Acts chapter 6, verse one to seven.
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the
Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic
Jews because their weirdos 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, Precorious,
Naikenor, Simon, Palminous, 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. So yeah, as we come to this next
bit of the book of Acts, I'm going to, some people say I
struggle to pronounce English words correctly, but I'm going
to try for a Chinese word to begin with.
I have asked some advice for this.
So it was really recently about the Chinese word for crisis,
which is Weiji, I think. And so there it is on the on the
screen there, Weiji. And it is made-up of two
characters. Apparently the first means
danger and the second means opportunity.
So Weiji, I'll say that one last time.
So a crisis in this rendering is a time both of danger and
opportunity. And as I was spending time in
Acts chapter 6 ahead of today, I was really struck by that
definition of crisis there. The Acts chapter 6 records for
us a moment of crisis in the life of the early church in
Jerusalem, a moment filled with danger and with opportunity for
the early disciples. And we see that in verse one of
Acts 6. Again, it's a real verse of two
halves. This verse, the first part, the
first half of the verse in life looks really good for the early
Christians in those days when the number of disciples was
increasing. So the church is growing, the
number of disciples is increasing.
Any local church longs to say, yeah, we are experiencing growth
as a church. But in the second-half of the
verse is less positive and goes with the first half.
People are complaining, widows are being overlooked, people are
upset. The church is growing, but
conflict is brewing. It's very much a crisis moment
for the early church, a mode of danger and opportunity.
And what the early church decides to do at that moment is
hugely significant for the rest of Acts and indeed actually for
local churches right up to today.
We've been in the book of Acts now for a couple of months.
And I hope you've seen, if you've been here with us, Luke,
the guy who writes Acts, He refuses to gloss over or edit
out the conflicts and difficulties the early church
faced. But whenever he records those
difficulties, he also focuses on the way those difficulties were
resolved. And we've seen that a number of
times in recent weeks. So in Acts chapter 4, the threat
facing the church is persecution from the Jewish religious
leaders. And the response to that is that
the disciples get together and they pray for courage and God
answers their prayers. Acts chapter 5, he looked at a
few weeks ago, the threat was hypocrisy within the church.
Ananias and Sapphira, this married couple lying about how
much money they'd received from selling some property.
They were hypocritical, trying to appear more spiritual than
they really were. And the response was that the
apostles confronted directly and God judged Ananias and Sapphira
by striking them dead. And then today, Acts chapter 6,
the threat is disunity and division.
We're told that Greek speaking widows are being overlooked in
the daily distribution of food. And people are upset about this.
They're complaining about it. And their complaints are
directed against the church leaders here, the 12 apostles.
The threat here is of division and disunity.
And how does the early church response?
The response is better organization, which straightway
doesn't feel like a very sexy response or a very spiritual
response even. But that's what they do.
They say we need to organize ourselves better.
This passage enacts it. It shows us the early church
organizing themselves better so that their life together was an
effective witness to Jesus, the servant king.
They they recognize it matters how we live, how we function as
a church. If we're to be witnesses to
Jesus, we need to show the world that we belong to Jesus.
So we need to organize ourselves accordingly.
So we're going to look at this passage together now and think
what it has to say to us a church in the 21st century an
Ave. today. So again, as I say that the
passage begins with yet another really encouraging picture of
the early church. Luke tells us in those days when
the number of disciples was increasing, verse one.
So the church is growing, people are starting to follow Jesus all
over Jerusalem. There are so many signs of life
in the church there and look at how Luke describes the believers
here. They're described as disciples.
That's the first time he's actually used that word to
describe Christians. They're not just converts or
believers or church members. They are disciples of the risen
Jesus, followers of Jesus, apprentices of Jesus.
Just like the 12 when Jesus was walking around ancient Israel,
were were following him, learning from him, listening to
him. So these early Christians after
Jesus has ascended to heaven, are following Jesus.
