So we're looking at Acts chapter
6 and we're looking at foundations and there's another foundation
laid here in Acts chapter 6 and I think it is just a beautiful
picture of how the church was to function in practical matters. and how the apostles handled
this first issue. Obviously there was an issue
with Ananias and Sapphira within the church and their hypocrisy
was something that was not exposed by men, it was exposed by God
Himself and He summarily dealt with them. But here in Acts chapter
6 we have something that had been brewing within the group
of believers, genuine believers. Let's read these first opening
seven verses here. And in those days, when the number
of disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the
Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected
in the daily ministration. Then the Twelve called the multitude
of disciples under them and said, It is not right that we should
leave the Word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren,
look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the
Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom ye may appoint over this business,
that we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry
of the Word. And the saying pleased the whole
multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the
Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Procurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas,
and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before
the apostles. And when they had prayed, they
laid their hands upon them, and the Word of God increased, and
the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great
number of priests were obedient to the faith." This is, of course,
that remarkable event that birthed that office in the church, the
office of the deacon, and we'll look a little bit more at that
later on, but I just want to look at the way the Holy Spirit
led the early church to to deal with this particular issue. So
secret grumblings buzz away until they're heard, someone said,
and it's secret grumblings. These grumblings and rumours
and other things have been going on, and so often they're about
just one issue. It's not fair. It's not fair. It is just a fleshly response. But there was a real issue and
the apostles dealt with it. There is going to be amongst
the church always the poor. There will be the spiritually
poor. There will be the spiritually afflicted. But there will be
the reality of the poor people amongst the children of God,
and the response of the apostles here is just, I find it delightfully
encouraging. I find it wonderful how God watches
over His church. There will be. I love what Zephaniah
says. 3.12 says, I will also leave
in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people. It's referring
to spiritual affliction and poverty, but there is a real sense of
it being temporal as well. And they shall trust in the name
of the Lord. So this is not an action of believers
and unbelievers here. This is just people being caught
up with the activities of their flesh. So back to verse 1. In those days there was a great
number of disciples multiplied. The church may now have grown
to 10,000 in number in Jerusalem, some commentators say. And it
may well have been the case. All we read in Acts is that it
kept multiplying and multiplying. And it grew from those amazing
numbers that we read of after those first two sermons. And
there arose a murmuring, a muttering of the Grecian Jews against the
Hebrews, because the Grecian Jews' widows were neglected in
the daily ministration. Now the first thing to note here,
it is not the widows who do the murmuring. It is not widows who
are murmuring here. There was a murmuring because
of the unfair distribution. So let's not pick on the women
at this stage or ever, Lord help us. And so there were Grecian
Jews. There were two groups in the
Jewish in that early church, wasn't it? There were the Jews
from outside of Palestine, like Barnabas was from Cyprus. And
like all of these seven deacons named here are all men who bear
Greek names, not Hebrew names. And there were the Jewish Christians
from Jerusalem and Palestine. So one not spoke Greek, And the
other lot spoke Aramaic, and that's one of the remarkable
gifts of the Holy Spirit in those days, is that there was this
ability to speak in tongues, there was this ability given
by God to this early church for there to be clear communication
of the Gospel, no matter what language was your mother tongue. So these ones thought, and they
were neglected, they were neglected. There was this distribution and
because the others were probably seen to have come from outside,
it was more likely that the number of Hebrew Jews, Hebrew Christians,
the Aramaic speaking ones, was greater than the others and therefore
it is easy to overlook them when you care for your own amongst
them. It is another sign, isn't it,
that the Church has to deal with the realities of us living in
this flesh. All the way through Acts we had
seen up to this point that they were of one accord, weren't they?
They continued in verse 114, in one accord in prayer and supplication. They were all with one accord
in one place on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 verse 1. In
2.46, they continued daily with one accord in the temple, breaking
bread from house to house, and he'd eat their meat with gladness
and singleness of heart. In verse 24 of chapter 4, they
lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and they declared
the greatness of our God, which made heaven and earth and the
sea and all that is in them. And in Acts 5.12 we saw that
they were with one accord in Solomon's porch. They had been
this church of one in heart and mind and one in purpose, hadn't
they? They'd shared their lives, they'd
shared everything they had. But when they grew in numbers,
there became a pressure on that, isn't it? And so often we think
that it would be lovely to have more people in our church and
the Lord, I pray, will bring more and more along. But we need
to be wise about the fact that more people will bring more sinners
together. And when sinners rub shoulders
against other sinners, there will be issues of the flesh.
