1. "One interesting thing about the Christian Bible is it's not a bunch of propaganda just trying to make Christians look good. When I first read this book, I was an agnostic and I did not expect it was gonna say bad things about Christian churches, but it gave a very honest portrayal of things."

2. "It's been said that the Christian church is the only organization to get into, you have to proclaim that you're unworthy of it."

3. "The 12 weren't denying the importance of table work. They weren't denying the importance of the issue before them. By refusing themselves to lead in solving the problem, they exercised their leadership by making sure that the problem would be dealt with and dealt with well."

4. "They were saying, this is so important, it needs so much time, it would take us away from doing that which we uniquely must do so that the church as a whole works as it should."

5. "You can't assume that if you do the right things, things will go well. That is a natural assumption we all have. If things start to go badly, we think, oh, what am I doing wrong? Well, sometimes you are doing something wrong, but sometimes you're doing the right thing in a fallen world."

6. "The irony of the mileage falsehoods can get against the truth in the courts of this world. Such has always been the case."

7. "The God who can use an injustice at the church in Jerusalem to push his messengers out was well able to save a young boy in Hungary, do a bank shot off an education in Palestine, put him in the northern Portuguese city of Braga in the sixth century for decades to fight the heresy of Arianism."

8. "The Great Commission is not some challenge that we fallibly are hoping we'll be able to meet, but we look around at how cruddy our churches are and wonder, how can we ever do this? No, he's telling us what he is doing."

9. "From that little church that was ignoring some widows, was fighting and complaining about themselves, was being persecuted and even killed from outside, that little unsteady thing ended up doing this. Yeah, that's the Lord's plan."

10. "He picks people like you and me so he can show who's mighty, who's really doing it. It's having this vision before us, whatever challenges we're facing, internal or external, that keeps us going."

Observation Questions

1. According to Acts 6:1, what specific complaint arose among the disciples, and which group raised this complaint against which other group?

2. In Acts 6:2-4, what distinction did the Twelve make between their own responsibilities and the task they wanted others to take on, and what reasons did they give for this distinction?

3. What qualifications did the apostles require for the seven men who would be appointed to serve, as stated in Acts 6:3?

4. According to Acts 6:7, what three results followed the resolution of the internal problem and the appointment of the seven men?

5. In Acts 6:9-11, how did Stephen's opponents respond when they could not withstand his wisdom and Spirit, and what specific accusations did they bring against him?

6. What did those who sat in the council observe about Stephen's face at the end of the passage (Acts 6:15)?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why was it significant that the Twelve distinguished between "preaching the word of God" and "serving tables," and what does this teach us about how different ministries in the church relate to one another?

2. The sermon emphasized that the seven men chosen all had Greek names, matching the cultural background of the neglected widows. What does this detail suggest about how the early church addressed the root causes of division, not just the surface symptoms?

3. How does the church's response to internal conflict in Acts 6:1-7 demonstrate that congregational responsibility and strong leadership are not opposed to each other but work together?

4. The sermon noted that Stephen's experience of opposition and false accusation closely paralleled Jesus' own experience. What does this pattern teach us about what faithful Christians should expect when proclaiming the gospel?

5. Throughout Acts (and as highlighted in the sermon from passages like Genesis 12:1-3, Isaiah 49:6, and Revelation 7:9-12), the growth of the Word is presented as God's unstoppable plan. How does this perspective change the way we should view the internal and external problems that churches face?

Application Questions

1. The early church faced division along cultural and linguistic lines that led to some members being overlooked. What groups or individuals in your own church community might be unintentionally neglected, and what practical step could you take this week to help address that?

2. The Twelve delegated important work so they could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. In your own life, what good activities might be crowding out time for prayer and Scripture, and how might you restructure your priorities to protect those disciplines?

3. The sermon challenged those who regularly attend but have not formally joined a church to reconsider their informal association. If you are in that situation, what is holding you back from committing to membership, and how might stepping into that commitment benefit both you and the congregation?

4. Stephen faced false accusations and hostility for faithfully proclaiming Christ. How can you prepare your heart and mind now so that when you face opposition or misunderstanding for your faith, you respond with wisdom and grace rather than fear or compromise?

5. The sermon concluded with the assurance that God's plan to reach all nations will succeed despite the weaknesses of His people. How does this truth encourage you to participate in evangelism or missions even when you feel inadequate or when circumstances seem discouraging?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 18:13-26 — This passage recounts Jethro's advice to Moses about delegating leadership, which the sermon identified as a model the apostles followed in Acts 6.

2. Matthew 18:15-20 — Jesus teaches about the assembled church's responsibility to address sin among its members, a foundational text for understanding congregational life as discussed in the sermon.

3. 1 Timothy 3:1-13 — Paul outlines the qualifications for elders and deacons, showing how the pattern begun in Acts 6 was formalized in the early church's structure.

4. 1 Peter 4:12-19 — Peter encourages believers facing suffering and persecution to entrust themselves to God, reinforcing the sermon's point that faithful obedience does not guarantee worldly success.

5. Revelation 7:9-17 — This vision of a great multitude from every nation worshiping before the throne shows the ultimate fulfillment of God's promise to bless all nations through Abraham's offspring.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Stirring Call of Christ and the Surprising Expansion of the Gospel

II. The Church Facing Problems Within (Acts 6:1-7)

III. The Role of Members in the Church

IV. The Development of Eldership

V. The Role of Deacons

VI. The Church Facing Problems Without (Acts 6:8-15)

VII. God's Sovereign Plan Ensures the Gospel Will Reach All Nations

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I think some of you are a little too worried, even discouraged.

