Our text this evening comes from that obscure part of Romans, the epistle of Paul to the Romans, that we often skip over and think is just sort of say hi to Mabel and Ethel and Bob for me, but is actually pregnant with all sorts of stuff that at least I skipped over for many years and have found really a treasure. Romans chapter 15 beginning at verse 14. Paul says, I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge, and competent to instruct one another. I have written you quite boldly on some points as if to remind you of them again because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done, by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written, those who were not told about him will see and those who have not heard will understand. This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions and since I have been longing for many years to see you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there after I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now, however, I'm on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the saints there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the saints in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, They owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings. So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this fruit, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen. We've seen that the Great Commission is anchored in a great announcement. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Parallel there to what we just sung in the words of Psalm 24. One, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And Christ is the one to whom all authority has been given in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. Jesus gave his apostles authority by the Spirit to lead the church of Christ into all truth. He gave them a commission. Whatever you say in my name is my word to my people. And involved in that is the commission to establish the offices that we find in the New Testament. Christ, through the apostles, establishes the offices of pastor, minister, and elder, and deacon. Sorry, pastor, minister, pastor, elder, and deacon. And certainly, the office of pastor is important for the disposal of the gifts of Christ in his saving reign. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago from Ephesians chapter 4. certainly the work of the elders is important Paul in fact told Timothy that the reason he left him behind in Crete was to finish the job of church planting there the church wasn't planted because a bunch of people got together and heard the gospel and were baptized and well there were enough converts to start a church plant no, it was important to establish a proper discipline a proper church government and so Paul says that's why I left you behind in Crete to build up that which was remaining so that as in every city there might be elders appointed certainly ministers and elders are ordained by God for the good and health of the church but the office I want to especially focus on this evening is the diaconate looking at it from three angles the office first of all The offering that Paul talks about here, and then finally, the scope of the offering. The word and sacrament ministry already itself presupposes that we're not just an invisible church. Of course, we believe that there is a church known only to God, that the number of the elect is really only known to God, that the visible church is a mixed company. Like Jacob and Esau, there are people in the covenant who trust in Christ and those who don't. It's a mixed assembly. Nevertheless, that spiritual body manifests itself visibly just as God works to establish that community and dispense the blessings of Christ's saving work through material means like preaching, water, bread and wine. As C.S. Lewis said, God likes matter. He invented it. And so God works through creation. He makes his kingdom visible, not in the way that the kingdoms of this age become visible on CNN, but in his own way, they become visible through these outward administrations, through fallible, sinful human beings, including the offices that he establishes. And since we're going to be raised bodily on the last day as the harvest of which Jesus is the first fruit, we anticipate even now in our lives on our pilgrim way that wonderful reality by caring not only for the spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters, but also of their bodily needs. What's the point? We're wasting away outwardly. Why should the church be concerned with the physical, temporal needs of the body of Christ? All of these questions come to the fore in the establishment of the diaconate, and we see that office established, of course, in Acts chapter 6. Now, in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists, the Greek-speaking Christians, the Gentiles, arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So there was a daily distribution. So it's quite a relief program, a daily distribution. And yet the Hellenists were complaining that their widows were being left out. And the twelve 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 so Stephen and several others were chosen. And we read in verse 6 of chapter 6, These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. So they received an ordination to a calling, to a specific office. And the results were magnificent. We read in verse 7, And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. And so what we see here are really two things. Number one, that the ministry of word and