YouTube video BR0Cu6ykius

[music] >> Come on, can we give him praise today? Can we lift our hands? Can we lift our voices?

He's holy. He's worthy. He's worthy of our praise.

>> You deserve the glory. Yes, you do, Lord. You're worthy of it all.

You're worthy [music] of [singing] it all. Yes, you are. For [music] from you are all things.

And to you are all things. You deserve the glory. >> Come on, all together, can we lift it up to God?

>> Oh, you're worthy of it all. >> [music] >> Oh, yes, you are, Lord. >> [music] >> You're [singing] worthy of it all.

For from [singing and music] you are all things. And to you are all [music and singing] things. Oh, you deserve the glory.

>> [music and singing] >> Oh, yes, you do, Lord. >> [singing] >> You're worthy of it all. >> [singing] >> Oh, you're worthy of it all.

>> [singing] >> I give it all to you, God. For from [music and singing] you are all things and to you are all things. [singing] You deserve the glory.

>> Hallelujah. Thank you for your presence, God. Thank you for your presence.

Hallelujah, God. Hallelujah, God. Hallelujah, God.

I uh some of you know Rex and Cindy Craft used to be here. They moved to Tennessee. They were coming through town yesterday.

I met them for breakfast. Got to visit a little bit and Rex got to talking about people that they live there. It's a very rural rural area there where they're at in Tennessee.

They got a farm and he's showing me pictures of all their goats and their cows and cats and everything. But he said that uh some of the neighbors got some kids, you know, and they were they were talking to them and they said they they were teenagers, you know, young young adults actually. And he said that they kept talking about the good old day.

Oh, back in the good old days. And finally he asked them, said, "Well, what do you think of as the good old days?" He said, "Well, you know, back in the '90s." And uh we thought I don't know about that. >> [laughter] >> I guess that's your your perspective on the good old days, but just thinking about the good old days, you know, from our even even their interpretation of the good old days in the '90s, you know, over the past couple of decades, you know, there's been a lot of changes take place.

A lot of changes take place in society, our world, AI, all technology, all these things. It's made a huge impact on our lifestyle, right? Uh but yet as we were singing that song, I just thought, you know what?

It's just so reassuring and so comforting to know that that God almighty, Jesus Christ never changes. Regardless of what's going on, who thinks what, who's doing what, what technology is going to take over. I saw something just today that so many jobs are going to be eliminated because of AI in the future and you know what?

God's just up there smiling. He's preparing a place for us, right? Amen.

Heaven is going to be sweet one of these days. Amen. Amen.

Let's just love him again right now. God, I thank you for your promises. God, I thank you for your faithfulness, dear God.

I love you, Jesus. Thank you for your love. Steadfast, never changing, always the same love.

It's not determined by my performance. It's not determined by how good I am. Your love is always reaching, always reaching.

Always ready to embrace us. God, I thank you for that. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Pastor Sal is going to come here bring the word in just a moment, but I wanted to step back up here let you know some of you are aware of my physical challenge I'm dealing with here, you know. Uh I'm still trying to click it down. I'm I'm getting man, I'm getting calls uh every other day or so from nurses checking on me.

How are you doing? How are you feeling? They got my appointment uh that was supposed to with a this different type of cardiologist is supposed to be July 24th and they called and they got me in an earlier space up till the 16th now, so thankful for that.

But um conversation I had with the nurse nurse was talking to me discussing symptoms and all. She said, "Let me go talk to the doctor." And then she came back and they were able to get me moved up to the 16th and she said, "He also said it's probably best for you to just kind of be on light duty and not exert yourself too much. You don't have to be bed rest, but just take it easy for the next couple of weeks till you get in and see this doctor." So, uh I'm going to be out of the pulpit for a couple of weeks.

Uh thankful for Pastor Sal and others that we have here. We've got ministers that can fill this pulpit and do a very, very adequate job and we're thankful for that. But, just want to kind of give you an update here for the next couple of weeks.

We'll I'll be sitting on sidelines. Praying God will take care of everything and help me to get some rest and everything's going to be all right. I believe that with all my heart, but yet just having to work through this process.