So I'm going to preach this sermon.

The stirring call of Jesus Christ to take His gospel to all nations had surprising, even startling effects.

We've seen this year already that by the time the first disciples died, it seems that Christ's gospel had gotten throughout Jerusalem and beyond to the Arabs that inhabited the deserts nearby in the east and in North Africa. In fact, from the shores of the Black Sea in the north to Egypt and Ethiopia in the south. Christ's disciples had gone out. His gospel had gone with Roman troops to Britain and with Jewish Christian pilgrims back to Babylon. We've learned that among those first disciples, the gospel had gotten even to India in the east and better known to us to Rome and even Spain in the west.

The first century of Christian history saw almost unbelievable expansion. Perhaps this coming Tuesday you'll remember the story of the English slave boy, Patrick, escaping from his Druid masters in pagan Ireland and going home to England, there remembering his Irish captors and having his heart broken by their complete ignorance of the good news of Jesus Christ. So much so that he got 12 friends to agree to go back with him to Ireland, the land of his pagan Druid captors, there to undertake the extraordinary task of evangelizing the entire island filled with opposition and hostility.

So much gospel expansion, so much increase of the Word of God going out. And yet there was so much more. Areas that had not yet been reached were still so many, from China in the East to the hemisphere that we're in today, here in the West. Other areas that were reached once by the Christian gospel, from Afghanistan to England. But seemed to lose it over time as Christians sometimes retreated, other times were overwhelmed by new faiths like Islam that would come.

How would areas like the Western Iberian Peninsula, what we call Portugal, be reached by the good news of Jesus when even their false gospels seemed to go faster than the true gospel? And get established first. The idea that Jesus had come was known, but the Jesus that was preached there first was of a merely creaturely Jesus. It was the heresy called Arianism after one of its leading proponents, Arius, a lot like today's Jehovah's Witnesses. It was a distortion that seemed to reach that area and reproduce there more successfully than the clear teaching about Jesus that he himself had taught his disciples, that he is one with the Father, truly God and truly man, as we see in the scriptures and as was affirmed in Nicaea and Chalcedon.

How would Jesus' great commission ever be fulfilled if you have nothing more than churches like this one, beset with problems within and without? With no better Christians than people like us to take the gospel out.

You can be forgiven for thinking better of us than you should. You're just here for a weekend. But speaking to hundreds of members of this church, you know what I'm talking about. How will this great commission of Christ ever work if the churches are no better than ours?

What will happen to these great hopes? That's the question I want us to have in mind as we turn to Acts chapter 6 and continue our study of the church's beginning. Because even though here in Acts 6 we're looking at the church just in its initial city of Jerusalem, we see the seeds of the answer to the question here. So as you turn to Acts chapter 6, and the Pew Bible is provided, it's page 930, you'll see the brief chapter is divided into halves. In the first half, we consider the church facing problems within.

In the second half, the church facing problems without. That is from outside of itself. I pray that as we do, you'll be instructed and encouraged. At this underestimated institution that Christ himself has founded for this very purpose. Acts chapter 6.

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering.

And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid 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 became obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people.

And some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen, as it was called, of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Then they secretly instigated men who said, We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council. And they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law.

For we've heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us. And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. A short chapter in two halves. The first half, we see these problems within the church. The church we come to here in Acts 6 is a church that is prospering.

We get that sense even from the last verses of chapter 5. If you look at chapter 5, see this very last verse there, and every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ, that is the Messiah, is Jesus. And then the next phrase, at the beginning of chapter 6 says, Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number. And when he says disciples there, that doesn't refer to the original 12. That's what Luke is using to refer to all the followers of Jesus, these disciples.

And yet even in such prosperous days we see that there are problems inside the church. This young church faced internal challenges, challenges of neediness, poverty, challenges of diversity, of languages. They clearly continued the commitment to care for one another, a commitment that we've seen in our study in the earlier chapters. They cared for their own members who were poor and vulnerable, particularly it seems for widows. The widows in that culture, if they were without family, were some of the most vulnerable and helpless members of society.

And so the church naturally began there to care for the widows who were within their own number. But even though these widows shared much in common in terms of their neediness, they did experience a deep division between those who spoke the local language of Aramaic or Hebrew and those who spoke Greek. Who came from Jewish families, perhaps from outside of Judea, who had moved there. The combination of the neediness of the widows and the diversity of languages led to an all too easily imaginable situation of oversight and inequity, leading to misunderstanding and even mistrust of dissatisfaction and of complaining.

Now, if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, you'll notice that one interesting thing about the Christian Bible is it's not a bunch of propaganda just trying to make Christians look good. I have to tell you, when I first read this book, I was an agnostic and I did not expect it was gonna say bad things about Christian churches, but it gave a very honest portrayal of things. It's clear and honest in its presentation that Christians aren't perfect and neither are our churches. Of course, I guess even these faults testify to the truth of our message because we believe that there is a God who is perfect but that we, though made in His image, have sinned. We have turned to serve ourselves wrongly.

