Thank you, Peter. Morning church. And good morning to those of you in the great room. Thank you for serving us by creating space up here.

And my name is Michael. I'm the lead pastor here at Christ the King Church. And It's been three weeks since Wade was here, and you can tell, right? There's just a renewed energy and vigor, and it is great to have your back, brother. Those who Gus and Eric who led in your absence did a wonderful job. But it's great to have you back, and you, just having you anchor the service in leading us through singing, so thank you.

And, you have a precious new daughter with you, too. But don't overwhelm her, don't overwhelm them. But admire from afar, as is appropriate but what an answer to prayer. We're kicking off a little series today, and I'm not quite sure how long it's going to be because there's some things in flux regarding the timing of, moving from here to the next building.

And so, there's a few things I want to be able to address, and we'll do it in this little series that I'm calling just Church Essentials. And today we're going to talk about deacons one of the offices of the church. And that is appropriate because at the end of the service, we will be appointing seven men to be deacons at our church.

And so, we're doing this series Lord willing, because we are moving to a new space soon and we expect to see new growth in our church. And so, we'll talk about essentials of church life at Christ the King, because all of you who are here now will be the ones who are setting culture for those who are going to be joining the church in the future.

And so, we're going to begin today with deacons and particularly answering the questions, what is their purpose and why the apostles instituted the office of deacon? How is this valuable for us as a church? That's what we're going to be talking about this morning. So, grab your Bible and dig in. We're going to go to Acts chapter six.

Acts chapter six is where we'll be today. We'll read seven verses and then we'll move forward. Acts chapter 6:1 says this. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Therefore, brothers pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

These they set before the apostles, and they prayed, and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. This is God's word.

The scripture recognizes two offices in the church that endure until Christ returns. Those two offices are elders and deacons, and they represent a division of labor in the church. Elders are tasked with overseeing the entire church and they have a particular focus on the spiritual life of the church, spiritual matters of doctrine and teaching and shepherding and leading the body and worship, those sorts of things.

Deacons attend to the physical or material interests of the church and they serve under the direction of the elders, and they have an authority delegated to them by the elders. So, what we just saw in the text that we read is the Apostles instituted an office, the office of deacon, to address this particular need of the church, the material or physical needs of the church.

So, let's go through this text again. And I want to begin with what was the first problem. So, this is the first problem, let me do that again. The first problem. Because there are two problems now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number. So, we have a growing church, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews.

So, the complaint was by the Hellenists. These are Greeks, Greek speakers, right? And it arose against the Hebrews. These are the Jews. What was the complaint? The complaint was because the Hellenist widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. This is the problem that arose in the early church. It was a growing church.

And so, the, there were practical ministry needs that seemed to be threatening the unity of the church because it wasn't merely some problem that arose. It was a problem between one group and another group. And they, the complaint was that this other group is getting favorable treatment, and our group is getting unfavorable treatment.

And so, in the early church, there was this they had a food distribution program, and then the administration of that program became a large burden as the church grew. And so, this division, this potential division was growing between the Greeks and the Jews or the Hellenists, otherwise known as the Greeks and the Jews, because their widows felt like they were being treated unfairly.

So, it's an administrative problem, right? It's a practical problem. This is not a matter of false teaching or wolves or bad doctrine. It is a matter of how do we meet a practical need in the church? And that is the main issue that they're dealing with here. Now, this is really important, and a lot of churches could stand to focus on this more or give greater heed to the needs, the practical needs in the church.

The fact of the matter is that practical problems in a church often lead to spiritual consequences and can disrupt unity. So, you don't necessarily need a doctrinal issue. to threaten the unity of the church. Oftentimes it can be a practical problem that can threaten the unity of the church. So, let's say something like this happens.

You're you visit or someone visits a church for the first time, and they know because they read the website that they are 100 percent doctrinally aligned with this church. So, no problems theologically. So, they come on a Sunday to visit the church. There's nobody at the door to greet them when they come in.

