How Deacons Pave the Way for the Word to be Preached

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the Word of God and the doctrines of grace.

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The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who is no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of Truth.

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Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along.

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Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Coffee with a Calvinist.

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Today we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 6.

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So if you want to open your Bible and turn with me to Acts chapter 6.

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And while you're doing that, I want to remind you that in just a few days we're going to be going into the month of August and during August we're going to be switching to an audio format.

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The video will no longer be available, but we will have an audio version of Coffee with a Calvinist that's going to go out every day, every weekday at 6.30, just like we do with our video.

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It's going to help with the month of August.

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I take some time off and it's going to help me with production, ease of production, and also give us an opportunity to try a new format, see how it works out, see how folks like it.

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But I also want to remind you that this is an opportunity for me to take a break, so I appreciate those of you who are daily watchers, I appreciate your patience as we try something new.

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And again, that should be starting next Monday.

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As we are starting this chapter, I want to make two points, because this chapter is relatively short.

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In the book of Acts, it's only 15 verses, but two major events happen.

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We see the prototype of the diaconate beginning.

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That is verses 1-7, and then we see the seizing of the first Christian martyr, the arrest of the first person who's going to die for his faith in Jesus Christ, at least the first one on record, and that is Stephen, and that's verses 8-15.

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And I just want to make a few comments about both of those events, because both of those are important, and again, being that it's only 15 verses, I would encourage you to read this chapter a couple of times, see what you can draw from it.

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Remember the three goals of Bible study? We want to observe the text, then we want to interpret the text, and then we want to apply the text.

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So we begin with our observation, and the first thing we want to observe is the reason for the choosing of the first deacons.

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Now, point of order, the word deacon does not show up in this passage.

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However, many people, including myself, recognize this as the first time that the concept of deacon is needed.

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Now, the word deacon is where we translate the word minister, and it means a servant, someone who serves.

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And what we see in this passage is that as the Church began to increase, as people began to grow, or as the Church began to grow in its number of people, then the disciples, the apostles, the ones who were leading the Church, began to be overwhelmed with the work of ministry, ministering to the people's physical needs, that it was overwhelming their ministry of the word.

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And there's an important phrase that is used here that we need to note.

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It says, "...and the Twelve 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." That does not mean that the apostles were too good to serve tables.

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Jesus Christ said, "...I come among you as one who serves." And any man who preaches the word of God ought himself to have a servant's heart.

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I know that in many years of ministry, I have done many things in the Church that did not constitute the preaching of the word.

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I have done everything from mop floors to scrub toilets to cook meals, and I'm thankful to have those opportunities to serve.

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But I need the opportunity also to study and pray and preach the word, because that's my primary responsibility within the people of God.

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And that responsibility cannot be overlooked, it cannot be set aside, and it certainly cannot be replaced with all of the duties of ministry that go along with serving people's felt needs.

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And I think that often is what happens in small churches, especially.

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In small churches, the minister sort of becomes a catch-all, and he does just about everything that is ministry-related.

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There's a video that just came out just this past week, and I shared it with some folks, and it's a video of a minister, and he's sitting in his office, and he's having a conference call in his left ear, he's pouring communion juice with his right hand, and he's looking through his Bible with his left hand, and so he's sort of jumbling through all of these different duties.

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And I'm very thankful that I'm in a church that I serve with elders, and I serve with deacons, and there's an understanding of the role that is mine, because my primary role in the church is to study the word of God, to prepare to disciple the people of God from the pulpit, and that's what we consider preaching, is a form of discipleship.

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It's teaching the word of God, and the primary act of preaching on Sunday morning is discipling God's people, and so as the primary discipler, as the primary teacher in the church, and while again I share the teaching role with other elders, my job, my vocation is studying the word.

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I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't have other men who came alongside of me and helped in the ministry.

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And women as well.

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There are men and women that serve in ministry at the church in these various roles and doing these things.

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And so we have here in the book of Acts the first time deacons are said to be needed, and what are they needed for? So that the apostles would not have to neglect the preaching or the study of the word.