And God in His goodness will judge us for that, holds us accountable for our sins, and he has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life and to die on the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice in the place of all of us who would ever turn and trust in him. And his righteousness is then accepted as our own if we will trust in him, if we will admit, yes, I'm as bad as the next guy, maybe worse. I have no hope in myself. Of standing before a perfectly holy God. My only hope is in Jesus Christ.

It's been said that the Christian church is the only organization to get into, you have to proclaim that you're unworthy of it. Friends, that's what we see going on here. With all of our imperfections, though, Christians do take care of one another. We've learned that from Christ, the merciful one. Who both taught us to do that and did it more radically than any of us ever could.

And in these several verses, we begin to see the outline of the way that Christian churches ever after organize themselves. More than you might imagine in these verses, we see something about the nature of our members and our responsibilities. We see something about the elders that lead the church who seem to follow in the role of the apostles. We see something about the deacons who so quietly take responsibility for the effectiveness of so much of what Christian churches do in our lives together. I want us to look at each one of these in turn in this passage and consider what we're seeing here.

First, the members.

You see, that's the most basic level of the church, right? It's the members. In Jerusalem, individuals were being saved, changed, transformed. Peter would later write to some young Christians, It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? What an interesting expression, obey the gospel of God.

I thought gospel... I thought the gospel was news, good news. We don't generally think about obeying the news. I mean, we may read something about the president or something he's known or done, but that doesn't mean we need immediately to obey anything, or we may even read about people somewhere else being told to do something, but that doesn't mean that We need to. But the gospel is different kind of news, isn't it?

It's not limited to that place or this other time. It's news for everyone, everywhere, all the time. To obey the gospel of God means to repent of our sins and to trust in Jesus Christ, having died and been raised in order to make us right with God. And that's why Paul, too, could write of God's judgment in 2 Thessalonians 1, coming on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Anyway, I say all that because that's what's behind this strange phrase here in Acts chapter 6, verse 7.

Did you notice that?

That a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Did that mean they just learned different religious rituals? Not exactly. No, it means they understood that they were sinners, that they needed to repent of their sins and to trust in Christ. So the church there in Jerusalem was swelling with converts.

And as they poured in, the church both prospered and at the same time faced these kinds of challenges. That we see here. Jesus had taught the disciples that these Christians had some responsibilities that they needed to assemble in order to deal with. So the clearest example of this, and Jesus' teaching is found in Matthew chapter 18, when Jesus was addressing ways that members of the church could sin against each other. Yes, he envisioned that even then.

Not too dissimilar from the situation this young church was facing here in Acts chapter six. Anyway, Jesus envisions them assembling together. That's what the word translated as church means. It means a gathering together and assembling. And in Matthew 18:17, this assembly is presented as doing at least two things.

Perhaps other activities are implied, but it's doing at least two things. One, first, hearing of members' sins that are not yet repented of.

And second, speaking to the unrepentant members, presumably imploring them to repent, inviting them to obedience, and warning them of the consequences of continuing in sin. This is what we will do tonight after our evening prayer meeting. Just as we do regularly throughout the year, we work together to meet the internal challenges of our own sins. We work together, as we say in our own church covenant, to bear each other's burdens and sorrows. This is very practically how we do it.

You see something of this rich congregational life already in the churches at Jerusalem. We know from the earlier chapters that we've been studying, they were helping each other to care for the poor among their own members. Here in chapter 6, we see this specific way mentioned in verse 1, it's their daily distribution of food. So they've already brought some serious organization to bear on this problem. Kind of like what we have here in our church.

You know, we have a benevolence fund where you have contributed not in our budget, but separately from the budget, you contributed tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to this benevolence fund that goes through this church to help those who are in particular financial or fiscal need. You know, we have some deacons that are committed to caring for members, to finding practical ways that, like these Hellenistic widows in the first century church, people in our church need help in practical ways. They're committed to trying to help that to happen. There are other structures we've come up with in order to do that, really imitating exactly what we see talked about here. So here in verse 2, we read the 12 summoned the full number of disciples.

So the Jerusalem church had a specially called members meeting. A problem had been brought up in the life of the church, and while not every member was being slighted or slighting, the Twelve realized the significance of this situation for the church as a whole. Meeting together would immediately squash any temptation to gossip and to exaggerate, to misinform, or to damage the reputation of the church's care for its own members. Because although they were not caring well for that category of members, it didn't mean they weren't caring for anybody. They were probably caring for a lot of people.

But they were missing this. They were wrong here. So the resources of the whole church would be drawn upon then in prayer and wise counsel and understanding and in wise consent. And so we see not some staff member taking care of this. Not some executive committee, not some board or bishop, but the full number of the disciples were summoned together.

And then in verse 3, the 12 gave the members as a whole, this great body of those who had become obedient to the gospel, this assembly of the born again, the apostles gave them some work. They told them, they wanted them to go find men to to make sure that this waiting on tables, as the daily distribution of the food took place, that it would be done more equitably, particularly to those who were being left out. So the 12 told the full number of the members, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty. Notice where they were selected to come from. From among you.

The members are responsible for their own work. Even if they were going to especially designate the responsibility for it to some, just a few, the few were to be of their own number. They were not going to outsource this problem to be addressed by someone else. It had to be someone of their own number. Now, we did have our brother Lincoln Duncan preach here last week.

