Peter Van Dodewaard: 0:00

Every time the church exercise, any sort of the echo industry that echoes this mercy of the team of five by the great chef of Greencraft, it's still with a tough test. Remember a detective.

David Nakhla: 0:13

Welcome to the Reform Deacons, a casual conversation with topics specifically designed to help local Reformed Deacons. There are nearly a thousand deacons in the OPC alone. So let's take this opportunity to learn from and encourage one another. We're so glad you could join us. Let's jump into our next episode.

Chris Cashen: 0:34

Welcome to another episode of the Reformed Deacon Podcast. My name is Chris Cashton, and I serve as pastor of Trinity Reformed Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lanham, Maryland, and I also serve on the OPC's Committee on Diaconal Ministries. With me today is Reverend Peter Van Dude Ward, a good friend of mine, first pastor of mine in the OPC. So let me just give a very short introduction. And brother, if I can ask you to fill in all the blanks, that would be great. Pastor Peter is currently serving and has been serving at Covenant Community OPC in Taylors, South Carolina. And he's been doing that for sometime around 18 years, I think. Is that right, Peter?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 1:14

Yeah, since 2008, it'll be 18 years in that June.

Chris Cashen: 1:18

Very good. And your wife is Laura Lee of 26 years and nine covenant children and two grandchildren, if I got those numbers correct.

Peter Van Dodewaard: 1:27

The statistics are currently accurate.

Chris Cashen: 1:30

Brother, can you just give us a little bit more background on yourself? That'd be helpful for the deacons as they join us.

Peter Van Dodewaard: 1:36

Yeah, sure. By God's grace, I grew up in a believing home and in a reformed church. And my dad was a ruling elder all my life. Matter of fact, we remember him serving the church and great model for me, even to this day, as I remember his cheerful service as an elder and not only his service to Christchurch, but his love for the church. And it wasn't always the easy days. It was love that went through difficulty and uh the ups and downs of church life. His view of Christchurch and what I meant to serve was not changed by the circumstances. More profound lessons that I've learned from my father. It was interesting. I mean my wife in high school, we come from a pretty different background. She came from Evangelical Baptist Church. I came from a church in the Dutch Reform background. We got married, we settled in. Church I grew up in. A few years later, I actually was elected to be a deacon. It's the first office I served in as a pretty young man. At the time working as a mechanical engineer at Four Deacons. Just actually just a week ago, I was preaching in the church that I grew up in at and standing next to me, two of the men that I used to serve as deacons with some 45 years ago. And uh we were reminiscing of God's mercy and the joy of camaraderie and serving Christ and the ministry of mercy. And how late our meetings went, and then after that, we would go out for Tim Horton's coffee because I was in Ontario, Canada, and talk some more. But we we made some fascinat friendships, and it was a joy to serve Christ Church as a deacon. Yeah, I ended up leaving behind my engineering job and going to seminary Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and wife and I moved here with three children, and it wasn't the PCA actually at the time, licensed in the PCA where I took a call to Covenant Community here in Taylor's. And it's my first church, and I've served as a pastor since 2008. But this has given me also another perspective on the work of the deacons. The deacons of Covenant with great joy. They are very good friends. Matter of fact, just last week was teaching a leadership class, and every week a different one of the deacons comes in and give them the floor, and they tell us a little bit about what it means to serve Christ as a deacon. But this office is one I've served in, one I serve alongside right now, and it's I think key to the life and liveliness and health of a church modeled after the apostolic pattern.

