We All Serve on the Team...
- So Needs can be met. (Acts 6:1-3)
- So Conflict can be avoided. (Acts 6:1)
- So Everyone can use their spiritual gifts. (Acts 6:4-5)
- So the church will continue to Grow. (Acts 6:6-7)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Open up your Bibles with me please to Acts 6.
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Acts 6.
00:08-00:27
You know, when I was growing up, we experienced a lot of different pastors in churches growing up, and I've told you before about pastors who had wives that would tell the children they're going to hell every week, and we had pastors that would preach out of the Reader's Digest, and all sorts of things.
00:28-00:35
But when I grew up, I've always had this mentality that the pastor is the one that does the work of the ministry.
00:35-00:41
That we just show up and we listen to him and he does all the ministry work.
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And over the years after reading God's Word, I realized that that isn't really how ministry works.
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If you think about it, having one person that does all the work, It doesn't work on any other team.
01:00-01:02
Right now we're in the middle of Penguins playoff hockey.
01:02-01:04
How many people are following the Penguins right now?
01:06-01:13
Sidney Crosby, the face of the NHL, one of the greatest players, if not the greatest player in the world.
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They're not going to put him in goalie.
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You understand that.
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Sid, we're really having a hard time backing the goal.
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We're going to need you to put the pads on.
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Well, who's going to center the first line?
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Well, you're going to do that too.
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You're also going to kill penalties.
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We're going to put you on the power play.
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That doesn't work to have one guy that's doing everything.
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Think about it with the Steelers.
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The face of the Steelers is Ben Roethlisberger.
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And his job is to be the quarterback, yes.
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But you're not likely to see Ben Roethlisberger blocking and running routes and kicking.
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Now, we have a lot of baseball fans in our church.
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You're not likely to see Andrew McCutcheon come out and be the starting pitcher, but also be the catcher and also play center field.
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So the title of today's message is "The Power of the Team." And just as in organized sports, just as in any effective team, you need people that are fulfilling their roles for the health and the advancement of the team, so it goes with the church.
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As we talk about organization in the church, I know this is how our minds typically work.
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We tend to gravitate towards the extremes.
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But there are some people when they look at the church, they say there should be no organization in the church.
02:39-02:45
We should just sort of show up and just go as the Spirit leads, and there doesn't really need to be any organization.
02:45-02:48
Organization is of the devil.
02:48-02:49
And that's not true.
02:50-02:55
But the other extreme are the people that think the church to run purely as a business.
02:56-03:07
Like, let's take some secular business model and we'll apply business principles to the church and it's almost this idea of well, we'll do a bunch of stuff and we'll hope that the Holy Spirit shows up.
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We'll be really well structured and then when we meet, we'll make sure that we pray and we'll invite the Holy Spirit to hopefully come and bless the things that we're already doing.
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And that's not right either.
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As we've been walking through the book of Acts, you have to see that already there's been some level of organization in the church.
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For example, they met at specific places and times that had to be organized.
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They distributed money.
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There had to be some organization.
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We've seen them dealing with sin.
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There had to be some organization and thought behind that.
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And even to a point, they were actually counting the people who came to Christ.
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So we're going to see today in this passage that the church was growing to the point that more organization was needed.
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And so it goes with Harvest Bible Chapel just like the first century church as we grow.
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So also, our team is going to need to grow.
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If you're taking notes on your outline to the heading, "We all serve on the team." Why do we all serve on the team?
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Number one, jot this down.
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So needs can be met.
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Look at the first three verses with me.
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So needs can be met.
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It says, "Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
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And the twelve - that's the twelve apostles - summoned the full number of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables.
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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." First of all, the reason that we all need to be serving on the team is so that needs can be met.
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Again, as the church grew, the needs grew and some of the widows in the church were being neglected.
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Now understand, when the apostle said it's not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables, that phrase "serve tables" - this is the first time I've ever really dug really deep in this passage.
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I mean, I understood what it meant.
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It's pretty obvious what's going on here.
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But I guess in my mind, without ever studying this concept of serving tables before, I just had this different idea that people would show up at these big banquets and the disciples would come with a napkin over their arm and "what will you be having today, mademoiselle?" And we should be serving tables!
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And it's not like they were waiters.
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That's not what it means.
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Actually, the word for "table" could have meant like a dinner table, but that word for "table" was also used to describe the table of the money changers like the tax collectors and the money changers in the temple.
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It was a word used to talk about people that were distributing and exchanging money.
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So whatever the intention was, it's clear that the main point, rather, we're talking about meeting physical needs.
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See, the apostles were saying, look, we can't be serving the Word of God and trying to serve the tables at the same time; meeting people's needs at the same time.