Who's not a member of this church. But that's unusual. And normally the preacher here will be someone like myself who is a member of this church, this assembly, and responsible to this assembly for what I do and for what I teach. Caleb who led the service today is a member of this assembly, of our own congregation. Those who led us in prayer, Mark and David, reading like Claire.

Music to accompany like Kevin and Josh and so many others up here. They're all members of our congregation. Those who've helped you find seats this morning or given you bulletins or who came out and passed the offering plates that nobody uses anymore. The ones who've, you know, prepared the bulletins. The ones who will greet you at the doors afterwards.

All of these people are members of this local assembly. We understand that we normally have responsibility for our own assembling and living together as a church. So tonight in our members meeting we will normally hear of those nominated to serve us in this way or that way, others we may move to confirm in their responsibilities. The follow-on of this very instruction here will be participating in this room in just a few hours. For those of us who are members of this church, in our members meeting.

So if you are a member and were planning to not come tonight, could I just beg you, change your plan. If you're a member of this church, come. Who is a member of this church? Well, there's a good basic question. All those who are hearing my voice in this room right now?

No. Because though this is a gathering of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church, It is a public gathering. Friends and guests are welcomed. Some of those will be Christian family and friends from elsewhere whom we've invited. Certainly this weekend we have all the Weekenders who are here.

It's over a hundred pastors or leaders. Others will have simply invited themselves to come along knowing something about this church or someone here in this church wanting to sing with us, pray with us, hear the Word preached, to come witness something of God's remarkable work. Here on the hill. Some of you have come knowing yourself not to personally be a Christian. You've come because you're curious about what it means to be a Christian.

You want to check it out and think what it might mean for you. You are most welcome here. Keep this in mind that none of this would be happening though if only or even mainly non-Christians came to this assembly and non-members. Non-member Christians, I assume that you are temporarily in DC or that you are visiting from some other local church for a particular reason, or maybe you're in the process of joining here and you're most welcome. One awkward category of assemblers would be those who assemble with us regularly and yet who will not join with us as members.

Thus removing themselves from the normal commitments and contributions that we can rely on to keep this assembly going. We would beg you to reconsider your informal association with us. We would encourage you to step up to the line of duty so that others too can benefit even from this admittedly imperfect church, just like you yourself have done, maybe for weeks or months or even years. Maybe joining this church is what obedience to the gospel, to use this phrase, looks like for you.

Even as the 12 set the full number of the disciples a task to undertake and perform back then, so we will have tasks set before us this evening. And part of what we do is what we see happening in verse 5. Look at verse 5.

We see that this suggestion pleased those assembled.

That's what we determine by voting. We vote so that we can agree with and express our happiness, our pleasure as a congregation to accept this person into membership or to give our consent or encouragement to this action or recognize that officer or release this other member to a sister congregation. As with so much about our church, the proto-congregationalism here is part of the source of where our own practices as a church have come from. And this is what has protected and preserved us for so many years as a faithful witness to the gospel, a light here on the hill.

But now we see more than simply the dim outlines of membership and even congregationalism. In this passage as internal challenges are met, we see something also with the development of the eldership. Did you notice that? The word isn't used, but it seems like the same outlines of the office are there. Basically the 12 are acting as a plural leadership for the congregation as a whole.

Some people have assumed that the kind of congregational responsibilities that I've been mentioning work against there being any leadership in the church. But nothing could be further from the truth. How do you organize a mass of hundreds or thousands of people? You have some in leadership. Well here in Acts 6 we see these things developing together.

In verse after verse, the image of our own understanding of what an elder is and does becomes more and more clear. So if you look at verse 2, look down at verse 2. The 12th reason that it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. So here those who had been personally taught by Jesus design what is still a fundamental principle in leadership of this and so many other Christian churches around the world, distinguishing word work from table work. That's the language they use.

The 12 weren't denying the importance of table work. They weren't denying the importance of the issue before them by refusing themselves to lead in solving the problem, they exercised their leadership by making sure that the problem would be dealt with and dealt with well, dealt with by a plurality of leaders of people who were themselves qualified and godly in a publicly responsible fashion. But they understood the difference between preaching that we should serve and serving in this particular way. And though this service was crucially needed, and is every bit as honorable and worthwhile as what they were doing, that need did not eliminate the need for some clear understanding and articulation of God's word and explaining all this, and explaining what the gospel is, and calling people to be obedient to it, and laying out specific actions that the congregation assembled could do to address this problem constructively and on and on we could go. If you look down to verse four, Again, the 12 present themselves as examples for our own church's elders as they prioritize prayer and teaching the Word.

Did you see that? But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Do you know that still distinguishes elders' work from the work of other groups in our church? These are the things that distinguish our elders. It's the elders' commitment to spend time praying in our private lives, certainly publicly here together at the church, our prayer meeting on Sunday night, but also in our elders meetings.

We give a significant portion of our time to bringing the needs of this congregation before the Lord. So these days what we'll do, you'll get an email from one of the elders, say how can we pray for you? You tell them things that he can share with the elder board, shares the elder board, some short summary of it usually, and then leads us in praying for you. We bring before the Lord those matters that you've told us you're concerned about, or that we know ourselves from our own relationship with whoever we're praying for in particular. So we labor for your good in our prayers as we consider teaching, like Jamie's teaching on marriage, or mine on church and evangelism missions in this Acts series.

