All right, good morning. Oh, boy. I can hear myself. So this morning, we're in Acts chapter 6, verses 1 through 7, if you want to turn there. You can follow along with me as I read. And of course, we're using the outline as prepared for us by the book, Let's Study Acts, Dennis Johnson. It's a very short section. It breaks itself down nicely into an outline. But there's a lot here that we can appreciate and learn from. So I'll read John chapter 6, verses 1 through 7. You can follow along. Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the Twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. Let's pray real quick. God, thank you for giving us this word. Thank you for giving us, we trust your spirit is here to guide us and to enlighten us. So we do pray for that work to be done by you. We're dependent on you. Thank you for giving us your word, but help us to understand it, help me to teach it, and help us all to grow to be more like Jesus because of it. And we ask it in his name, amen. All right, so this section breaks down. I thought it broke down into a good outline. Hope that's not too small for everyone to see. But first we see the problem, then the solution, and then the result. If you look in verses one and two, we have the presentation of the problem. Now, in those days... When the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint. So we see the first problem that we're having is that the church is growing. Now, you all know me. I have a very Pollyanna-type personality, always looking on the bright side of life. And so all these problems are really good things. But we'll present them as problems just for any pessimists out there. The problem of church growth, right? The church is growing. The number of the disciples is increasing. This is what we expected to see. based on the Lord's words himself. He said that his church was going to be, he was going to build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. It's an expeditionary force. It's going out. And so the church is growing. We've seen that as the Book of Acts has unfolded. The Book of Acts is, of course, what the church is doing and what the disciples are doing, but it's really what the Lord is still doing. He's doing the same work that he started. It's the same work that he even began. Back in creation, his will is unfolding. He's calling his people to himself. He's overcoming their sin, even. So the Lord is still working, and the church is growing. And that can be a problem. If you have not enough in the leadership of a church, that can become overwhelming. If there's one elder in a very large congregation, that's going to exhaust the man. So a church growing can be a challenge that has to be faced. The second problem is that the church is diverse. And obviously here, this is a diversity of culture. Hellenists would have been Greekified Jews, Jews who had been living amongst Greek culture for a long time. I even had a religious philosophical component where a philosopher had tried to reconcile or combine Greek philosophy and Jewish religion. So to be a Hellenist was to be a Jewish, ethnically Jewish, but have a lot of Greek influence, speaking the language, And it could have even led to a sort of different version of Judaism. Additionally, there was the Septuagint, was the Greek translation of the Old Testament. And so you might have even read as a Hellenist a very different Old Testament Bible. So there are some real difficulties that are brought in in this diversity. And we know that when You know, sometimes old people and young people, that kind of diversity, there's conflict. There can be racial differences that bring cultural differences. Just, you know, my wife and I joke that, you know, she's from a different side of the country. There's a very different culture out in Seattle. And if you, you know, if you have any sort of, you know, even in a marriage, you're bringing two different cultures together. And those things can be challenges that have to be faced with grace to be overcome positively. So as the Church is growing and as it's diversifying, it is facing some challenges because of that. And the challenge is that it seemed that, to the Hellenists, that their widows were being neglected. And since our text does not present the apostles as rebuking any sort of ethnic supremacy, I don't think that this was something that we have to put into this text. We don't have to say that the Hebrew Jews were neglecting intentionally for hatred or racial animosity or anything, the Greek Jews. What we can see here is that the Hebrew Jews would have been those who were already living in Jerusalem. And so they already had relationships with each other from going to synagogues and temples. And they already have a network for taking care of the widows. And we remember that at Pentecost, a bunch of people had come into the Holy Land and the Holy City. for the sake of worship from the dispersion. So a lot of these people are new residents in this area. So while they're being neglected and it's not a good thing, I don't think we have to read into this any sort of ethnic animosity. This is just sort of an accidental oversight, I would say. But it can happen still. When new people are coming in, you can just overlook that someone might have a problem just because you don't think about it. You think about your own problems that you need to address, and you can just miss it. And I think that's what's happening here. Another problem that is a good problem that we see, though, coming out of this is the church is ministering to those in need. Yes, the Hellenistic widows were being neglected. The Hebrew widows were not being neglected. They were being taken care of. And that's, you know, we know from James, pure religion is to take care of the widows. When the poor, the