Sermon Transcript:

This morning we reach the last installment of our short series on deacons as we are prayerfully considering who God is calling to this office here among us. In the first week, we looked at Acts chapter six and saw that God gives deacons to protect the unity, the preaching of the Word, and the love of the church by caring for the needs of His people. Then last week, we looked at the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and saw that Christ calls deacons to display the character of the gospel they serve.

So, we have considered why the office of deacon exists and the kinds of people Christ calls to it. This week, we want to look at how deacons are to serve. Near the end of the message last week, I quoted Mark 10:42-45. This morning, I want to revisit those verses. Although the word servant in this passage is literally the word deacon, these verses are not specifically about the office of deacon; they apply to all who serve in the church. But as those who are officially designated as servants on behalf of the congregation, those with the office of deacon should exemplify faithful service in the Kingdom. That is why we are looking at this passage, and our main point today is that 

Christ calls deacons to reflect His servant-hearted love for His people.

Since the days of the apostles, there has been a continual temptation for the church to borrow its understanding of leadership from the world around it. Whether through political hierarchies, ecclesiastical traditions, or modern business models, the church has often looked elsewhere for patterns of leadership. But God has not left His church to discover leadership by trial and error. He has embodied true leadership in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church. As in all things, the church is strongest when it follows Him instead of the world.

Again and again in church history, the church has been strongest when it has been most willing to be distinct from the world. We should not therefore look to the culture to guide the church, but to Christ. Greatness in the kingdom of God looks entirely different from greatness in the world. Jesus makes this clear in Mark chapter 10. 

The context of these verses is that two of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, asked Jesus to grant it to them to sit at His right and left hand in glory. To sit directly next to the king was a place of great honor and recognition. They are asking for the highest places of honor and recognition in God’s kingdom. 

Mark tells us that the other ten disciples became indignant when they heard about it. It seems they were not offended by the pride of James and John so much as that they wanted the same honor for themselves and were frustrated they beat them to the punch. Then in verse 42,

42 … Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 

Jesus completely overturns the natural understanding of greatness. In the world, greatness is measured by how many people are beneath you; in Christ's kingdom, greatness is displayed by how willingly you are to humbly serve others. Those who would be first must become servants, even slaves, of all. To be the highest in the kingdom requires becoming the lowest.

The supreme example of this kind of service is Jesus Himself. He says in verse 45,

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The model is Jesus Himself. He did not come demanding that others serve Him. The King came to serve His subjects, and His service ultimately led Him to give His own life as a ransom for them. It is imperative that we understand how Jesus intends for us to follow His example. It is not that we are to do everything Jesus did. We cannot, for example, give ourselves as a ransom for anyone, not even our own souls, because we are not sinless and we are not divine.

Years ago, it was popular for people to wear wristbands and t-shirts that said WWJD, "What would Jesus do?" The idea was to remind Christians to follow the example of Jesus. There is certainly something right about that, but we have to remember that Jesus is not merely our example. He is the eternal Son of God, and there are things Jesus came to do that we could never do.

Sometimes the answer to what Jesus would do is that He would walk on water, raise the dead, be transfigured into His glorious state, and so on. These are not things God expects us to do. These are things only Jesus could do, and He does them for us, not as an example, but as the God-man. The most amazing thing that Jesus does, that only he could do, is that He gave Himself as a ransom for many. 

That word ransom tells us something about our condition before God. A ransom is a price that is paid to set someone free. Today, we usually hear this word in contexts like a kidnapping or maybe a cybersecurity breach where something or someone is stolen. In those cases a ransom payment is made to get the person or data back. In Jesus’ day it often referred to the price paid to set a slave free.

We were not merely people who needed better instruction or a better example. We were slaves to sin and were guilty before God because we broke His holy law. This is what it means to be a sinner. It is to be a slave who is condemned before the Law. It is to have been taken captive by the devil and enslaved to him by our sinful desires. No amount of good works can undo our sin. No amount of religion can erase our guilt. A price had to be paid. A price that a poor slave could never pay. A price that was impossible for us to pay. 

That is why Jesus came. The eternal Son of God took upon Himself our humanity, lived in perfect obedience to the Father, and then willingly gave Himself in the place of sinners to purchase us for God. On the cross He bore the judgment His people deserved. The righteous One suffered for the unrighteous. He paid the debt, He satisfied the justice of God, and rose from the dead in victory over sin and death. In Him, the human and the divine have been reconciled. In Him the justice of God was satisfied and God has become the justifier of those who believe.

The death of Christ is not an offer, it is an accomplishment. He did not merely make salvation possible; He accomplished redemption for His people. He gave His life as the ransom. If you are redeemed, know that He bought you with His own blood. Your righteousness, your holiness, all the promises of God’s word to you. They have been paid for by the blood of Christ. You have been bought with the most valuable thing in the universe. The Cross is a payment and the empty tomb is a receipt.