Or Nick's on gossip, or Kevin's working on teaching right now on gambling, because we think that's a need in this rising generation to understand this better morally. We're thinking of you, we're praying for wisdom. We're working to see what we can do to help you as a church, and so to help you to continue to follow Christ. Even through fumbling and discouraging mess-ups and challenges, Like this poor example here of widows in our own passage being overlooked. Friends, even in the best of churches, things like that happen.

Do we set up systems that help us to realize when they are happening? Can we correct them? Can we get better? Pray for us in this. As those leading them, the 12 here, the elders among us, are usually those who would be in front of the assembly, acting on behalf of the whole, in baptizing or in teaching like I'm doing now, or in confirming officers, or setting apart missionaries, in leading the Lord's Supper, or in difficult decisions about member care and discipline.

In all of this, the elders are working to serve you. But some work we elders deliberately choose not to do, and that is exactly what we see the 12 here doing. They are choosing not to do some work that we think others could do as well as us or even better than us. And so we work with you, the congregation, to identify others who will serve or lead in serving us in certain ways, and we delegate the meeting of those needs that we have to other members of our church. So in that sense, you look here in verse 6, where the 12 prayed for these seven men listed in verse 5 and laid hands on them.

They were publicly acknowledging and delegating responsibilities for the equitable care of the poor widows to others. They weren't ignoring the problem. They weren't passing it off. They weren't saying it's unimportant. It's just the opposite.

They were saying, this is so important, it needs so much time, it would take us away from doing that which we uniquely must do so that the church as a whole works as it should. And they were saying they wanted to publicly designate those who would be taking responsibility for making sure that these needs were being heard and understood and met. It strikes me here that the apostles were really following the advice that Jethro gave to Moses so famously back in Exodus 18 when Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, sees Moses working so hard And he says, you just, Moses, don't give in to that. Nobody can do it as well as me kind of pride. You're just gonna kill yourself.

You've got to delegate. Jethro watches Moses trying to do too much and he says in Exodus 18, verse 17, what you're doing is not good. I love family that are so direct.

You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out. For the thing is too heavy for you. You're not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice, I will give you advice, God be with you. And then Jethro suggests to Moses a way he could delegate this work.

Well that's what the 12 are doing here. They're delegating it not because the work is unimportant, but because it is important, that they need to make sure it gets done.

Well I've taken all this time telling you about the members of the church and the elders, and the funny thing is, These first few verses of Acts 6 are normally turned to about the deacons of the church. So we should notice that this list of five men in verse 5 are not called deacons uniquely here in this passage. In verse 2, this ministry is called being a deacon of tables, or the ESV translates that as serving tables. That word for serving in the Greek is deaconing. They're deaconing tables.

But then, lest you think, oh, that's where we get the name deacon from. Well, kind of. But in verse 4, you look down at verse 4, the way the 12 express their own devotion to the work of teaching is being deacons of the Word. They are understanding themselves also as deacons, but they're not deacons of the table, they're deacons of the Word. Servants, ministers of the Word.

That's how the 12 describe their own work here when they were keeping to themselves. And that's how we would understand the elders work today. But the deacons work is of the table up in verse 2. And that's really the seedling version of what we as a church have as deacons. Our deacons are specifically concerned not with the daily food distributions, but with other kinds of community outreach or hospitality, with helping members to facilitate college ministry or the library being clearly organized and serviceable, whatever we feel the church needs to prosper with practical help that involves more than just one person doing it.

That's what we have deacons to help us with. Now these men here were known to be, we see in verse three, men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom. These were qualifications that must be had in order to serve, even in these more practical ways. We don't know why the number was set at seven. It is interesting to notice that the names of these seven men were all Greek names, Hellenistic names.

And the widows that had been overlooked in the daily distribution of food were Greek speaking. They were Hellenists. So there seemed to be some care given to selecting those who might be most helpful, most knowledgeable of, most empathetic with, most understanding of the problem. Now, we're not given any more information about how the members meeting of hundreds or thousands of Christians came up with these seven men to give to the elders. But they did, however they did it.

Their role prefigures that of our deacons today in at least a few ways, I think, as we look at it. We have deacons to help meet physical needs. That's exactly what's going on here. Acts 6:1, the widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of the food. So that root of the word deacon, meaning minister or servant, particularly table waiters at the time, that root-related words throughout the New Testament are used to refer to various types of service, many of them being physical or fiscal help.

In Acts 6:2 here, you see the apostles characterize this service as serving tables or deaconing tables. They were meeting physical needs for the food. But they're doing something more than just that, aren't they? They're really working to serve the unity of the body. You see that?

If you look at this passage in another way, more abstractly, you can say that they were working to make the food distribution among the widows more equitable, and that's true, but why was that important? Well, it wasn't merely the hunger of those widows, though that matters, but it was the larger problem of disunity that was causing. As those people who were culturally different than the others began to feel left out. That's how this passage begins. You see there, chapter 6, verse 1.

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Friends, this was not a problem from outside the church. This is a problem homemade. These are self-inflicted wounds. We were doing this to ourselves.

By our neglecting these widows. So one set of Christians of church members were beginning to complain against another set and they were right to do so. What they were saying wasn't wrong, it wasn't false, it wasn't uncharitable. And this seems to be what got the attention of the apostles. They were not simply trying to rectify a problem in the benevolence ministry of the church, though they were doing that.