Jesus is Lord over their lives. They're learning from Jesus
through the apostles message. They're spending time with Jesus
through prayer and the word of God.
They're worshipping Jesus together with the other
disciples. This early church is made of
disciples of Jesus who then go out and make disciples for
Jesus. And that effect, that's the,
that's the model for every church ever since that we're
made-up of people who follow Jesus.
Jesus is Lord, but also following Jesus.
Come on, we want to make disciples for Jesus, not just
learn more of him ourselves, but help other people around us get
to see him for who he is and to follow him as Lord and Savior of
their lives. So in so many ways, it's another
amazing, encouraging picture local churches today would love
to say, yes, we are seeing growth.
When it happens, we praise God for it.
But alongside that growth, there are worries on the horizon.
Verse one, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against
the Hebraic Jews because their widows are being overlooked in
the daily distribution of food. There is grumbling going on in
the church. What is going on here?
Well, actually it's important to remember the early church we've
looked at in these chapters of Acts.
It's still in Jerusalem and it's still made-up almost entirely of
Jewish believers, followers of Jesus from a Jewish background.
There aren't yet significant numbers of non Jewish or Gentile
believers. That's a few chapters away.
But that doesn't mean all the Jewish believers are the same.
Luke tells us here there are Hellenistic Jews and Hebraic
Jews. Now the Hellenistic Jews, they
were Jewish Christians who spoke mainly Greek and who had happily
adopted a lot of 1st century Greek culture.
They were quite at ease in that world.
Then the Hebraic Jews, they were Jewish Christians who spoke
mainly Aramaic and who consciously resisted Greek
culture. They probably could speak Greek,
nearly every Roman member of the empire could speak Greek at that
time, but they would largely have chosen not to.
They wanted to to lean into their traditional Hebrew
culture. That's the problem here is
you've got 2 sets of widows who looks like they have very little
to do with each other, and one set, the Greek speaking widows,
are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
And why is that a big deal? But because we need to remember
what the place of widows was in the ancient worlds.
Widows in the ancient world, they were, they were one of the
most vulnerable people in society, women whose husbands
had died. And he often had no other source
of income. And throughout the Bible, both
Old and New Testament, God calls on his people to have a
particular concern for widows. In fact, it's the sign of health
of God's people that they look after widows and other
vulnerable groups. So just two passages, one from
the Old Testament, one from the New Exodus 22.
Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.
If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their
cry. My anger will be arised and I
will kill you with the sword. Your wives will become widows
and your children fatherless. It's really high bar here I am
watching how you treat widows, my people and the New Testament.
James one verse 27 religion that God our Father accepts as pure
and faultless as this, to look after orphans and widows in
their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by
the world Widows and how they are treated by God's people
matters enormously to God. And what is this daily
distribution of food where this is this is, is emerging?
Well, if you've been here again the last few weeks, you'll know
that the early church was committed to caring for those
people in need within the church.
Chapter 4, Luke tells us there was no needy person among them
because the generous grace of God in Jesus had transformed
these Christians into generous people.
They shared what they had. They looked out for those in
need. But now in chapter 6, we hear
that they're not looking out for everyone.
Some people in the church are being overlooked.
And Luke wants to see this is not a minor issue.
It's not unimportant. This is a dangerous moment in
the life of the early church because it threatens the unity
of the church and the witness of the church.
If friends, the unity of the church in that Jesus through his
life, death and resurrection brought these Hebraic Jews and
Hellenistic Jews together. They are now one in Christ, but
they're not living like it. They're making distinctions
between one another. That is a dangerous moment that
is damaging the church for which Christ died.
And As for the witness of the church, well, by overlooking
some of the widows, they are failing to love one another.
And loving one another is absolutely central to the
witness of any church, remembering the words of Jesus
in John 1335. By this everyone will know that
you're my disciples if you love one another.
If they don't love one another, the world around will not see
Jesus through the early church. And and in addition to all of
that, in the history of God's people, complaining or grumbling
about of lack of food is always a serious spiritual warning
sign. It's like a red light on the
dashboard that something else is wrong.
