A sermon based upon Acts 6: 1-7
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 14th, 2018
(8-14) Sermon Series: Church: Then and Now
Today’s message is about Church leadership. Here, in Acts chapter 6, we encounter something very important about leading a church: Church leadership is supposed to be about ‘spiritual’ leadership. “Choose from among you those known to be filled with the Spirit and wisdom”(v.3). The apostles clearly believed that those who lead the church must not only have a good ‘business’ sense, but they must also be ‘full of the Spirit.’ But what does this mean?
Having leaders who are ‘full of the Spirit’ is crucial for the church, because the church has a big, if not impossible, job to do. In these opening chapters of Acts, the young church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is growing and expanding its ministry from Jerusalem into Judea, and into the ‘ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8, NIV). Even though the authorities and officials were threatening and persecuting believers, the church was still growing, thriving and accomplishing it’s mission to ‘take the gospel’ into the world. How can you explain this, other than the work of the Holy Spirit?
But in today’s text we encounter another kind of problem that threatened the growth of the church. This was not a problem from the world outside, nor was it from ‘worldliness’ inspired by Satan who ‘filled the hearts’ of Ananias and Sapphira. Here the church faces a ‘good’ problem which could have quickly become a very bad problem.
When our son-in-law called us to inform that our daughter had given birth prematurely to twins, we were overwhelmed. After spending nearly two months in the hospital, due to my daughter’s own problems, the question was where would the twins go after their hospital? The only feasible answer was that they would come into our home, where they remained for a few more months. It was a problem, but it was a ‘good’ problem. One that impacted our lives forever.
This is the kind of ‘good’ problem we encounter in this text. The church was growing so rapidly, that it developed a problem within its own ministry. Some of its newest members were making complaints against how it’s ministry was being conducted. Jewish communities had some of the most well-developed social ministries in the ancient world. The church followed that pattern, and developed a ‘feeding’ ministry which provided food for its most vulnerable members—especially the widows. But because the church was reaching into the broader world, to Jewish people who came from outside the walls of Jerusalem, it overlooked some of those who could not speak their language. Had that problem not been addressed and resolved quickly, the church’s reputation could have been damaged and its explosive growth could have stopped.
All churches face challenges, whether they are young churches or well-established churches. The question is never ‘why’ do we have to face problems or challenges, but the question is ‘how’ do we face these challenges? How do we work like a church, and continue to be guided by God’s Spirit, no matter what problem, or problems, we face?
COMPLAINED AGAINST…. (v1)
Most all of us have experienced some kind of church conflict and know how divisive and destructive it can be to a church’s development and progress.
The first church conflict I recall from my childhood, was a big disagreement about whether or not to plant grass in the church cemetery. Since the founding of the church in 1898, the cemetery had been managed with sand, and it took a lot of sand.
I don’t recall all that was said in the business meeting. I don’t even remember the meeting at all. But I do remember the fallout that took place after the church decided to remove the sand and to plant grass. Today, it’s easy to see how good of a decision that was. In the modern world, mowing is less expensive than buying sand. Besides, how many ‘sandy’ cemeteries do you see today? But it that day, in the early 1970’s, the decision to plant grass caused not only a great deal of conflict, but several key members left that church to almost never to return. I say ‘almost never to return because some 20 years or so later, one family returned just in time to be buried there. Yes, and to be buried there under the very grass they oppossed.
Unsurprisingly, the story of ‘organized’ leadership in early church began with a complaint. The word ‘complaint’ (1:1) used here reflects the same kind of ‘murmuring’ and grumbling Moses had to put up with from the children of Israel in the wilderness (Num. 11:1ff). The appearance of complaints can be one of the ‘good problems’ for becoming a people, a church, a family or any kind of group, assembly, or congregation. Because we are human, and no one is perfect, or does anything perfectly, there always will a potential and possibility for making missteps, mistakes, and misunderstandings that may cause offense or hurt.