They were recognizing a threat to the church's unity, a threat that could literally break the church up fracturing it along traditional cultural lines of division. So these deacons were being appointed to head off disunity in the church. Oh, brothers and sisters, thank God for how much good work in childcare or in member care in this congregation today helps preserve unity. This congregation is blessed immeasurably by so many people who volunteer as deacons and who volunteer to help the deacons in their work. The unity of the body is promoted and caused to flourish because of many of you in your work as deacons.

But there's still another aspect of this as we stare at it. At still another level, these men were appointed to support the ministry of the apostles. So it's meeting physical needs, it's protecting the unity of the church, but it's also supporting the ministry of the word. If you look there in chapter 6, verse 3, the apostles seem to acknowledge that this was a responsibility that the church, and therefore in some sense they themselves had, but they say in verse 3 that they would turn this responsibility over to another group within the church. In that sense, these deacons were not only helping the body as a whole, but by helping the body as a whole, they were allowing the elders, the 12, particularly the apostles, whose main task lay elsewhere to continue to focus on their main task.

The deacons were not a separate power block in the church. They were not a second house of legislature that you needed to get a bill through. They were servants. Who served the church as a whole by helping with the responsibilities that the main teachers could not perform and still responsibly prepare for their teaching and have their ministry of prayer. And so they worked to support the teachers of the Word by their physical ministry.

So friends, in summary, Acts chapter 6 in this first part brings together three aspects of Deacon Ministry Care for Physical Needs to the end of uniting the body under the ministry of the Word. Deacons are to support the ministry of the elders, unite the body, care for the needy, and they're to be encouragers, peacemakers, servants. Deacons again, thank you for your work here in doing that. Jamie Dunlop has often noted that as a church, we rely far more heavily on our deacons than churches normally of our size or our budget. Where other churches will tend to staff things, we tend to turn to you guys and smile.

We tend to pray that the Lord will raise up you who will take on tasks and so gain assurance of your faith. The word tells us, as you give yourself in service. So much you do to make our life together possible. So members, one role you have is to commend people in the congregation that you see them deaconing well, or maybe they're not deacons yet, but you think they would serve us well as deacons, please write to the elders about that. Let us know what you're seeing.

Help us to find those who are good to serve us as deacons.

So all of this internal organization is how this first church in Jerusalem met with problems within it that so quickly beset it. And we know that this organization is not only here because we see in Paul's pastoral epistles the qualifications for two offices, elders and deacons laid out. How do we know what in Acts is a pattern for us? Well, we don't always know. But some telltale signs are, if it's repeated, oop, that's a good sign.

If it's always repeated, that's an even better sign. And if then we're instructed in the letters of the New Testament, well then that's a home run. And that's what this is. We have both in Titus and 1 Timothy qualifications for the office of deacon and the office of elder. So we know that what we're seeing here is a kind of beginning of that pattern.

Well, all that to look at the challenge the church was facing from inside, but that's not all Acts chapter 6 shows us. Acts chapter 6 also shows us the church facing a very serious problem from without. And we see here in the rest of the chapter that going on. Look at the second half of the chapter with me. Acts 6, beginning at verse 8.

Acts 6, beginning at verse 8.

And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen, as it was called, and to the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, of those from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and disputed with Stephen. But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking.

Then they secretly instigated men who said, We've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes. And they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council. And they set up false witnesses who said, this man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard Him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.

And gazing at Him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel. I don't know what you think when you hear these few verses read, but to me, Stephen sounds a lot like Jesus.

If the apostles were following Jesus' teaching from Matthew 18, Stephen seems to be following Jesus' example and being faithful. We see in verse 8 there he was doing wonders. He was full of grace and power. It's interesting, John 1:14 says, Jesus full of grace and truth. But barely does Stephen even seem to get started before he was powerfully opposed.

And in that, too, he's following the example of Christ. You can't assume that if you do the right things, things will go well. That is a natural assumption we all have. If things start to go badly, we think, oh, what am I doing wrong? Well, sometimes you are doing something wrong, but sometimes check it over again, you're doing the right thing in a fallen world.

And so you face opposition. If you need encouragement in that, study the example of Jesus. Go read 1 Peter this afternoon. 1 Peter will give you encouragement at that very point. We've already been seeing this in these first few weeks of the church's life.

In the betrayal of Judas and crucifixion of Jesus, most observers thought probably that whatever this Jesus movement was, it had ended. But things don't always turn out the way you think they probably would. The successful betrayer, Judas, killed himself. And the killed Messiah, Jesus, was raised from the dead. Now there was a plot twist.

After the Holy Spirit is poured out, Peter the denier becomes Peter the preacher. His cowardice is replaced with courage. Hundreds and thousands begin following Jesus and form this first church. Miraculous healings and works of love in Jesus' name abound. The national leaders that opposed Jesus noticed this and now begin opposing the apostles.

Peter and John were arrested and ordered to be quiet. Internal corruption threatens to weaken the church through the deception of Ananias and Sapphira. But God supernaturally protects the young church. There in Acts chapter 5, more ministry is interrupted by more arrests by the authority. Tensions seem to be building as it had in the last week of Christ's earthly ministry.

So much so that in Acts chapter 5, verse 40, we read that the apostles were beaten, perhaps badly. Look again at the end of chapter 5.