So, with that being said, thank you Pastor Sal for being here, being a part of our church family, being a part of my life. And uh we love you very much. >> Amen.

Well, love you. Yes. I just told Brother Gene I was glad it sounds like they're finally taking, you know, him serious.

He's gone to the emergency room three or four times and it's like the doctors just kind of like, "Oh, you know, it'll be all right. Come back later for this." And I'm like, "So, they're not giving you any directives?" Or I mean, it's a weird thing to have to every single day stand down for shortness of breath. So, I'm I'm actually grateful that sounds like the doctors are serious and going to get some tests run and figure out what's going on.

Amen. Um why don't we just take two minutes Let's do a short greet, but we we definitely need to greet each other. Let's greet one another and uh tell some folks you're glad to see them this evening.

>> All right. If y'all can maybe work your way back to your seats. >> [laughter] >> Again, so grateful to be in God's presence with God's people.

You may be seated. Um just being in God's presence with God's people is just a privilege and um just always a reminder when we go shake hands with one another, it's I mean, in a room this size, there's always somebody going through something. So, um it's just hard to be with a large group of people and that not be the case.

So, uh it's grateful to I'm grateful to be able to step outside of of uh many times all of our troubles that are out there and just come with the peace of God, being God's presence with his people. It is just one of the privileges of my life. I'm so grateful for the church.

So, when a certain Dallas church decided to split, each side filed a lawsuit to claim the church property. And a judge finally referred to the matter to the higher authorities in in within their particular domination denomination, and a church court assembled to hear both sides of the case and awarded the church property to one of these two sides. So, this was like a legitimate battle of of the churches.

The losers in that dispute withdrew and they went off and formed another church in the area. But during the hearing, the church courts learned that the conflict had all began at a church dinner. When a certain elder received a smaller slice of ham than a child seated next to him.

And from this like tiny little bickering argument in the beginning that kind of continued to escalate, uh this little tiny seed grew into this great dispute that caused a church split. And this is according to to R. K.

Hughes, he's a a real writer in a reputable book. So, it sometimes I read these stories and I'm a little skeptical um about the, you know, legitimacy of them, but uh supposedly this one was reported in newspapers, everyone read it. Um I haven't don't know about that case, but I know of plenty of cases where uh the church just doesn't look like the church.

You know. What an awful look for the church. You know, we have an adversary that will do whatever he can uh to destroy God's church.

That's his sole purpose. Uh and in Acts chapter 5 we saw the adversary or the devil's deliberate attempt to destroy the church through the hypocritical sin of Ananias and Sapphira. And a scandal like that, remember the church, if you think about the church in such a fragile state, a scandal like that could have crippled the church.

Somebody finds out that these hypocritical church people are lying and suddenly lying starts to spread throughout the church. So, so it's like the Lord just stepped in and just did exactly what needed to be done because the church had to church is not going to be stopped. That's one thing we know for sure.

Jesus said, uh upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. There's nothing that's going to stop God's plan. Nothing.

The question we have is whether or not we're going to be a part of it. That's our That's the question for us. So, God struck him dead.

He thwarted the devil's attempt to in for infiltrate the church and he stopped it dead in its tracks, literally dead in Ananias and Sapphira's tracks. So, in chapter 6, and we've been studying Acts and we're here in Acts chapter 6, we see a completely different tactic, perhaps his most clever tactic. No longer to allow sin or even maybe false believers to come inside of the church and infiltrate the church, but this time he simply is has a goal to divide the church through what could seem to be a petty complaint, kind of like a ham sandwich.

The church would have to avoid division and it will have to come up with some sort of solution to bring peace amongst the people and continue to have true revival. That's what we know is going to happen. That's what we know God's plan is.

We're going to read about this specific instance in Acts chapter 6. It's a great text for us today. It's seven short verses and there is a lot to learn about how the church should function and handle disputes.

I can read it for you. You may remain seated. It says this, "And in those days" this is King James version.

"In those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied." So, multiplication. That means that that the church is growing. And anytime the church is growing, there is going to be conflict.

It is almost impossible for a church to grow. What we have in this room is a group of people who is almost always here on Wednesday nights. Every single one of you knows what to expect.