sacrament is too important for pastors and elders to be preoccupied with the temporal needs of the church. But we also learn that the temporal needs of the church are important. And that's why a separate office was established in the church for this purpose. And when it was, the word of God spread, continued to increase daily, And both the spiritual and temporal needs of God's people were cared for. Deacons were not second fiddle to everyone else, to all of the other officers. Paul even greets the Philippian church to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi together with the overseers. That's ministers and elders together with the overseers and deacons. So it's a distinct office. It's not the office of overseer. Really, it corresponds to Christ's office of priest in service to the people of God, distinct from his office of prophet and king. Elders rule in the church. Preachers preach like prophets and deacons serve like priests. The second thing I want to turn our attention to is this offering that Paul mentions here in Romans. And I want to spend most of my time here. It escaped me for years. I thought I really had had Romans down. And I guess this was just, these were the pages that I think I stopped maybe at chapter 13, the end of chapter 13, and thought, well, this is just signing off. It really isn't. There's some gold here. And when you start looking for the breadcrumb trail, it's all throughout his epistles. Paul was obsessed with this project that at first glance seems totally remote from his calling as the apostle to the Gentiles. Here's someone who was called to be a light to the Gentiles, who was preoccupied day and night with just proclaiming the gospel. He didn't even establish offices in the church. He just swept in and proclaimed the gospel, and then Timothy would come behind him and shore up that which was lacking. And yet Paul was obsessed with, spent much time over, this offering that he talks about in Romans. We can look over at 1 Corinthians and get another glimpse of this special offering that he's taken. Corinth, of course, was a crazy place. It was a church that no one would ever want to call to. It was divided. There were schisms, factions. It was sort of like an ecclesiastical version of American Idol. Instead of the choir of God, everybody wanted a virtuoso performance. Everyone was at each other's throats, split into groups, vying for power in the church. The Lord's Supper was a parody of Holy Communion. Basically, Paul writes a disciplinary letter to restore the marks of the church. The whole epistle, first epistle to the Corinthians, is a reformation epistle. Reform the church in Corinth. He begins with the reformation of the Word. When I came to you, I preached nothing but Christ and Him crucified. Why are you no longer building on that foundation? The gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ crucified for sinners. Why are you building on another foundation? Then he talks about the ministry of sacrament. Many chapters on the completely disorderly way that communion was being celebrated and that communion, supposedly designed to bring the body of Christ together, was an occasion to separate Christians based on social and class differences. And then chapters 10 and 11 are all about proper worship and order in the church. Let all things be done with order and decency. And here's what your worship should look like. restore the marks of the church, the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and discipline. Now, it's within this context that Paul, once again, late in the epistle, there toward the end, chapter 16, speaks again of this collection for the saints in Jerusalem. Now, concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, Each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go, they will also accompany me. First, we see from this brief statement about the collection that it was occasioned by a desperate need. This was probably the period that James is talking about, the context of his warning, not to separate the church into the rich and the poor, not to give preference to those who have more. So it was a time when the zealots, a sect in Judaism, had raised a standard against the mighty standard of Rome and tried to overthrow the Roman overlords, and Rome came in sort of with a Berlin blockade. It was a harsh decade. It was a period where many Jews died, many of their children died, and Rome made it very clear to everyone that it wouldn't tolerate this sort of approach to Roman authority. And so the Jerusalem saints were in dire straits. Second, the collection was especially formal. It wasn't just a regular offering or even an occasional offering, Paul says. Now concerning this collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do on the first day of every week. Each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come. This is to be a long-term, settled collection. This was a big deal. Third, the collection was Catholic. That is universal. It wasn't merely the initiative of one local congregation that said, hey, I've got a great idea. Now, this is the era of the apostles. But the apostle Paul gave the initiative for this. As I directed the churches of Galatia, so I am directing you. It was a Catholic encyclical. an apostle of Christ declaring that all of the churches are to participate in this collection. Fourth, although all of the churches are to participate, it's not a top-down enterprise. Rather, each local church is to administer its own contribution to this fund, even to the point of sending its