WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.360 So we are back to the book of Acts and with this week we are in Acts chapter 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:10.800 6. It's the story of the deacons, the story of how the deacons came to be, 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:15.880 where they came from and what they do. And at the heart of the story of the 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:21.199 deacons, underlying all the details in the passage, is the fact that the early 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:26.879 church was committed to serve one another. And that's really the centerpiece of 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:30.640 the entire passage. It's a service that's unlike any other 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:36.239 community on earth, unlike any other community that's ever existed. So let's 00:00:36.239 --> 00:00:39.519 get right into it and have a look at it. We're going to look at two things. First, 00:00:39.519 --> 00:00:45.719 the problems of service and secondly, the ground of service. So first, the 00:00:45.719 --> 00:00:50.039 problems of service. From the very beginning of the passage there are 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:56.320 two issues that arose in the early days of the church. And one of the first one 00:00:56.320 --> 00:01:01.000 was that they were growing at a rapid rate. So they had an immense amount of 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:06.159 fruit. So we read in Acts chapter 2 that they had 3,000 converts in a day. Next 00:01:06.159 --> 00:01:11.200 chapter, 5,000. The chapter just before this, it stops counting and just says 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:14.840 multitudes of men and women were coming. And you see it again at the end of the 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:20.120 passage. So an immense amount of fruit. You put that on top of the second issue. 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:25.240 The second issue is that the apostles were deeply committed to two ministry 00:01:25.239 --> 00:01:28.920 practices. And these are the ministry practices that we see them list in the 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:33.799 middle of the passage. They said, we will not neglect the Word of God or the, our 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:38.239 ESV ads, the preaching of the Word of God. We will not neglect the Word of God and 00:01:38.239 --> 00:01:42.959 we also don't want to neglect the service of tables. That's literally the 00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:46.679 phrase that was used there in Greek, the service of tables, which is very little. 00:01:46.679 --> 00:01:51.599 They're committed to that. And so what you have here is a church that's 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:57.919 growing at an unbelievable rate and a church that's deeply committed to these 00:01:57.919 --> 00:02:03.679 two fundamental ministry practices, Word ministry and Deed ministry. And so what 00:02:03.679 --> 00:02:09.280 that builds is a recipe for administrative problem. They've got 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:15.400 administrative problems. And so what happens is that the Hellenist complain, 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:20.199 complain arises. And the Greek word for complaint here is the little word 00:02:20.199 --> 00:02:26.119 gizmos, which is not, it's not a formal complaint. It's not like a petition to 00:02:26.119 --> 00:02:32.679 the apostles. It's a rumor. It's a, it's murmuring. It's whispers in the night. 00:02:32.679 --> 00:02:37.000 You know, the complaint arises. People are talking and what they're talking about 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:42.120 is that the Hellenist are not getting food or their supply in the daily 00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:47.879 distribution, particularly the widows. Now in the early church in Jerusalem, there 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:51.960 are two different groups of people and they're divided somewhat by their 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:56.519 languages. There's Greek speaking Jews that are primarily come in from other 00:02:56.519 --> 00:03:00.479 countries to dwell in Jerusalem. And there are Aramaic speaking Jews mostly. 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:04.079 Now they both can speak each other's language, but they have a dominant 00:03:04.079 --> 00:03:08.519 language, which means they naturally divide into different communities. They 00:03:08.519 --> 00:03:12.919 probably live and hang out in people that, with people that predominantly speak 00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:17.400 the main language that they speak. And so what's happening here is it's probably 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:22.080 not, and most commentators agree that it's not an issue of prejudice that's 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:27.599 specific here. It's not that the Aramaic apostles are being prejudicial in the 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:33.400 daily distribution to the Greek speaking, the Hellenist. It's, it's literally 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:39.960 practical. It's a church in Jerusalem of well over 5,000 people and they're 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:45.520 engaged in an activity of daily hospitality, daily distribution, and it's 