Well, if you have your copy of God's Word with you this morning, turn from the Psalms to the book of Acts. We're gonna be in Acts chapter 6 this morning, as the book of Acts takes another of its major turns. If you've been with us, you will know as we've been studying this book, the gospel has gone forth in power. The gospel has had a transformative effect primarily on those inside of Jerusalem. But as we see the book go forth, really a missionary book in a lot of ways, we learn in time that the gospel's not just for those in Jerusalem, but for those to all the corners of the world. And here in chapter six is where we start to see that expansion. Now it comes to us through a problem, and we will deal with that problem here in a moment. But even as we do so, we praise God for the Greek-speaking Jews who are hearing the gospel and are converting and are turning their hearts to Christ. And as you know and as I know, when a group grows, especially as rapidly as this does, there's what's known as growing pains. This is why I titled our text as we have this morning. The church has seen an explosive growth and now they've got to deal with explosive growth. That's not bad, that's not wrong, it just means sometimes we have to get creative. And that is good. Because of that and because Nothing is new under the sun. This is a very helpful text for us today as we think about our church and church growth and ways in which the Lord could utilize us to better serve our community. With all of that said, would you please follow along with me this morning as I read our passage? I'd like to read Acts chapter six, starting in verse one, and I wanna read through verse seven. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Holy Spirit, and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. These they sat before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. This is the word of the Lord. Would you once again go with me as we go to him in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, this is one of my favorite passages in all of the Book of Acts, for we see how effective the gospel can be. We see how powerful your word is. We see that you can save sinners such as these, which gives us hope. Father, as we learn through this season in the early church and the challenges it faced, I pray that you would give us principles, lessons that we could walk away with, that we could apply to our church in this season now. I want to be blessed by the problems of growing pains. I pray, oh Lord, that you would give us wisdom just as you gave the early church wisdom. Be with us now as we study your word. Help us to do so, Lord, for your glory and for our good. It is in Christ's name that we pray, amen. I've said it before that the book of Acts, while not exactly an instruction manual on how to be a church, it is a great resource on what the church is meant to be. We're seeing the formation, the shaping, the molding of the early church in a model that should look very familiar to what we do today. As a part of our denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, we have what is known as a two-office system, elders and deacons. And in many ways, our two-office system of elders and of deacons comes from this passage. Here, we're starting to see the leadership structure that we hold to and that we seek to utilize to serve the church. In this particular context, as the needs of the church grew, and it grew rapidly, it became necessary to call a new class of leaders to see that everything was being done. And despite it being born out of a problem, and it was, we'll get to that in a moment, this would in time lead to more ministry being done by the church. In God's providence, This passage comes to us this morning in a stage in the life of our church where we are experiencing growing pains. I was in a Sunday school meeting this morning in Sunday school where we were asking how can we best utilize our tools, our gifts, our teachers to minister to our students. What a blessing it is to ask, how can we best minister to this large group? I was in a meeting this week, the same thing for Wednesday nights, and we're always conscious of how can we minister to everyone here at our church in whatever season they find themselves in. And so for that reason alone, I find this text particularly useful and timely. But also, in God's providence, this passage comes to us where we are about to, Lord willing, in September, open the book for new nominations for elder and for deacon. And as that process goes, and you'll get to walk through that with us if you're new to us, what that looks like, it'll look a lot like what we see here in our text. And I wish, I really wish I could tell you I'm clever enough to order my sermons so that I would hit this text right before September when we begin the nominations for elders and deacons. I'm not that clever. I'll just spoil it for you. I'm not. But God is. God is that clever. And in his wisdom, despite my own, he has ordered this passage for us today in preparation for this season in the life of our church. In a similar way to which he provided for the people in the early church in the season they found themselves in. And so, While on the surface this may seem like an unusual passage for general principles, I want you to look at it today and see how the Lord provides what is needed when it's needed. And we're going to do that by considering three different