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And I've got to tell you, it's really easy for pastors and elders to get sidetracked.
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It is so easy to neglect prayer to neglect study - not intentionally - it's so easy to neglect these things in order to meet needs.
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Because you see, pastors and elders - let me tell you something about that group of people.
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Pastors and elders are typically people persons.
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And because of that, we love meeting needs.
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We love counseling.
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We love outreach events.
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We love children.
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We love doing all these things to meet needs.
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But what we have here is a time issue.
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Because as pastors and elders, we can't be involved in meeting all of the needs and give the time to prayer and the Word that God has called us to.
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Like, well, how much time does that take?
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Let's just discuss the elephant in the room.
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You know everybody's favorite joke to pastors.
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Go ahead, what do people say to pastors?
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"You only work on Sunday!" That joke never gets old.
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I've been doing this 20 years, and it never gets old.
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But there's a variation of that one that's even a little harsher.
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"Yes, you only work for an hour a week!" How many people have heard that one?
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Raise your hands.
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How many people have said that to a pastor?
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Shame on you!
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You only work for an hour a week.
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My response is - when people say that to me, my response is, well, technically, there's worship and prayer, so I actually only work about 35 minutes a week.
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That's how I respond to that.
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But you only work for an hour a week.
09:00-09:19
I know there are people that think that every week, it's Saturday night, I just sit down at my computer and log on to my email and James McDonald has sent me a message and I just preach this and I spend five minutes memorizing it and I just show up on Sunday and here we are.
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And that's not how it works.
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You're like, "Well, what you do, Pastor Jeff, really doesn't look that hard." Well, let's put it into perspective.
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Now look, we're not comparing how hard jobs are, okay?
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"Hey, you work hard at your job, right?" "You work hard at your job." "Well, I work hard at my job, too." Let me just give you a little insight to what it's like.
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Those of you that have preached here before, you know, Jay and Mark, Dan, you've preached here before.
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I'll give you a little perspective.
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How many people remember in high school or college writing term papers?
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How many people remember writing term papers in school?
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You know, you get a subject, and you've got to research the subject.
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And back in our day, we didn't have Google.
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You had to go to the library.
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Remember the card catalog?
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And you went through all the little 3x5 cards.
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And then you had to go to the library and find the book.
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Some of you guys are looking at me like you have no idea what I'm talking about.
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Google card catalog when you get home.
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When you get home.
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But then you would have to go on this mad hunt through the library to find the book.
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I remember one of the greatest days of my life.
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Yeah, I got married and had kids and that was all fun.
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One of the greatest days of my life was the last paper that I handed in at Bible College.
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I will never forget that day.
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I can picture that day so vividly.
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I remember walking down the sidewalk from the building that had some classrooms down to the professor's offices and I had that last paper in my hand.
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And I remember handing it in.
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And I remember when it left my hand, I remember walking away going, I'm done.
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No more studying.
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No more time-constrained crunch of preparing material.
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I'm done.
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And then somebody said, you're a pastor now.
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You get to do that every single week of your life for the rest of your life.
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I was like, well, wait a second.
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So, just imagine, you know, writing a term paper - here's your assignment.
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You have to write a persuasive paper.
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And when you write the paper, you're not just concerned about the content of the subject matter - which, by the way, you have to study from a book that was written in three other languages a long time ago on the other side of the planet in a completely different culture by the Almighty.
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But you have to take this persuasive paper and present it in a creative and engaging way.
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And in a way particularly suited to the audience that you know is coming to receive the information.
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And concerning that audience, you have to keep in mind with that audience, there's going to be great differences in age.
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There's going to be some children listening.
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There's going to be some much older people listening as you present this.
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And there's going to be different stages of maturity.
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And there's going to be different people in different stages of life.
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There are going to be retired and young families and going through school.
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And while you put this together, you need to make sure that you tie in current cultural issues so the audience knows how what you're sharing is relevant with what's happening today.
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And then once you put all this information together, you have to stand up and deliver it verbally and publicly.
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And then after you do that, you go home and you start it all over again.
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Now, I'm not complaining.
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This is simply my point.
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It takes some time to put all of that together.
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That's all I'm saying.
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It takes time to put it together.
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And with the preaching and with the shepherding, all the other things that go along with this position, now you put on top of that dealing with physical needs of people, it's hard to keep up.
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And inevitably, somebody's needs are going to be overlooked.
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Which is what we see here in this passage.
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So the apostles saw the problem They saw that they didn't have the time to handle it themselves, and they said we've got to get some help.
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And as more people come to the church, more needs are going to come to the church because everyone has needs of some type.