May it be something that the Lord works in the hearts of us
to actually look beyond all of this murmuring and look beyond
the things of our flesh and look upon our brothers and sisters
and to forgive them as the Lord has forgiven us and to put aside
the desires of our flesh and even the right and righteous
desires for our rights, as it were, that the rights of the
Lord Jesus Christ would be seen more and more clearly. It is
a difficult thing and it's a sad thing that strife just happens. He that loveth transgression
loveth strife, and he that exalteth his gates seeketh destruction.
Verse Proverbs 26, 21 says, As coals are to burning coals and
wood to fire, so is a contentious man to kindle strife. But strife ultimately comes,
as Proverbs 28, 25 says, comes from a proud heart stirreth up
strife. And he that putteth his trust
in the Lord shall be made fat. There is, there is just the reality
that there will be problems. There will be problems in the
Church, problems to be faced, problems to deal with, problems
to overcome. And the one lesson of course
is that no matter what the problems are in the Church, never forsake
the Church, because the problems will be solved in the Church
by way of the Gospel being proclaimed, and difficult situations difficult
situations between people are placed there for there to be
an opportunity for God to reveal himself in grace and mercy, to
overcome and to leave his people reminded that through the darkness
of the valley and the difficult times, it's where the rich The
rich produce grows in the valleys, doesn't it? The rich produce
of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness grows in the valleys. Mountaintop experiences are nice,
but mountaintops, the air is thin and there's not a whole
lot grows on the mountaintops. God knows that His people need
both. But the solution here is a wonderful
solution, isn't it? I just love the way the apostles
acted here. Then the Twelve, the Apostles,
called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, that multitude
might include the whole church, although it was difficult to
find in Jerusalem a place for the whole church to gather. It
might have been the 120, and it may have well been leaders
and others who were interested from all those congregations. We'll see that there were various
congregations in Jerusalem in time to come. They called the
multitude together. I love how the elders do it.
They actually want to remind the folks, remind the people
of the Church, it's not right. It's not right that we should
leave the Word of God and serve tables. It's not right. It's not right for the ministry
of the Word to be hindered by the things of this world. It
is the responsibility of the Church to care for those in that
place of responsibility in such a way that their work in labouring in the word of God
is not hindered. I love the fact of the way that
the Lord has provided in our church in remarkable ways. As
my dear wife would tell you, I hate doing book work and administrative
stuff and anything to do with money whatsoever. And yet in
our church, Cole and Merrin take care of all that, so I don't
have to give a care about it ever. And I love the fact that
Cole can come to our church and give a 30-second report once
a year, and all of our ministry stuff is dealt with. And the
work is done in such a way that we can say to anyone who wants
to question our church about its financial dealings, they
can. The books are open for all the
world to see. And I don't have to care about
them. And it's wonderful that NORM has a website and there
are people around the world who listen to our messages and follow
things that go on here. And I don't have to know about
it. I don't have to know about how to turn it on. I don't have
to know about how to do anything on it. Because NORM does it all. It is just remarkable, isn't
it? Again and again, the things that we do, Simon and Jen do
the bulletin, so much of that is just a labour that I don't
have time to do in all the other things I'm doing. I'm just so
thankful that wherever there's been a need, the Lord has raised
up and provided. We need people. It's important
for the church to have people that go and visit people. And
others do. It is just wonderful. We are
a small flock, but wherever the Lord has raised up the church,
He's raised it up in such a way that there is nothing lacking,
brothers and sisters. Because His work is perfect,
always. But I love the humility of the
elders and I love the faithfulness of the elders. Do you see what
they did? They say in verse 6 verse 3,
Therefore brethren, wherefore brethren, look ye out among you. So they could have very easily
just lauded it over the church, couldn't they? But they actually
put the responsibility for selecting these people into the hands of
the church. I love how 1 Peter 5, I'll just
read it to you, describes the work of an elder. The elders
which are among you exhort, who am also an elder and a witness
of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory
that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which is among
you. That was the Lord's admonition,
wasn't it, an encouragement to Peter. You feed the sheep. No, he didn't say that. He said,
you feed my sheep. The sheep belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ. You feed my sheep. You feed my lambs. They belong
to Him. Feed the flock of God. The flock belongs to God. They
are His in eternity. He gave them into the hands of
His Son. The Lord Jesus Christ owns them
as His own, as His dear, dear, dearly beloved bride, and He
died for them, He lived for them, He died for them, and He reigns
for them. They are His, the flock of God which is among you, and
taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint. They don't