You know who you're going to talk to. You know what jokes you're going to tell one another. You know how this person's going to behave.

Everything is completely predictable. Now, imagine you fill this room with another 30 or 40 strangers who've now gone down in that water. They've been filled with the Holy Ghost and they are now your brothers and sisters in Christ, but you don't know them.

There will be conflict. We will we will figure out pretty quickly how coordinated we are. How much we care about cooperation.

You know what we really We hear this word submission all the time in the church. You know what submission is? Cooperation.

That's submission. It's cooperation. There's somebody's ruling that cooperation.

There is layers to this, but submission is just simply human cooperation. That's what it is. How are we going to cooperate with one another?

In those days when the disciples were multiplied, there arose a murmuring. That's a familiar word. Where's it from?

Where do we hear murmurings? You can say it. We'll do this talkative on Wednesday night.

It's a small crowd. Where do we hear murmurings? How about in the wilderness in Exodus, right?

Or Deuteronomy, you know, they're they're kind of a constant murmurings. They're just people start arguing and being a little bit upset you know, grumpy and you ignore one thing and but you don't really get over it. It's still kind of in there.

Then something else happens later and it just kind of builds and builds and builds. So, there's this kind of murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, against the Greek-speaking Jews and the Hebrew-speaking Jews. Remember right now at this point we're in Acts 6, so it's just a Jewish church at this point.

And there's a different faction of these two Jews. There's the Grecians or the Greek-speaking Jews and there's the Hebrews. Because the Grecian speaking of them, their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

In other words, the church had a responsibility to take care of the widows, to minister to them, and the Greeks looked at the Hebrews and said, "You're short-cutting ours." Then the 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore brethren I like that. Wherefore brothers, brothers and sisters.

My brothers and my sisters. Now, let's not get distracted from what this is. These aren't the enemies.

Wherefore brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom you may appoint over this business. Now, we could have a whole text about the qualifications that we want for people to serve the church. Just in this.

The multitude of the disciples came together and we're going to look for seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom you may appoint over this specific business. Church business meeting here. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministration of the word.

And the saying pleased the whole multitude. Now, that's amazing. Your only a church, only a place governed by God's spirit could that be said of, that the whole multitude was pleased.

Unbelievable moment. How do you When is it ever an entire multitude is pleased? Only by the spirit.

And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. And the word of God increased, and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and great company of priests were obedient to the faith. Great, great text.

Can we just pray and ask the Lord to help us with this, to believe this word, to look on it with imagination, and believe it for our church. God, thank you for this privilege of being together. Thank you for your word.

We we reverence it, Lord. This is your word. Uh it is the pure uh truth uh that we build our lives on and we're grateful for this text tonight.

Lord, I pray that you help us to learn from it. And Lord, I know through your spirit our church can be changed and transformed Lord into what you want us to be and I pray this word will be a part of that. Help us to believe it, to hear it, to put our faith and our confidence in it, not in ourselves.

Let your spirit do Lord what I cannot do with my own words. I pray Jesus that you don't want me to say your word, to speak it without fear or favor. Knowing our congregation to hear it, to have ears that can hear and help us and bring revival to our hearts.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So it should come as no shock to us that the early church had problems because whether it was 2,000 years ago, 5 minutes ago, 2,000 years from now, if there's Lord is still carried and we're still here, people are going to have problems.

We're going to be petty. If you put people long together for long enough, we're just going to figure out ways to to get angry at one another, to fight and to bicker. The question that that this text really gets at that I enjoy, the question for us today is how are we going to respond to our problems?

And the problem here in the opening text was again a result of something that most churches today want. The church had rapid growth. And the church growth came with challenges.

There was murmuring and complaining. Now again, these words remind you or put you back in the wilderness where there was murmuring and complaining constantly. Let's go back to Egypt.

So this word is it's it's putting a slight concern there that maybe some people are murmuring and complaining and if we don't get this right, are they going to turn and go back in the other direction? We don't know, but there's murmuring and complaining in the church. And the complaint was an important one, a really important one.

All complaints are not created equal. This complaint was specifically important. It was in regard to the treatment of widows.