And once they come in, there's no signs that direct them about where to go. So, they're lost. And whenever they walk in, they notice that the building is dirty. The floors haven't been swept. There's trash laying around. It's cluttered. There's some of the light bulbs are out. And so, it's, it's not evenly lit and the, can be not as easy to see in different places.

You go into the restroom and there's no toilet paper in the restroom. You go to the kid's area and the kid's area doesn't seem like it's very secure, doesn't seem like it's very well attended or maintained. They walk into the sanctuary and there's no chairs to sit in. There's just no place. This is like a big empty room.

You don't have any hymnals to pull out and to know the songs and there's no songs on the screen that can let you know what you're singing. And then, whenever the sermon begins, the sound system starts cutting in and out and so you can't really hear very well. It's distracting.

Even though that church aligns with them a hundred percent in matters of doctrine, all of these practical issues was a distraction for them. All these practical issues can threaten the or hinder the spiritual ministry of the church. It doesn't matter that they love Jesus. It doesn't matter that they have godly leaders and godly members.

Those things, you have a lot of churches that have those things. And yet, a lot of those churches may lack attentiveness to practical matters that facilitate the spiritual ministries of the church. And that's a principle that's very common where you have practical problems in a church that hinder the church's spiritual ministries.

And so practical administration is spiritual. Practical administration is pastoral because that's how we care for people. We care for people by communicating with them, by letting them know what the expectations are, by giving them good direction by account of, by showing them hospitality. We love people and we care for people with practical acts like that.

So, to say it differently, positively, good practical administration can help accelerate the church's spiritual ministries and help them to achieve their purpose. So, the problem that we have here, the first problem in the early church was a need for better practical administration. But there was a second problem.

We'll read the next text. And here is the second problem.

And the 12, meaning the 12 apostles, they summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right. That we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. That there are two kinds of priorities. There's the priority of preaching the word of God, and there's the priority of serving tables.

And both of them are valuable. We just saw on the previous verse that the serving of tables the distribution of food was very pastoral, it matters. And yet, it's more work than the apostles can do on their own. And so, you have a broader scope of work that the church needs than the apostles were personally able to fulfill.

So, the second problem is that the apostles and the disciples didn't have the capacity to attend to both the spiritual needs of the church and the practical needs of the church. Practical ministries, and I can tell you as a pastor of a church, they are many and numerous and they can be very complicated, and they can be very time consuming depending on how well you want to do them.

But practical ministries can overwhelm the time and attention when the elders, their focus needs to be on the preaching of the word of God. That's the most important thing. So, what the apostles wanted to do or needed to do was they needed to build some kind of a firewall around the preaching of the word of God and prayer.

As we'll see in a later verse, preaching and prayer, the spiritual shepherding ministries of the church, build a firewall around those things to protect their time and guard it. But they didn't want to neglect the practical ministries of the church. And so, they needed to have some way to account for those.

So, the firewall was to make sure that they were guarding the good deposit as the apostle Paul says. So let me really think about this. If the apostles didn't do what we just saw here, let's say they thought we got to keep this food distribution going. We got, we don't want to upset people.

We got to make sure to keep this going. And they neglected the preaching of the word, and they neglected prayer, and they neglected the spiritual ministries in order to focus more and more of their time on food distribution within a few years’ time, they would have become a social service agency.

They would have become a food distribution program, a food pantry. Now we'd say food pantries are good. Serving people is good. Distribution is good. It's good to do works of mercy and generosity and kindness. Those are good things, but those are not the most important thing. And so, we have to have some prioritization here of our work.

And so, if all the apostles did not do what they did here, none of us would be Christians right now. Because the gospel would have just died in that first century, because all of the apostles devoted all of their time towards serving tables and less of their time towards preaching the gospel.

And so, the gospel ministry would have just stopped. And so they were, the apostles then refused to allow other legitimate ministry needs to distract them from their primary duty. The church's commission from Jesus Christ ultimately is not to be a social service agency. Or it's not to meet any temporal need.

The church's commission for Jesus Christ is to make disciples, to preach the word of God, to administer the sacraments, to shepherd the flock of God in their spiritual needs. So, there's a lot of good things that churches can do. Churches can do mercy ministries. They can do ministries to the poor, caring for people, food distribution, clothing closets.

