Welcome to this podcast from Harvest Community Church of Huntersville, North Carolina, where our vision is to make disciples who make disciples. I'm your host, Liz Stefanini. Okay, so it is really clear what the mission of the church is supposed to be. Jesus left that, no doubt, you know, go make disciples of all nations and teach them to observe everything I've commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. So it's a clear mission we have. But churches can get distracted by many different things. Take a minute or two to turn to somebody around you and talk about that. What are some of the things that distract churches away from God's mission for us? Take a minute or two to discuss that and then we'll dive into our passage today. Okay, what are some of the things that you guys came up with. What are some things that distract the church away from its mission? One of the things we thought about is a lot of people try to work in the flesh as opposed to following God. Can you hear him back there? A lot of people try to work in the flesh as opposing to following God. How about over here? We'll start on this. Yeah, a lot of things can do that. Anybody else on this side? How about over here? I think that, yeah, yeah. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Bingo. Anything else? Some of the things, there are many, some of the things I thought of was politics. You know, our goal is not to change Washington, but to change the world one life at a time. And when I say politics, it could be, you know, like national politics. Sometimes it's church politics. Fortunately, hopefully not here, but some churches it's, you know, who's going to get elected to this and that and the other. Budgets. churches think about money a lot. Programs that was mentioned, you know, the activities, uh, buildings and building programs. They're important. They're useful. They help us, but it can be a distraction and internal squabbles there. I mean, look, look at our church, right? Look at this. These people on this side will not talk to the people over there. I hope that's not the case. And I want Nikki and Leanne definitely to talk afterwards to get there. But you know, there are, we can joke about it, fortunately, unfortunately, there are some churches that there are people, you know, that just won't talk to each other, that Satan tries to distract the church, of course. And we're teaching through the book of Acts. And as we continue today and come to Acts chapter six, we're gonna see how the church dealt with something that could distract them very much. Acts chapter six, verse one. In those days, when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So, the 12 gathered all the disciples together and said, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, Choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and we'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. Also Philip, Procurus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. Now let's set the context. After Satan's attempt to hinder the church through persecution and moral corruption failed, now he turns to yet another tactic in Acts chapter six. Actually, it's two different tactics. Now let's think about it. First, he persecuted the church, right? They arrested the apostles, don't preach in Jesus' name. They threatened them, but that didn't slow them down at all. Then there was the unfortunate experience of Ananias and Sapphira, and there was moral corruption. He was trying to get at the church from the inside, and that didn't work either. I mean, people were afraid to join the church after that, and yet God kept growing the church. So now he's going to try something else. Like I said, maybe two things. He's going to try internal squabbling in the church, and he's also going to try distraction because Maybe the apostles and leaders could be distracted by all of this from focusing on prayer and the word. Now the challenge here in the first century just like the challenge today is making multiculturalism work well. Multiculturalism is the presence or support for the presence of several distinct cultures or ethnic groups within a society. Obviously America is a multicultural society and in these days we see all of the, unfortunately, all of the angst, difficulty, heartache, misunderstanding, and pain that it brings often to try to have different cultures learn to love each other well. But I'm not gonna talk today about the multiculturalism in society, but in the church. Verse one, see how this was an issue. In those days when the number of disciples was growing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews. So you have two different types of Jewish people, two different cultures. They were all Jewish people. You know the church was born out of a context of Judaism, right? So they were all Jewish people that were coming to Christ. But who are these two different groups? And what does that mean for us? Harvest, fortunately, we embrace diversity and we love diversity. We wish we had more diversity, but we're thankful for the diversity that we have. I thought about it. We have brothers and sisters here from America, of course. white brothers and sisters, black brothers and sisters, Hispanic, Asian Americans, but also represented in our congregation are people from Haiti, India, Jamaica, the Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, a lot of Ts, and Trinidad and Tobago. Besides race, our church has people from a wide variety of ages, from young families to senior adults. Now the issue here in Acts chapter six was caring well for poor widows, all of them. James 1.27 says, religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. That was the issue here. How do we do this well? Especially when there is a cultural divide Acts 4 35 says the apostles were receiving money. People were, remember they were selling land and they were putting the money at the apostles feet and what were they doing? They were distributing it to the poor. And so particularly widows in that culture had no way to support themselves. And so you've got two different groups of widows. They were all Jewish believers, but notice what verse one says. There were Hellenistic Jews, And there were Hebraic Jews. Who were these Hellenistic Jews? These Grecian Jews were Greek-speaking Jews who had probably grown up outside of