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Whether it's counseling, prayer, physical needs, hospital visits, visiting shut-ins, taking care of children, taking care of the youth.
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And it's all important.
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The elders can't meet these needs ourselves and focus on the doctrine, direction, and discipline of the church.
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So we see here in the passage the solution.
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Look again, v. 3.
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"Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you appoint people from the church to supervise ministry so that people's needs are being taken care of." But notice it's not just warm bodies.
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The apostles didn't say just grab seven people - any seven people.
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It doesn't matter who, just grab seven people.
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Look again at the text.
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"Seven men of..." Look at the qualifications here.
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"Good reputes." That means integrity.
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Not just grabbing anybody.
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You find somebody with integrity.
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As money's being distributed or food is being distributed or whatever it is, we need to make sure that there are people of integrity doing this work.
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What else?
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Full of the Spirit.
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Meaning, just simply this, people that are walking with Jesus Christ.
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You see, it wasn't like just find somebody that's got a degree in serving tables and hire that guy to do it.
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The number one criteria was that the person, the people that were doing these jobs were born again.
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That integrity, that good repute that comes from walking in the Spirit.
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People that have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Those are the people that we want serving.
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Those that have wisdom.
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What's wisdom?
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Wisdom is simply applying knowledge.
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Wisdom is using biblical discernment to put a plan into place.
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So you find people that have integrity, love the Lord, and know how to get the job done.
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He says we'll appoint them to this duty.
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So we have to have leaders, church.
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We have to have leaders in place to organize ministries in order to meet needs.
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Number two, jot this down.
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We all serve in a team.
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First of all, some needs can be met, but we all serve in a team so conflict can be avoided.
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Jump back to verse 1 for a second.
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I'm going to see this right in the text.
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It says that there was a complaint by the Hellenists.
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Who are the Hellenists?
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Well, remember we've talked about this before in the Old Testament times.
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God judged the nation of Israel through the Assyrians and then through the Babylonians.
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And after the judgment through the Babylonians, Israel was scattered all over.
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And there were a group of Israelites that sort of absorbed Greek culture.
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They spoke Greek.
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Even though they were Jews, they were Greeks by appearance.
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They just absorbed that culture.
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Those are Hellenists.
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It says, "A complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution." See, this was the potential for racial and cultural hostility.
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These Hellenists would have been the minority in the church.
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At this point, the church was mostly Jews.
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So now you have this little sect of Greek Jews - potential for racial conflict, cultural conflict.
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Because look at how it's worded.
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It says, "A complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews their widows are being neglected.
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Do you see the word "their"?
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Do you see the potential for conflict?
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It wasn't, "Hey, we have some widows that aren't being taken care of." You see, they're like, "Hey, our widows aren't being taken care of.
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I don't notice any of the Hebrew widows going without, but you know what I see?
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I see our widows going without." When needs aren't met, people don't usually give the leaders the benefit of the doubt.
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It's typically not, well, you know, our widows - their needs aren't being met, but I know the leaders are preparing sermons and counseling and visiting people.
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I know the leaders are putting in way too many hours a week.
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It's not usually benefit of the doubt.
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Often, automatically, it jumps to the idea - you kind of sense it in this passage - It's almost like the Hellenists had the idea that the apostles were sitting around the table going, hey, here's what we're gonna do in our meeting today.
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We're gonna come up with ideas to really stick it to the Hellenists, okay?
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Who's got ideas?
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Who's got ideas?
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Well, like maybe we can get some anti-Greek t-shirts.
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Nah, nah, nah, that's lame, it's lame.
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What else do you got?
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I got an idea.
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When we're distributing to the widows, Let's not give any to their widows.
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Like, oh, that's a fantastic idea.
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Let's do that.
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People have the mindset like, you guys are against us!
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And at this point in Acts, persecution didn't stop the church.
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Persecution grew the church.
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Sin didn't stop the church.
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God struck Ananias and Sapphira dead on the spot.
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So now we have a new problem that is a potential powder keg in the church, That's dissension.
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We're not criticizing when people have needs.
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We're not minimizing the pain when somebody's going through needs.
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We're just saying this is reality.
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Many, many times when someone's needs aren't met, it is perceived as an intentional slight against them.
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What about me?
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What's the church going to do for me?
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Why am I not the priority of the church?
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Doesn't anybody in the church care about me?
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Listen, if a need in this church is not being met, I can promise you, it is for one reason and one reason alone.
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And that is because the elders are unaware of it.
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If there's someone in need in this church, and that need is not being addressed, it is because the elders are unaware of the need.
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Because once we are aware, Our leaders do as leaders did in this passage.