They can do service projects. They're free to do those things. But there's one thing that every church must do. And what they must do is preach and teach the word of God. That is what has to happen. That is the ministry of the gospel. And churches can easily get distracted by lesser priorities, which are good things, but they are not essential to the church's mission.

There are other organizations out there that can do some of these other things, but the church and the church alone was tasked and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ himself to preach the gospel, make disciples of all nations, teaching them all to obey all that I've commanded you and baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

That is what Jesus commanded the church and commissioned her to do. And if we fail at that task, then we have failed as a church, no matter how effective we are at every other thing we might do. So, this is not a small matter. And one of Satan's tactics is to distract churches and to distract church leaders and elders away from this primary calling.

So, Paul says it this way in 2 Timothy. So, 2 Timothy is a pastoral epistle. So, Paul wrote this to his protege, Timothy, who was a young pastor. And Paul concludes his second letter to him with this charge. The final words that he'll speak to this young pastor, he says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word that's your charge.

Timothy, that's what you must do. And if you don't do that, then you have failed at your charge. Preach the word. When? Only when it's good? No. You preach the word in season and out of season. That's when. Only saying nice things? No. You do it. You reprove, rebuke, and correct. And you, with complete patience and teaching, that's what you do.

And so that is the church's mission. And the elders of the church are the ones that will answer to God for whether or not the church body accomplished that task. And so, what you want is the church leaders freed up to devote their thinking and their time and their priorities to do this task. So, they needed a solution.

They wanted to build a firewall around this kind of ministry, but they needed some way to not neglect the other practical needs because those practical things threaten the unity of the church, right? Verses 3 through 6 tell us, or 3 through 5, tell us what the solution was. Here is the solution.

Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, the proselyte of Antioch.

So, they chose these men, and they appointed them to this work. So, the solution was to appoint seven men that are known as deacons. And we see three things that are men of good repute. That's one qualification. They were full of the spirit, and they were wise. Those are three things they were looking for.

So, you could say just more generally they were men of good character. They had high character, and they would relieve the apostles from their administrative burdens. Now, I said the word deacon actually doesn't appear in this text, but it is generally understood that this is the genesis of the office of deacon, even though we don't see the word here, all the commentators and scholars and so forth acknowledge that this is where the office of deacon began.

And later it became known in other New Testament writings by the word deacon. But from this text, we get a good idea of who the deacons were and how they benefited the church. There was a I read, a journal about deacons this week, and there was two words that they used, or two phrases that they used to describe deacons I found helpful.

The first phrase was the word shock absorber, like deacons are shock absorbers, meaning that the net effect of their ministry is to absorb some of the administrative burdens It is to help facilitate. So that way the church can be can function in a more healthy way and to promote unity in the body of Christ.

So, they're shock absorbers, but the other word is servants. Deacons are servants. And so, the Greek word is diakonos, which literally means servant. So it is, the job description is literally in the name of the office they serve. So, deacons serve then, as we see in the text, you're at the behest of the elders and they were entrusted with administrative authority.

And in Acts chapter six, this looks like a pretty big job, right? Because they were looking after the physical needs of members that they cared about these widows, these women that were vulnerable because their husbands had died. And so, they wanted to make sure that, and as they collected resources for food and they redistribute it redistribute, redistributed those resources to these women that wanted to make sure that it was done fairly and that there was no favorable treatment towards one group over the other.

And so that was a really important thing to promote the unity of the church, to make sure there's not a division here. And so that was a great service that they did. And it is a very, it's a very brilliant idea. Just divide the labor. So just speaking from my own experience.

The administrative needs of a church of our size can be pretty incredible. And there's just a lot of things. And just in my own time, I have to always be attentive to making sure that I'm not allowing administrative type stuff to overly encroach on other responsibilities. There's always going to be some degree of administration in any job, but you want to make sure that your primary focus is on the spiritual ministries.

So, I give you an example from yesterday morning, we had a new member class and there were 26 people signed up for the new member class. And so, to just do a typical new member class, there's a lot of things that need to happen. We have to set a date coordinating our schedule with all the other church events going on.