So in the Old Testament, after the people of Israel were
rescued from slavery in Egypt by God through the leadership of
Moses and Aaron, instead of praising God for his saving
power, they quickly start grumbling against Moses and air
and they didn't have enough food to eat.
They didn't like living in the desert.
There was all this grumbling and complaining.
We see that in passages like Exodus chapter 16.
Actually, this is a bad sign in people who've been rescued by
God that they're grumbling and complaining.
It's a serious spiritual issue for God's people.
So the question really is how are the 12 apostles going to
respond to this? Because they could respond in
any number of ways. They could have rushed to defend
themselves against those grumblings.
Say, stop complaining. Don't you see how well things
are going? The church is growing and people
are becoming disciples of Jesus. You're just ruining it for
everyone. They could, they could defend
themselves or they could have rebuked the Greek speaking
widow. Stop complaining.
You're just like the Israelites in the wilderness.
If you keep grumbling, then God's going to deal with you the
way he dealt with them. They could have rebuked those
grumbling. We need to see that's not what
the 12 apostles do. That's not how they respond.
They know this isn't a minor issue.
It's a serious issue. The life and witness of the
church is at stake. Widows are being overlooked and
they matter to God. One group within the church was
divided against another. That matters to God.
For the glory of God, the good of the church, and the
effectiveness of their witness to Jesus, the apostles spring
into action. And he'd pick up again at verse
2. 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 for this moment of crisis.
What do the early church leaders, the apostles, do we see
here? First of all, they they gather
the whole church together, all the disciples.
Verse 2. Now that's quite a feat
actually. There's at least 5000 believers
in Jerusalem at this point. Some people estimate it could be
as high as 8000 believers. This is a huge like church
meeting that. It's not an easy task here, but
the 12 are convinced the whole church has a part to play in
responding to this need. Then the apostles, they're
really clear about what their priorities are.
Their priorities are prayer and the ministry of the Word.
See, I Look begins and ends the summary of their speech, verse
2. It would not be right for us to
neglect the Word of God. Verse 4.
We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the
Word. The apostles are clear here.
There would be no church in Jerusalem without prayer and the
ministry of the Word of God. Therefore, the apostles need to
prioritise those things. And what I mean by the ministry
of the Word of God, Well, there's a few summaries we get
in Acts, but if you look back just a verse before this passage
in Acts 5 verse 42, we get a good summary of the ministry of
the Word of God. Acts 5 verse 42, Day by day in
the temple courts and from house to house, they never stop
teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the
Messiah. So the ministry of the Word of
God, it includes public preaching and teaching, but it
wasn't restricted to that. We're told the apostles taught
in the temple courts publicly to large groups, like we're doing
this morning. But he also taught from house to
house in smaller groups, twos and threes, even one to ones
probably. The ministry of the Word of God
is public and private. It's happening all the time.
And what do they mean by devoting themselves to prayer?
Well, for the ministry of the Word of God to be effective, the
apostles have to depend on the living God and ask the living
God to be at work. Without prayer, the ministry of
the word is powerless to change anyone.
It's even pointless. So the 12 vie to prioritize the
word of God and prayer. And at this point we sort of
might make a a misstep and we might think, well, maybe that's
what real ministry is about. Maybe that's what real Christian
living should be about, prayer and the ministry of the words.
Nothing else matters. But that's not what the apostles
are saying here. I hope we can see that they're
saying actually the daily distribution of food that is
vital to the life and witness of the Church.
It's just that the apostles weren't the right people to make
that happen. It seems up to this point in the
book of Acts, the apostles, the 12 have been organizing and
leading everything. But now the apostles are clear
with the other believers. They can't keep doing that.
They can't do everything. If they try to do that, prayer
and the minister of the word will suffer.
Widows will go hungry, the witness of the church will be
damaged. Therefore, in this huge meeting,
they call on the church to organize itself better with more
people empowered to lead. Verse 3 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. When you see there's a really
big moment in the life of the early church.