own deacons by letter accredited to Paul. Paul didn't say, I'll come and interview people. I'll see which deacons I'll take with me. Paul says, whomever you accredit by letter. Here's an apostle, and yet he's deferring to the local council of the church to accredit the people who will participate in this service to the Jerusalem saints. This really expresses genuine Catholicity, and that's what we see here. Sometimes we think about giving in the church as something that is sort of stapled on, almost an embarrassment. It's sort of stapled on to our mission. We know that we're supposed to do it. It's something that's a duty, and it is a duty. Nevertheless, for Paul, and this is what I want to bring out centrally here tonight, For Paul, it actually expresses the kind of being that the gospel creates called the church. It expresses that catholicity. Although the injunction is apostolic, the administration, as I say, is to be determined by each church's officers, most likely the deacons. And Paul says, when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gifts to Jerusalem. And he even adds, if it seems advisable. Here's the Apostle Paul talking to the deacons. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. If it seems advisable, he's deferring to that local church council. And now, back to Romans 15. It helps give us a little bit of context for what Paul's saying here. Paul says, I'm satisfied about you that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all sorts of knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I've written you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Now here, Paul's not talking about the offering of the Gentiles in material terms. He's talking about the offering of the Gentiles themselves. The picture here is that he is a priest offering a sacrifice, and that sacrifice is not bulls and goats, but Gentiles. But clearly, as Paul identifies here, it's not an atoning sacrifice, because Christ was that atoning sacrifice. Rather, it's a sacrifice of thanksgiving. That's the kind of sacrifice that Paul is offering in his ministry. Well, that's fine, but what about this offering to Jerusalem? Well, that's exactly where Paul goes in verses 22 through 29. This is the reason why I've often been hindered from coming to you. At present, however, I'm going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and I have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessings of Christ. Paul always began, even his disciplinary epistles like 1 Corinthians, to the saints in Corinth. The only time he didn't do that was Galatia, because the gospel was at stake. But here he also ends on such a pleasant note. I know that when I come, it will be in the blessing of Christ. It will be a wonderful time. In other words, I know that you're going to get the job done. I know that you're going to participate with all the saints in this collection. Why is this collection so central to Paul's apostolic mission? Paul himself isn't a deacon. That's why he gives so much of the administrative control of this collection to the deacons. But as an apostle, it is not saying too much to say it is at the center, not the periphery of his apostolic mission. Well, because nothing was more at the heart of Paul's apostolic mission. Indeed, part of the gospel itself, that in Christ, Jew and Gentile no longer exist as separate peoples. That in Jesus Christ, the two people are made one person, one body, with Christ as the head. That was just absolutely staggering for Paul to announce both to Jews and to Gentiles in his day. Of course, you know about how the Jews felt about this at first. They weren't quite so sure that they wanted Tychonius showing up bringing pork chops to the potluck. What are you going to do here when we have been raised with ritual purity and cleansings just to make sure that we didn't bump a Gentile in the marketplace? Now we're going to drink communion out of a common cup? And so there was a lot of concern. Should people become Jews? Should they go through that door, the door of Moses and Mount Sinai, in order to get to Mount Zion, in order to get to Christ? And that's, of course, what the whole brouhaha was in Acts 15, when the Council of Jerusalem met, and Peter and James and Paul finally were all on the same page about it. And the Holy Spirit delivered unanimity to the church that the Gentiles are saved by grace just as we are and therefore nothing more should be expected of them. This offering was provoked by great suffering and great need in Jerusalem but motivated by the gospel. Motivated by that wonderful news. And that's why Paul says, Indeed, they owe it to them. Gentiles indeed owe the suffering saints in Jerusalem this material support because it is from the Jews that we have salvation. Now, you can just imagine what happened when Paul finally brought this gift to Jerusalem. But before I get there, I want to ask a question. What happened in Corinth? How'd they do? A year later, we find out in 2 Corinthians 8. Already, you know, it's not probably going to be great news. It's a year later, and Paul is bringing it up again. In 2 Corinthians 8, 1 through 9, 15, I won't read all of it. I'll just sort of summarize what he says there. He provokes the Corinthians to jealousy by recounting the generosity of the Macedonian churches. Now, Macedonian churches were dirt poor. They had absolutely no money. There was no work, no industry. Here they were in Corinth, a big city, a port city, lots of wealth. And Paul says, we