Then you need to have a way for people to sign up. So that way there's some way to collect names so we know how many people to prepare for. So, we have a sign-up mechanism. Then you need to be able to communicate that to other people. How do you sign up? And then once they've signed up, communicate with them, follow up from the class.

You also need to set up the room where you're going to be meeting. And right now, in the great room, it's set up for overflow seating for this gathering. But yesterday, all those chairs were taken out and there were tables set up to, because it's a different purpose for the meeting.

So, you need to set up the room with tables and chairs. You needed to have the screen set up where you're able to do any displays that you need. And then whenever people show up, you need to have the lights on. You need to have the doors open. The coffee was hot. There were donuts provided as a way of showing hospitality.

All of those things facilitate the actual content of the class. So, all of those things facilitated an environment that was more comfortable, that was more hospitable. And by being comfortable and hospitable and inviting, that is a way for the church to communicate to these people, we care about you.

We care about your time, and we want to demonstrate to you what it's, what it means to be a part of this church and to practically demonstrate that your value in the body of Christ, all of those things needed to be done. And I'm very thankful for the fact that of all those things that needed to be done, I did very little of them.

In fact, looking at this list, I didn't really do any of it. Who did it? You may know, Zach Frick did all that. Zach is going to be appointed as a deacon today. Zach did all those things. So, what did I, like yesterday morning before I came here, I showed up like 15 minutes or so before, cause I wanted to make sure my computer was able to display, but everything else was already set up.

And so, I spent the morning, I was able to go over my notes and make sure that I, had in my head all the things I needed to say. I was able to focus on what my part was. And that, that, that sort of like the whole time I was there, it's like I showed up and I really didn't need to worry about any of those other things.

And that is, that's optimal. That's a real gift. And I'm so thankful for that. And then after the class was over, I was able to sit around and, talk to some people and answer questions and focus on the people. And whenever people are asking questions about doctrine or theology or practice of a church, I was able to talk about those things because I wasn't worried about making sure the logistical things were handled.

And I can do that. I personally, my mind is, I worry a lot about the logistic stuff. And so that can easily be a distraction for me because I care that those things are done well. And I was able to do it yesterday without worrying about it at all. And that was a real blessing. And so that is how these two offices can complement one another.

Where you have elders doing one thing, where they're focusing on spiritual needs. And you have deacons doing another thing that are focusing on physical, practical, tangible, material needs. And then together, the church is served, the body of Christ is built up. So, the text here says that they chose seven men.

How did they choose them? What were their qualifications? Let's talk about that. I mentioned previously here in the text, there was a mention of men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom. So that's a baseline. You certainly these needed to be high-capacity men that could run things that could be in charge of things, men with administrative and organizational skills, but they also needed to be godly men of exceptional integrity.

And high moral character. Now what we don't see in this text, we are given in other texts. So, first Timothy three gives us a list of qualifications for deacons. So, let's look over there at first Timothy three. Now I added some number markers in here because depending on how you'd want to count these roughly, there's nine qualifications of deacons mentioned, and so I'll just read this text and point out some highlights along deacons.

Likewise, must be dignified. Meaning they're people that are, have good character and they're well regarded. They're not double tongued, meaning they're trustworthy, they're not going to be liars or deceitful. They're not addicted to much wine. That would be a problem if you had some guy that's a drunk trying to serve the church.

So, they're not addicted to wine. They're not greedy for dishonest gain. That's very important. Because if you have a guy who is very greedy very likely deacons, at least some deacons, will be assigned to the church. Handling financial matters, or there'll be assigned by purchasing authority, Zach Frick is he's on staff with us, but Zach handles our deposits and does a lot of financial work.

So, you don't want guys greedy because that will be an indicator that he could be tempted to, to steal from the church. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, mystery of the faith. That's a shorthand phrase. You could just insert the gospel in there or the truth of Christianity.

It's like they are there to, they're to Believe the truths of the church and to be able to do so with a clear conscience. So, they, by clear conscience, that means a clear conscience about the truths they uphold and also a clear conscience in that they are not burdened by sins that they haven't confessed.