widows, the orphans are neglected, that's, you know, we have prophets who railed against Israel for their failure to minister to the needy, right? Our problem is presented in this disparity of ministry, but the ministry was still actually being done. So while it's not good that it was not being done consistently, it still was being done, and that's a good thing. Another good thing that comes out of this problem that's presented to us is that the church is very organized. And we can see this in verse two. Then the 12 summoned the multitude of the disciples. So you have all of this church gathering here in Jerusalem and a complaint has been brought to the disciples and the disciples are able to gather the church. There's a certain number of people. It's not all of Israel came in. It wasn't some Sadducees sneaked in, some Pharisees. This is a defined group, a defined body, a church gathered together. The disciples didn't bother calling the pagans. They called the people who would hear their voices. So we see the church is organized. There's a clear authority, and there's a clear body. And this church is responsive. They come together. in this problem as we're seeing it unfold, we're seeing some some good things, some graces displayed here. Finally, the church is obedient. So the problem is a lack of distribution of resources, and the disciples They want to see this need met. They summon the disciples and say, hey, we need to meet this table need. We need to give people food. But it's not best for us for us to leave the word of God and serve some tables. They want to obey the mercy needs. But they also need to minister the Word, right? There's a ministry of Word and a ministry of mercy. And they were called to preach. But if you remember from the Gospels, the disciples have no problem serving tables, right? They fed 5,000 at one point, gathered up food afterward. They fed 4,000 at another time and gathered up food. They don't have a problem serving tables. They'd done it before. And they would have been probably happy to do it again. But it wasn't the most effective use of their calling and their gifting. They were gifted with having seen and learned from the Lord Jesus. And so it was preferable that they should be obedient to that higher call on them and that someone else step up to meet this need. What that meant was they couldn't do it themselves, right? So they would have done it, they would have happily done it, but they couldn't because they had another thing they had to obey, another call to obey. So in this, we see the problem presented before us, the Hellenistic widows being neglected. These are some good problems to have, right? We wanna see a church growing and we wanna see a church that is certainly looking like its area, right? It doesn't disappoint us that there are not too many ethnic Germans in this building right now, right? Because there aren't a whole lot of them in this area. There aren't a lot of people from Brazil in this immediate area. So it doesn't surprise us that there aren't a lot of Brazilians, maybe part Brazilians. There aren't a lot of those, because we want our church to look like our area. And we all come from the surrounding area. We look like our area, right? So as far as diversity goes, that's a good thing, that a church is diverse and not the same age and not the same kind of person. We have diversities of work and income levels in this church, and that's a good thing. But when there are these different types of differences among us, there will be some problems. And it's just we can see problems sometimes and get overwhelmed by them. But it's just real life. I mean, we understand that. It's just real life, that we will have challenges put before us. Paul, when he's speaking to the Corinthian church, that church had some real problems. And Paul was not super hard on them. In 1 Corinthians 11, he's like, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I believe it. Like, I believe you guys would be the type of church that would have conflict and division among you. That's kind of a hard thing to say. And James, when he's speaking to his audience in his epistle, he says, hey, there are wars and fights among you. And where do they come from? They come from un-mortified lusts, right? So we know that problems are the reality. And we don't want to present this reality before ourselves so that we despair. But it's just so we recognize that we'll have to face challenges in our church. I think our church has not faced too many monumental challenges since I've been here. Maybe back when I first came, I presented a challenge. It's just the reality. Our calling then is to face these challenges as the disciples did. We'll see how they faced them, but we want love to cover a multitude of differences and sins even. We want to use the means of reconciling that God has set before us. We also need to remember that it's actually gonna take the destruction of the entire cosmos and the deliverance to us of new bodies and the new creation for these problems to go away. So we are looking forward to that day. And it's a radical change. It's not something we're going to accomplish. We're not going to accomplish the elimination of problems. It's going to take the Lord remaking all that is in order to put these problems behind us. But that day will come. So we labor diligently with love for each other until that day. So no reason for pessimism, right? So now, as we've seen the problem, let's look at the solution. The solution is in verses three through six. We see gentle leadership. Verse three, I like these first two words. Therefore, brethren. So the problem was presented to the congregation by the 12, and they say, therefore. So we know that therefore is a very reasonable and rational word. It's a logical, argumentative word. We're