God now commands us to turn from our sin and trust in His Son. If you come to Christ, you do not come offering Him something in exchange for your salvation. You come empty-handed, trusting entirely in what He has done. And everyone who repents and believes in Him is forgiven, reconciled to God, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and given eternal life. The question is not whether this has been accomplished, but if you have received it as a gift of grace to your soul. The redemption has been accomplished, are you receiving it by faith, knowing that it has been accomplished for you?

The devil lies and tells us we cannot be forgiven, but the debt is paid, the Judge is satisfied. He tells us we will never overcome those besetting sins, that we are not strong enough to walk in faithfulness, but that is a lie. Jesus Christ has purchased our holiness with His own blood. We are no longer slaves to sin. We have been set free from sin and enabled, by the Spirit, to put to death the deeds of the flesh. Jesus paid for this when He redeemed us by His blood. We are sanctified before God and made saints of the Most High. We are new creations in Christ and God is now working out that reality to make us holy and bring us to glory. That is what it means to be redeemed. We have been bought for God.

This was accomplished because Jesus willingly and lovingly humbled Himself, taking on the likeness of a servant in the flesh, so that we could be made heirs of the Kingdom. Look at your brothers and sisters. Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, left heaven and took on the form of a servant, becoming their brother so they could be adopted into the family of God. How then can we who by the same adoption have been made their brothers and sisters not be willing to serve them as well? No one is greater in the Kingdom than Jesus, and He washed their feet. More than that, He covered their sin. Since the Son of God considered that person worth stooping down to serve, suffering for, and shedding His blood to redeem, who am I to consider myself above serving them?

So it is Jesus who is the model for all our service. Not that we do everything He did, but that whatever we do, we do according to the love He has shown to us. The point is that since our Lord, the King of Heaven, God Himself, was willing to be humbled and even to suffer for His people, how much more should we, who possess no glory or righteousness except what He has given us, be willing to humbly serve one another?

That will mean that humility rather than ambition will be the model we follow in our love and service for each other. This is the character that we expect to be exhibited in those who the church calls as its deacons. As Jesus points out, this flips the world’s view of greatness on its head. As is always the case, the wisdom of God confounds the wisdom of the world. 

This is why the wisdom of God and the glory of the kingdom are hidden to those who do not have eyes to see. In Christ's kingdom, the way up is down. The first becomes the last. The greatest become servants and the servants are exalted. The masters become slaves, and freedom is found in submitting every aspect of your life to the Lord.

This is the theology of the cross: God hides His glory within what fallen man, in his pride, despises. The King wears a crown of thorns. The way to life is through death. The way to greatness is through service. The way to exaltation is through humility. And the salvation of the world comes through the shame and judgment of a cross.

What looked to the world like weakness was the power of God; what looked like foolishness was the wisdom of God; and what looked like Christ's defeat was the victory by which He ransomed His people, purchasing them for God with His own blood.

The first thing we must understand if we are going to follow the example of Jesus is that we must abandon the world's assumptions about what makes someone great. We must be willing to be considered fools for Christ, believing that the path He walked, the path of humility, sacrifice, and service, is the path of true greatness.

This is how we must think about all leadership in the church. Therefore, as we prayerfully consider who God may be raising up to serve as deacons, what we desire to see are those whose service is not selfish or calling for attention, but is pointing us to Jesus. We are looking for those who will be reflections of the love of Jesus Christ for His people. They should be people who we trust and who make us want to be more obedient and joyful in our own service so that God will be glorified among His people.

This is my prayer for our deacons and for our church as a whole, that through our love for one another it is evident to all that the Spirit of God is at work among us. When people visit with us, we want them to be blessed. But let them not say, Redeeming Grace has a great preacher, but that Redeeming Grace preaches a great Savior.

Let them not say that we have an awesome worship band, but that we sing praises to an awesome God. I hope they see our generosity, not that they would say our congregation is generous, but that we serve a generous Lord. Let them leave here not saying they had great fellowship with us, but that while they were here, they met with Jesus Christ.

If every ministry of the church should embody Christ, what will this look like here at Redeeming Grace when it comes to the function of our deacons? What kinds of things will we ask our deacons to do? As we have seen throughout this series, the New Testament does not give us a detailed job description for deacons. It gives us the purpose of the office, the qualifications of those who serve, and the character that should mark their service. The particular responsibilities will depend upon the needs of each congregation.

Here at Redeeming Grace, we anticipate asking our deacons to take responsibility for several things as needs arise in the life of the church so that the pastors can focus on prayer, teaching, preaching, counselling, and shepherding. Since the tasks vary widely, deacons will be matched to responsibilities that suit their abilities, and they will work as a team.