So, their conscience is clear that they were walking in integrity and obedience to the Lord and let them be tested first. This is that what the church does in which the elders in this case, in our case have done. And let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. That doesn't mean without sin or fault because nobody could be a deacon in that regard.

But people who are not going to be open to any charges brought against them. People that don't have any kind of big accusations that are levied against them. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober minded and faithful in all things. So, you want deacons that are running their households well, and the wives that they are married to are godly women, and that their behavior will not bring any reproach upon the church.

Let each deacon, whoops, let each deacon be the husband of one wife most likely that's a reference to polygamy, and we verified that all of our deacons being appointed today don't have any additional wives than the one that we know about. And managing their children and their own households well.

So, you want men that they're able to translate a certain skillset that they demonstrate in the home into the church. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. So, the deacons that we're appointing today, they're known by the elders.

So, most of them have been at this church for a number of years. And so, they're already very well known. And they have a good reputation within the church. And we could say that these are godly men, they're honest, these men are self-controlled, they live with integrity, and they're theologically sound.

All of them met with one of the elders to go over the London Baptist Confession of the, of faith, and any issues of exception that they had with that confessional statement we were able to discuss those because to see if there were any problems where any issues in their doctrine that could cause problems in the church.

 We, they all, they were all examined both, both in, in, in regard to how well we've known them because they've been in the church for a long time, but also to, to verify their willingness to serve and to go over some of the expectations of the office. We also know their wives. These are godly women, some of whom met their wives and married women that they met in this church.

And so, people that have a long track record in our church, not all of them as far as meeting their wives here, but a few of them have. And so, the, they are all held in high regard the deacon candidate and his wife are held in high regard in our church. Now if you're familiar with this text, you may notice that there is very, they're very similar to the qualifications for elders.

And there's a number of things we could say about that. One is that the qualifications for both deacons and elders are just qualifications of a godly mature Christian. There, there isn't anything that stands out as exceptional. The, this should be just, you follow these, you look at these qualifications, and you, that is something you could just call any man or woman in the church to aspire to.

Be this kind of man, be this kind of woman and that is a, that's a good baseline for Christian discipleship and maturity. But also, the qualifications are similar because they will be serving alongside the elders and will be supplementing their work in some way by focusing on the practical administrative things.

Now there is one exception that stands out between the two lists. And that is elders are required to possess a skill. All of the qualifications for elders, and we'll talk about this in two weeks, but all the qualifications for elders are character related. Because character really is the most important thing.

Better to have a man who serves as a deacon of high character, even if his skill is not as good as somebody else with greater skill and lesser character. So, if any, if, you want to lean on character more than skill when you're appointing church officers. But that said, there is one skill that elders are required to have that deacons are not required to have.

And that is, elders are required to be able to teach. And that should be obvious why. Deacons can teach if they're called upon to do but they are not required to teach because that is not required by the office. So, we have teaching elders and ruling elders in our church, but we don't have teaching deacons in our church because teaching is not one of the requirements.

Now I mentioned Zach before, I've talked about him a lot. Zach is a wonderful teacher, and he's taught classes here, but whenever he teaches, he will do so as a man and a member of our church who is respected and knowledgeable, but not teaching from the office of deacon. Cause there is no such thing as teaching from that office.

The office, the teaching offices, the elders,

so, deacons can be sound teachers, but the office does not require them to do that's why there's no qualification. And so, since deacons are not required to teach. And we've already talked about the practical administrative needs of the church. What are they actually required to do? What is their job?

Let me talk about this for a bit. The diaconate at Christ the King church will be instituted to free the elders to focus on their primary duties, which is.

So, this means the elders will assign various projects to the deacons according to whatever needs arise. And it really could be quite broad. So, I said a moment ago that deacons are like shock absorbers and servants in the church. And that's, I like those words because it gives us a good idea of what they will be asked to do.