And in particular, the widows of a specific segment of the Jewish people in the church at this time. You had Hebrew speaking Jews, and you had Greek speaking Jews. The Hebrew speaking Jews thinking they're almost like the natives.

They were still there in Jerusalem. They were kind of By the way, this is an oversimplification. If you study this by our scholars, none of this is going to be tight and perfect.

They were looking back on history and trying to figure it out. But for the most part, your Jerusalem or your your Hebrew speaking Jews were in Jerusalem. They were natives.

And the Greek speaking were typically Jews that had been scattered throughout the rest of the world through the the diaspora or the persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem or the captivity of the Jews that had been pulled out and they had been pulled out kind of throughout the rest of the known world at that time. And they would come back in for the feast. That's where we had Day of Pentecost, right?

When the day of Pentecost fully come, they were all there from all over. They had all come back for this special feast. And of those people that had come back, many of them had been born in another place, and they had learned another language, and they had a certain cultural flare to them that was a little unique from the native flare that you had in um Jerusalem.

So, there were just differences. You could probably look at a Hellenistic Jew or a Greek speaking Jew, uh a Hebrew could probably just look at him and tell. Uh I grew up in West Virginia.

A very very small town in West Virginia. And I got to cities and everybody looked different to me. Like people just looked different.

I I couldn't tell you why. They're human beings. We all kind of look different anyways.

But the way they dressed, the way they spoke, the way they interacted, it was just a touch different. That's what it would be like between the Hebrews and the native-speaking Jews. They had some differences.

Um which wasn't a major issue. Um none of these were major issues. Potentially, they were just sort of riffs.

It's not like they hated each other. It's not like they went to civil wars, but they just kind of had a little bit of a small riff. And the trouble is with a little bit of a small riff, when problems happen, you immediately run to your side.

Do we not? A very, very human response. It's not hard to imagine this.

These folks that kind of look a little different, think a little different, same way that we do when we come from different cultures, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic classes, uh just makes us a little bit different, and it's easy to divide from people that are different. It's our identity as human beings, those things that we value the most, that often often can divide us from the rest of humanity. What we love the most, who we are, our culture, the things we value, the language that we speak, all of these things, even good things, can potentially be used by the enemy to divide us.

All of them. But Christianity promises to destroy that. Christianity's promise is to break down the walls that could potentially divide us.

Because who we are, what we love the most, what we value the most, now becomes the thing not that's divides us, but it becomes the thing that we have in common. As a Christian, we value our relationship with God. We will value our relationship with the body of Christ.

We love Christ the most. And those things fundamentally take priority over everything else, and our identity at that point is becomes our identity becomes in Christ. That's how we are recognized.

We are in Christ. And that becomes the thing that we value the most. It doesn't mean that other parts of ourselves disappear.

Doesn't mean that we stop being who we are. I'm a father. I'm a husband.

I'm American. I'm of Italian Irish heritage. I'm middle class.

I'm a preacher. I was a student in my life. But chief among all of these other things that can become a part of my identity, chief amongst all them, I am a Christian.

The order is critical. I'm not an American first and a Christian second. Nothing wrong with being an American as long as it falls underneath the umbrella.

Most problems we have in humanity, most of our disagreements, most of our fights come when those things all get out of order. Before I'm American, I'm a human. Just to be clear.

I am a human first before I am an American. These are there there's a a way that things must be ordered in our lives. And before we're anything else, when we are in Christ, uh we are a Christian.

Jesus is my father. And he is your father. Jesus is my God.

And his children are my brothers and my sisters. That's you. I don't care how much money you got in your bank account.

I don't care what color your skin is. I don't care what your political affiliation is. You are my brother and you are my sister.

And we better figure it out. Because our father wants us to get along. Man, if my girls it they better watch out if they're not getting along because Alicia will find out.

And she will ensure that whatever that little bickering is over, that they they will be reset back to be reminded, that is your sister. And she's going to be your sister for the rest of your life. And you only got two of them.

So, you better figure it out. That is us within the church. Paul said it like this to the church in Galatia.

He says, "For ye are all THE CHILDREN OF GOD by faith in Jesus Christ." That's a beautiful text to this church in Galatia. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Why?