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Again, it says it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

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And that also reminds us of something else.

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I think that when they say preaching, I think the implication there is they have to study to prepare to preach, because they're not preaching 24-7.

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They might not even be preaching every day, which probably they were.

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They probably were having studies and lessons.

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I mean, their people were being saved every day.

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So there was evangelism going on, there was teaching going on, and the primary role of the apostles was teaching, but also preparing to teach.

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Some people believe that the minister shouldn't prepare.

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He should just pray, open his Bible, and begin talking.

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That's nonsense.

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That's absolute nonsense.

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And that's the quickest way to some false teaching is if the minister isn't preparing.

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He has to prepare.

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And people say, well, the Holy Spirit is with me when I'm in the pulpit.

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I say, yeah, well, the Holy Spirit is equally with you in the study.

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And if you don't spend time in the study, you won't have much to say in the pulpit.

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It's not magic.

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It's work.

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It is discipline to study the Bible and to be able to present it to the people of God.

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And I consider the sermon to be like a meal.

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I think it's like I spend many hours throughout the week with the ingredients.

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And again, my job is to observe, interpret, and make application where appropriate, in the same way that a chef would take the ingredients and put them together and then present that to someone to have a feast on Sunday morning.

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The people of God should come in expecting a feast.

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This is why I don't believe a sermon should only be three quick points and a prayer or a 15-minute little motivational speech.

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The sermon should be a meal.

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And the people of God should come in hungry, ready to eat, and ready to devour that which has been prepared by the pastor, the one who's prepared that meal.

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And this is the role of the elders and the deacons and the ministry within the church, is to give the preaching minister an opportunity to study, to prepare, to provide that meal, and then also to be there to consume it, to hear the Word of God, and to be examples to the flock in being disciples themselves.

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So again, the role of the deacons we see here, the very first reason why, and again, it doesn't say deacons, but I believe this is certainly a prototype of the deacons ministers in the church, the reason why these men were chosen was because those who were preaching the Word of God did not need to neglect the preaching of the Word of God, to minister to the felt needs of the people, the physical needs of the people, and in this particular instance the need was food, and the disciples got the first deacons to minister to those needs so that they could minister the Word of God.

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And it just reminds us of the importance of the role of the deacons, and the role of the minister, and the role of deacons supporting that role.

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So there's a lot here, there's a lot of importance, but again, moving on very quickly, and I'm not going to say but one or two words about this, and this is the seizing of Stephen because we're going to see tomorrow Stephen's speech in Acts chapter 7, and so we'll look more at him tomorrow, but just remember this, Stephen is the first Christian martyr and I love this passage, it says in the very end of chapter 6, it says, and gazing at him, all who sat in the council, these are the people judging him, these are the people hating him, saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

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I think a lot about Stephen often, and about the fact that he was the first one to take a stand to the point of giving his life for Christ, and when he was brought before the council, he looked like an angel before them.

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He was certainly, I'm sure, concerned, I'm sure he was maybe even a little afraid of what they were going to do, but he was bold, and he looked like an angel, that's what the scripture says, and I just imagine what his face must have looked like, and we know that ultimately he's going to die for what he's going to say, and the Lord Jesus Christ is going to receive him into the kingdom, and it's just an amazing and powerful thought, the fact that they looked upon him and his face was like an angel.

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I pray that if ever the day comes that I would be called to stand in such a room where men hate me for the preaching of the word of God, where men hate me for standing on the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, that it would be said of me that my face looked like that of an angel, that I would be so, so well, that I would be so confident in the Lord Jesus Christ that it would show in my very countenance.

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That would be my prayer, that my confidence in Christ would show forth in how I looked, and I think that's what we see in Stephen, and as I said, we're going to see more tomorrow about his bold stance for Christ.

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So again, thank you for watching this episode of Coffee with a Calvinist.

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We're getting close to the end of the month, and we're going to start with our audio sessions next month, so look forward to that, and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.

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Again, thank you for watching Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.

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On behalf of Pastor Foskey, thank you for watching, and may God richly bless your day.