want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia. For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty, what an odd paradox. Abundance of joy and extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. I'll never forget when I was in Nicaragua, visiting, speaking down there, a couple of churches, and I had dinner with a pastor and his family. And it was literally, dirt poor, it was dirt. The ground, the floor of the house was dirt. And dinner was made on a tire. and he caught the lobster. It was one of the best dinners I've had in my life. He caught the lobster that evening and that's how he made his living, was a lobster fisherman. And I found out later, because another pastor told me, that he drove an hour and a half to get the chairs from a wealthier friend of his to bring the chairs there So that I could have a nice chair to sit in. And isn't that often the way it is? The generosity, the overflowing, abundant generosity. Sometimes you get that the joy of giving combined with extreme poverty of circumstances. That's only the gospel. Only the gospel can create that. They even begged us, Paul says. And he's really driving it in to the Corinthians. They even begged us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints. Accordingly, we urge Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. So Paul clearly saw this collection as connected to the gospel itself. It's not the gospel. but it's the reasonable response to the gospel. It wasn't disconnected to the gospel. It was the response to the gospel. He says that they must stop thinking of this collection as a tax. He calls it an exaction, but rather as a willing gift. It's not a tithe. It's a willing gift, he says. He says the Corinthians had excelled in knowledge, and now it's time for them to excel in generosity. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, by his poverty, might become rich. Finally, the scope. The early Christians, of course, weren't a communist society. They gave freely. This is not an exaction, but a free gift. It's overflowing, abundant joy in the gospel. they shared all things in common and distributed goods and services to any who had need, but none of it was done forcibly by command or by synodical decision. In fact, there were still private homes because churches were meeting in them. And so this was not an early form of communism. But they did share Christ in common, and therefore they said, Why don't we think of everything in our material well-being as shared as well? Not the redistribution of wealth, but for any who had need. And there were great inequalities in the church. For anyone who has need, there's always something for them. They were baptized together. They enjoyed the apostles' teaching together. They broke the bread together and drank the cup together, said the prayers together, so why not everything else? according to the new testament making and serving disciples involves ministering to the material needs of believers and that extends not only to members of the local congregation but to the wider communion of churches you know pastors and elders go to classes and synod and even represent representative assemblies of larger bodies or wider bodies of the church of christ of the same confession pastors and elders do that for making the spiritual decisions necessary for the body of christ we have missions that local churches give to and and classes gives to and uh uh synodical concerns we have a synodical asking this evening and diaconal ministry too in paul's mind here is part of that expression of our covenantal Catholic ecclesiology from local churches, not hierarchically, but de-centered out from all local churches to those in need. It's sort of like the circulatory system. You know, when one part of the body suffers, Paul says, the other parts of the body chip in. It's a connectional form of government, not a hierarchical form of government. Now, I wonder if we take this seriously enough today. It's estimated that 200 million Christians today in the world are under the cross. They're under threat of some sort of punishment for their faith. 200 million. Two million in the last few years have been martyred for their faith. Now, I don't want to downplay the importance of the early Christian martyrs, but under all of the Roman emperors, it's estimated that at most 100,000 perish. 2 million in the last few years. Far and away, we're in a period of greater martyrdom than at any period in the history of the church. And so the question comes, there are more Reformed Christians in Nigeria than there are in North America. What are diaconal ministries in California doing for families that have lost a father, a brother, a sister, a mother in Nigeria. Often today, I think the diaconal office, not in this church, but in a lot of churches, doesn't get any respect. It's sort of elders in waiting. It's not an office that is on par with the office of minister and elder, But for Christ, being prophet, being priest, and being king were all integral to his mission and to his work. And the same is true in the church. God cares as much for the body as for the soul. And then finally, very quickly, to the world. It's all well and good. We all agree that diaconal ministry is important for the local church. I've certainly been on the receiving end of the generosity of diaconal ministry when my father died and my mom had a stroke. Here, the wonderful service of the deacons, which was a great witness to my unbelieving brother and some of our non-Christian friends who saw it and just sort of wondered at it. See, that's not the gospel, but