Palestine. They had been dispersed throughout the known world. And so Hebrew or Aramaic, which is closely akin to Hebrew, that was not their native language and that was not their native culture, even though they were Jewish. And yet now they're in Jerusalem and now they're in this church and you have Hebraic Jews. They were deeply immersed in Hebrew culture and spoke Aramaic. So all Jewish, all Christian, but different culturally from each other. and there were problems. There was a language barrier, there was a culture barrier, and the problem was even after they became Christians, apparently the cultural tension that's out in the world of that day affected them in the church. And we always face that. We live in a powder keg society, and all of the tensions in the world have the potential to affect our church with people from different cultural backgrounds. Unfortunately, not all prejudice ends at conversion. It should, but it doesn't always. And of course, Jesus had eliminated all such things. He said in Christ, there's neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female. Slave nor free. I mean there are no distinctions among people With Jesus like that those types of distinctions Ray Steadman says this says this is Still the devil's favorite tactic to divide Christians You murmur when you complain about a problem, but not to the one who can do something about it when you complain to other people who are perhaps involved but are not in position to do much about it that's murmuring and Murmuring brought the judgment of God upon the children of Israel in the wilderness. Murmuring is always the mark of a discontented, unhappy spirit. So there's a challenge here in Acts chapter six that they're murmuring. They're grumbling against each other. Hey, our widows aren't being taken care of properly. So there was the tension that was part of the problem. But the other part of the problem was the leaders, the apostles, who were supposed to be focusing on prayer and the ministry of the word, now suddenly had to get more and more involved with administrative tasks of finances and food distribution and things like that. So what are they going to do about it? Well, as we examine what they did about it, we learn some healthy principles or principles, ministry principles, that a healthy church embraces. In fact, there are three of them I want to share with you from this passage this morning. And these are good reminders for us at Harvest and for all of us as a church. So here's the first one. The first one is governing with leadership and inclusion. Governing with leadership and inclusion. That's what the apostles did. They governed, they led. They didn't just sit back and say, okay, what does everybody want to do about it? Let's take a vote. The church isn't a democracy, but neither is it a benevolent dictatorship. They led, but they included the church as part of the solution. Verse two. The twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, you choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. Now, why seven? Probably, you know, in that day, the Jewish practice, there were boards of seven men set up to perform certain tasks. They probably were just following that model. We don't know that for sure, but that's likely why they chose seven. We will turn our responsibility over to them. We'll give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. And everybody was happy about that. The proposal pleased the whole group. And then it goes on to list the people that they chose. Where were the complaints coming from? Look in your passage. Which group was complaining? Was it the Hebraic Jews or the Grecian Jews? Grecian Jews. Now, if you read all seven names, they're all Greek names. Some commentators think that a couple of them still might have, obviously they were Hebraic. And they just had, that was their name. Maybe they grew up in the dispersion or something, but it's, it's really a wise choice for the leaders to say, Hey, this is the cultural group that feels like they're the minority and feels like they're being mistreated. And so we're going to, we want you to look among you and choose. And these are the seven that they chose. God gives leaders to lead. He definitely does do that. And they did so. But he wants leaders to lead humbly and to include others and to have dialogue and conversation and involvement. And that's what we see there. In verse six, we see again a picture of the interplay between congregation and leadership. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the congregation chooses them, they present them to the apostles, they commission them, they pray, they lay their hands on them. That's the first principle that a healthy church embraces. How does it govern itself? Well, there's leadership, but there's also inclusion. The second principle that's Very important for a healthy church to embrace is concentration on the ministry of the word and prayer by leaders. Now let me say this right up front, obviously these are apostles, this is the early church, this is described and not necessarily prescribed, but we can learn from it. So we'll apply it to us as a church. You can apply this in many Christian settings and we'll apply it to our church. Notice what they said in verse two. It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Neglect is a word that means to abandon, to desert. It's a strong word. We're not gonna abandon. We're not gonna leave behind in order to wait on tables. Now, this could mean to serve food at tables. There are instances of that in Luke. But tables was also a figure of speech for financial transactions. This was the ministry of social administration because in those days when people conducted financial matters, they sat at tables and did it. Think about what's happening. Widows need to be fed. That involves financial resources, right? Somebody's got to provide the food and people are bringing money to the apostles. They're distributing it to the widows. So I think that's probably the meaning here. I think it probably means, hey, we can't get overly involved in the administration of financial resources, even in a very wonderful cause like widows, because we can't do that and this, and we need to concentrate. So they told him, verse three, you choose, and we'll turn this responsibility over to them and give our