do this. This work of the elder is not
done by constraint. They've done willingly, because
God makes His servants willing on the day of His power, and
God makes them and provides for them. Not for filthy lucre, not
for money, but of a ready mind, neither, and listen to this,
neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples,
examples to the flock. So that's what these apostles
did here, didn't they? They say, they trusted the Lord,
they trusted the Holy Spirit, they trusted the fact that this
church is growing with the growth which is from God. They trusted
that into the hands of the church. But there is a reward, isn't
there, in chapter 5, verse 4 of 1 Peter, when the chief shepherd
shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth
not away. So therefore, brethren, look
ye out among you seven men of honest report. So there are three
qualifications laid out here for the deacons, aren't there,
these first seven deacons. Men of honest report, full of
the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint. You find them
and you bring them to us and we will appoint them over this
business. Men of honest report, Honest report means to bear witness
to. They are people who bear witness
faithfully initially, and most importantly, they bear witness
faithfully to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, these honest
men. It also means that they're dependable. They're honest. They
have a reputation for honesty. They have a reputation for integrity. And that reputation is both in
the church and in the community. And that reputation brings a
lie to those who will accuse them, because every accusation
made against them in terms of their morality, their outward
morality, will be wrong. Honest men, full of the Holy
Ghost. If there is going to be a problem
solved, and there's a spiritual solution to it, you need men
who are full of the Holy Ghost. Those who have been born again,
Those who make, it's obvious, it's manifest by the proclamations
that they make and the work of God in their hearts that they
are men of faith, men who simply believe God and men who walk
in Him and walk with Him and walk in such a way that people
can see by the character of their lives and their profession. And
men endowed with wisdom. There is a wisdom of this world,
isn't there? But there is a wisdom which is
from above. There is that wisdom which is
God's wisdom. It doesn't mean that you have
to be intelligent to have wisdom. You don't have to have university
education to be wise, you don't have to have things of this world,
you don't have the esteem of men to be wise. The wisdom of
God is the wisdom that clings to the Lord Jesus, that wisdom
that looks to Him. James speaks of it, isn't it?
The wisdom from the earth is earthy, sensual and devilish,
James 3.15. For where there is envying and
strife, there is confusion and every evil work. But, James 3.17,
the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable,
gentle, easy to be entreated. I love that picture of wisdom,
isn't it? that people who are wise are teachable. People who are wise will be taught
by God, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, without
hypocrisy. What a great description of wisdom.
How different is that from the wisdom of this world? And the
fruit of righteousness is someone in peace of them that make peace. This is the qualifications. These
are the qualifications listed by the apostles of these men.
I'll just briefly touch on these other qualifications. We'll have
time later on in Acts to look at them in more detail. But there
is, in 2 Timothy 3, verses 8 to 12, there are eight additional
characteristics which are in some ways racked up in these
three. It says, they are likewise Deacons
must be grave. That means to be sober minded.
That means that they take the things that are serious, they
take them seriously. They take the things of God and
the Gospel and His witness in this world, they take those things
seriously. They are not double-tongued.
They are a man whose word is his bond. Someone who can be
trusted. not double-tongued about the
Gospel, not speaking a yay and nay Gospel, not giving a cent
to things that are yay and nay. Not given to much wine. That
doesn't mean that they don't have a glass of wine occasionally.
It just means that they're not given to it, not given to drunkenness,
not given to needing wine when the Lord provides the wine of
His Gospel and His grace in their lives. Not greedy for theophany
lucre. not chasing after money, not
chasing after the things of this world, holding the mystery of
the faith in a pure conscience. It means that they just hold
the truth of God with simplicity and purity. It doesn't necessarily
mean that they have to be teachers, but they just hold faithfully
to the witness. They just hold on to the witness
of God. There were two in this list that
we'll see in a minute who were preachers and did wonderful and
remarkable deeds. They also Let these also first be proved. They weren't to be novices. They
were to have had a testimony that was substantial, such that
they weren't just going to be swept away in that early, early
excitement of Christian things that so often causes people to
run before they are sent. Their wives also must be faithful
women. must be grave, not slanderous,
sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husband
of one wife, they are to be polygamous, ruling their children and their
houses well." These are the deacons, men, of honest report, full of the
Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we shall appoint. But we will give,
verse 4, we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to
the ministry of the Word." They'll give themselves continually.