bringing logic into it. They're saying, we've presented this problem, therefore. They're not being emotional. They're not getting angry. They're like, you guys are always bringing problems to us. You do something. Fix it. Don't bring it to us again. Or, oh, you want me to fix it? I'll fix it for you. And this just snapping in judgment. They're being calm and rational. They're saying, hey, there's a problem. We've considered it. We've prayed about it. We've sought wisdom from the scripture. We've sought counsel from each other. This is what we plan to do. They're very logical and patient with it. And then they say, brethren. Now, the English word moron comes from the Greek word moron, right? It's moronos. But the text doesn't say, therefore, morons. It says, therefore, adelphoi, therefore, brethren. They didn't get angry at the problem, but they considered that those people bringing the problem to them shared the same family. Hey, this isn't, This isn't someone I hate coming to me. This isn't my enemy coming to me. Of course, we're supposed to love our enemies. So if it had been an enemy, I'm sure they wouldn't want to fix it, their problem. But this is a brother. So they say, therefore, they're very, you know, they've thought it through. They're not reacting emotionally or arbitrarily. And they're saying, therefore, brethren, they Part of the solution, part of what it takes to face these kind of challenges is that sort of sensitivity to those bringing the problems to you. So the next thing that we see out of the leaders here of the church is that they have sensitive rule. They have a sense for what the problem is. they're not lording it over. Remember the Gentiles, when Jesus was talking to his disciples, the Gentiles are the ones who, they like power, and they like to use it, and they like to remind you that they have it over you. And the church is not called to that kind of power usage. We don't lord it over each other. Husbands don't lord their authority over their wives. Parents don't lord their authority over their children. For parents, at least, you have to remind your kids that you are the authority sometimes. But you're not cold and harsh and arbitrary. You try to be consistent and patient. We don't want to gloat over our kids. And that's what we see out of the 12 here. They don't force a solution. They say, hey, let's come together. You've brought the problem. Now let's work together for the solution. You, you look in among yourselves and you find seven good men. You find seven men. You are gonna be part of solving this problem. One of the other things that we see with this being a Hellenistic problem and a Hebrew problem where these two cultures are clashing Our modern day loves this critical view of looking at things, the critical theory lens that says there's an oppressor class and an oppressed class. And whenever there's a disparity of outcome, in this case, widows, some widows were getting more food than other widows. If there's a disparity in outcome, that means there's an oppressor oppressed matrix. And it would be easy to look at that and say, oh, these Hebrew Jews are oppressors and they, there's some evil afoot here. And what ends up happening is that seven Greek Jewish men, one of them even six Greek Jewish men and one of them a Gentile, are actually appointed to this office. And Some people see that this is the disciples being sensitive and saying, hey, the Greeks were the ones that brought this problem, so let's have Greek men in place. And I don't agree with that. That would seem to me to be manipulative on both sides, that this Hellenistic group would only be satisfied with Greek representatives and the disciples would try to buy their peace by just giving them what they needed from their number. What I think you see is it says, seek out from among yourselves. This isn't just, hey, you Greeks have a problem, so you Greeks fix the problem. This is the church. Remember, the whole church came together. These were men who were sought out by Hebrew-speaking Jews as well as Greek-speaking Jews. This was the church coming together and not looking at, some superficial trait, like, do you speak Greek? And saying, you speak Greek, you can serve the tables. This was looking for certain graces in these men. And that was the bigger priority. So a Hebrew would have seen a grace-filled, Greek-speaking Jew, as well as a Greek-speaking Jew would have seen that, right? So I don't think this is, we have to see this through this lens of critical theory. We just see this as, these are grace-filled men, and the church recognized that. So we see our seven men are chosen, and let's look at the qualities that they have. Seek out men of a good reputation so they have no charge that anybody can lay against them. When they do sin, they reconcile with the offended party. They seek to be repenting, continually repenting people. They're full of the Holy Spirit, so they have a spiritual reality in them. They are drawn to God's people. They love God's word. They are devoted to prayer. Spiritual realities abide within them, but also they're full of wisdom. These are men who have some practical skill. Obviously, wisdom begins with fearing God, and then submitting yourself and drawing counsel from his word, and then applying that in every situation. So they are able to apply God's truth to every situation. They have this spiritual reality. They have this practical reality. That's what these men had to represent. And then the disciples would appoint them. We see authority and submission. It was the church selecting these men, right? So it's collaborative. There's maybe the advice or the counsel received from the congregation by the elders. The elders want to know, what do you need? You've had this problem. How can, still being in authority, they