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:48.800 not holding together. They just can't, they don't have the resources to get to 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:53.320 everybody administratively. It's just not happening. In other words, this is a 00:03:53.320 --> 00:03:58.360 big church. This is a really big church in Jerusalem. It's huge. It's a, it's a 00:03:58.360 --> 00:04:03.120 mega church as we would classify it today. And it's not that they're all 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:07.560 meeting together every single Sunday in one place. That had not yet quite 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:12.680 arisen at this time in history like we do today, but they all are going to 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:16.959 be synagogues and huge numbers and worshiping together on Sundays and 00:04:16.959 --> 00:04:20.519 they're meeting in various house churches and fellow, not house churches, but 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:25.920 house fellowships throughout the week and living and doing, doing life with one 00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:32.079 another. But what they are doing for sure in a united way across more than 5,000 00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:38.560 people in this city, this mega church, is that they are distributing alms as we 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:43.000 call it, gifts to the poor daily. They're doing it every day. It's a daily 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:48.439 distribution and that's the situation that this complaint arises in. What's so 00:04:48.439 --> 00:04:54.519 remarkable at this passage is what is so unremarkable. And that's that, did you 00:04:54.519 --> 00:04:59.680 catch it? The office of Deacon, the Dachinit as we call it, which is 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:04.279 prescribed to us in the New Testament and a number of places by Paul especially 00:05:04.279 --> 00:05:09.079 that we should have two offices, elders, which are derivative at the end of the 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:14.199 apostles, the teachers of the word and deacons. Did you see how it arises? It's 00:05:14.199 --> 00:05:19.000 not a supernatural call from heaven. It doesn't fall down upon them and says you 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.839 should have the office of Deacon. It's unbelievably unremarkable. They don't 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:28.679 have enough people to serve the food every day. And so they have a practical 00:05:28.679 --> 00:05:31.879 problem. They have an administrative problem and they need, so they need more 00:05:31.879 --> 00:05:35.480 people. They need a new office. They need leadership. They need people 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:40.600 to take up this new job. They've got overwhelming numbers and they don't, 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:46.040 they can't deal with it. Look, the New Testament doesn't give any prescriptions 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:53.639 for an ideal church size. No prescriptions for what kind of numbers a church should 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:59.759 seek out. No ideal whether you should be small, a house church, medium, a mega 00:05:59.759 --> 00:06:03.000 church, like the church in Jerusalem was. Nothing like that. What the New 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:07.959 Testament, the logic of the New Testament is that every church, every local 00:06:07.959 --> 00:06:15.800 gathering of believers should seek fruit, seek the fruit of ministry and then 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:21.399 be willing like the apostles were to practically accommodate in ways that 00:06:21.399 --> 00:06:25.759 need accommodation to satisfy those ministries. That's the prescriptions we 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:30.039 get from the New Testament. Jesus makes this really clear in Matthew chapter 00:06:30.039 --> 00:06:34.159 25. In Matthew chapter 25, he tells a parable. It's normally called the 00:06:34.159 --> 00:06:38.839 parable of the talents. And in this parable, the master of the house takes 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:44.759 bags of money and leaves them with three different stewards, servants. And he 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:50.959 goes off and each of those stewards was expected to take that money, invest it 00:06:50.959 --> 00:06:56.599 and get a reward, double it at least. So two of the stewards do that, you'll 00:06:56.599 --> 00:07:00.519 remember. They take five talents, they make ten, they take ten talents, they 00:07:00.519 --> 00:07:06.240 make twenty. But one of the stewards, what does he do? He buries it. He buries 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:09.359 his bag of money in the ground because he doesn't want to lose it. So the 00:07:09.359 --> 00:07:13.279 master comes back and the master congratulates the two guys that invested 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:17.759 their money, that sowed in new fields, that bore a new harvest and produced 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:23.279 fruit. But the guy that buried his, the master comes back and says, you wicked 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:28.680 and lazy servant. You know that there are fields out there that I have 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:33.680 not harvested in. And you see what Jesus is saying in that parable. It's a 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.279 metaphor for the kingdom of God. He's saying that the church, the stewards of 00:07:38.279 --> 00:07:42.639 the resources that the church has been given, which is the gospel, the message 00:07:42.639 --> 00:07:47.719 of the word and the ability to serve, are not to bury the resource. In other 00:07:47.720 --> 00:07:51.920 words, the church isn't to go into maintenance mode. It's to seek out fruit. 