It's the moment when the apostles begin to empower other
people to lead and serve alongside them for the sake of
unity and love and mission. And so at this moment in its
history, the whole church appoints 7 men to organize the
daily distribution of food. And we need to see it's the
whole church doing that. You look down again.
The apostles don't select these seven men on their own.
They invite the whole church to choose them to recognize who
these men should be. The apostles know that every
believer who trusts in Jesus has the Holy Spirit living in them.
Therefore, every believer is qualified to play a part in the
life of the local church. And what were the believers
meant to be looking for in these seven men?
Well, interestingly, it wasn't just practical skills.
You kind of think, well, this is for the distribution of food.
So the important questions are, can they cook?
Can they manage a budget? Can they organize people?
But before those things are considered, the apostles urged
them to ask, are they full of the Spirit?
Do they trust in Jesus? Is the living God clearly at
work in them? Do they depend on the Spirit to
live as witnesses for Jesus? And are they full of wisdom?
Can they make godly decisions for the glory of God and the
good of his church? Are they problem solvers?
Can they come up with a solution to the issues the early church
was facing? Again, this is a big moment in
the book of Acts. From this point onwards, the 12
apostles are liberated to devote themselves to prayer and the
ministry of the Word. The Greek speaking widows are no
longer being overlooked and new leaders who aren't apostles are
identified and who will play a vital role in the chapters to
come. Stephen.
A man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.
We're going to see more about him next week.
Philip, he will take the good news of Jesus to the Samaritans,
even to an African diplomat for the first time.
And the results of this decision, this better
organization we see in verse seven.
So the word of God spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem
increased rapidly. A large number of priests became
obedient to the faith. The word of God spread, says
Luke. Interesting in in in the book of
Acts, the word of God's almost like a character in its own
right. The Word of God is the power of
God to save everyone who believes, to reach into people's
lives and transform them as they receive it, which all the number
of disciples increased in Jerusalem.
Jesus is calling people to follow him, and even a large
number of priests become obedient to the faith.
The people who are opposing the early church see their life
together, see the way they love each other, and they are drawn
to faith themselves. It's an amazing moment.
How does this bit of acts apply to our church family at Ave.
today? I think there's plenty of
principles here we can learn. This is a unique and special
moment in the life of the early church.
But actually Luke records it because he wants other churches
to learn the lessons from Jerusalem.
Here Luke wants to see the how a local church organizes itself
has a huge impact on its life together with Jesus and its
witness to Jesus in the world. Or to put it another way,
throughout Acts Luke is showing us what a spirit filled church
looks like. And here in Act six, we learn a
spirit filled church is a church where every member has a part to
play, like one of our core values at Ave., everyone
involved because we need one another.
And this passage in Acts 6, you may know, is often seen as the
origin story for the role of Deacon in the New Testament
church. That's often how Christians have
viewed it over the centuries. It's important to know a few
things on that. So the Greek word for Deacon,
diaconos, doesn't actually appear here.
The seven aren't identified as deacons.
And also a big difference between a local church today and
the church in Jerusalem is that the early church in Jerusalem
was led by apostles, not elders. Actually, elders in the Church
of Jerusalem don't appear until Acts 11, verse 30, when most of
the apostles have left Jerusalem have been scattered across the
Roman world. So there are key differences
between Acts 6, the church there, and a local church today.
And yet the Greek verb diaconio to serve does appear in verses 2
and four. And as early as the 2nd century,
early church tradition viewed Act 6 as the origin of the rule
of Deacon, and that rule is mentioned elsewhere in the New
Testament. It's one of two recognized
offices in a local church alongside the role of elder.
It's mentioned in Philippians one verse 1, Romans 16 verse one
where Phoebe is named as the Deacon, one Timothy 3 where you
have qualifications for deacons and from those passages and Acts
6 taken together, you can come with the following definition of
a Deacon. A Deacon is a believer who
serves alongside the elders in a local church to work towards the
health of the church and it's witness to Jesus.
