8/30/2015 Commissioning Our Deacons Pastor Josh Sheldon

Well, this morning's subject is deacons. What are they?

Why do we have them? We will, Lord willing, in a short while, by prayer and with thanksgiving to God for His marvelous supply, commission in this place two new deacons.

Why do we rejoice at having deacons? Why don't we simply say, this is a deacon and we acknowledge that title and be done with it?

Why do we set aside a moment, as it were, for them?

Why have we prayed to God Almighty for this provision? What are deacons for?

What is this all about? We will at the end of this message bring forward the two men who have been acknowledged as deacons in this place, and we will pray over them, and this is what

I want to talk about this morning. Bring to you just this idea of what are we doing here, and what's this about, and why do we even bother with this?

And why do we give such great rejoicing to God for such an occasion? Deacons are part of the word ministry of the church.

It's very important for us to understand that deacons are part of the gospel ministry that we do here at church.

They are a God -ordained help in the work of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we look at the church in its infancy, which

Jesus just read to you about in there in Acts chapter 6, before the church had pastors, in the days when the apostles were still there, when

Peter and the rest as apostles pastored the church, but were called apostles, not pastors, before a man was set aside specifically as a pastor and given that title, before all that there were deacons.

When the church was pastored by the apostles and they had not taken that other title, there were deacons.

In its earliest days, as Jesus just read to you, in its earliest days, the church found itself facing crisis after crisis.

I mean, issues of monumental importance rose up and they had to be dealt with firmly and positively and godly, and we might add, immediately.

The author of Acts, the physician and historian Luke, is known for having been very intentional and discerning in the details he selected to report, the

Holy Spirit having commissioned him as the chronicler of the church of Jesus Christ in its infancy.

And knowing that Luke's pen was surrendered to the Holy Spirit, we affirm that Luke's style does not allow us to brush aside any details that he brings to light, much more when

Luke stops and he reports in extensive detail about a particular event, we have to take particular notice.

And so it was with the church's first emergencies, the crises that came upon it. In chapter 4 of Acts, we read how the

Jewish authorities tried with violence and intimidation to repress the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So what was at stake here? Well, it was the gospel itself. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The church's birth at Pentecost is proof of that. Should the apostles collapse under the

Sanhedrin's pressure, then the word of God would have been muzzled and men would not have heard the glorious gospel.

The threats against Peter and John were met with holy, humble disobedience when

Peter said we ought to obey God rather than men. And the gospel of God's forgiveness spread by the preaching of Jesus Christ.

Early on, there was a crisis of integrity. Would the church stand on the high ground and demand that its members hold to a godly righteousness?

Would our Lord's demands for plain, honest speech rule the day, or would subtlety be allowed to suffice for integrity, dishonest scales for balanced ones, or greed for principle?

Such was the issue when a couple named Ananias and Sapphira brought their offering to the apostles.

The story is familiar to us. They had sold a parcel. It was theirs to keep or sell.

The proceeds were theirs and no one else's, and it seems that they had promised to give all the profit to the church, a commitment made of their own free will.

As Peter would say in his condemnatory response to them, while it remained, was it not yours to do with as you pleased?

And the answer is resoundingly, yes. God believes that there is title to goods.

You own what you own. Once you give your word, once you publicly say,

I'm going to do this, I'm going to bring it all to the apostles and make a big show of it and bring it to their feet, well then it's not yours.

It's the God to whom you committed it. And early on in the church, here's this crisis.

Here comes what seems to be implied to have been a very large amount of money brought to the apostles' feet.

What should we do? Well, let's gather up and accept it and say, thank you, and it's a fire because you didn't have to do that, and all that you gave is very nice, but the gospel's at stake.

And Peter, led by the Holy Spirit, of course, Peter cannot afford to take 90 % of what was promised, 99 % of what was promised, because the integrity of God, of Jesus Christ, whom the apostle represented, was literally at stake here.

Well, they held back, of course, and a nice and sour sapphire, keeping back part of it for themselves while making this great show as if they'd given it all, as if they'd kept their word.

And it was brought with great showmanship, and then Peter and the other 11 faced this crisis. The money was certainly needed.

The church was growing. It was taking in many who had needs in the here and now. They had things that needed to be provided for, and the church properly should provide.

So money, of course, would be very useful. The Holy Spirit gave Peter discernment to know that this couple had not kept their word.

So what, you ask? Couldn't Peter and the rest have just taken him aside, told him his faults, and gotten him to repent?

Peter was not only there when Jesus gave us the instruction in Matthew 18, 15 to 22.