want to know, what does the congregation think? There's nothing wrong with taking counsel, is there? And so these 12, they take counsel from the congregation. But while they're taking counsel, it's still the authority for the decision is still in their hands, quite literally, right? As it says that they would, they're going to lay their hands on them and appoint them. the church is going to respond. They're going to submit to this call by the 12, and they're going to do what they asked. They're going to select seven men, and then the apostles will appoint them. These men will not serve except by the authority of the apostles. So when we're faced with certain problems in the church, it requires gentle leadership, sensitive leadership, We want to have a spiritual and a practical gifting. Clear authority roles and submission roles have to be maintained. And another way that they solve this problem, another truth that we learn from this, is the need for the division of labor. While these men are going to be appointed in verse 3, we're going to appoint these men over this business of waiting tables. So that we, the 12, can continue to give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Because that was their call. When Christ sent them, remember Matthew 28, he didn't send them into all the world to put bread on every table. It was to make disciples. And we see that the number of the disciples is being increased. So the 12 are making disciples. And to wait tables now would be a hindrance to that ministry. It would really be disobedience for the 12. So they need to divide up these tasks. There are people who are going to focus on the word and prayer, and there are people that are going to focus on the mercy ministry, meeting the needs of the congregation. The word diakonos appears in this text three times. There are a couple different places, serving, when you see that word service or serving. But it's not clear whether, a lot of commentators don't necessarily see this as being the establishment of the diakonal office. So I don't know either way. I think it's pretty consistent, right, that we would have spiritual men concerned with Mercy with serving the physical needs of the congregation. So we may see actual the office of the deacon established here. And that's good, division of labor. We need certain people to do this and certain people to do that. Finally, as part of our solution, as we see that this holy and good leadership, this wise leadership of the 12, leads to a happy congregation. So in verse 5, the saying pleased the whole multitude. It doesn't say that the saying led to some grumbling obedience by the congregation. They didn't receive and be like, I knew they were going to say this, whatever. They weren't resigned to misery. they were perfectly pleased with what the disciples presented. It was rational, after all. It was delivered to them in a spirit of love, and it just made sense to them. The Spirit's working to create this unity, obviously, but we see a happy congregation here. They like the idea, and they choose, again, seven men. We've got Stephen, who, of course, we find out a little bit more about him in the following chapter. He's a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. So he's the only one that we get that sort of character analysis out of. But we've got Philip, a Greek, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. So a proselyte from Antioch means that he's from Antioch, and he's not a proselyte into Christianity. He's a proselyte into Judaism first. He was someone who, as a Gentile, became religiously Jewish before actually hearing the gospel and becoming now a Greek-speaking sort of Jewish Christian. So an interesting path for him. But again, we see these are seven men that represent the congregation. It represents, culturally, a certain portion of the congregation. But again, the whole congregation chose these men. So the whole congregation is pleased with these men who are appointed. It's a blessing to the church when they have good leadership and when gifts are recognized so that the needs of the church can be met. We need to hear the word, and we need works of ministry. We need counsel. We need example. We need all these things. And when the church is healthy, like this one was, the whole church is pleased and blessed. So what sets these men apart maybe as a thought here? Obviously, they did have some graces. There is a calling on their lives based on their gifting. But I think we can all be this kind of person, right? We can be full of the spirit and full of faith. We can be spiritual and wise, right? That's not something that that only these seven could do, only certain people in certain offices can do. We can all be striving to put on. the type, to put on the type of graces and to grow in the graces and gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit that would mark someone like Stephen, right? We can be like a Stephen, even if we'll never fill the office of a Stephen. We can want to be like a Stephen. There's nothing special about these men. Any one of us, a man, a woman, there can be a Stephanie, right, in this congregation. Now, that doesn't mean that Stephanie will have an official position in the leadership of the church, but it does mean that in that congregation, we can be like this. We can be these kind of people. There's nothing really special. They're not a different type of human. Finally, the result, verse 7. So the apostles pray, lay hands on these men, and then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith." So we see that the word of God continued to increase. This was the goal in the beginning, right? They were concerned that the word of God was going to be hindered and decreased. But now, with this With this gift of the seven to the church to meet