attention. Verse four is emphatic in the original. It really literally reads, but to prayer and ministry of the word, we will devote ourselves. It brings that up to the front of the sentence. These apostles knew what they were supposed to do. They were supposed to pray, not just pray themselves as we'll see in a couple minutes, but they're supposed to lead in prayer. They're supposed to equip the church to pray. You know, the average pastor spends probably 70% of their time in administrative tasks, which is unfortunate. Donald Gray Barnhouse said, no man is ever going to be able to fill the pulpit adequately unless he spends thousands of hours year after year in the study of God's Word. So again, as we apply it to a church, what happens if pastors spend all of their time in administration or most of their time in administration and not a substantial part of their time in prayer and the ministry of the word. Well, the quality of preaching declines, the power of preaching declines, the growth of the congregation is stunted because their gifts aren't being used. Think about it, if the apostles personally ran the food program, and didn't invest heavily in prayer and the ministry of the word, it would have eaten away time for them to be doing that ministry and it could have fostered an over-dependence on them. In short, the entire body suffers. That's one thing I'm looking forward to for our church and Myself, frankly, is in our associate pastor church that this associate pastor will do a lot of administrative things and lead a lot of ministries and will not lead a lot of ministries, but coordinate a lot of ministries and support those leaders. Notice their commitment to prayer here. Why should leaders give themselves a prayer? We're seeing that in Acts, aren't we? We're seeing a big commitment to prayer. In Acts 1, they all gathered and they prayed, and then the day of Pentecost came. And then in Acts 2, after the 3,000 are saved, what are they devoted to? To prayer, to fellowship, to the apostles' teaching, and to the breaking of bread. What do they do in Acts chapter 4 when They were, Peter and John were, were in prison. The church gathered him. When they released him, they went and they prayed. They lifted their voice and said, sovereign Lord, fill us with power, fill us with boldness. This was a praying church. And it wasn't just the people in the church praying, the leaders in the church prayed. The church needs leaders and people to pray. Why do leaders need to pray? Leaders must be in close contact with God. This is God's church. This is God's plan. We have to be close to God so that we're not doing our thing, but we're in touch with him. Robert Murray McShane was a Scottish pastor, lived in the early 1800s. He said, my people's greatest need is my personal holiness. These people have to pray. Leaders also pray for the church. leaders, elders, pastors pray for the people they shepherd. Elders and pastors pray with the people of the church. And elders and pastors also lead the church in prayer. I think that might be the most significant meaning here in act six when he says we'll give ourselves to the prayers in the original and the ministry of the word. We'll give ourselves to times of prayer with the church. So that's the second principle. So the first principle is we've got governing with both leadership and inclusion. Then we have concentration on the ministry of the Word and prayer by the leaders. And then finally, we've got the equal value of all ministry. All ministry is equal in God's sight. There's no ministry that's better or more important or more significant. And there are two considerations in this passage that point to that. The first one is that the same Greek root, you know, the root words in the original language, some of them, you know, you've got the root and then it becomes a noun and it becomes a verb or it becomes a participle. Well, here it's, and I'm giving it to you, I rarely do this, but it's important. It's important for a point. Diakonos is the singular form of servant. Diakonia. Does that sound like any word you've heard in English? Maybe deacon? I'll say something about that in a minute. That's the word for ministry. That's the word for servant. And in verse two, it's the word that's used when they talk about waiting on tables. It's translated in NIV, wait. But it's the ministry of tables. That's a ministry. That's an important ministry. Verse four, the same word is used of the ministry of the word. When they say we're gonna give attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. Neither ministry is more important than the other. Neither ministry is more true ministry than the other. Serving to ensure widows are cared for properly and dealing with all of the financial ramifications of that is ministry. And that's the same thing that's used, same word that's used for the ministry of the apostles, the prayer and the ministry of the word. Sometimes we use unfortunate expressions. It's very common in the cultural Christianity of America to say so-and-so was called into the ministry, right? And people talk about somebody who's going to go into vocational ministry and they say they're called in the ministry. Fred was called into the ministry. He was called to be a missionary, called to be a pastor. But the Bible teaches that not only was Fred called to the ministry, but so is Megan and Michael and Dylan and Sally and Jane and every believer is called to be 100% committed to ministry. Now it is true that some of us who do this as our vocation, God has given certain gifts and opportunities to do it as a vocation, but his plan for the church is that the church ministers, every member of the church ministers. Now, I pointed out Diakonos because some people think, oh, this is the first deacons. They aren't called deacons here. That word is used This may be the root of the beginning of deacon. But again, it's just described, it's not prescribed. Historically, Harvest has not had an official body of deacons like many or maybe most churches has because for that very reason, it's described and not prescribed. And the emphasis on serving here, the emphasis on getting the teacher, the teachers, the apostles to be able to focus on that ministry while others will be serving. Often in churches, a body of deacons is like a a ruling body that does meetings