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They get right on it.
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At Harvest Bible Chapel, we care for people primarily through our small group ministry.
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Through small groups, we have the way that people are known and loved.
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That's where relationships happen.
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And that's where needs are met.
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It's been amazing to see the way people are meeting needs through small group ministry.
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We've seen small groups rallying around to help people with everything to yard work, to car work, hospital visits, meals for new moms.
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We've seen so many ways that the small groups have been taking care of their own.
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That's why so often at Harvest Bible Chapel we say we want everybody involved in a small group - not because it's a fad or how we tally attendance, but it's how we make disciples.
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And it's how we do outreach.
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And it's how we care for people.
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If you're not involved in a small group, I encourage you, email small groups at HarvestPittsburghNorth.org and say I want to be a part of this.
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I want to be proactive in caring for people.
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That's why we all serve on the team.
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So needs can be met and, secondarily, so conflict can be avoided.
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Thirdly, why are we all on the team?
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Why does everybody serve on the team?
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Number three, so everyone can use their spiritual gifts.
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Look at verse 4 and 5 again.
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"But we," this is the Apostle still speaking, "but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word." What they said pleased the whole gathering.
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They chose some men to head up the ministry here.
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And they chose Stephen - I love this description of Stephen - "a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." What a great testimony that is.
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If you were mentioned in the Bible, how would you be described?
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Like Stephen had a really good one here.
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"A man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." Okay, we're going to keep playing.
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Philip.
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And?
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Not as easy as you think, is it?
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Nicanor? Can we go with Nicanor?
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And?
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Okay. Excellent.
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A proselyte of Antioch.
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A proselyte is somebody that was a Gentile and became a Jew.
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These they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
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I'll stop there for a second.
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You see, the main things that the elders and the pastors needed, the apostles needed to focus on, you see it right in verse 4.
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Our two priorities - prayer and the ministry of the Word.
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You have to know when we have an elders meeting, we don't sit around and talk about the color of the bulletin or the font of the bulletin or different gadgets to put on the website.
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When our elders get together, we pray.
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And we deal with matters pertaining in congregational care.
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Absolutely.
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In administration and oversight and shepherding.
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Absolutely.
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What our elders will tell you, our priority at our meetings is prayer.
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And at our meetings, we always front-load the meetings with prayer, don't we Mark?
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Let's talk about church business for three hours and then we'll throw up a "keep us safe as we go home" prayer at the end.
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We devote our meetings to prayer.
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was devoted to the ministry of the Word.
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So these others were appointed so that everyone can use their spiritual gifts.
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I'm going to give you a phrase.
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And I want you to say it.
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I want you to say it with conviction.
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Because I don't want anybody to misunderstand what we're communicating here.
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It's all important.
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Say that.
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It's all important.
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Say it again.
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It's all important.
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This passage and what I'm communicating, we are not saying, look, the elders and the pastors have the important job, and we need somebody else to handle the menial jobs.
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It's all important. Say it.
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All important.
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Again, using our sports analogy, if we had Ben Roethlisberger here and we said, "What's the most important position on the team?" What do you think he would say?
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I don't think he would say, "The quarterback's the most important position," because he knows if the defense isn't doing their job, it doesn't matter how well he's playing.
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He knows that if the offensive line isn't giving him time to do what he needs to do, he's not going to score a point.
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How many football games have you seen won by the kicker in the last second of the game?
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And I can't even remember the name of the kicker on the team.
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What's his name?
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Apparently you don't remember it either.
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I don't know.
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But how many times has the kicker come through and won the game?
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So those might be the people that say, "Look, they're all important." So we're not saying - and the passage isn't saying these guys had the big job and they had to hand out the little jobs.
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That's not the case at all.
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It's all important.
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Because we can't have church if the stuff isn't brought here.
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We can't have families come and worship with us if we don't have a kids' ministry.
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We won't see guests come back we don't have people in place loving them.
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We can't disciple people and build relationships without small groups and small group leaders.
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1 Corinthians 12:7 says, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." The Bible says that every believer in Jesus Christ - every born-again believer - receives the Holy Spirit.
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And part of receiving the Holy Spirit is receiving a spiritual gift for the benefit of the church.
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For the benefit of the church.
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Your spirit gift isn't something that's designed for you to go use at home by yourself.
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Your spiritual gift is to be used - again, 1 Corinthians 12:7 - for the common good.
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For the benefit of the church.
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The Bible says the church is a body, and just like in a human body, we are healthy when every part of working together.
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God's team has no bench warmers.
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You - if you've been born again, if you've received Christ as your Lord and Savior, you've been uniquely gifted to serve Jesus by serving in His church.