This will involve overseeing facility needs or keeping up with administrative and compliance requirements. Deacons may help plan events, help coordinate with the pastors in visitation, check in with brothers and sisters to make sure needs aren't being overlooked, or help assess benevolence needs. These are some of the ways we envision the team serving.

This does not mean that the deacons do all of this work instead of the members. Not at all. They are helping coordinate to ensure these needs are met. In Acts 6, the deacons did not necessarily provide the food or even serve it in every case. They oversaw those ministries to be sure they were being done faithfully. Establishing deacons does not eliminate opportunities for others to serve, it should expand them, while allowing the oversight and logistics to be shifted off the pastors to allow us to focus more on prayer and teaching.

In other words, we are not establishing a separate ministry within the church. Deacons will serve the ministry Christ has already given to this congregation. They will help us care well for the people God has entrusted to us, attend to needs that arise in our life together, and enable the various ministries of the church to function faithfully and effectively.

Now, some of those things may not sound too glorious. Much of the work of a deacon is ordinary and may even go unnoticed. Think about what a blessing Sunday morning is when everything just works. The building is open. The temperature is right. Someone who needs help gets it. Visitors know where to go. A sister or brother who has been struggling gets checked on. Some need arises and is quietly handled so the pastors don’t need to get pulled away from praying or teaching. Most of the congregation may never know who did any of that. In fact, if it is done well, they probably won't. But all of those quiet acts of service allow the ministry of the word and prayer to go on unhindered.

The world associates greatness with recognition, authority, and influence. Jesus tells us that in His kingdom greatness is found in caring for the needs of others. There is glory in doing the things that need to be done because this is Christ loving His people through you and you through them. Nothing done in Christ, through Christ, or for Christ lacks glory. The world asks, “who noticed?”, but Jesus asks, “who did you serve?”

We must never make the mistake of thinking that some ministry is spiritual while other ministry is merely practical. We saw in Acts 6 that caring for something as ordinary as the distribution of food protected the unity of the church, displayed its love, and allowed the ministry of the Word to continue unhindered. The spiritual life of the church is constantly expressed through physical acts of love. A meal delivered, a financial need met, a building cared for, a problem quietly solved. 

A meal delivered to a family after a difficult week might appear to outsiders to just be food. There is nothing inherently spiritual about a casserole. But when it is brought by a brother or sister who says, in effect, “We love you, we see you, and you are not carrying this burden alone,” the ordinary becomes profoundly spiritual.

There is nothing particularly spiritual about repairing a handrail or installing a door in the church building. But if that allows an elderly saint to gather safely with God's people, or allows children to be taught the Word, suddenly that involves much more than wood and screws. These things may appear ordinary, but when they are done out of love for Christ and His people, they are expressions of something much greater.

This is the pattern our Lord has given us. Jesus washed feet. He fed hungry people. He touched lepers. He welcomed children. And ultimately, He took upon Himself the form of a servant and gave His life for His people. Deacons will not usually be doing things that attract attention. They will serve Him by their willingness to give of themselves for the good of others. That is not a lesser kind of ministry. In the kingdom of God, that is greatness.

Ultimately, what we have been considering this morning is not merely a standard for deacons. It is the calling of every Christian. We may appoint only some to the office of deacon, but every one of us has been called to serve. Every one of us has been given unique gifts and a unique ministry for the building up of the body of Christ. So my prayer is not simply that God would give us deacons who reflect the servant-hearted love of Christ, but that He would increasingly make this true of our entire church. 

This is what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus. This love isn’t something we produce in ourselves, it is something we have been given in Christ. It is ours, obtained by faith, and bought by His blood. Listen to what the apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:4–10,

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth

We see that Paul is calling believers to do this individually and as a community. Establishing deacons is one way we can do this collectively as a congregation. Over these three weeks we have seen why Christ gives deacons to His church, the character He requires of those who serve, and this morning the pattern He gives them to follow. Now we have the responsibility to prayerfully consider who among us God has prepared to serve in this way. We are not simply looking for people who are capable of performing certain tasks. We are looking for men and women of proven godly character whose lives already demonstrate the servant-hearted love of Jesus Christ.

So I ask you to pray. Ask God to give us wisdom and unity as we move through this process. Look around the congregation and consider who you already see quietly caring for others, taking responsibility, meeting needs, and serving without demanding recognition. And if, as we have meditated on these things, you believe God may have equipped you to serve in this office, prayerfully consider that as well. We do not want simply to fill positions. We want to recognize those whom God has raised up and entrust them with the work He has given them to do.

Once we have identified potential candidates, the pastors will guide them through a process of prayer and study through the biblical qualifications. We are not looking to move quickly, but faithfully. Every time in the history of this congregation we have sincerely prayed and sought the wisdom and provision of God, He has provided. I am confident this time will be the same. We will be patient and wait on the Lord. Our part now is to pray and to consider who the Lord might be calling to this blessed work.