Verse 40, When they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day in the temple and from house to house they did not cease. What did they do? They did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

But the opposition wasn't done. Now there would come an even sharper challenge. One of these new deacons would become the focus of the religious leaders ire. Look again at verse 8. And Stephen, he's the one who's described most fully, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders among the people.

Interesting, Stephen. Not one of the apostles, not one of the twelve. Stephen, a deacon, did signs and wonders. What signs? We're not told, but usually if you look through Acts, The miraculous signs seem to be healings, like the lame man being made able to walk.

It seems that this is the compelling witness the church is having in first century Jerusalem. The poor are being cared for, the broken are being given hope, the despairing are being healed. No wonder the officials were becoming concerned. You realize how a movement like that grows quickly and deeply. So what about the fact that the one doing this in this case was a deacon, not an apostle?

What should we think about that? Well, certainly a sovereign God can empower wonders and miraculous signs anytime he desires. But it seems in the Bible that miracles and signs and wonders are clustered around times of special revelation. Their purpose is to validate the truth that God is revealing, whether that's the Ten Commandments, or the prophecies of Jeremiah or Ezekiel, or the teachings of Christ and His apostles and evangelists. So here in these early weeks of the church's beginning, as the gospel is first heralded, God decided to extraordinarily empower these first evangelists with works which would vindicate the extraordinary claims that they were making about Jesus.

And for some reason, In God's providence, it was Stephen's doing these things that seemed to have been the immediate trigger for what happens then. Look there in verse 9, opposition arises. They rose up. They disputed things that Stephen said. It's interesting here in verse 10 that Stephen was characterized as speaking with overwhelming wisdom.

Jesus had prophesied just right before he was arrested. In Luke 21, he predicted that his followers would be persecuted, and he specifically says in Luke 21:15, I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict, which is exactly Luke's testimony about Stephen here in verse 10.

So since they couldn't beat him in terms of wisdom, What do you do? You break the ninth commandment. You bear false witness. You lie. And so, we see here in verse 11, these opponents in verse 9, they secretly instigated men to provide false testimony against Stephen, to the effect that he had blasphemed against Moses and against God.

So on that ground, falsely charged, Stephen is arrested, He's brought before the Sanhedrin and he's charged with blasphemy. These so-called witnesses falsely accused Stephen, even as they had produced many false witnesses weeks earlier in Jesus' trial. In fact, they made the same charge about Jesus destroying the temple from distorting the statement Jesus had made, I'm sure, in John 2:19, where Jesus specifically says, I'm not talking about the temple, I'm talking about my body. And then the charge about changing Moses' customs was also clearly taken out of context. The two charges are right there in verse 14, but they were enough that we read here in Acts chapter 6 verse 12.

And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, 'This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law. The irony of the mileage falsehoods can get against the truth in the courts of this world.

Such has always been the case. But just as God had provided the wisdom to navigate the challenges from within the body, we see in the first half of chapter 6, so he provided here what Stephen needed to be faithful in the sharp persecution he was facing. And we'll see that more when we get to Acts chapter 7. There's so much more we could say about this. But this is back to how I began, those of you who are worried and feel a little discouraged, you look around at our church, you think, oh, we've got memos on problems we're facing that we elders need to spend time talking about.

How's a church like this ever supposed to evangelize the world. Surely such a combination of problems and hope-crushing struggles from inside and outside the church in Jerusalem would be just too much for this little movement. Surely it would die before it even got started.

But no. No, even as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, so the church he founded would survive this severe persecution that it faced even in its Jerusalem cradle. Notice that little weird note in the last sentence of the chapter about Stephen's face looking like the face of an angel. What was going on?

Well, I don't want to kill the story here, but, you know, warning, here comes a little tip of what's happening ahead, spoiler alert. Chapter 7 that we'll look at next time, Stephen gives an amazing summary of biblical theology, and then he's killed.

But that glow on his face gives us the tip of how we should understand Stephen. He's not in the wrong, even though he gets killed.

I mentioned in the beginning how the Christian church as it expanded beyond the shores of the Mediterranean, east and west, continued to face problems within and problems without. The Greek speaking widows in Jerusalem were not the only ones who were ever mistreated in a Christian church. And the Jewish rejecters of Jesus' claim among the temple leaders were not the only ones who ever had other ideas about Jesus than what his disciples preached. So for example, if we go to the great nation of Brazil in South America, or the populations in Africa of Angola in the west, in Mozambique in the east. How do these tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people really, hear about Jesus?

Well, in God's strange providence through that much smaller nation, currently only 10 million people, that inhabit the western Iberian peninsula, we call it Portugal. Through that land hearing the truth about Jesus Christ, having the popular Arian errors about Jesus just being a creature corrected, and the real good news about him proclaimed, him being the Son of God, that then being believed and true Christian churches established. And how would that happen? Well, the God who can use an injustice at the church in Jerusalem to push his messengers out, did you notice that? They had been commanded to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Judea, and all the world.

They were all still, we're in chapter six, they're all still in Jerusalem. So what's God gonna sovereignly do? Yeah, he's lining it up. So there's gonna be a big persecution and they're all gonna be scattered. We're gonna see that soon enough.