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If you're not serving, we want to get you plugged in.
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Not just so the church benefits, but so that you get to benefit what God created you to do.
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That's one reason.
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One more reason.
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Everyone's on the team.
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Everyone can use their spiritual gifts.
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And finally, the church will continue to grow.
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The church will continue to grow.
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Again, verse 6, we'll pick up there again.
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It says, "These seven they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid hands on them.
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And the Word of God continued to increase.
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Interesting.
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Verse 2 - it's not right to give up preaching the Word to serve tables.
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Verse 4 - devote ourselves to the ministry of the Word.
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Verse 7 - what increased? The Word.
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The point is the apostles were now free to do what God called them to do because other ministers were raised up to do what God called them to do.
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The Word of God continued to increase of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem.
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And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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Verse 1 says the church was growing.
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Then the needs showed up.
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The needs met. The church continues to grow.
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So it goes with our church.
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We grow. New needs come up.
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We meet the need.
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and it continues to grow.
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But notice the evangelism was effective because they were meeting the needs; because they were organized.
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They were in a position where they weren't all huddled up with this internal conflict and trying to figure out how the pastors can preach the Word and meet the needs.
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Because ministry was happening naturally, evangelism was happening naturally.
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It says a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
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people who worked at the temple, people who otherwise were so steeped in the old covenant and the religion of Judaism, were now coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ as the church continued to grow.
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What better way to close our passage today by immediately applying what the Word says.
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I'm going to ask our elders if they would come forward.
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We're operating with a bit of a skeleton crew today.
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One of our elders is out of town.
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And with our ministry team, we just have a lot of people in our church out with sickness, and we have some people out of town on vacation.
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But I want to ask our elders to come forward.
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And I want to ask our ministry team to come forward.
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What better way - come on up here - to close our time than by doing exactly what's happening in this passage.
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You see, there are so many people in this church that work so hard to make sure that needs are met; to make sure that ministry happens.
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We have Mike Gates who heads up our facilities ministry to make sure that all of the stuff gets here and gets set up.
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We have Mandy Maul who heads up our Harvest Kids children's ministry.
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We have Darren Miller who heads up our worship ministry.
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Dan Thompson heads up our student ministry, Arrow, that meets Sunday nights at the church building next door.
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Tricia Thompson heads up our prayer ministry.
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Ben Murphy heads up organization communication.
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He's done so much to help us with website and some of our online things.
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He couldn't be with us here today.
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Sherry Kishuba heads up administration.
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We'd also like to introduce our newest members.
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That is small groups, Ryan and Sarah Stroop has recently stepped up to coordinate our small group ministry.
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And Corinne Miller has stepped up to coordinate our hospitality ministry.
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Can we get our ministry leaders front and center here?
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Just as these early apostles did.
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Everybody come up here. Don't be shy.
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We want to close our time here today by praying for these people.
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There are so many others.
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I think of our small group leaders.
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And we're going to let Ryan and Sarah's group represent all of our small group leaders as well.
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We have so many people in this church that have stepped up and really taking ownership of making sure that ministry is happening, making sure that needs are being met and people are being cared for.
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We're going to ask our elders here.
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We'll start with Jay.
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We want to ask you to join with this congregation.
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and pray for these people, they do the work of the ministry.
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Father, we thank You so much for raising these up - people that certainly are of good repute.
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These are people of integrity, and these are people who walk with You, and these are people who have much wisdom.
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We thank You so much for the leaders that You have blessed us with over the years.
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and some have served for a season, and some have been with us from the very beginning, and continue to serve strong, and some are just now stepping into this position.
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But Father, I thank You for the people that You have raised up.
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We lift these up to You and those who couldn't be with us today.
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Because Father, we love people.
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We want to care for people.
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We want to make sure that needs are met - spiritual needs and physical needs.
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We want to make sure that people know who are loved and cared for.
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I thank You for these folks that You have assembled to make sure that that has happened.
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Father, again, we just lift these up to You and ask that You would continue to grow this church.
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And You would use these people to glorify Your name.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 6:1-6
What reasons were given the leaders couldn’t serve the widows (Acts 6:2 & Acts 6:4)? What are the apostles / elders to focus on?
Why were there spiritual requirements for those selected to serve the widows (Acts 6:3)? What does this say about serving in the church?
What areas of neglect do you observe at HBC? How can we meet that need? (And someone please notify the elders with your answer!)
Breakout Questions:
In what area do YOU serve at HBC? If “nowhere yet”, in what area would you like to get involved? What steps do you need to take to step up? (And someone please notify the elders with your answer!)