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:57.360 It's to multiply. It's to do the work of ministry and to be committed to it and 00:07:57.360 --> 00:08:01.640 to adjust practically to seeing those ministries fulfilled. And this is 00:08:01.640 --> 00:08:05.720 exactly what's happening in the Jerusalem church. It's just unbelievable that the 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:10.240 office of deacon simply arises when people are doing the work that they've 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:14.120 been called to do and they've got practical needs. And that's exactly how 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:21.199 the office of deacon comes about. The problem, secondly, is created by a deep 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:26.959 commitment that this early church has to these two practices, word ministry and 00:08:26.959 --> 00:08:32.840 particularly here, service, the ministry of service. The service to widows is the 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:37.240 one and they're not backing away from it. We talked about this briefly at the 00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:42.600 beginning of our study in Acts and Acts chapter two when Peter divides the two 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:46.920 ministries of the church between what he calls teaching and if you remember in 00:08:46.920 --> 00:08:51.800 Acts two, fellowship is the word he uses. And it's a little Greek word, the word 00:08:51.800 --> 00:08:57.399 fellowship, koinonia. And it's probably better translated, not as fellowship, but 00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:01.279 as sharing. So it has less the sense of just like hanging out with one another 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.320 and like making potluck dinners and stuff like that. It's the sense of deep 00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:11.320 committed sharing with one another. In Acts two verse 45, people were liquidating 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:15.120 their resources in order to make sure that there wasn't a single person in the 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:18.879 church that was even close to destitute. And that's exactly what's happening in 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:24.000 this. They've developed a daily distribution, a service to the widows, to 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:29.600 people that are particularly prone to be destitute. Now why did they do this? Well, 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:35.400 if you read the Gospels and look at Jesus' miracles, a lot of theologians and 00:09:35.400 --> 00:09:40.520 New Testament scholars will say that the reason for the miracles, the reason 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:45.279 Jesus performs miracles is not in first place to prove that he's the Messiah, 00:09:45.279 --> 00:09:50.279 but actually to preview what the kingdom of God is going to be like in the 00:09:50.279 --> 00:09:55.439 future. In other words, when Jesus feeds 5,000 people out of a few pieces of 00:09:55.439 --> 00:10:00.079 bread and fish, what he's saying to us is that the kingdom of God is a place where 00:10:00.079 --> 00:10:04.919 people don't go hungry. Or when he takes control of the natural forces and walks 00:10:04.919 --> 00:10:09.279 on water, calm storms, things like that, he's saying the kingdom of God, the future 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:13.360 kingdom to come, is a place that doesn't have natural disaster. When he raises up 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:18.360 Lazarus, the kingdom of God is a place where people don't die, where people 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:23.079 rise from the dead. And the church in the book of Acts does the same exact thing. 00:10:23.079 --> 00:10:29.120 We're not always performing miracles, but what we are doing in service is putting 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:34.559 on display what a preview of the future kingdom of God. The church is like a 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:39.479 little garden of Eden, if you will, is the picture. And in that little garden of 00:10:39.479 --> 00:10:44.639 Eden previewing the future, nobody's hungry, nobody's destitute, everybody's 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:48.639 got clothes on their back, and that's exactly how they thought of it. But it 00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:52.199 wasn't just something that was for inside the church. The New Testament and the 00:10:52.199 --> 00:10:56.639 whole Bible really is really clear that this service was also to extend outside 00:10:56.639 --> 00:11:02.239 the church community. It's all over the Bible, but one instance outside the Bible 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:07.440 later on in history, and we read this actually when I was preaching on Acts 2, 00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:13.519 the Emperor Julian in the 360s, he was the