It's an important role. Actually in a local church an
Ave. We don't use the official title
Deacon like a lot of things that can have a bit of baggage from
different church traditions. But we have, we see various
people taking on Deacon type roles in the life of our church
family. Those people include ministry
team leaders who meet some of the needs of our life and
mission together. We appointed Keith as the head
of our finance ministry team in January.
We're going to be unveiling a few more new ministry teams and
ministry team leaders and we're going to aim to do that every
month for the foreseeable future as we try and set up more
ministry teams to share in the work of ministry.
So watch this space for that. Another Deacon type rule we
mentioned last month at the family meeting is non elder
trustees, people who serve alongside the elders to oversee
Ave. as a charity. We're going to be hearing more
about that tonight as we hear about a candidate to be a non
elder trustee at the family meeting.
Now all this actually, we can't lose sight of the fact that that
Greek word Deacon, it just literally means servant.
And so in a very real sense, every single Christian is a
Deacon. We are all called to serve the
living God and to serve one another in the church.
But Acts 6 and those other New Testament passages tell us
there's real wisdom in having certain specific people set
apart to oversee aspects of our life and mission together to
help the health of the church, the unity of the church, and the
witness of the church. There's loads of principles in
this passage that apply to us today as we head towards the
finished war. Some of those principles here,
very simply. The 1st is that God calls all
his people to serve him. We are all servants of the
living God. We have been served by Jesus
through his life, death, and resurrection, and he calls us to
serve Him in response to love one another as He first loved
us. Whether you've been coming to
Ave. for 20 years or for two months, if I haven't used a
local church, the Lord is calling you to serve Him here.
You have a part to play in building this church.
Secondly, God calls different people to serve Him in different
ways. So the 12 apostles serve and the
seven serve in Acts 6. You actually translate Acts 2
verses verses 2 and four of Acts 6 this way.
It is not right for us to Deacon tables.
That's the verb to serve. We will give our attention to
prayer and deaconing the words bit bit clumsy and ugly, but I
hope you get the point. There's a sense of Deacon.
Just be a servant, but serve in different ways.
Both are ways of serving God and His people.
Both are ways of building God's church.
Both require people filled with the Spirit and wisdom to do it.
None of these things we can do in our own strength.
We need God's help in all of them.
If you're part of this church and you don't yet have a way of
serving, please come and talk to me or Joel or Mike or Joe or
your Home group leader. We'd love to talk to you about
ways you could use your gifts to serve and bless the rest of us.
And if you're part of this church and you're already
serving, remember that you serve as people who first have been
served by Jesus, whether that's in music and set up, in welcome,
in refreshments, in Sunday club, in crash, in service leading and
Ace, in source, in home groups. I really hope I didn't forget
one, but if I did, tell me. But actually, the Lord wants to
use your gifts for the good of his people and the good of our
mission together with the risen Jesus in this world.
We all have a part to play. And if that sounds very
idealistic, Acts 6 is also very clear about the dangers in being
part of a local church. We need to love one another in
spite of our differences. Acts 6 tells us that the unity
of the local church is vital to the witness of a local church.
So in the early church in Jerusalem, the potential of
division was between Greek speaking Jewish believers and
more traditional Jewish believers.
But there's plenty of differences and opportunities
for division among our church family.
We have plenty of differences with each other, men and women,
young and old, new believers and long term believers, different
backgrounds, different nationalities, different
temperaments. In the face of all those
differences, the Lord Jesus calls us to love one another.
I this everyone know you're my disciples if you love one
another. We are one in Christ And so
within the power of the Spirit. We should live like Him in our
home groups on a Sunday morning throughout the week.