Chris Cashen: 3:53

Very good. I'm certain that that experience as a deacon is going to come out today as we talk about confidence. Our Orthodox Presbyterian Book of Church Order describes the work of the deacons, at least in part this way. Deacons are called to show forth the compassion of Christ in a manifold ministry of mercy toward the saints and strangers on behalf of the church. Well, to show forth the compassion of Christ is a significant calling, really. It's a tremendous work. But some of our deacons listening, some old, some new, may be wondering how? How can I do this well? Where will this compassion come from? Do I have what it takes? Or maybe just where does my confidence lie as a deacon to show forth the compassion of Christ? We're going to begin, as we do on some of the podcasts or some of the episodes, to take a look at a short portion of scripture and see how it might help us think through this topic. And so what we do is we invite some of our guests to open up scripture and doctrinal topics which have a particular application to the work or the character, the qualities of a reformed deacon. And then we seek to apply these things practically. In today's episode, we're going to be taking a look at John chapter 6 and the first 14 verses there, but it's really going to be our focus to apply this passage as it relates to the work of the deacon. Before I read that, just a little bit of the background to the passage. Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem. He's healed a paralytic who had been paralyzed for 38 years. And this gets him into a conversation really about who he is. There have been complaints that he's been making himself equal with God. And he's talking about salvation. He's bringing the gospel. And that's really the background, the context of our passage today. So let me, if I can, just read for us John chapter 6, beginning at verse 1. This is the very word of God. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat? He said this at him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred denare worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? Jesus said, Have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. And the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. I'll stop there. Amen. Peter, would you pray for us?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 7:25

Lord God, your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. And yet we see your glory, and hear the glory of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Think about what it means to show mercy and where we might find the fountain of mercy and grace. That you by your spirit would come pleased to use your word to shape and encourage the deacons of your church in that labor of mercy. And the Lord, we all together would again and again return to the fountain of every blessing Christ, from what we receive in Him, and the joy that we have in the satisfaction that you have given us in our Savior, that we would be able to learn to show mercy to others from that boundless supply. We pray in Jesus' name.

Chris Cashen: 8:12

Amen. Well, Peter, as we are seeking to understand this context, what is going on in this passage as we consider this interaction between Jesus and his disciples? What's happening? We all understand this, well, to an extent. We understand the supernatural, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 to the extent that we can. But what was Jesus seeking to teach his disciples?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 8:37

Well, if you look at the scene, you have the sort of the plain ordinary presenting problem. Hungry people, as so often is the case, Jesus is followed by this great multitude. The same signs, this power to heal, we know from all the gospels, that also the crowds hung as were. And so you have this crowd following the Savior. The question that comes up to us in verse 5, as Jesus looks at the multitude and speaks to Philip, says, Where should we buy bread that these may eat? In a sense, at a at the first layer level, the obvious level, we know he's already teaching them something about himself. The next verse tells us he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Jesus knew that he was about to feed the five thousand. And you see here that what is happening is this occasion of this remarkable supernatural river of mercy that's going to flow into this crowd, in the Savior's mind, he has a goal or a purpose, which is that through that mercy he would declare his identity glory in a bigger way. And so there's something interesting here already. He sees the multitude so often like sheep without a shepherd. He knows they're hungry. The disciples see the problem, there's nowhere to get food. But our Savior has a goal here, and the goal is going to be to show that mercy with divine power in order to communicate his ultimate mission, which is that he is the bread of wire.

Chris Cashen: 10:15

Very good. Well, as I opened up our episode, we said we wanted to talk about confidence. And so I suppose it's appropriate to consider should we even be speaking about a deacon being confident in his work? And maybe we could just broaden that question to any kind of labor for Christ. Should we even speak of being confident? I suppose we should start there and maybe we'll work that into this particular scripture passage. But should we be even speaking of confidence as we labor for Christ?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 10:43

So it's interesting when we think about the office of deacon. If you were to turn over to 1 Timothy 3, actually, there is a biblical word for confident deacons after describing what kind of people they should be and their wives and their families. Paul gives this great promise to deacons. The promise here is that in the act of faith service to Christ as a deacon in the ministry of mercy, that there's a strengthening of faith. There's an increase of boldness. And this is that same boldness that you see in the book of Acts that was through the Spirit that made Peter and John fearless preachers in the first chapters. There's this it's a confidence that is supernaturally worked, divinely given, and it's rooted in brand through Christiness. But it's interesting that this mark, even a promise gift by the Holy Spirit for a great confidence in the work. And that comes by faith in Jesus Christ. So there's something here, a link between doing the work and seeing Christ's glory. Yeah, the second part of the answer is I've implicitly answered the question, bravado and uh self-confidence, no. But there's a biblically warranted confidence that God delights to give, and that's confidence in Christ.