emperor that came after Constantine, 00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:17.240 and Constantine was the one who instituted Christianity as a legal 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:23.120 religion. Basically, Julian wanted to take a few steps back and reinvigorate the 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:26.840 old Roman religion, the pantheon, the belief in many gods, and so there's a 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:30.200 letter that he wrote to one of his priests, and he's basically giving the 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:33.879 priest instructions for what to do about this problem, and the problem is 00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:38.120 there are too many Christians, and Christianity is way too popular, and this 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:43.440 is what he says. Why do we think what we have been doing is sufficient and do not 00:11:43.440 --> 00:11:48.640 observe how the kindness of Christians to strangers, their care for the burial of 00:11:48.640 --> 00:11:53.320 the dead, the sobriety of their lifestyle, has done the most to advance their 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:58.520 calls in this empire? Each of these things that they do ought to be practiced 00:11:58.519 --> 00:12:03.279 by us, I think, he says. If any one of the priests is not acting like the 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:08.559 Christians, then get rid of them. So he's talking about the pagan priest, or 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:14.919 persuade them to tell the priest to stop drinking so much. I'm devising a plan, 00:12:14.919 --> 00:12:21.199 erect hostels for strangers in every one of the city, and be kind to them, like 00:12:21.199 --> 00:12:26.899 the Christians do. I'm ordering a fifth of our food supply to the poor. Four, and 00:12:26.899 --> 00:12:31.919 this is key, it's disgraceful when not a single Jew is a beggar in the entire 00:12:31.919 --> 00:12:37.039 kingdom, and the pious Christians not only care for their poor, but for our poor 00:12:37.039 --> 00:12:42.639 as well. Everyone can see that they are doing all the work for us. So that's 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:47.279 Julian the emperor in the year 360. So you can see that the service, the daily 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:50.919 distribution, extended well beyond just taking care of people inside the church, 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:56.879 it extended outside the church. And the point is that this came actually from 00:12:56.879 --> 00:13:02.079 Old Testament practices. This came out of the very character of God. You see the 00:13:02.079 --> 00:13:07.199 term widow in this passage is actually more of a shorthand, most scholars think, 00:13:07.199 --> 00:13:12.279 for an entire group of people that were most likely the people to become 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:16.279 destitute in any particular situation. It can be applied to us today in 00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:19.959 different ways. It might not be particularly widows that are as susceptible 00:13:19.960 --> 00:13:24.320 as they were in these days. In these days a widow that was a Jew, that was a 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:28.800 believer would come to Jerusalem in their twilight years, and often it was the 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:32.280 case that the male would die first, the husband would die first, and when this 00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:36.680 happened the widows had no recourse to anything. There was no income, there was 00:13:36.680 --> 00:13:40.759 no pension, nothing. And so they were broke, and they were starving, and they 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:43.600 were begging. And so it was widows in particular that were particularly 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:47.800 susceptible. But this comes straight out of the character of God. In the Old 00:13:47.799 --> 00:13:52.519 Testament from Deuteronomy 10, just listen to what God says to the people, 00:13:52.519 --> 00:13:57.839 I defend the cause of the fatherless and the widow. I love the alien, the 00:13:57.839 --> 00:14:03.079 stranger, the immigrant. I give food and clothing, and justice will roll down like 00:14:03.079 --> 00:14:10.559 a river, and righteousness like a living stream. You see? Orphan, widow, alien, so 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:13.879 journer, the fatherless. These are the words that you get over and over again 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:18.279 throughout the Bible. These are all shorthand terms for anybody that's 00:14:18.279 --> 00:14:24.279 especially prone to physical destitution, to physical, to lacking things. 