It's remarkable, isn't it, when you think back on the life of
the Lord Jesus Christ, how much time He who is God in human flesh
spent in prayer. He took himself away from the
busyness of this world and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed. He took himself away early in
the morning. He spent the whole night at times in prayer. If he needed to spend time in
prayer and found it precious and valuable, how much more should
he serve us? Prayer is a privilege of God's
people. It is a glorious privilege to
be able to lay our lives out before God and speak to Him. And we have the remarkable privilege
in the Lord Jesus Christ of coming to the throne of grace in time
of need. I don't know about you brothers
and sisters, I've never been out of a time of need. That we
might find grace, we might find mercy and receive help in time
of need. And how much needful is it for
the flock of God to have praying people? I covet the prayers of
God's people for us wherever they might be all over the world. I covet their prayers. I trust
the Lord would make you a praying person. Just simply pray. Set time aside. You feed the flock of God. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
The ministry of the Word for them was to proclaim the Gospel and
all they had was the Old Testament. They were laboring in the Old
Testament Scriptures and they were mining that Old Testament
Scriptures to find again and again and again pictures of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I often think how amazingly exciting
it must have been for those Jews if someone like Paul to turn
to those scriptures and see that they're all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. The pages would have been a light
for him. He would have just been so excited.
That's another picture of him. That's another picture of him.
Everywhere he looked, he would have seen the Lord Jesus Christ.
And yet these men were labouring. They were labouring. It was something
that consumed their time with all of the remarkable gifts that
they had and those remarkable sermons that we read about. Remember,
they didn't just come. They didn't come just on a whim
and they didn't just come out of the air. They came to these
men because they laboured. It is a wonderful labour. and
they aren't. They don't want to be given over
to the things of this world when God has called upon them to labour.
I love the picture of Nehemiah. You might remember in our journey
through Nehemiah, Nehemiah was building the wall and these people
came in Nehemiah chapter 6. They came and they continually
wanted him to come down and they were continually harassing him
in the building of the wall, in that wall that represents
the Lord Jesus Christ and his church and that garden enclosed.
And they kept saying, come down, come down and meet us, Sanbalat
and Gesham. Come down, let us meet together
in one of the villages on the plain of Ono. Let's come down
and have a meeting with us in some place of compromise. And
then Nehemiah in Nehemiah 6.3 said, I sent messengers unto
them saying, I'm doing a great work so that I cannot come down. I'm doing a great work. That's the work of the ministry,
isn't it? That's what these men were doing. I cannot come down. Why should the work cease whilst
I leave it and come down to me? And they persisted with him.
But Nehemiah, four times they came to him and said, come on
down, come on down. And Nehemiah stood on that wall with his troops,
a spear in one hand and a trowel in the other, as they lay there
building the wall of God. And they weren't to come down.
Verse 5. Verse 5, And the saying pleased
the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of
faith, and the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor,
and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas across the light for
Antioch. It's just interesting isn't it,
it's wonderful how in the Church of God all of the strategies
of Satan are undone. So here was a stirring and a
murmuring that came from the flesh of men incited by Satan
and the end result. The end result was that the Word
of God increased and the people of God were drawn closer together. When there are troubles, brothers
and sisters, it is an opportunity for God to reveal Himself and
it's an opportunity for His people to see again His faithfulness. And so at the beginning of this
which looked like trouble, now these men are raised up and this
office in the church is raised up. And we know that it's an
office in the church because as we read in other passages
it's reaffirmed throughout the rest of the New Testament. So
this was unlike the choosing of Matthias which has no confirmation
in the rest of the New Testament because Paul was the 12th apostle.
But it's interesting, isn't it, that the men chose, all of the
congregation chose, the murmuring was between the Aramaic speaking
and the Greek speaking Jews, and yet this congregation, this
multitude that were gathered there, they choose every single
one of them to sort this out as one who has a Greek name. So the problem is sold so often,
isn't it, by those who might, by numbers and position, have
authority giving way to those who are less well treated. There wasn't one. What wisdom,
what extraordinary wisdom, what great gift of God the Holy Spirit
to so ordain things in that church, to bring that peace, And it seems
as if these happen, we don't read of this ever again in that
early church. It's the Greek, the Hellenists,
the Greeks who are taken and chosen to care for the widows
of the Greeks. We'll look more at our friend
Stephen. Stephen's a man full of faith
in the Holy Spirit. And Nicholas, one of them, is
a proselyte from Antioch, which means that he wasn't born a Jew,
but he'd come with the Jews to the Greek world. He's one who
has come and was there, no doubt, on the day of Pentecost, and
was remarkably saved by the preaching, in his own language, of the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. and their role was to serve tables,
whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed they
laid their hands on them." There was in those days the apostles,
there was the laying on of the hands which was the bestowing
of particular gift in a sense, but also it's giving apostolic
affirmation to the fact that these men were chosen by the
people chosen by God, approved by the Holy Spirit, approved
by the apostles. So these apostolic gifts are
no longer necessary. There is this nonsense these
days of people laying on hands all the time. And I remember
what Spurgeon said if someone wanted him to lay his hands on
them. Spurgeon said, what on earth could the good come of
me laying my empty hands on your empty head? What good can it
do? What good can it do? But the
laying on the hands of the apostles as Paul laid his hands on Timothy
was something of significance in those early days. God's people
now have everything that is needed for life and Godliness. And this is the result. This
is the result isn't it? The Sadducees, those rulers,
that group from whom the priests came, those Sadducees in Acts
chapter 5, had done everything they could to try and silence
the Word of God, to lock the people up, to flog the apostles. They rose up and they took counsel
together to slay them. But here, the end result, isn't
it? It's remarkable. The Word of
God, Acts 6 verse 7, the Word of God increased. What a lovely
description of the Gospel. See, where the Gospel goes and
the people of God grow, it is all because of the Word of God.