We should see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ,
united in Him, and therefore we love one another as He first
loved us. Another thing that strikes me
from Act 6, which I might say, but it has struck me this week,
leaders need to be committed to prayer and the Word of God for
any church to grow. For church to grow, God's Word
needs to be prayerfully proclaimed in public and from
house to house. And speaking personally, that
was one of the biggest challenges for me is the
challenge of distraction from that.
There are always so many other things to do.
People are amazed sometimes when I tell people I work full time
for a church. So how do you fill your time?
I I manage it. But actually, that's the sense
actually, people say, well, yeah, of course.
So prayer, I mentioned that's what you're doing.
But actually, I know in my heart there's so many other things
that feel like they need my attention, feel like I would
rather do then sit in a study and and and and read my Bible or
to meet with someone and open the Bible or to pray for any
length of time. The dangers of distraction are
enormous. They were for the apostles.
They are for every leader. And to help respond to that, the
whole church is needed to respond to important needs.
I reflect as as one of the elders here at Ave. that I think
over over the years, we perhaps have just held too much
centrally. We've been talking about this in
family meetings. We're elders, but also we in the
pandemic, we had to know everything about COVID in in
other ways. We had to know understand other
things. And there's a sense of just
actually, are we missing out on gifts in the local church, other
people we can ask to serve alongside the elders for the
good of the whole church, for the unity of the whole church,
for the effectiveness of our mission.
How do we do that together? We do that by gathering together
regularly, by sharing our needs, by praying together, and by
appointing and empowering different people to respond to
those needs. And of course, the most obvious
way that happens every month is our family meeting.
Tonight, 6:00 is the family meeting here until half seven.
Families are play a vital role in our life and mission together
in a family meeting. We worship God together, we pray
together, we share our needs together.
We explore how to meet those needs together.
Why not come along tonight if you're able to six O clock.
We're going to be praying about Sunday evenings and Ave. praying
about elders and trustees and other levels of leadership,
praying about Christmas and the opportunities that brings.
They're a vital part in our church.
Those family meetings for how we organize ourselves and use
everyone's gifts for the good of the gospel and the glory of God
as we leave Acts chapter 6, this, this was a real crisis
moment for the early church. You get to the end of verse one
and the story could have ended very differently.
Then there was division, then the church scattered, then they
separated from each other. Then it's separate church had to
set up one for Greek speaking, one for traditional.
It was a moment of real danger. But the apostle saw it was also
a moment of opportunity. And the danger was averted
through wise leadership, better organization and a commitment to
prayer and the Word of God. And we're facing our own
challenges as a church family at Ave.
The need for new elders, the need for Deacon type leaders to
work alongside the elders, the need for more ministry teams,
the need for a clearer vision of what the Lord is calling us to
be and to do in this point in our history.
To meet those needs, let's learn from the early church in Act 6.
Let's gather together, let's pray together.
Let's think. How do we organize ourselves
better so that our life together serves as an effective witness
to Jesus, the servant King, the ultimate Deacon, one who lived
and died to serve us, and he calls us to serve him in
response. Let me pray.
As we as we close, let me pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that
when you call on your people to serve one another in love, you
do that as the ultimate servant. Lord Jesus, we thank you that
you love your church so passionately.
You gave your life for us, and you want each one of us to play
a part in demonstrating the beauty of your saving purposes,
to proclaim the Good news you have won for us of forgiveness,
adoption, reconciliation with the living God.
Lord Jesus, thank you for the ways you led the early church in
Jerusalem to respond to that crisis moment and for the real
opportunity it was for that church to develop and then grow.
Lord, we we ask you at this moment in our church's life,
when we face challenges, there are opportunities and there are
dangers. Lord Jesus, in your mercy, by
your Holy Spirit, equip us with the wisdom we need, the love for
you that we need, the love for our world that we need to
proclaim boldly the good news that you have won for us.
And show us the part you'd have each one of us play in building
your church and blessing our brothers and sisters and an
extending your Kingdom, making more disciples for you.
Lord Jesus, with every opportunity you give us, we ask
that that you would be glorified and we would be blessed through
knowing you. Amen.