00:14:24.279 --> 00:14:31.360 Proverbs 14-31, if you insult the poor, you insult the Lord. Proverbs 19, whoever is 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:36.919 kind to the poor is kind to the Lord. God was the father to the fatherless, that's 00:14:36.919 --> 00:14:40.879 how he describes himself so often in the Old Testament. And this was really 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:46.200 radical because all of the gods in the ancient Near East always identified 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:50.960 themselves with the head of any society. So the only way, if you want to get to 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:55.519 God in Egypt, you got to go through Pharaoh. It's the highest of the high 00:14:55.519 --> 00:15:00.360 that are the channels to the gods, but not Yahweh, not the God of the Old 00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:04.840 Testament. He goes directly to the lowest, to the poor, to the destitute, to the 00:15:04.840 --> 00:15:13.000 fatherless, to the orphans. Matthew 25, Jesus, for I was hungry and you gave me 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:16.519 something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:21.120 stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.399 and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. And the 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:27.720 disciples say, who in the world, where in the world were you naked? Where in the 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:33.000 world were you despised? And he says, look out at these, these poor ones. Whenever 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.360 you did it to the least of these, you did it to me. That's what he says at the end 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:40.799 of the parable of the talents that we talked about just a minute ago. What we 00:15:40.799 --> 00:15:45.080 get from this passage is that this daily distribution to people that are 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:49.679 particularly prone inside the church first, but extends outside the church, is 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:55.360 not just a call for officers in the church, but it's called in the 00:15:55.360 --> 00:16:02.120 New Testament for everybody, for any Christian. You can see one 00:16:02.120 --> 00:16:06.399 evidence for this and the pretty unremarkable qualifications that are 00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:10.639 listed here to be a deacon. So it says that they have to be mature, relatively 00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:15.240 mature, have a good reputation, have the spirit of God, in other words, be a 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:20.560 Christian, and be basically known to be men of good character. And then 00:16:20.560 --> 00:16:24.560 Paul's list in 1 Timothy 3, just listen to this. This is the 00:16:24.559 --> 00:16:32.399 qualification. Don't let anybody be a deacon that's a drunkard. Don't let 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:35.879 anybody be a deacon that goes out and beats people up. So he literally 00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:41.000 says that is aggressive or overly violent, gets into many fistfights. I 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:45.479 mean, that's literally what he's saying. I think most of us are probably not doing 00:16:45.479 --> 00:16:50.839 too much of that. Then he goes on, don't give it to people that gossip. Make 00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:55.040 sure that non-christians speak well of anybody that you elect as an officer, 00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:58.480 so that they've got non-christian friends, non-believing friends, and that 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:02.080 those people think they're decent people, that they have a good reputation with 00:17:02.080 --> 00:17:05.840 them, and make sure that they're trustworthy with money. And you see, 00:17:05.840 --> 00:17:09.920 these are pretty unremarkable qualifications. Don't get in fistfights, 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:15.720 don't be drunkards, don't gossip. See, the office of Elder and Deacon is an 00:17:15.720 --> 00:17:19.759 office that's elected for people that are mature in the faith, men that are 00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:24.519 mature in the faith, Christians. But what it is, is it's exemplars for a 00:17:24.519 --> 00:17:29.160 ministry that everybody's being called to be involved in. The ministry of 00:17:29.160 --> 00:17:33.240 proclaiming the word that's listed here, the service of the word, and the service 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:37.599 of the table, literally accommodating people's physical needs, is a ministry 00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:42.079 that's for the entire church, not just for elders and deacons, but elders and 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:46.480 deacons are called to be the exemplars and leaders of the entirety of these 00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:50.799 ministries. And so what we get from the whole book of Acts really, is that we 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:57.440 have to understand how deeply the pattern of commitment to both the ministry 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:01.440 of the word and the life of the whole church and the ministry of service and 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:06.400 the life of the whole church was ingrained into the daily life of these 00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:12.079 people, of these early Christians. It was thoroughly fundamental to their 00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:16.240 daily lives. Okay, that's the first thing. Those are the problems of service. 