The great challenge for the church, however, is not to silence nor to stop the complaints, but the great challenge for the church is to learn how to express complaints and to address complaints in positive, caring, and compassionate ways. Without some kind of ‘give and take’ the church cannot grow, flourish or accomplish its mission. In order to grow beyond our own little group, church members and church leaders have to learn how constructively share with each other, listen to each other, seek to understand, and to remain engaged with each other, even when hurts come and conflicts arise. We must learn how to navigate, solve and settle our problems and conflicts or we will not be able to attract others and grow at the body of Christ, either numerically or spiritually.
Even people in the church; people like us who are trying to live in the Spirit, will encounter problems, challenges, and have misunderstandings with some amount of conflict. Having conflict is not the problem, but ‘HOW’ we report and resolve the problem, could become the greatest problem.
Several years ago, I took a training course in Church Conflict. One of the first things we learned is that as a pastor, when someone gets angry with us, that most of the time, the the main issue is not about us. It’s normally about something that happened many years ago, in either the church’s life, or in someone’s life, which was never dealt with or worked through. Now, because it is still lying there in someone’s heart, not being completely healed, something we’ve done or haven’t done, has brought all that pain back to the surface and we are having to deal with it.
I recall one learning experience in particular, which was hard for me, because she was a dear friend, and she was hurt. It all happened for a good reason, but it wasn’t good enough for her. Our church was trying to find some ways to show and share God’s love with our neighbors, so we decided on the leadership team, to call off evening services and to invite our neighbors to go with us to join us in enjoying a local ball game. The reason we used the evening worship time was because the local baseball team had a ‘faith night’ on Sunday evening and our members already had church on their schedule. We thought our reasoning was good, and our plans were responsible and fit our evangelistic goals, so the leadership followed through with it and one Sunday I announced our plans to the whole church.
After the service, this dear lady was walking out the door, she looked straight at me, and then she said, “How dare you call off worshipping God to go to a ballgame!” That was all she said, and all I could do was smile. She was a very spiritual, elderly lady, whom I had visited and been warmly received in her home. I had never see this kind of anger in her. We were trying to do good for the church and for the cause of the gospel, but this lady saw it as nothing but ‘stopping church for a ball game’. And she didn’t just have or make a complaint, she ‘nailed’ me at the door, where she knew I had no chance to answer, to clarify, or to respond.
Because churches are made of imperfect people, churches can also be imperfect places where hurts happen. Some people have wondered why the church isn’t a perfect place, since God’s loving presence is here? Well, the quick answer is because God is here, the church becomes not only a place where saints are being made, but this is also a place which becomes ‘a hospital for sick souls’. And the greatest sickness of all, as we all should know, is not the physical sickness, but the emotional and spiritual sickness of sin, our human limitation that can’t so easily be expressed or addressed.
Consider this case in the early church. It was a natural problem, and maybe even a good problem to have. The church was growing. The church had a lot to do. Many, who both physical needs and spiritual needs, were joining the church. The church began among Hebrew people, but now was reaching out to Greek speaking Jews. Some of these Greek-speaking Jews were widows, who had perhaps just moved into Jerusalem, maybe to live the last days of their lives. Who knows exactly how it happened? It’s easy to overlook the needs of outsiders, because we don’t know them and they don’t know us. I don’t think anybody wanted to overlook anyone, but it happens. Church people, and church leaders too, are human beings who live within the limits of what humans can know, see and do. We are not seraphim’s with multiple ‘faces’ or ‘eyes in the back of our heads’ (Isa. 6).
Interestingly, another reason churches have problems is because we want to do good; we don’t want to hurt, but to help. We have been established to ‘serve’ and to herald the message of God’s salvation, but often we haven’t developed good guidelines for our ministry, or we, like the early church, will sometimes face problems we haven’t encountered before. Unless we develop guidelines for our ministry, which clarify who we are and how we do what we do, which has been decided upon by all, we remain at the mercy of how people feel, rather than being guided by who God has called us to be and what God has called us to do.
TURN RESPONSIBILITY OVER TO THEM (3)
So, what did the apostles do face church’s first congregational crisis? The text displays their intentional resolve: “Brothers and Sisters, choose seven…from among you…We will turn this responsibility over to them” (v.3). Here is the great lesson for us still today: If a church wants to get serious about reaching out into the larger world around us, like the early church, we must also get serious about choosing and developing our leaders who can lead the church to face the challenges and problems we encounter.