Chris Cashen: 12:05

Well, given that response, I think we can jump into this topic using this passage in John's gospel. So as we speak about confidence, one thing that can affect our confidence is fear. Do you think that Philip was a bit fearful in this situation? He he was being tested, but do you think he was a bit fearful? It certainly can be dangerous just to speculate on what lays behind the actual text. Sometimes we can ask those questions and ponder them, but what do you think?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 12:37

Well, he's certainly wondering. It is so interesting that our Savior knew why he was asking his first question. Where shall we buy bread that these may eat? But this he said to Philip that is to ask him. So the spirit-inspired text already tells us that Christ is is reaching his hand as it were into Philip's cart with this question. He's pressing a little bit. What is there, Philip? And so when the we get the answer seven, that Philip is saying, okay, we spent 200 denaria for bread. We basically hardly have from for everybody. This is a big crowd. We have a problem, is Philip's answer. And he does not seem to have a horizon of fake that's looking beyond the problem that they're they don't have money, not a lot of Walmart's around, and we're in a desolate place. And the whole project does not seem hopeful. It is interesting how often we do the same thing, isn't it? These are the disciples who've seen Jesus steal the wind and the waves and turn the water into white, stay in the gospel of John here in John chapter two, for example. They know, but it is interestingly how quickly we forget. But our Savior's testing him. I don't know if I would describe him as fearful here. It does not seem to at this point put into his calculus that he is standing next to the word who became flesh.

Chris Cashen: 14:00

Yes, good point. Before we leave that idea of fear, and I appreciate your answer. What do you think about our deacons having been a deacon and serving Christ now in ministerial labors? Do you think it's possible that we, either as ministers or as deacons, can enter into fear as we are concerned of failing, whether it be in proclaiming the word or in performing mercy ministries the Lord gives to us?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 14:31

Yeah, it's not uncommon. I can tell you that in my own thinking about fear. Probably God wires us all differently, but when it comes to fear, particularly serving in Christ Church, am I going to do well enough? Satan wants me to be afraid, doesn't want me to believe that I will see the glory of God. He doesn't want me to believe that. When I think about my efforts, I'm like, when I feel these temptations, I always like to concede something. That sounds crazy. Why would you concede something? Well, in this great spiritual argument, either you're gonna fail. I'm like, well, that's true. Matter of fact, I don't have what it takes to succeed. Preaching is what I do now. And uh there's not a week where I don't go to the pulpit and think this is impossible. I leave the pulpit, but I've in a sense fail. I have because my best works are mixed with sin and because I don't have the power to change people's hearts. As Paul says in Colossians 1, Christ labors with all his energy. No, he's pleased to use these feeble efforts to do something. There's kind of a paradox. I'm always confident that I'm unable. I know I'm not able. And any one of Christ's officers, you're deacon, and you say, How in the world can I do this? I remember being elected at a very young age as a deacon, and I thought, there's no way possible. I went to my pastor, H. John Kubrick. He said, it just doesn't seem possible to do this. That's not a that's not a bad reaction, Peter. You can't actually do it. I actually felt the same thing when I caught him up going into the ministry. I thought the worst thing is, worst possible thing that's gonna happen is not to rightly divide and preach the word of God. I guess I've gotten comfortable with that over the years as a Christian. You should have low confidence in yourself. That's okay. You should conclude that this project, apart from grace, is not achieved. That's okay. It's a kind of liberating action. Because now the only question is okay, am I gonna take this project on or am I take this calling on? So the only answer is gonna be that or this requires your divine power. We have this treasure in jars of clay. And that calculus. So, yeah, can we become fearful of failure? I would say back to that conversation and temptation, yeah, I'm going to fail, except there's a problem. Problem is the power of the risen Christ at work in me. And on account of that, I cannot fail. And it's living out of our union with Christ is where the confidence comes. So, yeah, Satan will always come back and say you're not gonna make it. And I say, I usually say that's right, and you've sinned, and I've said that's right too. At a certain point, what you have to be able to say when those fears mound up is you're arguing with the wrong person. The one to whom I'm united paid for my sins, gave me his spirit, called me to the work, and he's gonna glorify us all. He doesn't even need me to do it. And that's how I try to fight against fears.

Chris Cashen: 17:41

So it's very helpful. Brother, we're talking about confidence and we're talking about the compassion of Christ. And so as we depart from fear a bit as it relates to confidence, there's another aspect that I'd like to touch upon, and and that is belief or unbelief. And so I'm going back to Philip and thinking about his response. I'm wondering if there is some unbelief going on in Philip's mind and heart. I'm really not talking about saving faith at this point, but I'm asking again, is it possible that Philip just lacked belief that Jesus, who was seated next to him, could do exactly that which he was asking Philip about, implying, hey Philip, where can we get this? Is it possible that he was just lacking belief in the ability of Christ to accomplish that what he was asking for?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 18:40

Yeah. It could be that he lacked faith and ability. I do think that we as Christians, like if you ask somebody who knows the Bible, it says, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you say, Okay, well, I believe him. He died for me, he paying him to the price of the cross, and he rose again from the dead. The question is at this point, what is he not able to do? Well, it seems to me the answer is nothing. That is the answer. But so why do we do this anyways? Back to John 1. I mean, there was nothing that was made that was not made through him. And then you add the cross and the empty tomb, and then the gift of the spirit of Pentecost. The supernatural dimensions of the glory of Christ are so great. I imagine you could ask a disciple, you know, can he raise the dead? Can he heal sick people? They'd be like, oh yeah, we saw that last week, we saw that last week. Yeah, you know, so you're like, well, Philip, what's wrong with you here? What kind of unbelief is this? There's a subtler kind of unbelief that is one that would say, maybe he doesn't want to do this. Maybe he's busy. Maybe this isn't something I could ask him for, or a lack of a faith that comprehends the comprehensive nature of his interest in his peak. So I could bring the littlest thing to my two-year-old daughter, Miriam, has fever right now. She can ask Christ to heal her of billions of people. People in the world. And we implicitly would say, well, that's the sweetest thing if a you know child would pray for that. And we believe that it would help her, but then it doesn't ordinary things of life. We just don't pray. I can kind of kind of embarrassing story on this. Years ago, we had ran a boat on a lake up here. We had my wife's helmet, my grandmother on the boat. There was a bit of wind and the motor quit. And I uh I like fixing things. And uh so I took the cow hang off. I'm out there in the middle of the lake, and we're getting blown into the mountain, some little cove somewhere. We stayed for four hours and got lost to sight. We had no self-service. Anyway, long story short, somewhere along the way, I'm trying to fix the motor, and my wife says, Peter, you should pry it. And I said, Well, I'm fixing the motor. It's not really a great time to stop for per me right now. I'm gonna fix the motor. Now, this is not a good thing to say to your wife. I didn't say all that. That's kind of my attitude described. I was like, in a minute, in a minute, I'll pry up right a bit. I almost got it fixed. Well I never got it fixed. And I forgot about it in a boat. Two hours later, our boat came by and they picked up Wally's grandmother and Orley and one of our kids who were the baby at the time and took them way off to the dog to get them to safety. And then I was left, always Ann, a bunch of kids, they were gonna come back and help us. So they came back, tied a rope to the boat. And the second they tied the rope to the boat, their motor quit. And I thought, first thing I thought was Orley said, Peter, you should pray first. And what I wanted to say to those folks is my name is Jonah. Um, just untie your rope, and you should be fine. The reason I bring this up is because what was I doing? I was like, well, it's just a small thing. Why would I ask the Lord for help ice? A motor. Like, it's not really what I was thinking out loud, but it's a kind of unbelief. You don't trust all things. And never forget that moment where I just thought, Peter, you just didn't. And maybe the outcome I was thinking wouldn't have been different. We ended up getting rescued, someone else came with a third bow. We ended up getting towed in and it was all fine. But the point is, Philip is kind of sitting there and he's got a problem that the Lord of Glory can solve, and he just doesn't ask him. He just doesn't ask. And we're like this so often.

Chris Cashen: 22:14

Yeah. Good, good story, good application. Brother, I guess we get to this issue of confidence. We've been touching around it a bit, but really I want to drive it home at this point. Is it possible for a deacon's confidence to be strengthened and built up, confidence in Christ now, considering what Jesus did in this passage? Do you have any thoughts on that? How can a deacon take this passage and just be built up in confidence to go out and have mercy and perform those tasks of mercy ministry? Any thoughts on that?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 22:49

Well, there's a couple things. It's clear that Jesus wanted to advance his disciples' thinking about familiar. And there's a number of things in the passage which could help us in the actual ministry. First of all, our Savior knows the needs. He, verse five, saw the multitude coming in. We said this to test the disciples of where will we buy bread if we these may eat. So in the mind of Christ, before the disciples get active distributing the gifts, is already the heart to care. He sees the needs, he knows the needs. He's planning already to feed them. He himself knew what he would do. This is, I think, helps us as confidence. Uh Christ knows the needs in your congregation already. And he already has a plan to meet them before he even engages his deacons. As a matter of fact, in the mystery of Providence, that's why he called you to be a deacon because he's placed you there. And then there's another thing, just like Philo, one of the things being a deacon that is such a joy is you're not much more as a deacon. You are just distributing the baskets, is what you're doing. That's all you're doing. It's your job. You're distributing baskets. I mean, when you're a preacher, you don't have any original thoughts. You're you're mining the word and you're proclaiming a message of the cross. It's not your message. So there's this wonder of participation in that work. But remember that the work started in the mind and heart of Christ. He's the one who knew the knees. He's the one who intended to meet them. He's the one who is pleased to use instruments. And then second thing is to teach you something about himself as he misses you, like you did with Philbert. You know, this is one way that we can have greater confidence in looking at Christ. The second thing is what he actually did. I think the feeding of the 5,000 is one of the most remarkable passages in the New Testament, not only here in John 6, because Jesus is going to say, I am the bread of life, that there's something that you were meant to double back to mean and not for bread that perishes, but for everlasting life. I mean, this is the great truth of the parable. But the miracle itself, I think about what happened. I've actually meditated on this. Miracle. I have an engineering degree in law of conservation of mass. Always like, did the universe get heavier at the PDF 5,000? Like something of creative power happens in his hands. He takes the little and he makes an abundance. Like this is the creator provider in history revealing glory and power in ways that are just electrifying. And you look at what happens, as I always think about his hands, they just kept breaking something. But there was nothing, there was no lack. John 2, the first of Jesus, signs, and John goes on to say, I think it's verse 11, and we saw this glory. And that traces all the way back into the prologue, the glories of the only begotten, of the Father, full of grace and truth. Well, they're seeing glory and power, dominion, and salvation in the hands of the Christ who will feed the world through his veil scarred hand. They're seeing a little window into the power and glory of Christ. And I think that's another thing. Don't miss the miracle. Sometimes we we just, it's like we read Bible stories that we forget the miracle. No, they were hungry and then there was a lot of food. No, there was a miracle here, divine power. That same power gives us everything we need for life and godliness. It's the power you need to carry out your office as a deacon. That's the source of all the mercy, industry supplies, the money, the tithes, the offerings, the food, the rank, everything. Luther has this great line. He says, we look at the feeding of the 5,000, and we think, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. Luther says, How about the miracle of your daily bread as God caused the earth to travel in a circuit, rotate on its axis, the sun to shine, the rain to fall for years, the farmer to take the crop, gather it, and bring it to the market, bring it to you. And this is worth meditating on for Mercy Mission. Where are we going to receive what we need to give? And then I think the third thing would be what I intimated at the beginning. I mean, this is a kind of miracle. And this is what Mercy Ministry should do, really, if it's functioning well. They're not hungry, there's leftover baskets, there's as much as everybody wanted. It's an abundant feast. And so the presenting diaconal need, it's met. Met with extra. But deacons shouldn't stop reading that. Every time the church exercises any sort of diagonal ministry that echoes this mercy of the feeding of the 5,000 by the great shepherd of the sheep of green grass of Israel, it's to lift us up, just remember that he's actually the bread of life. And uh here's another maybe lesson for deacons from John 6. When you go with that bag of groceries to the house of these folks and maybe been into the church three times and don't know anything about the Lord, don't just hand them a bag of groceries, give it to them, and say, friends, this is just a little gift. It's from the Lord. He supplies everything. There's gospel promise. There's bread that could satisfy you for eternal life. And that's the Lord of the bread. The Lord who gave you this. And in the name of Christ we come. Let me tell you about his body broken, his bloodshed. Let me tell you how you can have him as heavenly bread, trust and believe it. And now you're getting to, I think, what spiritual diaconal ministry is, it's a grand opportunity to say. Look beyond it to the Christ who gives everlasting away. And as you do these things, over and over again as a deacon, I think somewhere here is where back to 1 Timothy 3, you read this language, for those who have served well as deacons, obtain for themselves good standard and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Paul's conception of this mercy ministry is so Christ-center. I don't know if that's helpful, but it's helpful, brother.