this need, the disciples are freed from worry about the Greek widows. You know when you have worry nagging in the back of your mind. Maybe you're at home trying to love your family, but there's something at work that's nagging on the back of your mind. You've got a problem. It's nagging in the back of your thoughts. It makes you ineffective. And when this problem was brought to the disciples, they don't want to see someone going hungry. It was on the back of their mind all the time until it was fixed. And now that this problem is solved and the wisdom is already bearing fruit, they're like, They're like born again, new, energetic. They are running out to go preach the Word because they're like, we just saw God work in this situation. And now we're free. And just the excitement that the disciples must have felt here to go back out and start preaching. And again, they're free to preach the Word and focus on that. And that ministry is bearing fruit. The Word is increasing. So the disciples are free, the needs in the church are being met, and the Jerusalem church is increasing in size. The number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. The church is growing now because people are hearing the gospel, they're being saved, and they're seeing that this church is lovingly serving each other. If someone has a need, it's being met. If someone sees a need, they're meeting it, right? They're stepping up. This wise decision is bearing fruit, even to the point that some priests are becoming obedient to the faith. What we can see out of this is that... I had something and that's too bad, but we'll move along. It's significant, right? Luke thought it was significant that some priests were becoming obedient to the faith. People are coming out of old Jewish religion, and these are the faithful Jews, right? since the disciples appointed Greek-speaking Jews to this office. It wasn't done in an offensive way, right? It was done in a way that was so sensitive to the needs of the church and there was such unity in this decision that people who would have been priests in the old Jewish religion did not see it as an obstacle to joining the church, that there are Greeks filling an official office, right? These are officials in the church who speak Greek, and a Jewish, a loyalist to the old ways, right? A Hebrew among Hebrews would not find it a problem to have these men in charge. I think that's what I thought earlier. So this solution, when there's wisdom, when wisdom is sought from the Lord in prayer and through his word, good fruit can come from it, so much so that even people who might have been originally hostile will see the good works done by this church and glorify God and even want to join it. So some very good things coming out of this. And as a conclusion, I had a number of profound things to say, as you probably all would believe. to avoid going on forever. I just thought it would be a very simple way of closing. We started this section, the Lord was building his church. And just like a body growing, there are growing pains when a child is growing up. And there are growing pains for a church. There were growing pains for this specific church. But the Lord was doing the work of building the church. The Lord is doing the work through the means of the apostles. And then through the means of these seven, the Lord gives gifts to his church. As the church is growing and diversity is coming into the church, well, there's a diversity of gifts that's coming into the church as well. Because he may have given a gift to someone that was on the outside. And then when they come in, now they are bringing a gift to this church that once they are submitted to the leadership of the church, and they're submitting to Christ as the Lord over the church, they're free now to use the gift to bless the church. So the Lord is building his church. He's giving gifts to the church to bless them. And as this problem and this challenge is faced with hope and with wisdom, and the matter is solved, The result is that the Lord continues to build his church. He just keeps on going, right? That train keeps rolling. And so I think we can take some encouragement from that. When we face challenges in our church life, certainly within our own lives, within our families, but that's just the reality, right? We will face challenges in this life. As the Bible says, we will have trouble. But the Lord's still working. He's building His church. He's sanctifying His people. He's giving gifts to men. It doesn't say He led captivity captive and gave a few gifts to a few men. He is giving gifts to all of us. He's helping all of us. So let's not lose hope. And when we face challenges, certainly in the church context, we want to strive for love and unity. And so when challenges are presented to us, we face them together with love and wisdom. Wisdom from, you know, we're praying, supplicating the Lord. We're seeking wisdom from each other and ultimately from God's Word. And we'll see. We will be part of the Lord building his church continually day by day. So let's close with our time of prayer. God, we thank you for this text and we thank you for your promise to build your church and that you are doing that work. We thank you that we are tools in your hand and you're using us. please forgive the sins that come out of this so often in this church context, but help us to grow to be good tools in your hand. We want to see your church built. We want to see the lost called in, welcomed in, and we want the gospel to go out and to bear fruit. We believe you that the harvest is ready, and we want to be workers out in that field. Whatever we are doing, whether we're planting or watering or harvesting, help us to do it with faith and love and joy. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.