There is a wise saying that goes ‘the church will never rise above it’s leadership.’ This statement can be verified in the biblical witness. The church would not have continued to reach out and grow without continuing to organize itself by facing its challenges, solving its problems, and by developing and following its leadership.
But what exactly is was the nature of this newly chosen and organized leadership? Do we know how to define it? We certainly need to, because people can be very good at leading in the world, in a business, but still fail to understand the special and unique calling of leadership in a church. Very often, churches elect leaders who are skilled in the worldly ways of business and home, then automatically think these skills can be easily transferred into the church. While the church certainly has earthly business to do too and needs skills and wisdom from the world and the home, but the main business of the church is God’s business, and God’s word, and we have a calling that is beyond becoming just another earthly business. The question that comes out of this text is for us to ask ourselves what kind of business is God’s business? Can we define what special, unique calling, leaders should have for God’s church, especially in these times when churches face uncertain futures and many special and unique challenges?
What is clear is that when the apostle’s asked the congregation to ‘choose…seven…who were full of the Spirit and wisdom’ they were following not just the agenda of growing a church, but they were following
God’s agenda. This is what they directly addressed when they went on to divide the leadership task of the church into two different areas of ministry: One was the ‘attention of prayer and the ministry of the word’ (v. 4), and the other was the ministry action of ‘to wait on tables’ (v.2). The apostles believed it a healthy church had to not to ‘neglect’ (v.2) neither of these two types of ministries. In order for the church to face its challenges, the church had expand its leadership and it had to ‘share’ its ministry with those who had the spiritual qualifications to lead the church?
Of course, we could get into all kinds of details or discussions about what this dividing of the church’s work into specific ministries by gifted people might mean in today’s church. We certainly have a lot more ministry areas than these three; prayer, the ministry of the word, and the distributing of essentials. The needs of churches and the needs in our world have changed a lot since then, and they continue to change too.
There are at least three most important observations about how church leadership developed then, and must still develop now. The first, that I have already mentioned is that the church must continue to develop SHARED LEADERSHIP. When the church faced big challenges, what is still important for us, is to see how the church expanded and ‘shared’ its leadership. The apostle’s understood their own limitations and their own gifts and priorities too. They not only felt it was most important for them to continue to lead in the ministry of prayer and preaching, they also realized how the church would suffer, if they tried to have their hands on everything.
Churches have proven to eventually struggle when ‘leadership’ remains centralized and limited by one, or a just a few. I once pastored a church that grew quickly under one well-respected pastor, who grew the church mostly based on his own personality, but when he retired, the church floundered, and is still struggling today. If he had allowed the church to share the ‘leadership’, it might be in a better condition today.
What was most ‘wise’ about the apostle’s decision to ‘share’ the leadership was not just ‘how’ they asked the church to ‘choose’, but it was also ‘who’ the church choose to lead them forward. Notice how the church went on to choose ‘seven’ who had Greek names. They had a ‘minority’ Greek problem, so the majority Hebrew leaders allowed the mainly Hebrew church, to select ‘minority’ Greek leaders to address the problem. Not one of the new newly selected and elected leaders had a Hebrew name. The church had selected, elected leaders and ‘shared’ their leadership with the ‘minority’ that would very soon become the ‘majority’ of people from where the church would find its future growth and ministry, outside Jerusalem, outside Hebrew culture, connecting itself with the world beyond it’s own walls.
If a church wants to have a future, the church must learn to ‘share’ its leadership with the people who are most like the world it wants to reach. This is exactly what mission pastor Rick Warren did when he wanted to build a church meeting the needs of the California community known as Saddleback. He wisely developed a picture of a fictitious person he called ‘Saddleback Sam’ and also ‘Saddleback Samantha’, and he began to reach out based on the needs of the people he wanted to reach, not building the church only to meet the people who were already there. This was not always pleasing to his existing members, who wanted the church only for their own needs. But this ‘sharing’ of ministry and ‘leadership’ enabled Saddleback to become one of the most amazing stories of church development and church growth in our contemporary world.
