and the church now handled this potentially deadly problem God's way, the church grew and continued to grow, you see? The word of God grew and spread among the people. More and more lost people came to saving faith. Even large numbers of Jewish priests believed, accepting Jesus as the promised Messiah.

One scholar that I ran across estimated that at this particular time, there are about 8,000 priests serving and ministering in Jerusalem. And in Israel, saw a great number of those according to Luke believed. But I wanna point out three details here really, really quickly. First it seems we have a short description of the church here. Some of you will remember this, but all through our study of Acts, we have seen that Luke gave these longer descriptions of the church. I have called them descriptions in full color because they are. But here we have another short description of the church, it's beautiful.

Second, we can see that after the church passed the test of division, the church grew. And get this, we saw this in our study of Acts at each of the tests that they faced, this early church, after they handled those tests properly, the church grew. Third, this is the last description of the church in Jerusalem. After these events, the church in Jerusalem changed drastically. The church in Jerusalem was scattered all over because of the death of Stephen and the great persecution that followed. Warren Wiersby says of these things, and I'm quoting, in Acts 6-7, Dr.

Luke describes the climax of the ministry in Jerusalem for the persecution following Stephen's death will take the gospel to the Samaritans and then to the Gentiles. Wiersby's referring to the fact that God ordained and used persecution to spread the gospel. So in verse seven, we see the results of all of these things. The apostles and the entire church body passed the test. They handled this great divide, God's way, according to God's word, for God's glory, and for the good of the church, you see? And the results, God blessed, God blessed, and the church grew. And for us, we are not in the middle of any kind of a divide.

We are not dealing with any dissension. The spirit here is sweet. The unity here is great, but we are at a crossroads. And this is a good crossroads, church. It is time for Deacon ministry. And I believe that we will grow as a result of doing the work of the church, God's way, according to God's word, for God's glory. It will work. And look, church, this expectation must be in our hearts and in our thinking. We must believe that the church will grow if we do the work of the church, God's way, according to God's word, for his glory. Remember, remember, we have a mighty expectation around here.

Now as I close, I wanna give us the title of the message and then explain how this applies to our time and implementation of Deacon ministry in our church. This is, to me, all about Deacon ministry, the plan in selecting deacons. That's the title of the message. Deacon ministry, the plan in selecting deacons. And this is simple. Our plan in selecting deacons will be very similar to what we see here in Acts 6 because what we have here is the closest thing to a plan that we can find in the scriptures. So this week, our elders will continue to finalize the details of our plan because we have been working.

Next Sunday morning, we will give you a plan and we will give you a list of our church members from which you will nominate men to be deacons. Then we, the elders, will examine and interview those nominated thoroughly according to all that we've studied and we will in turn return that list to you for the final decision and selection. And any of the details will be covered next week. But before I close, let me speak to your responsibility this week. I said your responsibility. Study those qualifications seen in 1 Timothy 3, 8 to 13. Go back and re-listen to those messages if you need to. Get my notes if you need them. I'll even interpret.

Study what we have here in Acts 6. You have a great responsibility. You have a great responsibility. The church at Jerusalem did and we are no different because like the elders of the church, deacons must be, must be qualified. They must be God called. So we must do this thing called deacon ministry right. So let's pray. Let's commit this message and all that we've been studying to the Lord because next week we will get right back into our Hebrew study and then we will begin the selection and the appointment process.