Sermon Tone Analysis

Deacons

In the Name of Jesus, our Risen Lord and Savior.

Amen.

A blessed Mothers’ Day to all of you.

While we are not all mothers, we each have a mother, and we thank the Lord for this wonderful vocation.

We will have a prayer for all mothers today during the prayer of the Church.

For our sermon, however, we continue our journey through the Easter Acts passages to see how Jesus’ resurrection granted boldness to His followers in both life and death.

At the same time, we begin to look toward both Ascension and Pentecost, both of which continue to grant the power of the Resurrection of Jesus in our lives today by literally giving us Jesus.

In an article published in the Rochester Press in 1981, a survey was done on what people wanted in their pastors:

The perfect pastor preaches exactly 10 minutes.

He condemns sin roundly but never hurts anyone’s feelings.

He works from 8am until midnight and is also the church janitor.

The perfect pastor makes $40 a week, wears good clothes, drives a good car,

buys good books, and donates $30 a week to the church.

He is 29 years old and has 40 years experience.

Above all, he is handsome.

The perfect pastor has a burning desire to work with teenagers,

and he spends most of his time with the senior citizens.

He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor

that keeps him seriously dedicated to his church.

He makes 15 home visits a day

and is always in his office to be handy when needed.

The perfect pastor always has time for church council and all of its committees.

He never misses the meeting of any church organization

and is always busy evangelizing the unchurched.

The perfect pastor is always in the next church over!

If your pastor does not measure up,

simply send this notice to six other churches that are tired of their pastor, too.

Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of the list.

If everyone cooperates, in one week you will receive 1,643 pastors.

One of them should be perfect!

And then some old chap chimes in, "only one day a week.”

We chuckle, yet there are certain true responsibilities of pastors that the Lord has given to His Church.

The main responsibility is to preach and teach the Word of God and to administer His sacraments of Baptism, Holy Absolution and the Lord’s Supper.

Everything else is an extension of this: Visiting the sick, marrying God’s children, burying God’s saints, doing the work of an evangelist even if one does not have the gift, being a presence for God’s people— and bringing the Word of God and the Sacraments to them in all of these settings as appropriate.

There were some expectations placed on the Apostles in our text that they were incapable of accomplishing.

They could not both preach the Word and also “wait on tables”, that is to take care of the widows, something that the Lord’s brother, James speaks of when he says:

The Church had developed since Pentecost to the point where there was some structure.

And along with structure comes expectations.

The Apostles realized this:

This is known as “shared ministry”.

Unlike the old Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod “Herr Pastor” model, the Scriptures show us that ministry belongs to the Church, and that Ministry is so awesome, so un-containable that others are needed besides the pastors to make it work.

We recognize this here- that’s why we have an Altar Guild that sets up the Altar, an LWML where women gather for Bible Study, a Food Pantry where we literally put food in the mouths of widows and orphans.

We have ushers that help at Church.

And, we have Deacons.

The Office of Deacon is a Biblical role.

We see it unfold today with the choosing of the Seven.

Many with Greek names!

They would do the work that the Church was called to do, but was taking away from the Apostles teaching and preaching the Word of God.

Stephen

Among them was a Deacon named Stephen.

Not only did Stephen have the ability to serve, but he was gifted by the Holy Spirit:

Unfortunately, those from the “Synagogue of the Freedmen” (Jews from Italy who had been freed from slavery), and others “took Stephen on” for doing his signs and wonders.

They seized Stephen.

Doesn’t this sound like something we’ve just heard not too long ago?

Stephen is:

dragged before the Sanhedrin

False Witnesses were enlisted

Charged him with saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the temple

Charged him with changing the customs that Moses delivered to them.

It sounds like a repeat of the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, but this time with Stephen.

What the disciples had feared when they locked themselves in the upper room was coming true with Stephen.

Defense

As Stephen was on trial, he offers a defense of Jesus and the Church, and calls these men out on their sin- never a popular thing to do or to hear.

We have a redacted version of Stephen’s sermon- it is quite extensive, taking up the majority of Acts chapter 7.

He takes them through the entire history of Israel, beginning with Abraham, showing how they always rejected God’s prophets.

I encourage you to read it on your own.

As Stephen was on trial, he offers a defense of Jesus and the Church, and calls these men out on their sin- never a popular thing to do or to hear.

We have a redacted version of Stephen’s sermon- it is quite extensive, taking up the majority of Acts chapter 7. I encourage you to read it on your own.

He preached:

So

The word defense in the Bible is apologia - we get our word “apologize” from this.

But it doesn’t mean “I’m sorry.”

It means to “give a defense.”

Peter uses it when he says:

This is what Stephen is doing.

But not for long.

Death

Stephen is martyred for the Faith.

He is the first martyr (other than the Holy Innocents) to give his life for his Lord.

The Orthodox call him a “protomartyr” which means “first martyr”.

And, once again, in an eerie repeat of Jesus’ death, Stephen.

He cries out “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”, echoes of Jesus’ words, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”

And his final words were “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Jesus’ resurrection gave Stephen the boldness to confess Him to death.

Persecution was not just a part of the early church.

It is very much a part of the Church of today.

Jesus told us this:

And it’s happening all over the world Recent estimates show that nearly 90,000 Christians were killed for their faith last year alone worldwide.

Tortured, brutalized, crucified, burned alive, drowned, all because they would not cave in on their confession that Jesus is Lord.

They would not bow their knee to Allah, or to governmental prohibitions against Christianity, or whatever.

It is rare that anyone ever hears of this.

And yet it is happening.

And it is spreading.

The hatred for Jesus and His Church today is at an all time high.

Through Jesus’ resurrection and Pentecost, we too are given boldness to confess Christ even under threat.

The Gospel today reassures us of this.

John 14:1

Peter speaks about this also: