Growing Through Conflict

What happens when a church starts growing faster than its systems can handle?

In this sermon from Acts 6, Pastor Matt Shackelford explores one of the first major challenges faced by the early church. As more people came to faith, new problems emerged. Complaints surfaced, needs were overlooked, and the apostles had to decide how to respond without losing sight of their mission.

Discover how healthy churches handle conflict, why growth always creates pressure, and what Acts 6 teaches about leadership, calling, and serving others. Whether you're involved in church leadership, serving in ministry, or simply trying to navigate conflict in your own life, this message offers practical biblical wisdom for growing through challenges instead of being defeated by them.

Transcript

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Let's take our Bibles. Let's open to Acts chapter 6. As you're turning there, you saw it in the news. There was a large tank that was leaking in Southern California Southern California, a very dangerous chemical. You probably saw this image, and it was all over the news, and they had to actually evacuate a good percentage of the map in Southern California. All these neighborhoods had to get out of Dodge because this chemical was so, so dangerous. I had two thoughts immediately come to my mind as people were packing up. Thought number one, welcome to the promised land of Tennessee. Amen. Amen. Isn't it great to be in Tennessee? The second thought was go ahead and keep your bags packed and move here and welcome to America. I think that's an interesting thought as well. The last thought I had was this. Why did that accident happen? You always kind of go back and work try to work out the problem. What was going on? Was it that there was too little chemical? No, it was that there was too much chemical and the pressure valve, the the pressure of the of the chemical just kept building up and building up and building up until there was a crack and the leak. Now, why do I bring that up? It really matches the passage we're in right now. In Acts chapter 6, what we discover is there is a church that is growing and growing and growing, and there's not a sin issue that I can see in Acts chapter 6. It's more of a situational issue. It's more of a systems issue. It's that there's so many people and there's so many needs. The container is cracks are forming. And there are problems. You see, as we grow as a church, what we're going to see is that there will come moments just like what we see in Acts chapter 6. In fact, if you want to go ahead and turn there, in Acts 6, we see a couple of phrases. One, it says that the disciples were increasing in number, and what happens? Uh-oh, a complaint arises. And this is one of the marks of a growing, healthy church. It's not a picture of a perfect church. What it is is a picture of a church that, God's blessing, and now there are problems. It's that there is too much for the container, or the container has sprung a leak. And as we grow as a church, what we have to do, every, I mean, you might notice in the room, even in first service, we generally have more in second service, but even in first service, the rows are filling up. And it's like God, God continues to grow us in numbers, and we have to have a plan to face the conflict that comes with growth. We have to do this. Like we've got to figure out conflict is going to come, and there's many ways that people deal with conflict. Some people try to escape conflict. We have problems, and so I'm out. I'll just withdraw and I'll go somewhere else and I'll do something else and I'll escape the conflict. That's a lot of what people do here in Memphis. Others actually have a false belief of what the church should be. Others believe that if it's a healthy church, it shouldn't have any conflict at all. Well, that's not true. The early church had tons of problems. Not always sin, sometimes situational, sometimes systems. But regardless, we have to figure out how to deal with conflict as a church. Why? Because if we don't deal with it, what happens is it stunts our growth, it affects our mission, it stunts the mission, it dishonors Christ in our community. In fact, God wants his church to be exhibiting order within the chaos of the world. So we've got to figure out a way to deal with conflict and dysfunction. So in chapter 6, I've really named the next two sermons the series I've entitled Growing Pains. Now, here's what I want to say at the very beginning. Kirk Cameron will make no appearances in this series. Amen? He will not show up at all. We shall never speak of him again. But really, what this is the point of this is that growth creates problems. Growth creates conflict. We've got to figure out. I mean, sometimes we grow so fast that problems emerge. This is true in our family. In fact, uh, with my kids, I have four kids, and uh I've used the term dink before. You remember the word dink? Dual income, no kids. That's kind of the advent of this era. I don't like it. Uh I'm more of a silk, single income, lots of kids. Uh that's just the situation that I'm in. And and how many of you know that these little critters, these they're expensive. Did you know that? Uh the more you have, the more you spend. Now, I do have goals for my family. Like with my daughters. Um, my goal for my youngest daughter is that I never have to buy a shred of clothes for her until she turns 18. It's just hand me down clothes the whole way through. And all the dads say, Amen. My son, it's terrible. I, my son, I'm, you know, it's like, man, he it's great. He grew like three inches last year, and I love it, and I hate it because he's getting a whole new wardrobe uh over the summer, you know? It's like it gets expensive. And so growth creates pressure. When there's growth, there are new pressures, and you have to learn how to address them. And if you don't address them, they get worse and they explode. So today that's what we see in Acts chapter 6. Would you take your Bible? Let's stand in honor of God's word. We're going to talk about how we can be growing through conflict. How can the church grow even when it's in the midst of conflict? This is what it says in verse 1. Now, in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint, everyone say complaint? Nice and loud, say complaint? 