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Does this mean that like your culture disappears? That's not what Paul means.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither rich or poor. There is neither male nor female.

Does it Does this Is this saying that Okay, let's turn into a trans community because it No, that's not Paul's point. Paul's point is our identity is now in Christ Jesus and we are all now brothers and sisters before we are anything else. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And if you be Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So, Paul said we are all, every single one of us, partakers in the promise. And part of that promise means that someday we are going to be in eternity in heaven together with each other and with the Lord.

So, we better start practicing how we're going to interact there. That's his point. It's a beautiful, beautiful text.

It's a privilege. It's a better way to live. And it's a It's a line that God draws that says, "My community, my kingdom is going to play by a different set of rules than the world's set of rules." That is a What's a dividing factor in the church?

A dividing factor in the church is if someone is your brother and sister in Christ, you can't hate them. You don't get to ignore them. You don't get to just pop up and be like, "I hate you.

I'm going to another church." You can. I'm not This isn't like a controlling like, "You stay at this church" type thing. That's not the point.

The point is is we must seek resolution with one another. We must love one another. We must make a commitment to this body, uh to the local body, of course, but to the entire body of Christ.

So, it may be human nature for humans to be divided. That was not at all accepted in the church. It just wasn't.

So, how did the early church that prayed so much, that cared so much about evangelism and God's mission, that singularly, just a couple of chapters ago, had people to sell in all their goods and throwing them into the pot and saying, "We're going to We're going to just sell all our stuff and figure out who needs taking care of and we're going to take care of one another." And they really became like a communist community. How How How did these folks get this moment so wrong? Where you have an entire group of people within the church saying, "We're the minority and we're neglected." How did it happen?

How could they let division in? How could they ignore these precious widows? It turns out they didn't hate the Greek-speaking Jews.

They didn't. They lacked proper organization. It appears that the apostles were spread so thin that they weren't even aware of it.

The assumption that was made is, "Well, you know, they're neglecting us." When the apostles heard about it, when the friction starts, and the the observation is made, the apostles don't say to them, "Don't be so negative." THE APOSTLES DIDN'T TRY TO gaslight them and say, "No, no, no, no, no, no. That's just your imagination." "Shut up and keep a positive attitude. We've got We're going places around here and your needs don't matter.

The church's mission is what matters." No, if they said that, they hate them. They don't hate them. They said, "Ooh.

How do we fix it? We didn't even notice. We're so sorry.

How do we fix this?" The answer seemed simple. Let's take care of them. Just that simple.

My brother comes to me and says, "Hey, I I feel like you're doing X, Y, or Z. What what's going on? Oh, man, I care.

I care about your concerns. That's That is the response from the Christian, not to figure out who's really right, not to jockey for the moral high ground. It's It's to simply care about the fact that your brother and sister in Christ cared enough to come to you or come to me and say, "I've got concerns about X, Y, Z." Great, let's talk about it.

Silent places are scary. They just are. Places where people don't talk.

You go to every every regime where people are oppressed. You don't know what You know what you don't hear? People talking.

Church is a place where people talk. They murmured. They were arguing, but they talked.

When the the apostles caught wind of it, they said, "Let's get it right." Because being right really isn't the point. Getting it right now is the point. Who's right or wrong is not the point.

Let's get it right and move forward. Unfortunately, the apostles were spread very, very thin. And as often the case, when you solve one problem, you create another.

So, to give themselves to serving would leave them no time to do what they were called and gifted to do. Let's read this. Then the the 12 called the multitude of disciples unto them and said, "It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables." The 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, "It is not reason." It's It doesn't make sense for us to leave the word of God and serve tables.

See, the the these these folks were were called towards prayer. They were committed to prayer. They were committed to to suffering, I mean to to studying I should say.

And in this specific moment, they are now torn between their prayer and study and their care for the widows. Both of these are incredibly important. What do you do?

Before there was a book called Boundaries that everybody talks about now, there was this other book called The Art of Saying No. It was basically boundaries before boundaries. Same idea.

It's not a Christian book, it's humanism. Uh, you know, take care of yourself, self-care, all this stuff, it's fine. Uh But it makes a very very once you hear it, important observation and pretty insightful one.