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:23.160 But secondly, the ground, and finally, the ground of service. A community that 00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:28.839 looks like what we just read about here, even in their practical problems, this 00:18:28.839 --> 00:18:33.400 type of a community that serves pedigrees that are below them, different 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:39.039 classes that goes after and loves the destitute in really radical ways, this 00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:45.960 cannot be constructed by simple attempts to be good people. So in the modern 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:50.079 sense of philanthropy, we have a lot of people, especially celebrities today, that 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:53.880 really love to be philanthropists, and that's great. I'm glad that that's 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:58.799 happening. But the basic idea underneath philanthropy is that we do good to other 00:18:58.799 --> 00:19:03.559 people who need it, because we want to be good people, because we, because that's 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:08.640 what it means to be a good person, is to do good to other people. But any sense of 00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:14.559 guilt, of inspiration, of just trying to be a good person, that is not what 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:19.240 creates a community that looks like this. It just won't work. It will only last for 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:24.119 a day if that's your primary motivation. That's not what does it. Instead, the 00:19:24.119 --> 00:19:28.679 prerequisite for creating any type of community that looks like this is that 00:19:28.679 --> 00:19:33.279 you stop trying to be good. Actually, the sense of the New Testament gives us is 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:37.159 that it's only people that know that they're not good, that can actually live 00:19:37.159 --> 00:19:43.079 and love and serve people like this. The basic idea that underlies this entire 00:19:43.079 --> 00:19:49.000 type of ministry is the word disciple in the Gospels. In Matthew 28, Jesus says, 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:54.879 make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. Matthew 11, 00:19:54.879 --> 00:19:59.799 whoever wants to inherit the kingdom, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will 00:19:59.799 --> 00:20:05.039 inherit the kingdom, but the person who does the will of my Father who is in 00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:14.000 heaven. So a disciple is not merely a yes man or a yes woman. A disciple is not 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.559 merely a person who says yes to the claims of Jesus, who says Lord, Lord. 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:23.359 It's not merely that, but a disciple it says is a person who seeks to do the will 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:28.279 of my Father who is in heaven. That's what it means to be pursuing discipleship. 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:34.079 This is what Jesus called a gapae. It's a unique, a very unique kind of love that 00:20:34.079 --> 00:20:38.519 is introduced into the world by this very unique Christian community. How do we 00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:45.079 get this? How do you become like this? We notice that in Judaism, Judaism was 00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:50.000 already doing a weekly almsgiving every Friday and the Christians in this 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.960 passage have up the ante on that and they're doing a daily distribution, but 00:20:53.960 --> 00:20:58.000 we went back and saw that in Deuteronomy that this comes just out of God's 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:04.000 character in the Old Testament and Judaism. In another place, he says, I am the 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:08.000 God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God who is 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:13.359 not partial and does not take a bribe. I execute justice for the fatherless and 00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:18.400 the widow. I love the sojourner. I give him food and clothing. So God's character, 00:21:18.400 --> 00:21:23.359 he's the king. He's the God of gods. He's the Lord of lords, he says, and as the 00:21:23.359 --> 00:21:28.319 ruler of the world, he administers justice and he describes that justice. 00:21:28.319 --> 00:21:32.839 That justice is to care, he says, for the fatherless, for the destitute, for the 00:21:32.839 --> 00:21:38.000 widow, for the orphan. But then he turns to Israel in Deuteronomy 10 and he says, 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:42.480 but you too, Israel, you're about to enter the land of promise. Here's my 00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.679 command to you. And this is what Moses records. Love the fatherless, 00:21:46.679 --> 00:21:52.039 love the widow, love the sojourner. And these people had been called to do that 00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:55.959 already and they utterly failed. And so they cry out basically in Deuteronomy 00:21:55.959 --> 00:22:00.759 and say, why should we? Why should we? Why should we be like you? Why should we 00:22:00.759 --> 00:22:04.160 care for these people? Why should we love the orphan and the fatherless, the 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:11.000 destitute, the widow? And this is what he says, because you are the fatherless and 00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:16.640 the sojourner and you were until I brought you out of the land of Egypt. You 00:22:16.640 --> 00:22:22.879 see, in other words, if you want to create a community like this, it requires a 00:22:22.879 --> 00:22:30.720 total destruction of your self-interest. These physical issues that people 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:36.400 have in life, clothes on our backs, food on our table, poverty, destitution, right? 