Called to Serve: What Deacons Do

Introduction

Read Acts 6:1-7 “In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, there arose a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. The Twelve summoned the whole company of the disciples and said, “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” This proposal pleased the whole company. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a convert from Antioch. They had them stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread, the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.”

I. The Situation – The Church needs help

a. The Church Was Growing – blessings and dilemmas

i. The Church was rapidly growing and was multi-ethnic (Hellenistic Jews (Jews who had just recently come back from being dispersed throughout the Greek empire) and Hebrews (Jews who had been in Israel for generations)).

ii. The physical needs of many widows were being overlooked

iii. Unity in the church was being threatened as one group felt overlooked by another

b. The Apostles’ Response

i. Many would have thought that it would be the Apostles’ responsibility to make sure everyone’s physical needs were met

ii. There is a limit to how much each person can do.

iii. As the church grew, so too the need for more help grew

iv. While the Apostles did care for the physical needs of the believers and members of the church, their greatest concern was for the spiritual health of their members

v. They knew that if they tried to do all the work themselves, then the thing people needed most, God’s Word and prayer, would be the first thing neglected.

vi. This does not mean that the Apostles or pastors should not be involved with the ministry of meeting the physical needs of their members. But they need to prioritize what is truly important.

vii. Deuteronomy 8:3

viii. Matt 4:4 “He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.””

Jesus demonstrated care for people’s physical needs. He healed them, made the deaf to hear and the lame to walk. He even brought the dead back to life. He fed the multitudes. But ultimately His priority was to reconcile people to a right relationship with God and there came a point where He would stop with the signs and call people to a commitment as to whether they would believe in Him as the Son of God or if they would simply follow Him for what He could do for them.

In John 6, following his feeding of the multitude, he begins to tell people that His real mission isn’t to give them physical food, but to give them bread from heaven, which is Himself and that if we are truly going to follow Him then it should be Christ we are pursuing, not our physical needs. So the Apostles want to be sure they are truly feeding people what they need by giving them Christ through God’s Word.

However, they also know that the physical needs of people were still vitally important and should not be neglected, especially in the case of the widows who did not have others who could care for them. So they had some choices to make

They could try to do it all themselves

By doing this, they would take away time from praying for their flock and spending time in preparation in God’s Word

By doing this, they could also increase their image and make people happy with them for performing this great service

Their pride would grow by keeping the work of ministry to themselves, but by doing this, the church would become dependent upon them rather than upon God.

They could burn themselves out trying to meet all the needs of all the people, in essence trying to do what only God Himself can do

The work of ministry would never be passed on to others

They could delegate some of the ministry responsibilities to others.

They could maintain the proper priority of making sure everyone was being spiritually fed and getting the food that we truly need to live on

They could still find ways to provide and meet the physical needs of others

The administration of the church could be completed

More people can be trained and equipped for the work of ministry

The Church would continue to grow in spiritual health and unity

II. The Solution – Deacons Called to Serve

The solution the Apostles came up with was for the people to choose from among themselves those who could serve and make sure the administrative and physical ministry needs of the church was being met.

These would not just be any man, however. The Apostles gave guidelines as to who should be chosen.

Attributes:

They should have good reputations

Filled with the Holy Spirit

Filled with wisdom

This is a short list that will later be expanded on by Paul, who will give a list of qualities and attributes that all church leaders, Deacons and Pastors, should have as they lead the church God has entrusted to them. We will explore those in a little more detail next week.

However, it should be noted that these are men who have spiritual maturity and have grown in their faith. If they are going to be helpers for the Apostles and pastors in the task of leading the church, then it is important to make sure they are leading others where they themselves are going. If they are not following Christ, then they will not be leading the church where it needs to go. So they must be men who are committed to following Christ and who have a reputation of good character even among unbelievers, for the deacons and pastors are the visible image of the church to its surrounding community.

But what we want to focus on today is, what are these men being called to do.

In our American culture, we have tended to impose upon the church our own images of businesses and corporations. The church is definitely an organization. And many people rebel against that idea. We are entering into a time when we are distrustful of organizations. But an organization is simply a group of people that are ordered and organized in a specific way. The church cannot exist without organization and be what Christ wants us to be because He is a God of order, not individualistic chaos. So there is order to our leadership and how we perform certain duties. And yet, we mistakenly view this organization like we do a corporate business.

We view the Pastor as a kind of CEO who is sitting at the top calling all the shots for the church. And the deacons we view as a board of directors that the pastor is having to keep happy if he wants to keep his job. And sure, there are probably many churches that even operate with this kind of philosophy. But this isn’t what either the pastor or the deacons are called to do. They are called to lead, but in a different sort of way.