Chris Cashen: 29:05

It's very good. Thank you. I'd like to take what we've been talking about now and kind of wrap it into a scenario and ask a question at the end as to how you would advise a deacon who's ready to enter into this scenario. So consider a young widow in your church, not covenant, but an imaginary OPC church, who's recently lost her husband hit by a drunk driver in a horrible accident. And she has three children, young children, two, four, and six. Prior to her husband's death, she was a stay-at-home mom caring for these dear covenant children. They had no life insurance policy, generally lived from paycheck to paycheck. And you and the elders have been ministering unto this dear widow spiritually. But now you've asked the deacon in your congregation to minister mercy to her, the compassion of Christ. The funds in the deacon's account are low, and there are other pressing needs in the church, other pressing diaconal needs. Deacon Don comes as you've asked him to go, but he wants to talk to you before he goes and meets with this dear widow. How would you advise him as he's about to set out to show the compassion of Christ? He's looking for guidance from you. How would you advise him that he can do that, that important work?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 30:35

This is definitely one of those scenarios that go maybe go back to what we talked about earlier. Where in the world are we going to get enough money? And if we gathered all the money we could get, 200 denaria worth of bread, everyone's going to have a crump. I mean, we have the congregation versus a woman, her children, and their entire household needs with an indeterminate ending. I know what my temptation would be, and it still is today, it would be okay, quick, let's get over there and let's get a budget and see how much they actually need and let's solve the problem. It's not a bad thing to get an assessment. We'll get to that in a minute, but it's an impossible situation in a sense. Small church, you got one deacon, or they're not thinking about supporting an entire family. It's one of those times when we have to pray. And this is where you can ways to pray. Lord, like you fed five thousand. Resupply and resuper. Because we have nothing. Even if we had a significant pile of money, it's not going to put a den in this problem. I mean, we might have five loaves and two fishes. I think prayer, prayer, prayer, or even prayer, and then meditation in that prayer on what Christ has done and is able to do. To underestimate that first step, God often puts us in places where He actually delights to put us in places where He's taken everything away that would give a natural answer to the problem. The ministry I've been up against the wall many times, just very hard situations that I had hoped never would transpire, or if they did, it disappeared quickly and they didn't. So then you're just there with your problem and it's not fixable. You probably experienced that sometime. I think it's not just the act of prayer, but what God wants us to do is be believing. Move our confidence from ourselves to Him. I remember Moses eggs in the Red Sea, the Egyptians are coming, people are hungry. Probably not a lot of swimmers, I'm guessing. Maybe, maybe they all can take place. Red Sea with all your kids is not a great option. Egyptian army is not a good option. And the people are complaining and murmuring. And and Moses has that little signal statement. Stand still and wait for the salvation of the Lord. And glorious, glorious. Prayer with faith that says, Lord, you have us here, and we believe that you will supply. Show us the work. Second, I mean, you only have one deacon, please, somebody. Don't send the poor man on his own. I believe it's the LBC Book of Church Order. It says if the church is not big enough to have deacons, the elders should do the work. That's a situation that needs the full-hormed ministry, word and deed. And don't just let Deacon Don come to you, Pastor. Go with him. Join the visit. And then, I mean, I at this point, yeah, practical assessment of what the needs are, and then there's a way that God is off the place to work. Get back to the body. And say, here it is. We have a significant need. What can you do? And you ought never to be surprised because you prayed. And because of the spirit at work in the church, you ought never to be surprised at what the Lord will provide right there from the Carnegie. Well, we're Presbyterians, which I like to be. And in the OPC, I am thankful to be in a denomination. There are resources I could call nearby churches, I can call our Presbyterian Diaconal Committee, I could call David Knoppla. I there's just so many phone numbers that I have that I could call in that situation. And uh deacons, you need to know about them all. You're not alone. And then don't forget that if God provides that way, because sometimes you think God provided because the phone call is the same. He put all those people in place. He provided the debts. And now you're watching him dispense the mystery. So those are some thoughts. Now, how to show the compassion of Christ. Maybe I didn't answer that quite directly.

