In this sermon, Jason Dohm explores the functions and roles of deacons in a local church, drawing from Acts chapter 6 and 1st Timothy chapter 3. He emphasizes that deacons are essential for managing sensitive matters of care within the church, allowing elders to focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word without distraction. Deacons should be men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, as they handle church resources and care for the most vulnerable members, such as widows. Their role is not to act as an executive board or a maintenance crew but to provide essential services that complement the work of the elders. The sermon also discusses the potential pitfalls of deacons who take on too much, stressing the need for shared responsibility within the congregation. Ultimately, deacons help to enhance the elder ministry by freeing them from urgent care tasks, allowing them to concentrate on spiritual leadership.

So this afternoon we're talking about the functions and roles of deacons. Why are we doing that? Well we have two deacons that we love, Jim and Josh, and you can never have too many good deacons. And so we're really starting off the process by teaching on the roles and functions of deacons this week and then in a few weeks we'll be teaching on the qualifications of deacons from 1st Timothy chapter 3 gives you a list of what your deacons must be like and it says you should test them against these standards to see that they are like that and if they are then you should put them into service in the church. Maybe in your past you know of deacons as an executive board that hires and fires pastors.

That in a normal, quote unquote, air quotes, normal Baptist Church. That's what deacons are. They'll hire the pastor and fire the pastor when they feel like they should. You might have come from a different tradition where they're a glorified building maintenance crew or a grounds crew. There that in many churches too.

Where do we get those ideas on one end of the spectrum all the way to the other end of the spectrum? I'm not sure. I know where we didn't get it from. We didn't get it from the New Testament. So this week we're going to look at probably what is the flagship passage for deacons in the New Testament, which is Acts chapter six.

Let's pray. God, thank you for the wisdom of your word. We're always in need of it. We're always thankful to have it. Thank you for the wisdom of how you've appointed your church to be served by differing gifts and functions.

And I pray that whatever we find in the New Testament, we would give ourselves to those practices and be satisfied in them, in Jesus' name, amen. Please turn your Bibles to Acts chapter six. Acts chapter six. In this, or by this chapter, the New Testament Church has been born and has grown from about 120 people to 3, 120 people. You can imagine what kind of a church like that, what kind of all the needs and problems a church like that has.

And we see some of those needs and problems being addressed in Acts chapter six. So it's really instructive. Be reading Acts chapter six, verses one through seven. Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the Daily Distribution. Then the Twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables.

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer into the ministry of the Word and saying, please the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Tymon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

And then in the rest of this chapter and chapter seven we really get the exploits of Stephen, one of these seven men who was appointed. And then in chapter eight we see Philip who is an evangelist and is also one of the seven evangelizing the Ethiopian eunuch and baptizing him. So you get a sense from chapter seven and chapter eight of kind of the quality and caliber of the men who have been appointed to take on this problem of uneven distribution to the widows in the church between the Hebrews and the Hellenists. One comment to start with, the word deacon never appears in this text, at least it doesn't if you don't understand Greek, which I don't understand Greek. But it's a different form of the Greek word does appear in this text.

In verse 2, it says, it's not desirable that we would leave the word of God and serve tables. The underlying word there is the same word in a different form for deacon. It's simply, The Greek word translated Deacon simply means servant. In verse 2 you could say it's not desirable that we would leave the word of God to Deacon tables. So the Greek word is actually there in a different form.

In Philippians chapter 1 verse 1, Paul greets the elders and deacons in the church. In 1st Timothy 3, it's very clear that a deacon is an office in the church. Qualifications for elders are laid out in 1st Timothy 3, immediately followed by qualifications for deacons. And Paul says these first must also be tested, meaning you should test against these qualifications before they serve as deacons. So what do we have in Acts chapter 6?

We have an important sensitive matter of care which needs immediate attention. So think about that. I've chosen the words carefully. An important, sensitive matter of care which needs immediate attention. It cannot be sat on.