When you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. That's the observation. By saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else.

And the apostles knew that. They weren't naive about their time. They knew what how much margin they had.

So for them to say, yes, we'll take widows, kick take care of the widows, would mean that they were saying no to prayer. Yes to that means no to this. The apostles understood it.

They knew that prayer and study could not be cheated. These guys had very little self-reliance. They weren't these mega pastors, super cool guys who were trying to figure out the type of people that you would look at and follow and be like, oh, they're so great.

Nope. They didn't care about themselves at all. They were completely dependent on Christ.

Prayed and prayed and prayed. Cuz prayer what was going to make the difference, not you being Superman. They knew that.

So I want to be clear here. The apostles did not think that serving, and this is really important, They did not think that serving was below them. It's not it.

They were doing the important stuff. So, you go do that stuff so I can do the real important stuff. They were preaching and teaching and they were busy every day in the marketplace, in the synagogues, in houses and church gatherings, and they thought that prayer and preaching could not be cheated.

It's not that serving wasn't important. If it wasn't important, they wouldn't be addressing it. They just knew what their responsibility it was.

And for them, for them, they said, "We are called to do this, and we can't do everything." They recognized their own limitations and they all They also recognized the responsibilities of the rest of the body. We can't fix everything. We can't do everything.

But for them, everything meaningful in their ministry started with prayer. That's what their default mindset was. And they refused to cheat prayer.

This was a direct lesson that they learned from Jesus. This was not their own idea. When they followed Jesus around for 3 and 1/2 years, they saw that Jesus, who if anyone would be able to survive without prayer, if there's any human being that could do their ministry without prayer, it was Jesus, right?

He seems to be the one person who you'd say, "Well, he does not even need to pray. He's got it all He's got He's good to go." And Jesus consistently consistently made prayer a priority. We see that over and over again in scripture.

He didn't happen into prayer. He didn't stumble into prayer. He didn't cheat prayer and say, "Okay, well, I got to move prayer, so maybe I'll just cut it out." What you see in Luke, three separate times in the Gospel of Luke, he sets aside to specifically to say that Jesus made prayer a priority.

I'm going to leave the crowds and I'm going to go be alone with the Lord. That was the idea. Spurgeon had a series of lectures for ministers.

It's called Lectures to My Students. If you If you buy the book, you can read it in book form today. I had the book.

Um He's speaking specifically to ministers, but I I think this pertains to all Christians. Let me read you what he says. It's good.

The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must be a vain and conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of himself and therefore needed not to check in with God. He lives in his life like a lame man in Proverbs whose legs are not equal.

For his praying is shorter than his preaching. In other words, if I can paraphrase the idea that I think he's getting at, our human efforts for meaningful eternal things and we should put our own human effort into it. Our human efforts should be matched equally, if not exceeded, by our dependency on the Lord to help us to do those things.

Sorry, let me say let me say it one more time. Our human efforts for meaningful eternal things should be matched or exceeded by our dependency on the Lord to help us to do them. Otherwise, we're just no different than anyone else.

It's just humanism. It's just humans trying to fix their problems on their own. That's it.

Whatever our ministries are, whatever Whatever Whatever that we're doing that is of eternal significance should be drenched in prayer. Raising our children is a prayerful endeavor. Ministering to the hurting is a prayerful endeavor.

Otherwise, it's just there to make you feel good about yourself. Fellowship with the body is a prayerful endeavor. Being a light in the workplace, allowing God to use you on your job, allowing him to use you to take care of the world for whatever it is that you're doing.

If you If you feed If you give somebody a cheeseburger from McDonald's, you're helping God to feed the world. You're his hands making provision for the world. When you recognize that in my workplace, I'm working with the Lord here, I have full purpose here, and I'm part of how God's taking care of this world, your job certainly starts to become rich with meaning.

Rich with meaning. And if you're going to have an internal impact, it's going to need to be exceeded or matched by prayer. So, the disciples had this problem to fix, but they won't cheap prayer.

And now they're faced with the conundrum that's always the case in the church. We know what we need to do. We just don't know who's going to do it.

Isn't that a common problem in the church? This is the Wednesday night crowd, we know that. There is a thousand ideas that people have for the church.