Another important characteristic of the apostle’s leadership, was that they not only ‘shared’ their leadership, but that they also prioritized that this leadership was to be ‘SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP’. “Choose…Seven who are full of the Spirit…and wisdom.” As the church grew, and faced its problems, the apostles did not forget who they were and what they were about. They were a church, Christ’s body, who were called first of all, not to be just another worldly business, but they were a people who were to be on mission because they were filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
What does it mean for us to ‘choose’ leaders who are ‘filled with Spirit and wisdom(v.3)? Let me pause to tell you one of my favorite stories. George Smith was a deacon at New Hope Baptist Church before I became their pastor. I never met George, but I certainly knew of him. He built the Lutheran style pulpit I climbed up into every Sunday to preach. It was a beautiful piece of work, which stood out in a small Baptist Church. His wife, Mrs. Rosey, I affectionately called her, told me how soon after the pulpit was built the church was trying to decide which color of carpet to put down. George, having a Lutheran background, or course suggested the color red. But there were others who wanted green. When it came time to vote, George stood up and spoke passionately for red carpet, because it signified the color of Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Still, others preferred light green, saying that was more practical, and fit better with the existing color of paint on the walls. When the time for a vote came, the church decided for the greenish color. Later, on the day the men of the church came together to put down the carpet, George was the first man there, neither complaining nor grumbling having lost the vote.
So again, what does it mean to be a ‘spiritual’ leader, who is ‘full of the Spirit and wisdom’ (v.3). In every church I’ve ever served, it is people like George Smith, who speak their mind, express their feelings, and no matter what happens or what the way majority go, always stands ready to work for the good of the whole body of Christ. The apostle Paul put it this way, ‘…If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,
2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. (Phil. 2:1-5 NIV).
Paul’s mention of this ‘same mindset as Christ Jesus’ brings us to other major quality of a church leader that is underscored in this text: Christian leaders are SERVANT LEADERS. Paul went on to explain to the Philippians how the ‘mindset of Christ Jesus’ was revealed in how Christ, who was by ‘nature’ shared ‘equality with God’ did not use this to his advantage, but ‘made of himself nothing’ by ‘becoming a servant’ as he ‘humbled himself’ by becoming ‘obedient’ even to die on ‘a cross’ (Phil 2: 6-8). Here Paul reminded the church at Philippi, that Christian leadership was, just as Jesus set the example, not to ‘lord over’ others (see Matt 23:8-11), but to ‘serve’ others in Jesus’ name.
We can see exactly how was realized in the church, as in this text early church leadership was divided into two major areas of ministry or ‘service’: first there was the priority of the proclamation of the word and prayer, and secondly, there was providing necessity social, benevolent, service ministries, which in this moment, took the form of a ‘food service’ (CEB) or ‘serving tables’ (NIV, v.2 which may have meant either providing food or the collected monies for buying food and handing it out).
Early on the church came to understand that, through its own experience and obedience to the Spirit of Jesus, that it could not succeed in its priority of proclaiming God’s word, without also serving to meet human need. The realities haven’t change even today, for just as a person cannot ‘live by bread alone’ (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4, as Jesus quoted Scripture when tempted by the devil in the wilderness), the church also understands that people can’t easily hear or understand ‘the word’, when they are still ‘hungry’ and ‘hurting’.
What was most wise in this ‘division’ of ministry, was that the church came to realize that all members of the church are expected to participate in some area of ministry, whether it be through proclamation ministry of worship, preaching, teaching, and prayer, or through participating in social, care, and benevolent ministries, such as visiting the sick, or helping to assure that its members have emotional, physical, as well as, spiritual needs addressed (Matt. 10:42, 25: 35-36).
The fullness of Spirit, which enabled the church to thrive and grow, was a church ‘filled with the Spirit’ so that ministry was a ‘SHARED’ among the members, provided a ministry which was both ‘SPRITIUAL’ and ‘SERVANT’ oriented, where everyone used their natural and spiritual gifts in some way to participate in the saving, redeeming, and healing work of God. It was a church where no one could everything, but everyone was expected to participate and do something.