and sits around and makes decisions. That's not what these people did, these seven. This is the choosing of the seven, not necessarily the choosing of the first deacons. The qualifications for deacons that are mentioned in the pastorals are a little different than these qualifications. So we've always had people at harvest and we call them ministry teams that serve like deacons, personnel team, finance team, ushers, greeters, go team, grounds team, et cetera. We've a lot of people doing a lot of things like that. Now as a side, the point is serving and that we're deploying people to serve and to do these things and to care for each other. Side note, as many of you will know, of course the elders are in the process of considering, is this an appropriate time to actually formally recognize deacons? We're in serious conversation about that. But if we do it, they will be released to serve what we think the deacons should do biblically and not just culturally. So I said there are two reasons or two indications in this passage that shows that all ministries are equal and the first one was the use of these words. The second one is the high qualifications that are necessary for those who perform the ministry of tables. Look what they have to be. You'd think, you might think that just anybody could handle that if they were good with finances or they were good with people or something, but no, they need to be full of the spirit and wisdom. Those are high qualifications. Every believer needs to be filled with the spirit and they're gonna need wisdom to deal with this ministry. So different ministries are a matter of calling or giftedness, not of superiority or inferiority. It's, it's ministry that matters. First Corinthians 12 four and five says there are different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. It is not more spiritual to preach and teach than it is to wait on tables. It's not more spiritual to wait on tables and to do things behind the scenes than it is to teach. So what was the result? What happens when, what happened when the church operated like this? Verse seven tells us the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. In other words, they obeyed God's call to put their faith in the gospel. So God's word spread and the church grew. Unity was maintained. The proposal pleased the group. The widows were given good care. Two men came to usefulness, not only as serving tables, but in expanding the gospel. Stephen, of course, was the first martyr of the church and Philip was greatly used by God in evangelism, which we'll find out when we come to Acts 8. So let's be a church where all ministries are esteemed equally, where all people are participant, no spectators, where all focus is on serving, not on title or status or recognition. And here's God's word for us. When God builds his church, everyone serves, but in different ways. When God builds his church, everyone serves, but in different ways. Well, let me wrap it up by having you ask the question. Hopefully you're asking, well, what's my part in all this? What's my part in this? First, refuse to allow the evil one to attack the church through your attitudes, actions, or words. Do what makes for peace. Do what makes for unity. No squabbling, no murmuring. If you hear it, squelch it. Don't contribute. Don't pour gas on the fire. Somebody comes to you and they're upset. Have you talked? The approach is, have you talked to so-and-so that you're telling me about about this? Let's pray about it and let's have you go talk to them. The work of Satan is complaining for sure. He inspires mumbling. He did it in God's people in many ways. Secondly, allow God to fill you with his Holy Spirit. I agree with what I said, McShane. In some ways, your greatest need as a church is for me to be personally holy and close to God. I would also say that the greatest need of our church is for each one of you to be close to God. all of it has an effect with each other. And then thirdly serve to build up the church. So as I closed this morning, I'll be honest with you. I don't really feel as, as much of a sense and urgency urgency to challenge you to serve as the thank you for serving. Because this is true at Harvest, to the glory of God. I just checked with some of the ministry leaders recently to try to get a scope for how many different people are serving in different things. The greeters that come early and stay through a couple of service and greet people, there are 12. Personnel team, three people on that, five on the finance team, seven doing ESL. children's ministry, 30 to 40, seven ministries, leaders in student ministry, seven on the go team, seven on the go local team, 10 or so on the worship team, five on the AV team, several community groups with leaders and men's groups, men's Bible study, a couple of men's groups, women's groups like sharing hearts, healing hearts, moms in prayer, people that help on the grounds and that team with Richard five or so. And then there are a lot of people who serve in random ad hoc ways beyond that. I'm sure there are many others that then there's all, those are the ones that are kind of ongoing and, and structured. And then there are people serve often when somebody has a need, boom, we see people go do it. Thank you harvest for being servants. We give glory to God. for you and how he is inspiring service in you. And if for some reason anybody's listening, who's not serving along with everybody else, hop on, hop on, hop on board. When God builds his church, everyone serves, but in different ways. Let's, let's pray. Lord, we do. Thank you for your church this morning. For your. Building the church. And you're gifting the church with different people to do different things. And as we think about our church, Lord. We thank you so much. For those who serve. So many who serve. They're serving you. They're pouring their heart out for you and others. And we just we praise you for that, Lord. We're so thankful, so grateful. That we all are working to make disciples who make disciples. Receive our praise, encourage those servants today, Lord. Fill them with the Holy Spirit to bring you honor and glory. Thanks again for joining us today from Harvest Community Church. This podcast is also available on our website HarvestCharlotte.com. 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