Deacons need to be flexible. They need to be nimble, and they need to be problem solving oriented because there'll be asked to take charge of different needs that arise within the church. And so, in, in Acts chapter six, the issue was food distribution. It's, that's a, that's just one thing, it could be many other things that would have summoned the service of deacons in a similar way.

So, there'll be asked to take charge of a number of different needs. So, the elders have a pretty narrow job description. You should see that. The elders have a pretty narrow job description. And in that sense, elders need to be specialists. They need to be ones who have a pretty narrow focus on the things that the church must do.

They need to attend to the spiritual needs of the church because that is who Jesus appointed to do this. Deacons have a broad job description. Because if you have the elders doing a very narrow thing, then the deacons could be asked to do anything else that the church needs that isn't this narrow thing.

Does that make sense? So, to enable the elders to focus on what matters most in the life of the church, then they will ask the deacons to help shoulder some of the burden of the other things that they That the church needs. That doesn't mean they'll be doing everything that's not reasonable. But there may be some tasks of such a scale and that require such delicateness and tact and wisdom and skill that we say, hey this is a task that we need our deacons to handle.

So, deacons then need to be more generalists than the elders. So, the deacon's job description could potentially be anything needed to free the elders to do their work. And one thing that distinguishes a deacon from any other member that may serve in a particular way is that deacons are entrusted with a measure of authority.

So, church members will be asked to cooperate with the deacons since the deacons will serve with an authority designated by the elders. And so, we have church members that do lots of things. They lead city groups, they lead various serving teams, have people involved in all different ways all over the church.

I'm very thankful for that. But every once in a while, there might be something of such. importance and need and scale that we say we, we, this task really ought to be delegated to a specialized team that the church has already vouched for with a vote. And the elders have already examined their qualifications and their character, and the deacons themselves have already agreed to serve at that level.

And then we say, this is a project of such unique importance that it needs to be given to the deacons. And I can give you some examples of that. So, one, one example is that Lord willing we'll be moving into a new building pretty soon. And at this point, we, there's no way to know for sure all the work that will need to be done.

Once we make that move, there's just too many things that could be needed. And so that's one big project that the deacons will be in charge of is getting this new facility ready for our use. And that includes everything in this building will need to be accounted for somehow. Either they need to be sold or moved and transported to the new building.

And there's a lot of stuff in this building and then it'll need to be set up. The new building will need to be set up in such a way to, to facilitate the ministries that we'll be doing over there. That's a big task. I'm not just going to grab somebody, tap them on the shoulder after church on Sunday and make, hey, would you mind running the project and moving all of our stuff from here to there?

That wouldn't be reasonable. That's way too much to just throw at somebody. And thankfully, this is just the Lord's providence because this, the discussion and work towards instituting the office of deacon was well underway before this church move came about. So, it's in the Lord's timing that we'll have deacons that we can ask to do this, but that's one, one possibility.

So, the deacons then will be in charge of coordinating churchwide efforts for that all of us can participate in, hopefully. Deacons may have various other projects delegated to them with some authority to make decisions that the elders will entrust to them. So, for some projects, the deacon may, deacons may be given a budget and some spending authorization as they deem necessary.

Deacons may be asked to help with mercy ministries, to help with benevolence and financial assistance with people that are in distress. Deacons may be asked to facilitate logistics for various events like a church potluck or an outreach or a family meeting, something like that. Deacons may be held responsible for the maintenance of church facilities.

And oversee repairs needed and maintenance and perhaps hire a contractor if we have some large, so we had the air conditioner fixed in this building earlier this year. That was a that was a lot of work that Zach had to do to just do the research to find out what needed to happen and to get all that going.

Now we'll have seven deacons that can be involved in those sorts of decisions. What the deacons will do is they will, they'll need to meet regularly. and work together as a team. And I will add this. We've had iterations of deacon ministry in the past, and I've never been quite satisfied with it because we had deacon of different ministry areas.

And what is different this time? I thought was Alex, this was his idea, and it was a great idea, which is to put the deacons together into a team and. Just assign tasks to the team and then let the deacons on that team determine how they will best tackle that project. And I think it's a much better way to proceed.