He was the catalyst that led the Lord to give us his will in this regard. So should he not have just taken his brother aside and shown him his error, disciplined him?

You know, it's a matter of integrity. Without church discipline, we are disobedient to the Lord, we're in great danger.

Here with the church at its earliest stage, the issue was even more critical.

They had publicly avowed something, and now Peter had to make an equally public statement. Would it be to compromise?

Would he who had just faced down the Sanhedrin falter before a few dollars? Would he, what would he do, he who would in a short while say to Simon Magus, your money perished with you?

You see, the gospel was at stake in this crisis, no less here than it was when the threats tried to still his tongue.

And we all know what he did. He confronted them each in turn, and the Holy Spirit confirmed his decision by killing them each in turn and on the spot.

Now Luke tells us just a few verses later, and believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.

And then very soon after that, a new crisis arose that was no less important, and the resolution of which said no less about the gospel of Jesus Christ than had been said in the

Sanhedrin's chambers or by the church's reply to Ananias. Let me read again to you what

Jesus just read from Acts chapter 6. In those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the

Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Let us not minimize or downplay what this is here for.

Remembering as I said a few moments ago, Luke known for his careful histories, and Luke known for bringing out details that are important and we can't pass them by.

This is a crisis. Again, the gospel itself is at stake.

The integrity of the church hangs in the balance here. Now if this sounds melodramatic, think of it this way.

Are the Hellenistic Jewish converts of less value than the Hebraic ones? In a sense, the gospel was no less at stake in this than it was for Paul later on in the letter he wrote to the

Galatians. If those believers, the Galatians I'm speaking of, those believers had crawled back under the cover of obedience to the law of God as the weight to God, then they would have crawled away from the gospel itself.

Of all of Paul's alarms, the one rung in Galatians is the loudest.

The distribution to the widows here in Acts chapter 6 had at most only slightly less at stake, only a little bit less in the balance than was in Galatians when

Paul wrote that book to them about not returning to the old ways, about not counting on the law, your own efforts to come to God.

Acts chapter 6 is no less a crisis for the church than what

Paul saw a few decades later in the Galatian church. Were the

Hebraic converts, the Jewish converts if you will, were they somehow elevated above the rest?

And if so, what did that say about what Jesus Christ did on the cross at Calvary?

The issue could not be more grave. It's more than an administrative problem, it's a problem, it's a crisis.

The honor and integrity of the gospel is in the balance. It was not just the physical needs of the poor and the equitable use of the church resources but the equality and unity of all believers in Christ.

See our use of the temporal resources that God trusts us with says much about our view of eternity and of the gospel and of Jesus Christ.

Everything in the church is a gospel decision. The decision you heard read earlier, the apostles instituted the office of deacon.

This was not the apostles passing off something unpleasant or unimportant or beneath their dignity.

It was quite the opposite. The gravity with which they viewed the situation, their initiative in making an institution in the church's governance, all this shows just how hugely important this was.

Not just give another bowl of food to our widows.

Let's just even this out here. It's not just administrative. We need to understand that.

It wasn't just a problem in how we do stuff. Acts chapter 6 says the gospel itself, the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ, God's forgiveness of sinners in Him is what is being discussed.

Verse 7 that was read says something that we must not pass over.

After the decision was made and the church brought the candidates to the apostles, they laid hands and prayed on them.

Did you catch what Jesus read to you from Acts chapter 6 verse 7? Then the word of God spread and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

The gospel was in play. When Peter and the others saw the gravity and responded as Christ's shepherds should,

God's pleasure was immediately apparent. Now those looking in would see something unique.

Men and women from whatever stripe dwelling together in unity and in equality.

In unity and in equality because that unity, that equality is premised not upon the rules we have, the regulations we have, the procedures we put together for the church, the ways we have of dealing with each other, we just think are right, none of that.

Because everyone in that church was in the same Savior, in Jesus Christ where there's neither

Jew nor Greek, male nor female. Of course there were Jews, Paul addresses some as Jews.

There were Greeks, they're addressed as Greeks, there are men, there are women. We're talking about in God's view, in terms of salvation, our eternal destiny in Christ.

We all come to God the same way because of Christ. We all come to God the same way because of faith in Him.

The issue couldn't have been more important. It wasn't because Peter had written up some wonderful charter and bylaw that says you must behave this way or that, it's because they followed the will of Christ.

Now having deacons is not the silver bullet for church growth or anything like that. It's simply obedience to the

Lord's command. It is the delegation of duties according to Jesus Christ's design for His church of which

He is the head. Now things are managed better when there are deacons, but it's not just a good business model.