Which leads us to the actual word for Deacon. The Greek word for where we get our word Deacon is Diaconos. It literally means to serve. As we see here in this Acts 6 passage, these first seven men were called upon to help with the administration of the church by serving the widows, to make sure they were receiving what they needed for their physical needs. Again, when you look at the similarities between the qualifications between Pastors and Deacons in 1 Timothy 3, which we will look at next week, we will see that both Pastors and Deacons are called to be servants, just in slightly different ways. There is also a sense in which neither one acts as a boss or supervisor to the other but rather they are co-laborers working together to accomplish the mission of the church.

These first deacons are being called to wait on tables. They are being called as waiters, in a manner of speaking. This same word for Deacon is also used by Jesus in Matthew 20:25-28 “Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

In this passage, Jesus is addressing even the misconceptions that we have about church leadership with his own disciples. Jesus tells them, if you want to become great, you must become a servant or a diaconos. And then Jesus goes on to say that He did not come to be served (deaconed) same word here, but to serve (to deacon). Jesus, even as God came to fill the roll of a deacon.

So there is great honor in this roll, but not in the way one would expect. It is an office, but not one that should be highly looked upon by human standards, but one that is held by those willing to give up rights to themselves in order to meet the needs of others. There is great honor in this roll, because of the honor and value Christ places in this role.

But if it is properly carried out there is not going to be a lot of earthly glory in this position, same as the role of pastor, who is also a deacon as he serves the spiritual and emotional needs of the flock. They are working together as co-laborers, giving of themselves for the good of the church. The honor comes when, as Jesus says in Matt 25:23 ““His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! or as Paul would say in 1 Tim 3:13 “For those who have served well as deacons acquire a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

This is the role of the deacon the Bible gives to us and it is the role that our deacons and our Yokefellows have been called to. And I will say that in my short time here, FBC is blessed to have some great deacons here as they love and serve our church and want to see it flourish. I am blessed to be able to serve alongside these men and to get to call them friends.

III. The Example – How Deacons Lead and Who Deacons Portray

A. Deacons lead by being an example to the church

As servants of the church, the Deacons are living examples of what Jesus meant when he commanded His disciples to love one another. When the church and the outside world sees the deacons of the church fulfilling their calling, they see a living example of what it means to live as the church and to love and serve one another.

By being this example then, the deacons can teach all of us how to live in unity and service to one another. They aren’t meant to simply take on all the service of the church, but as our example, they are also encouraging and teaching all of us what it means to serve one another. By their example, the rest of us can learn and take our place at their side as we all find ways to use our own unique gifts God has given to us to use in service to the body of Christ.

Therefore, those who hold the official office of deacon are the visible leaders of the church, but they are not meant to be the sole servants of the church, but through their ministry, other believers of the church can be equipped and trained to serve.

If Christ was teaching His disciples that the life of a believer was to serve rather than to be served, then it really is every believer’s calling to be a deacon, whether we hold the official title of deacon or not. While we only ordain men to hold the office of deacon, our church should be filled with deacons of men and women as we grow and mature in our walk with Christ. We are all meant to take our place as one who takes up our cross daily, to follow Christ, and to serve the church.

B. Deacons lead by displaying Christ and the Gospel

Not only do deacons lead by being an example to the flock, they also lead by what they portray in their service to the church. While hopefully the gospel is being preached every week from the pulpit, the gospel should be lived and demonstrated every day through the ministry of the pastors and deacons of the church.

As the deacons fulfill their calling to be servants of the church, we are getting to see the gospel lived out. What is the gospel?

Phil 2:1-6 “If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.”

Phil 2:7-11 “Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

While only Jesus can die and take your sins away, we can still demonstrate the gospel in our lives by how we humble ourselves and serve one another. So when Deacons fulfill their role and calling to serve the church, we are seeing a living example of what Jesus has done for us. We are being reminded once again the love Christ has for us and how He served us as He took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross, in order to meet our greatest need, the need for salvation and to be made right with God.

The deacons then really put flesh on the preaching of the gospel as they live out what Christ came to do for us, that He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. And as we learn and follow in the footsteps of our deacons, we too begin to live out a visible representation of the gospel. And as the gospel is both preached and lived out in the life of our church, we will see God begin to turn the hearts of others towards Himself. It may or may not be rapid and it may or may not be a lot based upon our human standards, but God will use our faith and obedience to Him to convict and lead others to a knowledge of His love for them in Christ.

Conclusion