it's the proper response to the gospel that is a witness to others. And they ask, how does this generosity overflow in abundance? But the harder question is, what do we do then for the world? Are we called to this kind of generosity to the world? And of course we are. Paul says, so then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6.10 But is Paul saying there that the deacons have a responsibility, that each local church has a responsibility to take a collection from the people of God for those outside the communion of saints. A lot of people appeal to passages like Matthew 24 and 25 where Jesus tells about the sheep and the goats. And he will separate the sheep from the goats and he will say to the sheep, inasmuch as you did it to these, the least of my brothers, you did it unto me. But notice what Jesus says, inasmuch as you did it to the least of my brothers. And it was a time of great persecution when he says, I was in prison and you visited me. Jesus is saying, I am so connected to my church as a head to a body that I can actually speak of those suffering and being persecuted and martyred out there as me. I was in prison and you visited me. It's not just sort of people out there in general. It is the saints who are being persecuted for their faith and being thrown into prison and being persecuted. Now, this doesn't mean that we don't care about those outside the body of Christ, Paul says. Generous to everyone, but especially to those of the household of faith and the churches where we are generous to the household of faith. As Christians, in our everyday neighbor love, answering not the great commission, but the great commandment to love our neighbors, we have responsibilities to give to all sorts of people and needs and concerns. Not just giving to the poor, but actually giving to poor people. The poor becomes such an abstract idea. But to actual concrete people, that's a responsibility that we have outside the church. That's a responsibility that we have to everyone, especially to the household of faith, but to everyone. We may give to Christian relief organizations or to non-religious relief organizations if they do it better. Because we're loving our neighbor. But the diaconal treasury, I believe, from these passages is for the communion of the saints. It's special. They always say about Mormons, the way they take care of their own. There's no gospel there to generate that. We don't just take care of our own because we're sort of a club. Rather, it's out of the generosity of God and what he's done for us in Jesus Christ. That we recognize what he's doing in the world through his church, forming out of many bodies, one body, with Christ as the head. Paul never confused this work of generosity with the gospel, and yet he saw it as a concrete response and witness to the gospel. After all, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. We're not accruing anything. We're not giving anything to God. When we give our offerings here in church, we're not giving that money to God. God is giving us all of the gifts. He's the giver. He's never the receiver. He's the giver of all good gifts. All good gifts, as James says, come down from the Father of lights. Paul says, who has ever given him a gift that he should repay from him and to him and through him are all things. He's the giver. He's showering us with gifts. Well, then where do our gifts go? Where do our good works go? If God doesn't need our good works and He doesn't need our money, He has the cattle in a thousand hills, where does it go? If we don't need it because we have all of the righteousness we need in Christ, we don't need the good works. God doesn't need the good works. Where does it all go? To our neighbor who needs it. It's the only place left for our good works and our service and our love, not just our money, but our service and our love to go in the communion of saints and outside the communion of saints in our everyday callings and vocations. Gifts come down to us and then through us out to our neighbors. Money talks. Often in the kingdoms of this age, what money says is, I'm building my kingdom. You can be a part of it if you want, but I'm in charge and I'm going to manipulate you to do what I want because you're dependent on me. As Paul has reminded us tonight, money talks in the Embassy of Grace too. But it says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you, by His poverty, may become rich. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that the way you've set things up, we're all on the receiving end. But at the end of the day, it's not really charity, at least in the communion of saints. But we're really giving what we owe. It's just a response of gratitude and thanksgiving for what you have given to us. We can't give you anything. We can't improve our standing with you. And so the only place for our good works, our service, our love, and our gifts to go is out to our neighbors and to our brothers and sisters who need them. We thank you that the one who had it all, your son, the one who was enthroned in majestic splendor, nevertheless set aside his glory and descended lower than any human being has ever lived. so that now he has ascended higher above all heavens where he rules and reigns for his people. Help us, Father, simply to pass out the gifts, to be deliverers, passing out the wonderful gifts that you have given us, exchanging those gifts with each other as the poor need the rich and the rich need the poor and all of us together need Christ, whose name we pray. Amen. Thank you.