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:40.720 What the scripture is saying is that these are symptoms of a much deeper 00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:44.720 problem and it's a problem that's fundamental and universal. And that's 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:49.519 the problem that every single person is spiritually destitute, spiritually poor, 00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:53.720 spiritually impoverished. And this is exactly what Jesus means in the Sermon 00:22:53.720 --> 00:22:57.960 on the Mount when he says, blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, he's 00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:05.360 saying blessed is the one who realizes that they are orphaned in spirit, because 00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:10.120 there is an ultimate family to which they are estranged. Blessed is the one who 00:23:10.120 --> 00:23:15.600 knows they are widowed in spirit, because there is a bridegroom that they 00:23:15.600 --> 00:23:20.279 have yet to marry. You see, blessed are the ones that know they're poor, that know 00:23:20.279 --> 00:23:23.840 they're poor in spirit, that know that they lack the resources to get any of the 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:34.759 promises of God. Here's the question. What's a deacon? What's a deacon? The 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:38.519 word deacon that Paul uses that we translate deacon is the little Greek 00:23:38.519 --> 00:23:45.519 word diaconos. And really diaconos is a word that Paul co-ops for the idea of a 00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:50.279 deacon. It just means servant. That's all. It just means servant. And in Mark 00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:54.879 chapter 10, Jesus gives us a direct identification of what he thinks of as a 00:23:54.879 --> 00:24:00.399 deacon or as a servant. The sons of Zebedee, James and John, come to Jesus 00:24:00.399 --> 00:24:05.799 in Mark chapter 10, and they say to him, Lord, will you promise us that we can 00:24:05.799 --> 00:24:11.519 stand at your right and left hand when the kingdom of God comes? And Jesus says, 00:24:11.519 --> 00:24:15.559 you have no idea what you're asking for, because if you want to stand at my right 00:24:15.559 --> 00:24:19.160 hand and left hand, at the left hand and right hand of God, the Father, you have to 00:24:19.160 --> 00:24:25.320 drink the cup of wrath with me. And they have no idea what he means. And then the 00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:28.840 rest of the disciples are mad and annoyed at James and John because they 00:24:28.840 --> 00:24:32.880 recognize these guys have just made a power play, a political power play. They've 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:38.480 tried to procure a top position in the coming kingdom of God. They're 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:43.360 thinking of it merely in political terms. And this is how Jesus responds. He says, 00:24:43.360 --> 00:24:48.519 don't you know that the Gentile rulers lured over their people? And the word 00:24:48.519 --> 00:24:53.720 there is not lured, it's the word dominate or oppress. Don't you know that the 00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:59.039 Gentile rulers oppress their people? The great ones amongst the Gentiles, it says 00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:02.720 dominates. The little word for great there is the word megas, where we get the 00:25:02.720 --> 00:25:08.279 word mega big, right? The megas and the Gentiles, they become giants by 00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:13.519 subjugating their people. And then this is what he says to them, if you want to be 00:25:13.519 --> 00:25:21.319 a megas, a giant in the kingdom of God, you must become a diaconos, a deacon, a 00:25:21.319 --> 00:25:26.319 servant, you see? And then he takes us a step further. Not only must you become a 00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:32.119 diaconos, a deacon, he says you must become a doulas, a slave. He's literally 00:25:32.119 --> 00:25:36.440 talking about the lowest caste, a slave. You have to become not only a deacon, but 00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:40.079 even lower than a deacon, a slave, if you want to be great in the kingdom of God. 00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:46.879 And then this is what he says. He says, the son of man, what do I mean? 00:25:46.879 --> 00:25:54.519 The son of man came not to be served, but to serve, to be a deacon. You see, Jesus 00:25:54.519 --> 00:25:59.159 Christ was the first deacon. He was the first diaconos. He identified himself 00:25:59.159 --> 00:26:04.079 directly as the diaconos, the son who came not to be served, but to be the 00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:10.599 diaconos, to give his life as a ransom for many. When Jesus went to the cross, 00:26:10.599 --> 00:26:14.879 when he went to the cross and he cried out to the Father, why have you forsaken 00:26:14.879 --> 00:26:21.000 me? You see what's happening there? Jesus Christ came for the fatherless. He came 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:26.319 for the widow. He