…SO THE WORD OF GOD SPREAD (7)
What happens when the ‘whole’ church shares, serves and is filled with the ‘spirit’ of Christ in how it proclaims and serves? The most natural result, is exactly what happened here; ‘the word of God spread… the number of disciples…increased (v. 7).’
I’m glad, in this text, that the emphasis was not on the physical growth of the church, because in some situations a faithful church doesn’t grow numerically. But even when the church doesn’t grow numerically, when it is focused on the Spirit of Christ, and shares together in servant ministry, will alway grows spiritually in maturity and discipleship.
When that happens, it isn’t long until other amazing things can begin to happen too, perhaps even some numerical growth. This is what happened in a most unexpected way in the early church. Through the ‘shared’ ‘spiritual’ leadership which increased the church’s ‘servant’ ministry to both insiders and outsiders, a large number of professional Jewish ‘priests’, saw what was happening and responded in ‘obedient’ ‘faith’ (7b). People were then, and are still not convinced by the ‘word’ alone, but people need to see the word come alive in human ‘flesh’. To say it in theological terms, only incarnational faith brings real transformational results. In layman’s terms, only by living the words we say and hear, do we see and experience change in human hearts.
As I conclude, I think there is one more important observation we need to make from this text. I want to give this observation in the simplest, most practical way. Remember, we started this message with some Greek ‘widows’ who were complaining because they felt they were being left out of the food service that was being carried out by the Hebrew church. What the apostles did in response, is still a good model of how we too should face, confront and tackle the challenges and conflicts of our own day.
I want to say this in three simple words you can remember: EXPRESS, ADDRESS, and DO NOT REPRESS. Churches that thrive, even in questioning, confusing, and difficult times, are not churches never have conflicts, or who solve all their problems. But only those churches who are willing to learn how to work through their problems together, feeling free to express their needs and expectations in constructive ways; where leaders serve by helping the people address these needs in healing, helpful and healthy ways; and finally (and I know this is a long sentence), where most both leaders and the congregation as a whole, take special care not to ‘repress’ or as Scripture says, not to ‘quench’ the Holy Spirit (1 Thess. 5: 17) in all they do, will be able, even through ‘hardships’, to accomplish God’s will and ‘enter the kingdom’ (Acts 14:22) that is still coming. Being a spiritual, servant church of shared leadership, is always as much about ‘how’ we serve, and ‘who’ we become as we serve, as it is about what we accomplish in Jesus’ name.
Years ago, one of the most beloved gospel songs in the south was entitled, “The Jericho Road”. It a song with a catchy tune that has been sung not just by gospel singers like The Chuck Wagon Gang, and more recently, Bill and Gloria Gaither, but it’s also been sung by country stars like Merrill Haggard and Bill Monroe. The song is about having a personal relationship with Jesus, so that your life can be redeemed and restored. It’s a worthy message, as the song starts out asking whether or not the ‘world seems all wrong’ and your ‘load’ is too heavy. If it is, the verse answers simply, ‘just bring in to Christ’ and ‘confess your sins’, implying that this will make it all better. After this comes the most familiar chorus, often sung in echo,
“On the Jericho Road, your heart He will bless,
On the Jericho Road, there’s room for just two.
No more or no less, just Jesus and You.
Each burden He’ll bear, Each sorrow He’ll share
There’s never a care, for Jesus is there.
There’s certainly a lot of wonderful, redemptive truth in the message of this song, but the message falls on deaf ears and hearts, if we don’t also understand that ‘Jesus is there’ not just as ‘one Spirit’, but as a ‘body’ who are a people, the ekklesia, the ‘called out ones’, who are serving, caring, and sharing in this ‘one faith, one baptism, and one Spirit’ (Eph. 4:1ff), so that we don’t just have words to say, but we also have deeds that are done to make God’s word real and presence felt in our own world. Amen.
No comments :
Post a Comment