There's a thousand good things that we could do. The question is who? That's always the question.

Who's going to do it? So, the most things that we should do because we don't have unlimited resources should be important, and caring for the widows, care for the body of Christ, it was incredibly important. One of the running themes throughout all of scripture is helping disadvantaged people.

A call to orphans. A call to help strangers. Foreigners who were far from home, that's what a stranger is.

Widows. Vulnerable women who had lost their provision from their family. This is just dripping throughout all of scripture.

You can't avoid it. Can't avoid it. It's everywhere.

So, this was a problem that wasn't just like a petty small thing. This was a problem that that the apostles said, "Okay, we have limited resource, we have limited money, we have limited people, but this problem is worthy to be fixed." They met with the entire group, big business meeting. How are we going to fix this?

What are we going to be do? What are we going to do? It would require that someone be would be asked to do it.

See, there's an important lesson here. A really, really critical lesson about trying to do too much. There are two people that lose.

Two people that lose when you try to do too much. Those who have a gifting that could relieve you. And the people that you cheat in order to do the new thing that you're trying to do.

You got that? There are two people. You try to do too much.

There's somebody else that is missing out on an opportunity to do it. Secondly, there are the people that you cheat in order to do new thing. We do not well if we try to do too much.

The disciples taught us that. There are people that have giftings in the church that could relieve us. People that uh can have a great impact if we would simply just ask for help within the body.

So, the church had a priority of prayerful preaching and a priority of care. And both of those things could be accomplished, but only if the apostles said, "It's not us that's going to be able to do it, it's somebody else will have to help us. This is how the body functions.

Collectively. Together. Bound by the spirit.

Refusing competition with one another. Refusing to see others in the church with resentment or jealousy or I can't believe you get to do that or I can't believe such and such everybody's making such a big deal about such and such over there. The body works when we understand that every single one of us are critical.

Stott breaks down this commentary. It's a good breakdown. He says a vital principle is illustrated in this incident which is of the urgent importance to the church today, he says.

It is that God calls all his people to ministry. That he calls different people to different ministries. And that those called to prayer and the ministry of the word must on no account allow themselves to be distracted from their priorities.

It is surely deliberate that the work of the 12 and the work of the seven are alike called dia diakonia or ministry or service. The former is ministry of the word or pastoral work. The latter ministry of the tables or social work.

Neither ministry is superior to the others. On contrary, both are Christian ministries. That is ways of serving God and his people.

Both require spiritual people full of the spirit to exercise them. And both can be full-time Christian ministries. The only difference between them lies in the form the ministry takes requiring different gifts and different callings.

How true that is. You know when the church is like really cooking on all cylinders? When there's this recognition for the the things that each other are bringing to the table.

You know what's going wrong when you're looking at your brother and maybe you're really maybe maybe maybe you're you're gifted in giving. And you're a great giver. And that's a priority in your life.

And somebody else is gifted in prayer. They spend loads of time in prayer, way more than you do. You give way more than they do.

When you start looking at the individual that prays and you look at them with resentment and say, "You don't give enough." And that person looks back at you and says, "You don't pray enough." And we start building idols out of the things that God has gifted us or inclined us towards, we will we will divide. And we will be petty. When we start looking at each other with gratitude, like man, I'm just so grateful for all of my brothers and sisters and all that they are bringing to the table.

That's when the church starts to become powerful. Cuz nothing in the church is good if there is resentment in our hearts towards each other. I don't care how many people are here.

We could have the place filled up. You don't think there's plenty of false believers who want to come fill a place up? The crowd isn't the measure.

The spiritual health is the measure. And the real measure of spiritual health is how much do you love your brother and how much do you love your sister in Christ? That's the measure.

Not how much do you love God? If you can't love your brother that you can't see, don't say you love God who you can't see. They just It was just an amazing church.

It's like selling their stuff and giving it to each other. Selling all their goods. At this moment, the Greeks and the the Hebrew-speaking just ready to be divided like every other group in the world.

Ready to just turn into different tribes and tribalism. Ready for it. Instead, oh no no no, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I had no idea that y'all were not being taken care of. We'll fix it right now.

