This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I welcome you to week two, day three of our look through the book of Acts. That means we're in Acts chapter six and we're looking together at the first century church. We're looking at this church facing all the things that we face in the church today. With boldness, there is opposition. You have both. With sacrifice, there is selfishness. You have to deal with both. With success, there is jealousy. A healthy church has to deal with both. You can't pretend you're not going to have the problems, but you also can't just live with the problems and not live in the victory. Now we're reminded in Acts chapter six of a fourth truth about the church. With growth, there are problems. With growth, there are always problems. Why? Because growth creates change. And change is something we don't like. It creates discomfort in our lives. And discomfort, the discomfort that comes from that change creates problems in our lives. Trouble is an indispensable part of growth. The key in life is not avoiding trouble, it's handling the trouble that comes. And we're reminded in Acts chapter six that one of the things we need to do in the church is turn complaints into commitments. If someone's complaining, you want to help them to turn that into a commitment, a deeper commitment to Christ. When I hear a complaint, I want to turn that into a deeper commitment of the church to serve. In Acts chapter six, this brand new church, wonderful things are happening, it's growing daily, but a complaint arose. Now remember, we reminded ourselves yesterday that trouble comes in two basic colors for the church. Trouble without and trouble within. And here we're bouncing back in these chapters between the two. First Satan tries the attack from outside, then he tries the attack from inside. Here comes another attack from inside. Acts chapter six, verse one. But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. Those who spoke Greek complained against those who spoke Hebrew, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. And that day, it had begun in the synagogue and now it comes over into the church. It was the church's job, responsibility, to get food out to the widows. Widows had no other way of getting food. Unless you were a man in that culture, you could not work. Unless you worked, you didn't get paid. Unless you paid, you couldn't buy food. So what if a woman's husband died? How was she going to eat the rest of her life? The synagogue made sure that that would happen and now in this new church, they were making sure that that would happen and a complaint arose. It was a language complaint. There were those who spoke Greek saying, wait, we don't speak Hebrew and so somehow we're getting missed in the daily distribution of food. Maybe because they don't recognize us, maybe because they don't want to come and speak to us. They don't know our language. One of the questions behind this is what kind of complaint deserves our attention, immediate attention and action? And the answer is complaints that express legitimate needs. A complaint doesn't have to be filed in triplicate to be real. It doesn't have to be signed by some department head. It shouldn't have to go through some process. What it should go through is our hearts. And here is a legitimate need. People that are hungry are not being fed. People that don't have another way to get food are not getting food. So they immediately deal with it. What do they do? How do they deal with this problem? Well they do five things. They get together, they get responsible, they get help, they don't get sidetracked and they get going. And that's what you and I are to do when a problem comes up in your small group, in your family, in the church. What do we do? First you get together. Many times when there's a problem, you know what we do in church? We get gossipy. Instead of getting together, we separate into all these little groups and talk about the problem. What are we going to do? The way to solve the problem is get the people together in a room who have the problem. That's what they did. That's what they had the wisdom to do from God's Spirit. Verse 2, "So the twelve called a meeting of all the believers. We apostles should spend our time preaching and teaching the word of God, not administering a food program, they began by saying. " Now we're going to find out their answer in just a minute, but the important thing to me is they got everybody together. They called a meeting together. That sounds so simple. Now you may not feel empowered to get the right people together. We'll find the person who he is. The truth of the matter is you may be more empowered than you realize. Get together with the people who have the needs. Get together and then get responsible. Apostles said we're preaching, we're teaching, but there's a problem here. So they say in verse 2, "Now look around among yourselves, brothers, and select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. We will put them in charge of this business. " How do you get responsible? You do a couple of specifics, a specific someone and a specific responsibility. It takes both. Select seven men. Anytime you ask everyone to do something, no one's going to do it. I made this mistake even this week. I sent out an email a couple days ago to a bunch of people saying, "Hey, who wants to do this? " Guess what? No one sent me an email back. Of course not. That never works. You always have to ask somebody