And so, they, they may whenever they meet together, they'll have, a list of things that the elders will ask them to do that we see as needs of the church. And then the deacons will say, okay, here's the best way to handle project A, here's the best way to handle project B, and so forth. So, they'll meet together and work as a team.

They will need to elect a chairman. They will need to stay in regular communication with the elders. It's important that everybody knows, especially if you have experience with deacons in different churches. In some churches, deacons can operate as an authoritative board independent of the elders. That is absolutely not the way we'll do it here.

And it's, we want to make that very clear from day one. That the deacons serve. Under the authority of the elders and they are not a separate independent governing body that is different from the elders. And the deacons will determine together how they'll tackle projects. And since the deacons were tested and appointed by the elders and they were confirmed by a vote of the church, then there is a degree of honor and respect that should be afforded to them because they will be taking on big responsibilities for us.

And so, all services performed by deacons will be completed according to the rules that are set forth in our bylaws. How will deacons be appointed? Verse six tells us in Acts chapter six, they call those men apart. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed, and they lay their hands on them. We're going to do the same thing here at the end of our service.

We'll introduce all the deacons to you. We'll invite them all to come forward and then we'll. Somehow, make room to gather around them or extend your hand wherever you are, and we'll lay hands on them, and we will pray for them and then they will be appointed into the office. So how did it work out?

How did it work out for the early church? Verse 7 tells us, And the word of God continued to increase. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. It worked great. This, the way they set up worked great. The Word of God increased.

So, the ministry, the spiritual ministries were able to expand and grow. And there was the number of disciples multiplied greatly and became obedient to the Word of God. And so, the ministry of deacons is singularly credited here for the expansion of the apostle’s gospel ministry. Because they appointed deacons, therefore we see the spiritual fruit that the church got to enjoy as a result.

So, to say more specifically, people in the area heard and understood the gospel message. They were taught the word of God, they repented of their sins, and many of them believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord, and many of them got saved and their sins were forgiven, and they grew in their faith, and they walked obediently with Christ for the glory of God.

Those things happened because the deacons freed the apostles to focus on what they had to focus on. That's what we want to happen in our church, exactly that. Through this division of labor, we want God's purposes to be accomplished. And so, at Christ the King Church, my prayer, and I would ask you to join me in praying for this, is that the deacon ministry will do these things.

It will promote unity and health in our church, and it will promote growth and facilitate health and discipleship and more people coming to know the Lord and people growing in Christ and repenting of their sins and being forgiven and saved and growing as disciples. That's what we want to see happen.

And so, with that, I want to pray and then we will appoint seven men as deacons at the end of our service. Let's pray. Our father and our God, I thank you for the ministry of deacons. I thank you for what you show us in your word about who they are, how they came about, how they are tested and a qualified, what they do and the benefits of having them.

Thank you, God, for all of these things that we see in your word, and I pray Lord that you will accomplish in our church body. What we see happening in the early church in Jerusalem through these deacons, I ask you Lord that you will bring unity in our church body and that by facilitating practical needs deacons will help us to become an even more united and healthy church.

Father, I pray for the word of God to continue to increase in our church, which will multiply disciples in our city and everywhere that we proclaim it. I pray Lord that. One benefit of having deacons in our church is that we can expand our gospel ministry, and more people will be saved as a result. And Lord, I pray that you will strengthen the deacons and give them wisdom, fill them with your Holy Spirit to effectively administer the practical needs of the church, to care for mercy ministries and to do all the things that deacons are shown to do here.

Father, I pray for the elders of our church to be able to focus more fully on the ministry of the word and prayer to do so with faithfulness and zeal. And that through a division of labor, there is a, an establishment of trust that we can all work more effectively through this division of labor.

Father, I pray for the members of our church, that we will all grow in Christ as a result, and that we will be healthy and strong, and we will mature in the word of God and become more faithful disciples because of these things. And Lord, I pray for our mission to reach the lost in our city, to be effective.

Do all of these things, Lord, as we take this step of faith and humbly trust you to help us honor what we see in scripture for this office of deacon. So, we ask all of this, Lord, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.