things. The first thing we're going to consider is that as churches grow, challenges will arise. As churches grow, challenges will arise. And that's not a bad thing. Secondly, we're gonna see that God will call leaders to shepherd the church. And then thirdly, we're gonna see that rightly, caring for the church leads to a prosperous ministry. And we're gonna look at each of these from our text, and let's begin by considering that as the church grows, challenges arise. It's important to remember, particularly if you're visiting with us today, what's happened in the book of Acts. We've seen explosive growth to the church from a time at the very start of the book where there's 11, then there's 12, and then there's a couple thousand, and then by the point we're at now, over 5,000 as a part of the church. to which the apostles are ministering. And in fact, the text reminds us that the number of converts grew day by day. That is rapid expansion. And unfortunately, because of this, growing pains arise. As our passage opens up, we get a complaint from a group of converts called the Hellenists, and their complaint is against a group called the Hebrews. And just so we understand the terms here, the Hebrews are gonna be Jews who spoke the Semitic language, most likely Aramaic, but also Hebrew, but knew some Greek. By contrast, the Hellenists are Jews who spoke a lot of Greek and little to no Aramaic or Hebrew. And these groups would tend to worship as Jews in their own language. This practice would continue on as they became Christians. The former group would be principally of Palestinian origin, while the latter would be principally Jews of the dispersion who had come to settle in Jerusalem. Long story short, Two groups of people from a similar family tree background that had scattered for one reason or another have come back together and have a limited amount of shared ability to speak and interact with each other. As you can expect with that, grumbling happens when two groups of that nature get together, right? I wanna be careful here. The complaint is, the complaint that arose is that there's a portion of one of these groups that their widows are being neglected. I say I wanna be careful because I don't think this is malicious. I don't think that the Hebrews are intentionally ignoring the widows of the Hellenist. I think that it's more the church has grown to a state so quickly that it's easy for people to get lost in the overwhelming growth. But whatever the situation or the circumstance is, we have an issue. There are widows who are doing without that the church, it seems, has promised support to that are not getting it. And before we get into the solution, I wanna draw out a few points. Again, my goal here is to make this very practical for us today. Let me give you three things to think about. First, problems arise in the church and that's okay. I'm not saying it's okay to neglect a group of people or neglect a group of ministry, but I am saying we should not panic if we find problems in our church, especially if those problems arise due to growth. This is not new, and in fact, it's to be expected. Second, this is a very practical point here. When a problem is found in a church, make the problem known. Could it have been the case that this group of widows were neglected and it took some time for somebody to say something out of reluctance to be that person? Well, things are going so well, and so much progress is being made, and we're seeing all of these wonderful things. I'd hate to be the one that rocks the boat right now. And then this went on for a time, and it became a bigger problem, and it was like, oh no, somebody's gotta do something. Now there's ways in which you bring that up. Tact and care and love certainly need to come into that. But when a problem is found, make the problem known. We cannot work on what we do not know about. And then thirdly, and this is my most practical of the practical tips here. Never be afraid of being part of the solution. Let me say that one more time. Never be afraid of being a part of the solution. If you notice here in our text, a problem arose. And by the time it got to the point we needed to talk about it, the people went to the ones who could solve it. They found a problem and they went to the ones that could deal with the solution. The disciples, the apostles had the money bags. They had the ability. They didn't. They didn't, and we don't have the text say, you know, that's right, that's a problem. I sure hope they realize that's a problem soon and do something about it. That would have been the wrong way to respond to a problem, right? Acknowledge it's a problem, good luck with that, and then move on with your way. Why do I bring this up and make a point here? Well, if we're all a part of the body of Christ, and we're all called to serve one another, if we serve a person or a situation or a circumstance, we are in fact acting as the church. It can be a misnomer or a misunderstanding sometimes, some people get it, that if the church officers or anyone on staff doesn't do it, it's not done. That's not true. You are more than welcome to minister to your fellow brothers and sisters in this church. You have my carte blanche permission to do that and encouragement to do that. That's not to say that we shouldn't take responsibility and that it's not part of my role as pastor or your elders or your deacons to do so. But