The delay would not be good. You really sort of have a powder keg that is described here. People are already mad by the time there's involvement by the leaders in the church. And did you know That happens often in most or every local church. Important, sensitive matters of care happen in most or every local church often.

And if the leaders are pulled away by the urgency of those matters every time it happens then you'll not have anyone who has a continual devotion to prayer in the ministry of the word because prayer in the ministry of the word can wait till tomorrow or can it so they're they're not urgent in nature meaning you can put it off till tomorrow, but then what if another urgent thing puts it off till tomorrow, and another urgent thing puts it off till tomorrow. This is really nature, the nature of life in a local church. There are important sensitive matters of care which are always arising. And so if you don't address it and point devoted resources to it, then you find that this other need in the local church, which is people praying for the matters of the church, the people in the church, and people giving careful attention to the ministry of the word in the church, then you find those things competing for resources. So what God does in Acts chapter 6, what he does in his New Testament church, is to create a system where these two very important things, care for people, but then also devotion to prayer in the ministry of the Word, don't compete for the same pool of resources.

He points church officers at each one of these. If you think about the specific instance in Acts chapter 6, it is really very sensitive. First of all, it has to do with resources. It's not cash, but it might as well be cash. It's the daily distribution of food which has been purchased.

So you're dealing with the church's resources and you need trustworthy people to be administrating and administering these resources and then it's to the most vulnerable women in the church, women who don't who no longer have husbands. It's the widows in the church. So these are not matters that you would turn over to just anyone. You would want to make sure that it's people with proven character. The text itself says men full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit who we can appoint to these matters.

God wants his local churches to have both a continuous devotion to prayer and to the Word and lavish care for his people and not to have attention to one steal from attention to the other. So this is this is why he sets up the system that he does set up. So these are separate but complementary ministries in a local church, both essential. So did you get that? Are you still tracking with me?

They're separate. They're not the same, but they're complementary. They fit together. Care for people and prayer and the ministry of the word have a close relationship to each other and so each of these important things gets a pool of its own resources so that one doesn't steal from another. When these two offices in the New Testament local church are functioning properly elders continuously devoted to prayer into the ministry of the Word in an unbroken way not even pulled away from that by urgent care matters in the church and then lavish care for the people in the church not stealing resources from each other.

God wants them to both really get lavish attention. So, are deacons authorities who hire and fire, not the New Testament church? The purpose for deacons is not to be a check and balance, So don't think of it as the legislative branch and the executive branch where they sort of keep each other in check. God actually provides plurality among elders for that purpose. And so these work together in harmony and complimentary roles.

It really is in a check and balance situation. Or is this a building maintenance and grounds crew that just gets sort of a fancy title to go with it? No. We all can take care of those other service things together, maybe under the administration of deacons. That's sort of how it works here.

There's lots of things in this church that happen on a week-to-week basis that you're doing, the deacons are administering, and I don't even know how it works. And that's good. It means that we can focus on the pastoral things. It's nice to be embarking on this from a position of strength. What do I mean by that?

I mean we've got good deacons and we've had good deacons as long as we've had them. James and I really can focus our attentions on shepherding matters, praying, and the ministry of the Word. And we're given that ability to focus on those things by the fact that we have deacons who understand exactly what deacons are and they are going about their work in ways that we're very, very thankful for. So they're not a building, maintenance, and grounds crew, and that's why they must be men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom you don't need that for the building maintenance crew you There might be men who fit that qualification who do Building maintenance and and and grounds, but you don't need that for those functions when you're distributing resources to widows you need men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom and by the way full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom you can track all that to 1st Timothy 3 and the qualifications there All of the qualifications in 1st Timothy 3 will line up under one of those characteristics full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom and we'll be talking about that next time.

Notice in Acts chapter 6, the leaders of the church in Jerusalem send the congregation away. They tell them, bring us men like this. You, like, we're not just going to say who ought to do this. You, Brethren, bring us men who fit this description. We need men who are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom who can set over these sensitive matters of care, bring us men like this.