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 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 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 the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Procorus, and Nancor, and Timon, and Parmenus, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. They set these before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. Then the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Today what we're talking about is conflict, and when conflict is clouded, oftentimes we don't know what to do, but today I want to show you that the corrections are very clear. In fact, there's three corrections that I see in this passage, very simply put. We've got to face the conflict honestly. That's one of the things we struggle to do. We've got to approach our conflict with honesty. Second, we've got to guard our calling humbly. What are you doing that you shouldn't be doing? What are you doing that belongs to someone else? What has God called you to do? And then lastly, we have to mobilize the congregation habitually. We've got to get more people into the ministry. And so that's where we're headed today. These are problems not just for the church, really, these are problems for all of life. It's for your job, it's for your family, and we're going to see a lot of solutions for how God is going to grow his church and keep the mission moving forward. May God bless his word. May God bless all of you. You may be seated. Let's start with the first one. We need to face the conflict honestly. Honestly, face the conflict. First of all, let me give you some context for what was going on. Look with me at verse 1. It says that the disciples were increasing in number. This is a growth report. This is a status update. It's a ministry update. The church is growing. The church is growing. Now, throughout the book of Acts, we're going to see little lines like this: little status updates. And sometimes it blows my mind. People don't like it when you list numbers, when you report numbers. They'll say, oh, Pastor, you're all about the numbers. Why are you telling us about all these baptisms? Why are you telling us about all these young people going to camp? Why are you emphasizing the numbers so bad? Well, honestly, that's a biblical pattern. We see it throughout the book of Acts. In fact, at 10 different occasions, we'll see these status updates, and that's a good thing. In fact, in the book of Acts, let me just show you some of these progress reports. In Acts 2.41, 3,000 souls were added on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2.47, the Lord added to their number day by day. Acts 4.4. The number of men came to about 5,000. Acts 5.14. More than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. Acts 9, verse 31. The church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was built up, and then it was what? Multiplied. Acts 12, 24, the word of God increased in what? Multiplied. Now there are countless expressions of this in the book of Acts. In fact, it's a pattern for us to follow that when God does a work, you're supposed to faithfully report it. Not get insecure about it, not see it as a point of pride to someone's ego. No, it's none of that. It's actually, it's actually the call of God to celebrate what God is doing as you see it done. In fact, if if you don't like reporting numbers, there's a whole book of the Bible called what? Yeah, numbers. It's there. I mean, it just is. You got to deal with that. And uh I I don't I'll just be honest with you. I don't understand that mentality. Uh in my mind, um, numbers matter because people matter. It's not unspiritual, it's not ungodly. Um, nobody has this attitude with their family when you go on a trip. It's like you go to Disneyland and you're walking through the park. I uh if you're like me, I'm constantly counting heads, making sure we got them all. Nobody's like one, two, three. Ah, that's good enough. We got enough. I can make more where that came from, right? It's like no one does that. No one treats their family that way. And yet we sometimes will fall into that trap. No, we need to report, we need to tell and give witness of the good things that God is doing. And when you see that happening, you ought to celebrate it, rejoice in it. You should long for the day when we see too many people to count. And you're saying you hear your leaders say things like, guys, we we need help. We need we need more small group leaders. We have people from our third service, our Indian community, they're coming to Christ uh at alarming numbers, and we ought to celebrate that. We need more help. Those are good reports, those are good things. And we could challenge you that that's the context of this passage, and that's a pattern for us as well. Now, if that's the context, the growing church, uh I also just want to note to you this is a church with problems. And you're like, whoa, that's not supposed to be that way. This was the first church. Well, back then, in this period of time, there were about 20,000 people in the church in Jerusalem. That's a lot of people. And with that many people, there's bound to be problems. And sometimes what we tend to do, we tend to romanticize the early church. I don't like my church. I just wish we could go back to the early church. I just wish we could go all the way back to the beginning where the church was in its purest form. Man, they had all kinds of problems. They had guys lying about money that they were supposedly giving, and then a guy falls out a window and dies because one pastor is preaching too long, no comment. They had all kinds of problems, and we don't need to romanticize the early church as the pure church. No, I mean, notice in our passage, immediately there's a problem, a complaint. This problem is not just uh malicious gossip or slander. This church is struggling here with racial problems and multi-generational problems. Notice it's the Hebrews and the Hellenists and the widows of each of these groups. What is going on in this passage? Well, a couple things. Um there must have been some difference in the food allotment. And what happened is um one of these ladies, one of these groups of ladies, was not getting the correct allotment. It's a systems issue. And uh, what happens is the Hellenists uh are upset. Now, you need to know this. Hellenists and Greeks, they worshipped in different synagogues. There was a great deal of animosity from or from the Jewish ladies and and the Greek ladies, I should say. Um there were there were a lot of there were a lot of cultural differences, and there's a lot of hatred between these two groups. And so there's a racial component to this as well. And I just want to say this at the very beginning. What you need to know is that Satan is always looking for an end, he's always looking for a way to divide the church. He's always looking for that, he's always looking for something. He's an opportunist. Satan is looking for someone with an offense to latch onto that and spread gangring through the church. They don't care about young people, they don't care about old people. And these accusations, these accusations that come against the leadership are often generational or racial. That's why we have to be so careful to watch for the oncoming attacks of the devil. He is an opportunist and he will take someone's offense and try to spread that offense throughout the congregation. Now, were they truly being neglected? It appears to me there was a real problem in this passage. Notice that word neglected. Um, is it right to care for widows and orphans? Yes. From the very beginning of the church, God wanted the church to take in to care for widows and orphans. This was a time without social security. This was a time where there was no social safety net for people. And so, in fact, it's actually a better system than the one we have today. It's not just the government passing out checks. People would depend on their local church. That's a better system. It's more uh cared for, and people would give to the church, and the church would distribute the resources. It appears to me this is a real problem. And notice the problem, the real issue, is actually captured in the word complaint. What is this word complaint? Well, this is a whisper campaign. In fact, uh the word in the Greek, you're gonna love this word, it's the word gangusmon. It's it's an omomonopeia, and what that means is it sounds like its definition. Cars crash, right? Dogs bark, cats meow. It's an omonopeia. It sounds like the action. So it's it's they were mumbling or murmuring, right? They were they were sort of, it's it's the image of what happened in the Old Testament with the Israelites against Moses. They were murmuring against Moses. And so now the church is faced with a complaint that is likely to divide the church, and we need to be on guard against that as well. Anytime you say something against the church without going to a leader, there's all kinds of problems that will emerge. In fact, Philippians 2.14 says, do all things without grumbling, do all things without disputing. There's a way of life that is right for a Christian. A way of life that protects the peace. The other day we were at the airport and we'd just gotten back from our Germany and Switzerland trip, and we took that tour, the Reformation tour, and uh Larry, I don't know if he's in the room, but Larry was with me at the terminal, and this lady gets off the plane, and there's no one around to answer her questions. They canceled 4,000 flights that day. And people, well, let's just put it this way people were not in a good mood. This lady gets off the flight, and me and Larry are looking at her, and she is losing her mind. And she said so many words. I was so thankful that my family had gone to get lunch so they didn't have to hear it. I I don't know uh if she was a Christian or not, but I'll put it this way. If she was a Christian, she was taking a day off. All right, it was not good. It was not good. I even tried to help her, and I said, Miss, I think you need to go to gate F9. And she was like cussing at me next. I was like, what did I do? I'm trying to help you. But but it was, it's amazing. Like in systems of pressure, she had to get to a wedding or something, and she's just her world was falling apart. And when when the pressure is on, that's when people are at their worst. That's when they do things they never imagined themselves doing. When the pressure is on, people behave terribly. And when you're at airports, airports tend to bring out the worst than you, but but pressure. Pressure is the main thing, all right? And it's like here we see that the pressure is on, and now they're they're grumbling, they're mumbling about the the leaders. And and this teaches us the lesson that we have to stay calm, we have to keep our head, we have to believe the best. What should we do? We should face the problem honestly and calmly. Notice it says widows were being neglected. And here's what I love about Luke, good old Dr. Luke, just the facts. He's like Friday on DragNet, right? Just the facts, ma'am. Well, he's just reporting the facts. This is happening. He's not saying it's a moral issue. He's not saying that someone has sinned. In fact, as I read this whole passage, I don't see sin anywhere. It seems to be that this is a system problem, not a sin problem. It seems to me that that the growth has exceeded what the tank can take. And so we gotta we gotta fix the system. Luke doesn't assign motive at all. I have to imagine when Peter heard this, Peter was taken aback, and Peter must have been felt like, look, guys, I'm working around the clock. You know, you got you got uh, what is it? Uh let's see if I can do my arms right. Banker hours, right? Government hours, and then you got like pastor hours, and it's just all the time, you know what I mean? And and and that that's what Peter's saying. I'm I'm counseling the priests. The priests are coming to Christ. I gotta find a place to do baptisms for 500 people or 5,000 people, excuse me. Like he he's he's just doing all he can to hold it together. There are stressors, there are new problems. Now, sometimes in the church, it can't even be an issue of the leadership and even personalities. But personalities are different. They just are. Some pastors are are very like let's let's put it in these categories. Pastors fall into some categories like a prophet, a priest, or king. The prophet, the exhorter, the guy who says, do this, do this, but he's not good at counseling, that priestly ministry. Or he's terrible at administration, that kingly ministry, right? And it's really odd to find a pastor. It's fine, it's really hard to find a church eldership or leadership that has every single person great at all three of those categories. That's why I don't think this is a sin issue. I just think it's a systems issue. I think it's an issue where the ball is being dropped by someone, and you understand that. Some of you are built in different ways. You'd be great at one job, you'd be bad at another. You, if you're a little bit more exhorting, if you're a little bit more prophetic in how God has built you, you would be terrible to work at our coffee shop that opens, I think, next week, right? Somebody'd be asking for for whipped cream on their coffee, and you're looking at them and saying, Do you know how many calories are in that? No, you'll take black coffee and you'll like it, all right? And it's like you're just a little bit built that way as an exhorter, as as a corrective voice, right? And and and and it's like sometimes it's a personality thing. But what I see here is we have to have a category of grace when the leadership fails and refuse to assign motive to each other, but rather have grace while ex while addressing the problem. Here it was a system problem, not a sin. Now, sin deals with character, and that will come from time to time. Systems deal with capacity. Peter is saying, I am at my limit. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever been at the at the limit of what you can do? Sometimes it's a system issue. And by the way, this this works in every part of your life. Like if your marriage is not going well and you you come in for marriage counselors, one of our counselors will inevitably ask you questions like, How are you dating your wife? Tell me what your tell me what your system looks like so that you guys reconnect on a regular basis. And inevitably somebody will say, Well, we don't we don't really have dates. That's a problem. We gotta fix the system. It's it's not that you just drift it apart by accident, the system is broken. And so, like my wife and I, this is a marriage hack. We we have discovered that it's really hard because of everything that happens in the evenings at this church. It's really hard to get a regular date on the calendar. So we just put it on the calendar for one hour on Thursdays every other week, and we just we just get together and we have a date and we dress up. She dresses up really nice. I don't dress up so much, uh, but I try, and and we try to we go on a date on on Thursday. And it's like, okay, that's a system. Every one of us has to think through the systems in our life and say, okay, is the system working to bring health? And it's not always a sin issue, it's it's a system issue. Now you you have to deal with it. Because if you don't deal with a problem, the thing I love about this is these guys are dealing with the problem. If you don't deal with a problem, it grows. Now, how many of you how many of you grew up in the 80s? How many of you remember a game called Called Oregon Trail. Anybody remember this? Yes. Yes. You remember the screen? Remember this game? It was like one of the first computer games, and it was all like kind of text driven. And it's like you're walking and you get a scratch on your arm and it starts out as a scratch. And and then soon, like a couple days later, it says that scratch has become infected. You remember this? And then it's like eventually the screen just goes blank and it says, You have died. And it's just like, you've died. The game is over. Why? Well, you didn't deal with the small thing and it became a big thing. And honestly, that's how it is in churches, too. If churches see problems but they don't deal with it, what happens is the small thing becomes a big thing and it destroys, it kills. It kills relationships, it kills ministry opportunities, it kills the mission. And so what this is saying is you've got to get aggressive with dealing with the problem. You've got to ask, where's the failure? What's the problem? How can I help? Leaders have to learn to not be defensive. Leaders have to learn to listen, and members have to say, how can I solve it without causing more damage? And that's what we see in this first verse. We've got to humbly, graciously, kindly work through the pain and deal with conflict honestly. Number two, if you're taking notes, we also have to guard our calling in the midst of that. The question is, are you doing what God's called you to do? You can't do everything. If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you what? Say it. You got it, yeah. Somebody yell it out. Busy. If Satan can't make you bad, he'll make you busy. He'll make you do all the things you're not called to do. He'll make you uh miss your mission by distraction. Notice in verse 2, Peter refuses to do that. It says, it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. He kept the main thing, the main thing. I'm reminded of a story when I read this. There's a uh a restaurant in Atlanta. It's called Church of God Grill. They serve the best chicken in town, almost as good as Kyle's chicken here at Central Church. But but it was pretty good chicken. And the guy goes into the restaurant and he says, Man, I love this place. This is some of the best food. He said, But the name, it's it's throwing me. How did it get the name? Church of God Grill. And the server says, Well, we actually, believe it or not, we started as a church and we were downtown and we were a mission and we were evangelizing. And over time we started selling chicken in order to subsidize the ministry and pay for the ministry. But what happened is over time, more people liked the chicken than the preaching. And so what happened is we just started selling more and more chicken. We needed more and more staff. We needed tables, and eventually we just said, you know, let's just sell chicken. That'll be our ministry. Now, books have told that story countless times to address the topic of mission drift. You see what happens is people get distracted with something that's not the mission of the church, and they drift from their original mission, and the church is no longer there. The gospel is no longer being preached. And that's the danger that Peter sees. That's the danger this church is in at the very beginning of losing their mission. Notice what he says. We've got to preach the word. Now, when he says preach the word or preaching the word, this is not specifically talking about the Sunday morning gathering right here. This is an all-week activity. Every day that the disciples are out there evangelizing, talking to priests. I mean, it'll say at the end of this passage that there are priests coming to faith like crazy. They're out there doing gospel ministry. And Peter's basically saying, if we we give that up, we give up our priority, we give up the thing that matters most. We don't have a church. We've got a soup kitchen. We don't have a church, we have a food pantry. We lose our church and then we gain a homeless shelter. He's saying, no, we can't give up the mission. We've got to stay focused on the real thing. And that's true in each of our lives. Notice what he boils down the most important thing to be. It's prayer and the word. It's prayer and the word. Now you might ask the question, which of these is the most important? Is it prayer or is it the word? And that's like asking which wing on the airplane is the most important wing? You gotta have both. You have to have both. You have to move through this and see them as both vital to the mission, and Peter is unwilling to give them up. And so here's the question: which calling over my life is being neglected? Or let's say it this way: what do I need to say no to in order for me to fulfill the calling that God has given me? In this room, God has placed a calling on every life. It's a place for you to serve. It's a people that you belong to. He's given you a mission. And sometimes, in order to embrace the mission, you have to say no to some things. In fact, in the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews will say that there is sin and there are other things that entangle us and trip us up. There are sin things, and then there are just other things. Not necessarily sin. But they're distracting you from your mission. What is God calling you to give up so that you can serve the mission he's placed on your life? See, all of life is about salvation and stewardship. If you hear me say that a hundred more times this year, I'll be doing my job right. All of life is about salvation and stewardship. You are to steward your resources, your time, your talent, your treasure to give it back to the Lord. To use it. Guys, the life is short, and I'm realizing this more and more that you only have a certain amount of time to serve the Lord, and then life is over. It is quick. And so, what is it that's the enemy of the best? And you've got to ruthlessly say no to that thing. Howard Hendricks used to tell us when I was at seminary, he used to say, um, guys, once a week, just say no to someone just to keep in practice. I like that a lot. There are some things and people you need to say no to, because those things and people become the enemy of the best things, the things that God's called you to. Just the other day, I was walking around in the parking lot. We have a beautiful campus here at Central. I'm so thankful for the team who's just done such a wonderful job trimming trees. And, you know, after men's breakfast this Saturday, they're they're gonna do another trim tree and uh job. And they're I saw the guys in there uh sharpening chainsaws and kind of getting ready for battle just the other day. And uh I'm so thankful. But I I was walking the property as I do, and sometimes I talk on the phone and sometimes I just do it therapeutically, and I start pulling off all the little sucker branches on the trees. And I just walk from tree to tree, pulling these little sucker branches. About halfway through last week, I'm like, what am I doing? I'm just out here, I'm out here pulling sucker branches on trees, and some of that's therapeutic, but I realized I'm doing this all wrong. If I was more wise, I would have my children out here pulling sucker branches. And that's that's my plan. And I've had them do that before. But it's like, what, no, what is my best gift to the church? What is my best contribution? You have to say no to some things to say yes to better things. For some of you, I know we have like 140 people signed up to help with VBS. Maybe your better thing would be inviting people to be a part of that experience. Maybe your better thing would be serving at that. Maybe your better thing would be would be encouraging someone else in the church who's serving. God has a mission for you to engage in. Don't miss it. How do we humbly guard our calling? We get organized. Look at verse 2. They summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right. Now there's a moral claim. This is a moral moment. He said, now that we see the issue, if we let this continue or if we let this spiral into something negative, it becomes not right that we should give up preaching and serve tables. This isn't, this isn't Peter getting elitist, like I'm, I'm, that's beneath me. That's not what he's saying. He is so convicted of the calling on his life that he's unwilling to let anything else drift him into something that's not his calling. This is some of your problem, all right? Some of you operate completely from a guilt complex. And all that you do is because you feel guilty. I know I need to work in children's ministry because I got a kid in children's ministry and I feel guilty. And some of you, that's how you live your life. Some of you, it's it's not joyful giving. When you write your check to the church, it's I feel guilty. And I just want to call you out of that. That is not what the gospel should produce. The gospel doesn't produce a guilty response like I've gotta do it because it's my turn and I use it. That's not what the gospel does. I've gotta give because that's the rule, or that's what I said I would do when I became a member. That's that's not what you do. These guys are not, these guys are not acting out of guilt. They're acting out of conviction. I am called to this, and I'm answering the call, and there's an excitement to address the issue because they are convicted. God has called me to preach and to pray, and I'm unwilling to let go of those two things. And I want to just call all of you, you need to live your life that way. You need to operate from a place of conviction, not guilt. There is a joylessness over guilt-motivated actions. But when you operate from a place of conviction, there's power, there's joy, there's excitement, there's the zest of life and ministry. And I just want to call you into that conviction. What are you called to do? What are you called to be? Notice with me who they bring. They pick seven men. Why the seven men? That's probably a Jewish um uh holdover from the synagogue systems. They they would look for certain numbers of men. I don't think there's anything special about the number seven here. I really think it's probably more traditional than anything else. Uh, some people would actually say these are the first uh servants or first deacons. I probably wouldn't say that. I don't I don't know that I see the word deacon anywhere uh as it's used in 1 Timothy in the book of Acts. It's just not there. But I do think this is probably an early prototype of deacons and what deacons were meant to do. The deacons were a changing of the system. The deacons were a help to the elders, they were a pressure relief valve. And that's why I'm so thankful to our deacons. When we, like I felt it, the moment we put deacons in place here at Central Church, it was like we all just went, praise God. Praise God. They're the assistance to the elders. And I think this is probably a prototype for that. Um, and the system has to change with growth. That's what's going on here. Again, go back to your kids. I never dreamed. I never dreamed I'd be driving a minivan around town. You know what I mean? It's like I don't want to drive a minivan. No, no self-respecting man wants to drive a minivan. Then you have four kids, and you're like, I like my minivan. And it's like, okay, this gets the job done. Why? How did I how did how did I get into a minivan? Well, the system had to change because of growth. And that's what these deacons or these prototype deacons represent. Notice with me some qualifications. They're they're spiritual, they're also filled with wisdom. These are not just just good old boys. These are not just good old guys. No, these are spiritual guys. These guys are filled with wisdom. I mean, you think about it, a 20,000-member church is not going to be helped that much with seven guys unless these guys are able to delegate and make wise decisions that affect a whole lot of people all at once. They're filled with wisdom. And we need a lot of people like that here at Central Church. This teaches us to identify our calling, teaches us to ask the question: where's my lane? Where do I belong? How do I guard my calling? What am I doing that belongs to someone else? Who else can help? It teaches us to also embrace change when it comes. Change has to come, or else we feel more pain. And so we as a church, we have to embrace this. Third, and we're done. Number one, we have to face conflict, honestly. Don't run from it. Don't ignore it. Don't say it's not happening. Just face it. Address it. We have to guard our calling. We have to make sure that we're in our right lane and we call others to be in their lane, and that leads us to the final point. We have to mobilize the congregation habitually. What's the answer to these growth pains, to these growing pains? The answer is we need more servants. The answer is that we need more people ready to serve, ready to answer the call. In fact, you might write this down. This is a helpful way to remember it. Healthy churches multiply ministry by multiplying ministers. I'll say it again. Healthy churches multiply ministry by multiplying ministers. We have to have a reduplication of ourselves. And that's what the list in verse 5 represents. Stephen, Philip, Procorus, Ninkor, Timon, Parmenes, and Nicholas, these guys are in leadership, and they are, notice with me, they're all Greek. You got a Greek problem, a Hellenist problem, and so they call up the Greek-speaking guys to solve the problem. How does that help? These guys are highly invested to make sure that their ladies are taken care of. They're invested. They see the problem. They're intimately acquainted with it. Now, I want to warn you, we tend to operate that way here at Central Church. It's like if you come forward and you've got a problem, you're like, Pastor, the bathroom is clean. Or it's not clean, excuse me. I'm going to be like, how are you at mopping? You know what I mean? Like, like, how are you at helping with that? You can be part of the solution. And that's actually a great picture of what's happening here. These guys, I believe, they see the problem, and now they're stepping forward. And maybe God has called them to be part of the solution. Notice the spiritual nature of them as problem solvers, Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Godly man. Godly man. He serves the tables. Some serve tables. Some serve the word. Same word used for both. You got the pastors and elders who are serving the, who are serving out the word. You got other guys who are serving the tables, but both there are a spiritual endeavor. And then we have to remember that whether you're serving in the pulpit or the pantry, service unto the Lord is a spiritual action. That's why it's so important that we have so many people willing to serve. These are spiritual actions. Verse 6, they laid their hands on them. What does this represent? Well, what would happen for deacons? Why do you elevate a deacon to a certain role? It's that they might be examples. These men were set aside, and basically the leadership of the church was saying, so go these men. That should be the pattern for all of us. That's why we have around 20 guys that are on our deacon team. Some of you need to pray about becoming deacons. We could use a few more. Why do we elevate them? Why have we laid our hands on them? This is why. They are examples to the flock of what the whole flock should be doing. That's the idea. They're examples of harmonizing. They bring rest. They bring peace. They are, I like to say it this way, they're not just assistants to the elders, they're problem solvers. In fact, if you look at the role of the deacon ministry, uh, as pictured here in Acts 6, they are solving problems between people. They're bringing a spirit of rest to the congregation. They're bringing a spirit of trust to the congregation. Someone murmurs, someone complains, and says the church doesn't care about this group or that group or this problem, they step up and say, no, that's not true. They're just caught up in missional activity. They're busy. The fact, let me help you. Let me let me fix the problem. Let me walk with you through this, and we're gonna get to a better place. These deacons or these deacon-like people who are in the early church, they are helping bring a spirit of rest to the congregation. And a church can't survive unless it has a lot of people mobilized to do that. We've got to mobilize the congregation to bring rest and believe the best and hope the best and identify system problems and help solve system problems. And when that's happening, what happens is the church continues on in its mission, and we'll finish with this. Look at verse 7. Notice what it says. And the word of God continued to increase. And the number of disciples multiplied greatly. This is like a bookend. We get a report at the beginning. We now have a report at the end. And the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. And a great many of the priests.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Who? The priests. These are the guys yelling, crucify him. These are the same guys who hate Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

And they're becoming Christians. So two things. Number one, if you're here today and you do not know Jesus Christ, or you hate Jesus Christ, watch out. Jesus is coming for you. He's coming after you, and he wants you in a relationship with him. And you do that by grace through faith. You believe in the gospel that he died for your sins. In fact, that might even be the reason you're in the room today is to hear the gospel and to know that Jesus loves you and died for you and he rose from the dead. That may be the very he's coming after you. And the second piece is that when this ministry is happening, when we are problem solving in the church, the mission explodes to reach the most impossible people you can imagine. The hardened atheist, the deceived cult member, the person who is captured by many gods, many beliefs or no beliefs, that person gets reached. Why? Because we are laser focused on the mission God has given us. You know, if you grew up in the 90s, you may remember this band. Who remembers the band Oasis? Do you remember this? Yeah, some of you are ashamed. It's okay. You can you can put your hand up. It was a uh it was a band of two brothers, but you know, the story goes they fought like cats and dogs. I mean, they just fought. Um and they were pretty popular. They were they were playing some big some big concerts and big venues, and the the two brothers um were both different at different things. There was Liam, and he was really good at at singing, and then there was a guy named Noel, and he was he was really good at songwriting and lyrics. And they both brought something to the table, this band. And they would get so angry. In fact, one of the brothers said uh about the other brother, Noel said of his brother Liam, he said, he is the angriest man you will ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world full of soup. When they were about to take the stage in Paris, they got in such a fight that Liam swung the guitar at Noel like an axe. And the band broke up for 15 years. Believe that they just came back last year, 2025, for a reunion tour. No music had been made, no concerts had been played, 15 years lost. Why? Because these two guys couldn't figure out how to resolve problems. They couldn't figure out how to deal with conflict and problems as they arose. And what happened is in the height of their popularity, in the height of their songwriting, in the height of their concert series, they lost the momentum and they lost their mission. See, it's like that in every organization, whether it's business or church or family. If you can't figure out how to problem solve, not always sin issues, sometimes a system issue, what happens is you lose the mission and death and destruction follow. Heads bowed, eyes closed. What is God doing in this sermon? Some of you need to leave today protecting your calling. You need to be ruthless with your no. There are things you need to say no to. Why? Because it's taking you away from service. There are others of you who need who see a problem, you need to address it, you need to talk to The right people, you need to be proactive, you need to resist the temptation to just gossip and cause murmuring within the congregation. There are others of you, you need to seize opportunities to serve. What we see in this passage is there were a group of people who rose up in the congregation and they said, We'll be the problem solvers, we'll we'll be the servants, we'll take the pressure off of the elders, all this growth, all this activity. Yeah, we'll do that. And I pray over this group right now that God would be raising up some of you to do that today. We would love to talk to you. Our elders would love to bring on a few more deacons. We'd love to bring on people who we commission and say, you're going to be responsible for helping us keep peace in this place. Address problems. I think for others in this room, it reminds us that not every problem is an issue of sin. And every church is going to have problems. There's no perfect church. If there is, don't go there, you'll mess it up. There's no such thing as a perfect church. Every church has problems from the very beginning. But God wants us to address those problems biblically. God wants us to address those problems with categories of grace. This also reminds us that you and I need to start saying thank you more to the people who serve us so well. There are deacons who are here, and there are servants who will be serving your children at vacation Bible school in a week. We as a people need to be filled with gratitude. And so, Father, make us all of these things. Father, thank you for this picture of the early church. It corrects our expectations. It corrects us as a people. Lord, for what we uh what we so often desire that is wrong. And Father, you have given us a pattern to follow in. May we solve our problems like they did. And may the result that they experience be our result, that the church continues to move forward, the church continues to multiply because things are handled with wisdom and grace. We love you, Lord. We we just pray over any person that's here today who needs your son Jesus Christ, who's not believed the gospel. Pray that right here, right now, the peace you'd bring over them would be the peace of the gospel, that they would trust in Christ, come into a relationship with him, and then join the church and experience the family that this church can be. So, Father, call them to repentance, call them to faith. We ask that you do that work now. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Oh, God's people say it together. Amen.