We'll call everybody together and we're going to get this fixed. Not come on, just stop being petty. No no no, we'll get this fixed right away.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I pray I pray we can get that in our hearts for each other.

I do. I pray we can get that in our hearts for one another. And this is what can happen when the church is prayed up, the church is seeking the Lord, the church is functioning in love.

Giftings will be loose. We'll start to see brothers and sisters in Christ allowing more of themselves to be uh shown to one another because there's a trust and a love for one another. Everything works better when we do not look at one another competitively, but we look at one another and say, "What can you bring to the table cuz I know you got something to bring.

Here's what I got. And I'm doing my best to give it and I'm not keeping score against you." That is a beautiful beautiful thing. But it will only happen.

It's only going to happen with a spirit-filled church. A prayerful spirit-filled church. So, we have this church is a church that refuses to be destroyed from within.

One that's determined to protect the body of Christ. They compromised with one another. They stepped up to the plate to serve one another.

People forgave one another. Leaders stepped up to lead and the church just moved right along. Church just moved right along.

In other words, let me read you one quick story. You'll like this and and we'll wrap up here. One hot day a family traveling down traveling down the highway between Johnstown and Jamestown stopped at Farmer Jones's place to ask for a drink of water.

He gladly gave it to them. "Where are you headed?" the old farmer asked. "Well, we're moving from Johnstown to Jamestown to live." they told him.

"Can you tell us what the people are like there?" "Well, what kind of people did you find where you lived before?" the old farmer asked him. "Well, they were the worst kind. They were gossipy and unkind and indifferent.

We couldn't get out of that place fast enough." "Well, I'm afraid that you're going to find the same type of people in Jamestown." the old farmer said. The next day another car stopped and the same conversation took place. These people were moving from Jamestown, too, the same town.

"What kind of neighbors did you find back in Jamestown?" he asked this new couple. "Well, they were the best. They were so kind.

They were so considerate. It almost broke our hearts to leave Jamestown." "Well, you're going to find exactly the same type of people there." Yes, the point is if everyone in this place thinks that the church is useless, that it's not worth fighting for, that it's not the only hope for the world, that it's not God's body, if everybody operates under that assumption, it will be useless. In In we won't even be the church.

But if we recognize that the church really is God's kingdom on earth. Now you start realizing how special each other are. You start to believe that there's no other place like this in the world.

A place of safety. A place of deliverance. A place of peace and joy.

A place of satisfaction. A place where the spirit of the Lord dwells. And that's where there's liberty.

Amen. Let's ask the Lord to help us. God, thank you for this body of believers.

Lord, it's just Thank you for this privilege to be a part of your church. So grateful for my brothers and sisters and all the giftings that they bring to the table. All the things they do for us.

And I'm just grateful for your body, Lord. My life would be so incomplete without it. Thank you for blessing us, Lord.

We are such a blessed church. We have wonderful men and women who serve you, who love you, who dedicate themselves to you, Lord. Help us not to lose sight of that.

Help us to carry each other's burdens. Grieve with one another. Care about the challenges that each and every one of us face.

Laugh together, cry together. Give to one another, Lord. Help us.

Help us. Help us, Lord. Help us to grieve with those that are suffering, Lord.

I know there are battles that my brothers and sisters are fighting right now, Lord, under the sound of my voice. I know there are battles that people are facing. I pray that you encourage them right now.

Lift them up, oh God, like only you can. Bring healing, Lord. Bring healing to Brother Gann's body.

Bring healing to Sister Gann's body. Brother Lee's body, Lord. Sister Janet's body, Lord.

All of these needs, Lord, across our room, Brother Webster's body, Lord. Minister to us, Lord, and help our brothers and sisters, Lord. We We depend on you entirely, Lord.

But help us help us help us, God, to care for one another, to be your hands and your feet, to pray and depend on you, but then to get up off of our knees and to go help one another, Lord. Help us help us help us. And bless us, Jesus.

Bring us into unity, Lord, and prepare us for revival. Prepare our hearts, Lord. Forgive us of our sins and our iniquity, and help us, Lord, to love you the way you deserve to be loved.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

God bless you all. Thank you so much, and I appreciate you coming.