it is an encouragement that we are an entity where you're not gonna get in trouble for helping. And we see that with those in the early church. They saw a problem, they went to the ones that could solve it. And so even as we see the problem, we're already working on ways that we can be practical in solving them. But this text does have a specific focus, and that is when there are church problems, God calls leaders to respond to them. And this'll be our second point. We see this in verses two through six. Here we get a very clear order of operations. The 12, the apostles, summoned the full number of disciples, the church members, and said, it's not right that we should give up the preaching of the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now I've told you, One of the things I want you to see in the book of Acts is we do believe that Presbyterianism originates in the New Testament, and I'm gonna prove it to you. Those that have been Presbyterian for a while, tell me if I'm off base here. Listen to how they answer. They find a problem, what do they do first? They call a congregational meeting. That sounds very Presbyterian to me. It says they summon the full number of disciples. The solution would come from the congregation. Do you see that? There's a problem. The problem's brought to the apostles, and the apostles say, we'll gather the congregation, and we will have a discussion, and then from there, get to a conclusion. The apostles already had a job. They had a task to do. Their primary concern, the text tells us, is preaching and prayer. The apostles serving as forerunners of what we know as elders. Their focus was the administration of the word and of prayer with and for the people. To do this and to do this effectively, they could not also devote their time to serving tables. Now I wanna make something very clear here as we're making some distinctions. This is not in any way, saying that prayer and the preaching of the word is greater than waiting on tables or serving the people and their needs physically. Do not misconstrue this as a hierarchy of relevance. This is a division of gifting. Some, God called to the church, were gifted in the ways of preaching and of prayer and of caring of the spiritual needs of the people. Some were gifted in the ways of administering or serving the body. This is not a hierarchy, this is not a lesser to greater I'll just, I'll state it like this in our current circumstance. Deacons today serve a ministerial role just as much as elders do, but with a different primary focus. I don't ever wanna misconstrue that, and I don't ever want us to think that any differently. It's a difference of function, not of value. Now, so they call a congregational meeting, They tell the congregation, you're gonna work on this. And then they give us five descriptors of qualifications for the first deacons. So the first deacons in the Bible nominated there were five qualifications. The text tells us. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty." Listen to the qualifications here. First, the ones chosen were to be from among the church members. They were not outsiders. They were known by the community. The community selected those amongst them who they knew and who they trusted. Second, they were men. The text is clear on this point. Third, these candidates were to be of good repute, or we could state that differently because that word feels a little funny, possessing a good reputation. They were thought well of. They were well liked. They were not known to be mischievous or devious or anything overly negative. Fourth, and this is vital, they were to be full of the spirit of God. Practically speaking, that means they were believers who lived their lives in accord with the word of God. They had a deep faith. And this in turn would produce the fifth characteristic, full of wisdom. The way I keep that in my mind, I play a lot of video games and board games. Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad. There's a difference. Wisdom, wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge. They were to be those who are wise. And there's much more that can be said about office of deacon, there's other passages of scripture that we can go to, but here in our text where we're seeing the prototype, the formation of the office, these are the qualifications set out by the apostles. The apostles laid out the standard, but again, I remind you, it was up to the people to look for those who met the standard, and this is what they did. What they said pleased the whole gathering, and they, the gathering, chose Stephen, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas. And I want you to notice as well, this was an official office. Verse six tells us, these they set before the apostles who prayed and laid hands on them. This is a following of the priestly model given to us in the Old Testament. When you were called to an office of the church, you were ordained, we might use that language, to that office. That's a weighty matter, that's one to take seriously. And why do the elders get to do that? Because that is charged to us by God. This is not something to take lightly. Now, how can we apply this process today? Where's the practical in this? Well, as you soon will see, we will begin putting out the packets for church officers. We're gonna begin the process of officer nominations. We will seek to do exactly what the early church