Which is why in our fellowship, if the Lord would allow us, we
want the Word of God to be primary in everything we do. When we
sing, we want to sing what is the Word of God. When we read
our bulletin, we want our bulletin to be faithfully expounding the
Word of God. When we come and speak and people
speak here, we want them simply to speak the Word of God. I want
to hear the shepherd's voice. I want to hear the shepherd's
voice and I need to hear it over and over and over again. and
I don't ever want to get tired of it. I just want to hear the
shepherd's voice. When our friends come from overseas
or around here, we want to hear the shepherd's voice. We want
to hear the shepherd's voice. We have this little sign on our
pulpit that's been there for some considerable time. Sir,
we wish to see Jesus. So we wish to see Jesus. I trust it's what the Lord will
enable us to continue to do. The Word of God, the Gospel,
the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the declaration of who
He is and what He's done, that all that God requires of us is
in the Lord Jesus Christ. All of what I need to look to
God and to live in relationship with Him is all His and all provided
perfectly by Him. God the Father is pleased with
His Son. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased." God the Father is well pleased with him. God's
children are well pleased with him and don't have to look to
anything in themselves or of themselves because God the Father
looks to things that are well pleasing to him. And he sees
his people as one with his dear son. and he loves them as he
loves his son, and he cares for them as he cares for his son,
and he's jealous. He's jealous to his reputation
in this world, far more jealous and far more zealous than we
can possibly imagine, brothers and sisters. The Word of God
increased and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. This church has grown and grown
and grown. And there is, at the end of our
passage, this statement, isn't there? And a great company of
the priests were obedient to the faith. A great company of
priests. The Sadducees were losing multitudes
from their very number. how it must have caused them
grief. The priests were generally, the
Sadducees were the company that provided the priests. The priests
were men. To be a priest you had to be
30 years of age. These people were not novices
in the Jewish religion. To be a priest and to deny and
to turn away from all of that ceremony and all of that prestige
and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ would have been an extraordinary
thing in Jerusalem. an extraordinary testimony to
the power of the Gospel, an extraordinary testimony to the faithfulness
of God to his people. These people, these priests,
would have suffered more than many, many others in turning
from it. Their esteem amongst all of their
fellows, and it was a family thing, so their esteem amongst
their family would have been shattered. They would have suffered
from every Jew except the believing Jews every time they met. They would have been considered
traitors to the cause. And they are traitors who went
to the temple daily to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ. It is
remarkable, isn't it? Satan's house, all of his possessions,
he's had them under lock and key. He got possession of them
in the garden and he's had them under lock and key. And then
the stronger man comes and he binds the strong man. And that's
what our Lord Jesus Christ is doing, isn't he? He's just robbing
Satan. He's robbing him all the time. He's saying, they are mine and
I'll have them. My people will be made willing
in the day of my power. They are those people. who have
come to the true altar. They've come to see what all
of that temple, all of that sacrificial system was all about, that it
was all about Him. He was the light. He was the
showbread. He was the mercy seat. He was
the one who tore that huge curtain in half to reveal the emptiness
of Jewish religion. He is the altar. He is the altar. He is God Himself. I love what
Hebrews 10 says, we have an altar. The children of God have an altar,
that altar of that perfect sacrifice before Him that takes away all
of the sins of all of God's people. And God sees no sin in them.
Legally and righteously and justly, He doesn't see any sin in them.
We have an altar. Whereof they have no right to
eat." Not only do we have an altar, but we can eat at this
altar. We can feast at this altar. They
have no right to eat which serves the tabernacle. The priests,
the turning of the priests, a great number of priests to the gospel,
obedience to the faith. It's a lovely description, isn't
it? God make us obedient to the faith, to look to Him who is
the faithful one, and trust Him for everything. Let's pray.