They do bring them in like that and then they pray and lay their hands on them and put them into service. Here's a question. How can a local church supercharge its elder ministry? How can a church, how can a local church supercharge, like really speed forward, advance its elder ministry. The answer is deacons.

Might not be the only way, but it's one of the great ways is to give men who really have the bandwidth and focus to take on these urgent matters of care in the congregation and keep that from being an ongoing thing that pulls Elders Away from Prayer and the Ministry of the Word and Shepherding. This is a great book from a hero of mine. He's actually a living hero. I normally only like the dead guys, but this is an alive guy that I like. And it's Alexander Strouk.

He was the member of an elder team in Littleton, Colorado for 30 years and 30-some years and now he's still a part of that church and is writing great books on eldership and Deacons. This one is just an extra one. I want somebody to come and claim it after this. And if somebody claims it before you, I'll order you one. What I love about the Alexander Strout books is he spends the space on phrase by phrase exposition of New Testament texts.

So he is an experienced practitioner and he weaves his experience into it so that you get the benefit of it. But the primary point of his books is to take New Testament text like Acts chapter 6 and break them down phrase by phrase and say what's true and how it applies to us. So please somebody who's interested in deacons you don't have to be one you could be interested in the topic and come claim the book. And if you're second place or third place or fourth place, just tell me you want one and we'll get you one. Let me end with a caution and then I'll turn it over to James to just say whatever he wants to say and fill in gaps.

Here's my caution. A church's deacons can be too good. How is that possible for a church's deacons to be too good? Well you get these men who have a love for the church and they're high character men, they're high capacity men, we have deacons like that, and so they end up, they just do everything for everybody. You know, that can make a church really unhealthy.

We all need to be serving in the local church in in different ways and to have deacons who then just take on all the work of the church because they're high character, high capacity men and they do all that they can do that that's a real danger so so Jim Josh back off let the rest of us do something for a change no let me pray before I turn it over got a do I give you thanks for the deacons that you have given us. Deacons who understand exactly what they should be doing in our church and then who go about that work cheerfully. That is a blessing to our body and I thank you for it. God, I do pray that you would add to their number. Pray that you would make the work light by the adding of hands to it.

In Jesus name, Amen. I think I only have a few seconds here. One is start praying about this now. Don't wait for two, three weeks from now and we finish this up to start praying. Start praying about it now.

This, you, when it comes to elder nominations, that doesn't come from you. That comes from the elders, right? That's one of the stings here. So this this is very important role For elders right you'll examine when they come forward. There's very important role very important role for you But this is not that we can't nominate, but this is coming from you saying, hey, these are people that we're going to trust for these matters of sensitive care.

And we've seen it all over the place. These are going to be men that we want to trust this on. I want to leave here with the delegation part. Our deacons have always been here. They've always been this way on delegation.

Two parts. One is sometimes we have to push them to delegate. Sometimes we do because they are so good. They are so good. But that's part of our role as well in ministering to them to help them in their role.

But also though they are good delegators in getting people together. But they're also very good, this is what I'm appreciative of, of being intentional of what more can we be doing? What more can we be doing to take a load off the elders? That's part of it. When you're nominating somebody that has an eye, looking out for things that are going on, have an eye for the brethren, not for me and Jason, but for others that have this eye.

Start praying about it, that God would give you an eye for these people, that you start looking around the church a little bit different maybe than you have for the past few years, and you're looking around at the other men that are members, and that God would give you an eye of who to nominate and we'll go through that in a few weeks. That's all I have. One more thing I meant to say so I'll comment on his comments on my comments. But don't think of it in terms of career path. These are not junior elders.

They're different complementary ministries in a local church. I became an elder and served as an elder for a couple of years and then subsequent to that became a deacon and served as a deacon for a year and a half or something like that. And now I'm an elder again. That wasn't going backwards. I didn't get demoted, nor would someone who was a deacon who became an elder be being promoted.

That's not how this works. They're separate, complementary ministries in the church and a church needs both.