has done. Our goal is to clearly lay out the requirements to serve as elder or deacon in this church. We'll have a nomination process by the congregation, a period of review by the session, we will go into a season of training and examination, and then there will be a congregational vote. If the person has not previously been ordained, we'll lay hands on them, and then we will install any new officers that you elect to serve in our church. Our goal and a practical way we can use this is to model the example given to us here in scripture. We do not wanna be inventive or creative. We trust that God will bring us the men who he has called to serve in these roles in his timing. And then secondly, and this is the one I'm more hesitant to say, you can hold us current officers to this standard. You can challenge us to make sure that we're living the model that we've been given in scripture and that you've charged us to live. And when we don't, in love, I'd deem that a problem. We've seen, what do you do when there's a problem in the text? You go to the person and address it. In love. We're fallible. We're prone to error. We are not perfect. There was only one who was perfect, who could have perfectly followed the role for elder and deacon, and that's Jesus, and he's got something else to do right now. And so, hold your church to this standard, why? Why is that so important? And again, as much as I'm reluctant to say that, because I know what that means, I struggle with that in my own life, is I seek to follow the standard given. I know that it's important because of verse seven. I know that it matters because when we follow God's model for a biblical church, we will see growth. Now to put it differently, rightly caring for the church leads to prosperous ministry. Let me define growth here in just a second, but we don't have to wait. Will this work? We can ask. All we gotta do is read verse seven. The word of God continued to increase, the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Let me define growth and then I want you to to note a few things about this. Because it would be wrong of me to read all of this to you and then come to the conclusion that if our church only or merely grows numerically, the Lord is blessing what we're doing. That is certainly true. As you grow in number so that the number is greater to worship God and to praise him and to be discipled and to grow in the fear and the admonition of the Lord, that is great. That is awesome. That is wonderful. We pray for that. Growth can also be defined as depth and not width. This is vital. Growth can also be defined as depth and not width. If we gain not one more member over the next 10 years, but in 10 years, all of us had a deeper conviction of our sin, a stronger confession in our faith, and a closer walk with Christ had we not grown. Growing up in the denomination of my youth I could take you to over 10 churches That unless something's changed dramatically. They've got less than 20 people they did 20 years ago, and they probably still today They have not grown in that time But I think of one particular church in Phoebe, Mississippi Cairo Cumberland Presbyterian Church and those dear faithful saints I will not be in the same zip code of them as in heaven. I won't be in the same neighborhood. They love the Lord that much and serve Him that consistently and with such conviction. So I wanna give that out there in an encouragement for those of you that may be in a small church, or those of you that may be in a church where you've been praying for growth and you just don't see it, or your community is not really conducive to it. Sometimes we need to redefine our terms, or better understand our terms, I should say. And how do I make that case? Well, I make that case because of what the text says. the word of God continued to increase. Now, does that mean that they're writing new books of the Bible? No, the apostles weren't writing new letters. Well, they were, but it's not like they were adding to the scriptures. What were they doing? The word of God was getting to the people and the people, as they understood it, it was increasing in understanding. The number did grow. The numbers of disciples greatly grew in Jerusalem. But don't forget, this passage is not just about the preaching of the word of God. This passage is also about what we might call mercy ministry. As the word of God went forth, as prayer increased, and as mercy was done, then the word of God continued to increase, the number of disciples multiplied greatly, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Now this is not a formula. Nor is this a type of manipulation. I don't want it to be said that someone comes in as a visitor, you come in and we walk up to you and greet you. Hey, what are your problems? Help me fix them so that you will listen and be receptive. That would be a very terrible interaction, right? That's not our goal here. Our goal is not to trick you into understanding or believing. But it is true, isn't it, that as we have our needs met, as mercy ministry is done, as we care for those who are hurting and are sick and are going through challenging times, by a consequence, we have less to worry about and it makes us more receptive to what's going on. It's just a natural consequence. And if we're all a part of the body of Christ and one of us has a need, don't we owe it to that person as a part of us? To help you is