Chris Cashen: 34:55

Brother, you did because you took us from the impossibility and the potential fear, the the potential unbelief of that scenario to pray, to confidence in Christ, to the fact that Jesus has already orchestrated this event and placed it before you, and he already has a solution. And your work as a deacon is to begin with that prayer, that confidence in Christ. It's not to begin with the pulling out of the hair and thinking there's no way we can accomplish this. It's to begin with prayer. And yes, absolutely. Take the pastor with you. And yes, absolutely, there are other options to satisfy the physical needs. But he's bringing that scenario to you as a deacon so that you're going to rest and rely upon Christ. And that, in and of itself, is going to change the attitude of one going out to minister mercy such that the one to whom he's ministering mercy is going to see that compassion. So you answered the question. Thank you. That was very helpful. Brother, as we wrap up, any things that you'd like to add on this topic that might be helpful to our deacons?

Peter Van Dodewaard: 36:12

Dangerous question, Chris. I am a preacher. Maybe a closing thought just from the passage and the scenario. When we serve Christ in his churches, in in any way, but I'm thinking about the office of deacon, for example. Arnold Pastor was a deacon. Both of them were a joy. If you go back to the feeding of the 5,000, you're not the source of the provision, you don't have the power. It's often Christ is testing you and changing you. And you think you're uh out there trotting around being the servant of the Lord. But in this passage, the servants were the ones who needed some hard work. And the way Christ was pleased to do that was to show his glory in his mercy. And the remarkable privilege of being on the front line of kingdom work and to be able to, in a sense, to be near to Christ as he does these things should not be lost on us. To represent him, how could I? But there ought never to be a day when we're not just filled with a sort of awe and wonder. We're gazing at those hands that fed the 5,000, and we're lifting our eyes to the bread of life who gave himself for us on the cross. And if we can remember that in serving, it's a very different way to serve. You anticipate that he'll show his glory and you'll meet the need, and then you worship him when he does.

Chris Cashen: 37:43

Very good. Thank you, Peter, for taking the time to help us walk through this passage of scripture as Jesus indeed did feed the 5,000. And more importantly, as he taught his disciples where their confidence was to lie, as you've indicated so many times, as he showed his glory, we rarely consider the need for spiritual preparation as we go into and seek to minister mercy to the people of God. Deacons, we hope that this episode will be helpful and an encouragement to you and your labors for the Lord.

David Nakhla: 38:18

Thanks so much for joining us. Special word of thanks to our producer, Chris Dugan, who worked faithfully behind the scenes to bring this podcast to you. Be sure to visit our website, thereformdeacon.org, where you'll find all of our episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And we hope you'll join us again soon for another episode of the Reformed Deacons podcast.