specifically, "Would you be willing to do this? " Now if you have something to give away, everybody will write back. But when it comes to a responsibility, no, you have to specifically say, "These are the people that are going to do it. " And then there's a specific responsibility. We'll put them in charge of this business. They're going to make sure that these women are fed. We'll just let them serve the church. No, the more specific the responsibility, the more powerful. Nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific. So you get responsible. The third thing you do is you get help. Behind what has just happened, what we've read, we've had the apostles saying, "Now we are to make sure that we do this. We're to preach. We're to teach. We're to serve. But we need some new people to make sure that these widows are fed. " You get help. One of the greatest problems in the church of today is we don't get help. We expect the pastor to do it all because that's the way it's always been done. Or because he happens to be paid. Or even if he's not paid because he happens to have more education than anybody else. The church that never gets help from somebody else becomes more and more helpless. When God put his church together, he gave us all different gifts. Those gifts are to be used within the body. So when a need comes up, the answer isn't me taking on more responsibility. The answer is me getting help from God's people. The other side of that is the next thing. You get help. The flip side of that is don't get sidetracked. In verse 4, the apostles say, "Then we can spend our time in prayer and preaching and teaching the Word. " They knew that was their job. If they'd taken on this other job, they would have gotten sidetracked with the job that God had given them, that he'd gifted them to do. When you look at your life, you may not be a pastor. But in your family, in your small group, in your ministry, you may be one of those people who just takes on more and more and more responsibility. And God's blessing it. And you're doing wonderful things, you feel like. But you're getting more and more tired. And the truth is, although more may be getting done, you're adding to your ministry. You're not multiplying the ministry. You're just adding a little more. And that's good. You have slow growth. That's wonderful, you say to yourself. But that's not God's intention. God's intention is the book of Acts. God's intention is multiplication of the ministry. And the only way that that is going to happen is if you get help and you don't get sidetracked. You do what God's given you to do, and you let somebody else do what God's given them to do in your family, in your small group, in your ministry, in the church. This is just very simple stuff that happened in this early church. But if this had not happened that day, we would not have the same story that we have of the early church. You get together. You get responsible. You get help. You don't get sidetracked. And then number five, you get going. Verses five to seven. This idea pleased the whole group. And they chose the following. Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, Philip, Procurus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenius, and Nicholas of Antioch, a Gentile convert to the Jewish faith, to become a Christian. These seven were presented to the apostles who prayed for them as they laid their hands on them. And God's message was preached in ever-widening circles. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted to get going. The idea pleased the groups. They immediately chose the seven people. They didn't say, well, let's have committee meetings for like seven months and figure out how we're going to do this. They did it right then. They chose the right seven people because of their character. We're going to see their character of these men. Some people think these were the first deacons, and they may be a form of the first deacons, what becomes the deacons within the church, because they are serving the church. Deacon means servant, and they are serving the church. And look what happens because they serve. The message is preached in ever-widening circles. Believers are increasing. And did you notice a lot of Jewish priests are being converted? The very people who were enemies of Christ. Don't miss this. The idea that those who were enemies on the day that Jesus was crucified stayed enemies is not an accurate biblical truth. Many of them came to know Christ. Many of them became followers and became a part of the early church as they reached down into the world. You get growth, you get problems. So what are you going to do? You need to get together and get responsible and get help and don't get sidetracked and then get going. Let's pray together. Jesus, show me, show us what we need to do. If there's someone we need to get together with, let us do it now. Help us to stop trying to do it all by ourselves, to release it, even if it doesn't get done for a while, to release it and to focus on what you've given us to do. Lord, if there is a problem, there's a need, let us not let it just go wanting. Let us get together so we can get going on solving those needs within your body. Thank you, Jesus, that you have an answer to that need within your body. Thank you that you've already put it there because of the power and strength of your spirit. In your name, we pray. Amen. Tomorrow we're going to see some more about the life of this man by the name of Stephen.