But this same sovereign God who could use an injustice in the Jerusalem church to push his messengers out was well able to save a young boy in Hungary Do a bank shot off an education in Palestine, put him in the northern Portuguese city of Braga in the sixth century for decades to fight the heresy of Arianism, proclaim the truth about Jesus, see churches established that would one day take the good news throughout Portugal and beyond. And that's exactly what he did with a young man named Martin, born in the early 500s, In what is today Hungary, he came to believe the truth about Jesus Christ, that he was truly God and truly man, come to save us from our sins. Educated then in Palestine, Martin took this great news about Jesus Christ as it had been clearly laid out in the Nicene Creed and the Council of Chalcedon just a century before and around 550 A.D. the century after Patrick had evangelized Ireland up north. Martin planted his church in Dume, just north of Braga, and there he witnessed the dominance of Arian false teaching and he opposed it, like faithful Stephen, opposed error in his own day, only where Stephen was martyred, as we'll see in Acts chapter 7, Martin was able to become pastor of the main assembly there in Braga that had been teaching Arianism. And to make it into a real Christian church, and he remained there for a decade, winning more public victories for the gospel, against the false teaching about Jesus, and seeing more churches planted in the towns and cities of that West Iberian, Latin-speaking place whose language would develop into Portuguese, the fifth leading language in the world today.

Who would have thought that one link in the chain of reaching people in Beira, Mozambique, or Luanda, Angola, was a young boy's conversion and obedience in Hungary in the early 6th century A.D. He even became known as the Apostle to the Swaves, the people who lived in northern Portugal. But friends, we can't be surprised by this kind of gospel victory. You realize the Great Commission is not some challenge that we fallibly are hoping we'll be able to meet, but we look around at how cruddy our churches are and wonder, how can we ever do this? No, he's telling us what he is doing.

You understand that? We're about to go through the whole Bible. Just get it out right now, here we go. Genesis chapter 12, here we go. Open up your Bible.

Genesis chapter 12, I want you to see this.

Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Friends, yes, that's a command, but even more, that's a promise.

This is what God is doing. And you see this throughout the books of history, throughout the writings in the Old Testament. If you go to Isaiah, chapter 49, Isaiah, chapter 49, I love her six.

Isaiah 49:6, It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Again, this is not a challenge. This is what Yahweh is saying he is doing. As unlikely as we may look as a band of people to do such a thing, this in fact is what he is doing.

So now, when you go to Matthew 28, go to the Great Commission, and now read it with these statements from the Old Testament in mind. Matthew 28:18, Jesus came and said to them, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Friends, is there a challenge in that? Yes.

Is there a command? Yes. But do you hear anything more? Or look at the end of Luke's Gospel. Go to Luke 24.

When Jesus had spent that first Lord's Day with the disciples, Luke 24:44, then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. That everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. So when Luke continues writing the book of Acts, He talks about this all the time.

Have you noticed this as we've been reading through Acts? Just go to the book of Acts. Look at chapter 1, verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, which they had already been by chapter 6, but he says, and in all Judea and Samaria. Whoop, that's coming up in chapters 9 and 10.

And to the end of the earth. Yeah, and by chapter 28 we'll get to Rome. So that's exactly what Luke is recording here, that God did that. Or you look in chapter 2 at verse 41. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

Or then the last verse of the chapter, chapter 2 verse 47. Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Or look over at chapter 4, verse 4. But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of men came to about 5,000.

Or chapter 5 that we looked at last time, verse 14, chapter 5, verse 14. And more than ever, believers were added to the Lord. Multitudes of both men and women. And then in our own chapter today, we've seen how it began in verse one. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, or in verse seven, and the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

But friends, it's not just here in chapter six, it's not like it's all gonna get stopped. By Stephen's martyrdom. No, it keeps going. Look over chapter 8, verse 6.

And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip. And when they heard him and saw the signs that he did, for unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. Or in chapter 9, Verse 31, so the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it multiplied. We'll go over to chapter 12, verse 24.

Chapter 12, verse 24, But the word of God increased and multiplied. Or chapter 13, verse 44, the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. And then down to verse 48, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed, and the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. We go over to chapter 16, verse 5.

Chapter 16, verse 5, so the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily. Over to chapter 19, verse 20. 19, verse 20, so the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily. Friends, this just doesn't stop. You go to the last chapter of the book of Acts.

Go to Acts chapter 28. Paul is a prisoner, and the gospel is not stopped. Look at chapter 28, verse 23. When they had appointed a day for him, they came to him at his lodging in greater numbers, in greater numbers. From morning till evening, he expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus, both from the law of Moses and from the prophets, and some were convinced by what he said.

Then down in verse 28, Let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen. Ha. The Gentiles doesn't mean this like one ethnic group of people over here. It means the nations.

Like everybody. And you know what he says will happen? They will listen. We could be here all day. Let's not do that for the childcare workers.

Let's go to the Book of Revelation. Book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 9, We know this works. This is what happens. The Lord's plan that He revealed to Abraham succeeds. Chapter 7, verse 9, After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne, before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

Friends, this is from that little church that was ignoring some widows, was fighting and complaining about themselves. Was being persecuted and even killed from outside, that little unsteady thing ended up doing this. Yeah, that's the Lord's plan. He picks people like you and me so he can show who's mighty, who's really doing it. It's having this vision before us, whatever challenges we're facing, internal or external, that keeps us going.

Do you remember that verse from Isaiah chapter 9? For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. Turn to page 15, let's stand and sing. All glory be to Christ.