came for the orphan. He came for the destitute by becoming the 00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:31.079 fatherless. He became the orphan. He cried out, my God, my God, why have you 00:26:31.079 --> 00:26:35.199 forsaken me? And God did not respond to him. He became the fatherless one on the 00:26:35.199 --> 00:26:39.199 cross. He became the ultimate orphan. And you see what he's saying is that if you 00:26:39.199 --> 00:26:43.480 want to become a true servant, a true deacon, which not only the officer 00:26:43.480 --> 00:26:46.679 deacons are called to be, but every single person in the church, you have to 00:26:46.679 --> 00:26:51.759 turn to the fundamental power of the cross to the man, the ultimate deacon, who 00:26:51.759 --> 00:26:55.519 lost his father in heaven so that he could come and get you the fatherless, 00:26:55.519 --> 00:27:00.920 the orphan, the widow to be able to marry the bridegroom. You see, in other words, 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:07.639 the cross, the cross is the ground of the diaconate. If you want to know what it 00:27:07.639 --> 00:27:12.440 means to be a deacon, you turn your face to Jerusalem and you look at the man of 00:27:12.440 --> 00:27:17.839 power hanging there, the fatherless himself. That's where the change, the 00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:22.200 love, the reconstitution of your heart comes from to be able to create a 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:27.480 community like this. And it's a community that we are all called to be a part of. 00:27:27.480 --> 00:27:32.759 All of us are called to be lowercase deacons, serving under the uppercase 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:38.720 deacons, the office. All right, we're out of time. Let me just say this, I have four 00:27:38.720 --> 00:27:43.840 brief practical things about how to get started in advance in this ministry of 00:27:43.840 --> 00:27:49.279 service, but let me just close with this and we can do those another time. The 00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:52.720 ministry of service, the ministry of mercy that we're being talked about here, 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:57.799 that's for both inside the church and outside the church, neighbor love, neighbor 00:27:57.799 --> 00:28:02.000 love that extends all the way down to your enemies. It's not just for the 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:06.319 benefit of the people that are being served, the destitute, the people in our 00:28:06.319 --> 00:28:10.759 congregation even that have deep needs that only maybe a few know about. It's 00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:17.480 not just for them. It's a means of grace. The book of Acts makes very clear 00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:21.120 that this is a means of grace and what happens in a means of grace? A means of 00:28:21.120 --> 00:28:27.200 grace is something that God has given us that changes us. And so prayer is a 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:30.279 means of grace. When you go to pray to God, one of the beautiful things about 00:28:30.279 --> 00:28:35.240 prayer is that it's not only glorifying God to pray, but prayer actually changes 00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:40.240 you because every day if you start your day with prayer, it re-orients your 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.799 entire view of the world, of the cosmos, of the universe. It's you pronouncing to 00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:49.440 God in the morning time, this world is not mine. I'm re-oriented. I once again 00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:54.839 called back to see that this world is God's. It's a re-orientation you see to 00:28:54.839 --> 00:29:01.200 your calling. When you serve and love people who are in destitute circumstances, 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:05.639 the ministry of service that we're being called to here, the exact same thing 00:29:05.639 --> 00:29:09.960 takes place. You see because what for a moment in that act of service what 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:14.440 happens is, is you have to leave yourself. You have to actually leave your own 00:29:14.440 --> 00:29:19.279 problems and you enter into problems that are probably and typically much 00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:24.880 deeper, much more serious in grave and for that moment you become self-forgetful 00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:29.519 and the means of grace are there to make us self-forgetful people and 00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:35.600 self-forgetfulness is the key to happiness. If you want to have happiness 00:29:35.600 --> 00:29:41.519 and joy believing in Christ and becoming self-forgetful like he was, the man of 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:50.879 power broken on the cross, that's the call to be a deacon. Let's pray. Father we, 00:29:50.879 --> 00:29:55.119 we don't serve and love each other the way that we've been called to from the 00:29:55.119 --> 00:30:01.639 text and so we ask Lord that you would help us to have a deep agape, a love for 00:30:01.639 --> 00:30:06.319 one another, that you were created in our hearts and that we would look to the man 00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:14.599 of power broken on the cross for us to give us such desire and such ability. 00:30:14.599 --> 00:30:37.079 I'm gonna pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.