It's so much more than that. I personally believe in the ministry that no man should do everything.

It's more than just ineffective for one guy to do it all, it's unbiblical.

There are some men, I am distinctly not in that number, there are some men though who can do everything.

They can preach, they can counsel, they can balance the checkbook, they can pay the bills, they know how to swing a hammer and how to hit what they swing at.

I am distinctly not in that group. The problem with too many of those men who are able to wear all those hats and do all those things, the problem with it is that too often they do.

And even if they wear each hat and perform every function better than all the other men in the church, I believe they shouldn't.

I believe it's unbiblical. I believe it goes against the model we have for the church throughout the

New Testament and especially here in Acts chapter 6. The Lord has designated pastors to minister the word of God by praying and preaching.

He has designated deacons to minister that same word by seeing to the needs of the body.

Both are God -ordained church offices. On August 9th of this year, this church affirmed that God has supplied us with two deacons,

Steve McSell and Conley Owens. During my tenure here, my attendance having begun in 2000 sometime under the pastorate of George Stevenson, my pastorate beginning in October 2004, with swift feet and clear tongues.

Amen? We are going to bring up a couple of men to represent the body here to pray for our deacons.

I would call up Jesus Guardado and John Davis. And when they have come up here, if I would have the deacons come up too.

And then we will in turn pray for these men, lay hands on them, representing all of you.

Our Father in heaven, we come before you right now. We do thank you for the privilege of exercising complete dependence upon you for all good things.

Father, we are apart from you, nothing. Father, we are calling upon you to help us to fulfill our roles and responsibilities individually.

And we are calling upon you to help, especially Steve and Conley, to fulfill their roles as deacons before you.

Lord, it is clear from what was just brought forth that the office of deaconate is an extension of the testimony and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So we ask that Conley and Steve would be faithful men in this office.

Lord, that you would give them hearts of humility. Lord, that you would give them wisdom.

That you would give them discernment, Lord, as they go about endeavoring to fulfill their responsibility in this office.

Father, that you would give them your grace and your Holy Spirit and your protection, your supernatural protection.

As I do believe it's true, as the gong of truth is more resonant in the devil's ears, he has to be aggravated.

I pray that you would protect Steve and Conley, that you'd protect us as a church, that you would help us to be faithful people, that we would always exercise dependence upon you, that we would never seek to do things in our own strength, in our own wisdom,

Lord, that we would always call upon you in the matters of decisions as they reflect your glory and how we would represent your glory and your honor.

Father, we ask for your blessing upon this solemn time and for your mercies upon both

Steve and Conley, your strengthening and encouraging of them. Give them wisdom in their very own responsibilities, their worldly responsibilities,

Lord. Give them that godly balance and the ability to maintain their callings in their lives with their wives, their locations, and the other responsibilities that they have.

Help us as a body, Lord, to fulfill our responsibilities, to not make it so heavy for them, but to do each what we ought to do.

Father, we ask for your blessings and we lift these men up to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Gracious Father, we praise you for the many gifts you give us,

Lord. Praise you, Father, for the gift of your son, Lord, ultimately, and for gifting us,

Lord, to him as a special people, Lord, set aside, set apart for you,

Lord, for your church universal and your church locally here, Lord. We thank you,

Father, for how faithful you are in providing, Lord, those gifts. Even as the

Levites were a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people, the children of Israel, Lord, to serve before the people of Israel, we thank you for gifting us,

Lord, these men from among us to serve before us here, Lord, and ultimately before you.

We pray, Lord, that we would heed the words of the mutual exhortation we heard today for a mutual prayer, a mutual service,

Lord, a mutual faithfulness in our walk in Christ. We pray that we would walk alongside one another and that you would preserve these men,

Lord, their roles in the church and ultimately for the good of this local congregation,

Lord, and for the good of your word, the word of God spreading forth throughout the land, Lord, that there would be a multiplication of disciples,

Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Heavenly Father, every good and perfect gift is from above, from the

Father of lights. And so we thank you for gifting us with a church to come to and worship, for fulfilling the offices which your word has ordained for us, for bringing these men forward, and for giving them, by your

Spirit, the motivation to step forward and to fill this function for us.

We pray, Lord, that even as we saw in the book of Acts, that by our compliance with your will, that your gospel would go forth, that Jesus Christ would be honored and glorified all the more in our midst, that this would be testimony to those within and without, but that the goodness of our

God and the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ, would be more and more pronounced in this place and more and more obvious.

Let's pray your blessing be upon us all. We give you thanks for your provision. We give you thanks for Jesus Christ.