to help ourselves, and I don't mean that in a selfish way, but to help you to spiritually deal with your issues is to also work on us, because we're all together in this. We cannot become a church or a people that focus so much or solely on the preaching and prayer that we neglect the mercy, the ministry of mercy. Nor can we become a people, and I've seen it done in churches, that become so focused on the ministry of mercy that they neglect the preaching and the prayer. Somehow we've gotta figure out as a community of believers how to do this well and do this together. For when we do, we see it work. And then we get to, and I've told y'all it's coming, it's one of my favorite verses in all of the book of Acts. The last clause there, and this is what gives me the most hope, a great many of the priest became obedient to the faith. Up until this point in the book of Acts, where have the priest been? Weren't they the ones that arrested Peter and John? Weren't they the ones that arrested the apostles, told them not to preach about Jesus, beat them one lashing short of killing them, and then sent them on their way? When God's word goes forth, when mercy is done, it can have such an impact that even the fiercest opponents of the faith can be convicted and converted by it. So much so that some of the greatest antagonists to the faith here, the priest, those of the priesthood, are seeing what's being done by the church and going, oh guys, we've gotta rethink this. We might not have understood this as we should have. Because this is unlike anything we've ever done or practiced or believed. Do you see how powerful this is? Just the previous chapter, we were dealing with these people trying to kill the apostles, and now they're coming to the apostles saying, guys, we want in. This is transformative. This is transformative to the church. And so I just, I say this morning, we as a church body, we have to come together and seek to care for the needs of the body. We have to come together and make a priority of the preaching and teaching of the word of God. We have to come together and wisely and carefully elect leaders who will lead us in these matters. This ministry cannot be handled by one single person or one single group. We see in this passage the distinction of what will become elders and deacons. We know as we know our own church, we will face problems as we grow and change. These are merely opportunities to evaluate what we're doing and to ask the Lord, are we following your will as well as we could? And as we seek to do that will, we will be in a better place to minister to the people. May we adopt a mindset of the early church that says growth is in depth as well as width. May God be merciful to us and grant us wise leaders who have servant hearts, who are full of the Spirit, who are faithful, who have good reputations, who love the people of God and the Word of God. It is a weighty task to take on the office of elder, of deacon, but I pray for those, there may be those of you that are considering this. I pray for you men. I pray that the Lord would continue to show you your gifts and your talents. I pray that the Lord would remind you that you don't have to be perfect at it. If there's anything we encourage each other with as elders and deacons, it's you're not gonna get it right all the time, and that's okay. You're not gonna be perfect in this role. There's only one perfect person, that's Jesus, but you're not doing it alone. You're doing it with his spirit and with a group of men. I'm encouraged to be a part of the session and to work with the diaconate here at this church. It's encouraging to my spirit to know that you've got these men who seek to serve you physically and spiritually and caring for your needs and seeing that the word of God is accurately portrayed before you. Pray for them, pray for us. If I could selfishly ask for anything from you, it would be to pray for your pastors, for your elders, for your deacons, that we would be wise. Because we're a part of you. When we are following God's will, it's part of His will for you as well, because you're a part of us as a part of the church. And as we continue, we pray that the Lord will give us, this church, what we need in this season. May we adopt the growing pains and take them gratefully for our God is good. Would you please bow with me? Dear Heavenly Father, this is a unique passage in what it is teaching. but it just reminds us, Lord, of how dependent we are upon you, how much we need you, how much we need your wisdom, how much we need your guidance, how much we need one another. Father, I do pray for this church. I pray for our church plan. I pray for all of the churches here in Columbus and Lowndes and Lamar County. The government may look different, and that's okay, but I pray for leadership teams, that no one man has to do it alone and think that they are in charge of the spiritual state of their people. But may they be convicted, Lord, that it is by your spirit and by your power, by your grace, and would you bring people alongside them to serve alongside them, just as we saw in the early church. Father, as we continue to study your word and see that Even the height and the wondrous state of this passage is shortly lived, for the gospel is offensive to the world. Would you continue to encourage us? Be with your people, be with your people this day. I pray all of this in Christ Jesus' name, amen.