The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Word Made Plain with Senior Pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Acts chapter 6, verses 1 through 7.

Tony Clark: All right, let's dive into the Word of God together. Turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 6, we're going to be looking at verses 1 through 7. I almost said Genesis 6, wow. Acts chapter 6, looking at verses 1 through 7.

Father, we pray that You would speak into our hearts again one more time, that You would prepare our hearts to receive with meekness the implanted Word which is able to save our souls. Lord, we pray that our hearts would be just good soil so the Word of God can bear fruit—some 30, some 60, and some 100-fold. In Jesus' name, amen.

Acts chapter 6, looking at verses 1 through 7. The title of this message is "Church Hurt." If you've been around Christianity long enough, you have heard the saying, "There is no hurt like church hurt." This is true because we let our guards down when we get to church. We feel comfortable and free to be believers without someone saying, "I'm offended at your Christian beliefs."

When someone at church hurts us, we're not expecting it. For some of you, this is the reason why you haven't been to church in a long time—because of some church hurt. However, every church goes through this. There's not one church that doesn't go through these kinds of things, and even the early church. Let's see who was hurt and what they were hurt about.

Look what it says in verse 1: "Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution." I want to draw your attention to the phrase "the number of the disciples was multiplying." Here in this verse, we see God's mathematics.

In the Lord's math, you're going to be really, really good at it. Notice how the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved in Acts 2 and verse 47. Here in this verse, we see that the disciples were multiplied. But in between the addition of chapter 2 and the multiplication of chapter 6, we had the subtraction of chapter 5 when God removed Ananias and his wife Sapphira for lying about the sale of their property.

This is how the Lord works so often in our lives. You accept Him and you start to grow in your relationship with Him. He is adding to your life love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control. Then you hit a painful period of subtraction where things you once enjoyed and people and relationships you were once involved in are being subtracted from your life as you're drawing closer to Jesus Christ.

If this is you, I want you to take heart because this means that chapter 6 is on its way, where God is going to start to bring a multiplication in your life like we see here. God so often subtracts just before He starts to multiply. Some of you are experiencing that now. You're like, "I need to draw closer to Jesus."

As you're sensing that in your heart, as you sense God wooing you to Himself, all of a sudden relationships you were once involved in are being subtracted from your life. Things you once enjoyed, you no longer find an enjoyment in those things. God begins to bring a subtraction in your life just before He starts to multiply. Somebody needs to hear that today.

There are people like, "I don't want to be your friend anymore." That's what we used to say growing up. Now they just unfriend you on social media. You look up and say, "I don't see their stuff scrolling anymore." You look and it says "add a friend." They've unfriended you. Subtraction always comes before multiplication.

What does this phrase "the disciples were multiplied" mean? We know from chapter 4 and verse 4 that 5,000 men were added to the church. Counting women and children, there were approximately 20,000 people. We know from chapter 2 that these people came from around the world to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, and the Spirit came down upon the disciples and the church was birthed.

What were they to do with all of these new believers? After they were born again, they wanted to stick around and learn more about this new faith and get grounded in it before they went back to their countries. A common problem arose that is common today, and that is racism and discrimination. In the early church? Yeah. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that there is nothing new under the sun, and here is proof.

Verse 1 says there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. After all these new believers were added to the church and they wanted to stick around to learn more about this Jesus and about this new faith they had just accepted, a problem arose over the daily distribution of food. You're talking about 20,000 people being added to the church; they had to be fed and taken care of.

You remember in chapters 4 and 5 how they were selling their properties. Many of the believers were selling their properties, bringing the money to the apostles, and they were using that money to help feed and take care of the 20,000 that were just added to the church. These people came from all around the world to celebrate Pentecost, but they stuck around when the Spirit of God came down and the church was birthed.

They accepted Jesus and they wanted to learn more about Him, so they said, "We're going to stick around." Now they had to deal with some 20,000 people and how to take care of them. There arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists. Who are the Hellenists? When Alexander the Great conquered the world in 356 BC to 323 BC, many of the Jews adopted Greek culture and lifestyle.

They adopted the style of dress and even their language. They were called Grecians or Hellenists. They spoke Greek instead of Aramaic or Hebrew. They followed the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, instead of the Hebrew Scriptures. The Palestinian Jews, especially the Pharisees, who were the conservative religious leaders, never hid their feelings about the Hellenistic Jews.

The Talmud, which is the Jewish civil and ceremonial law, described their contempt or their discrimination for the Hellenists and described them as second-class Israelites. Some of this racial and cultural hostility carried over in the church. Seeing that they were the minority, you can see why the Hellenistic widows and their needs were easily overlooked.

Care for widows was traditional in Jewish society. We know this from the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 14 and verse 29, and Deuteronomy 16 and verse 11. Later the Apostle Paul said that the church should look after the widows after their families took care of them first, then the church was to step in.

Discrimination had crept into the early church. It has been in the church since the very beginning. During the early stages of the development of our nation, racism and discrimination have been a part of it. Why? Don't miss this point. Racism and discrimination is a sin of the heart. We bring our hearts with us when we come to church.

Therefore, it creeps inside of the church. We bring our views, our prejudices, our racism, our discrimination. We saw it with our church in the early days. When our church was 98% white, the majority said everything is fine. I bet it was. When we were 70% white, 20% black, 5% Korean, and 5% Hispanic, everything was still okay. When we moved from York County to Newport News, many people said, "I ain't going over there."

Then the church was 60% to 65% white and about 30% black and climbing. Then we saw what is commonly called "white flight" take place because word got back to me. Everything that goes on is going to get back to me. Birdies come and start chirping in my ear. It gets back to me. Word got back to me that, "Well, we're leaving because the church is too black." I heard it.

Racism, bigotry, and discrimination is still in the church today. Like I said, it is a sin of the heart, and we bring our hearts with us when we come to church. We bring that mess in the church with us, like we see in these verses. What happened next? Look what it says in verse 2: "Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.'"

The complaint of the Hellenists got back to the twelve, which is a reference to the twelve apostles, which also shows how legitimate their complaint was at the time. It was so serious that the twelve summoned the entire congregation to seek a solution. Although the apostles recognized the legitimacy of the problem, they understood that they were not the ones to handle it.

They didn't have time to deal with it. However, we must note not that the task was beneath them. They said it is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. We've got to go a little bit deeper here. The Greek word for tables is "trapeza" and it can mean an eating table or counter—actually, a counter for handling money.

To involve themselves in the details of serving meals and handling money matters would take them away from their calling, which is the Word of God and prayer. The apostles knew what they were called to do. They were called to preach, teach, pray, and study the Word of God. It was like they were saying, "You serve the tables and we'll serve the Word."

I believe that this is the problem with many churches today. Many pastors are so caught up in administrative duties and other things that they have no time to study, to pray, and to seek the face of God. Their congregations get half-baked, diluted sermons and wonder why there's a lot of diluted, half-baked Christians coming from them.

These churches are expecting the pastors to preach, teach, pray, study, visit the sick at home, make hospital calls, marry and bury their loved ones, and the list goes on and on. Then he stands up before the church on Sunday half-dead, and he gives them sermons that lack content, context, and continuity. He may read a verse, never come back to the verse, tell some good stories, and get you fired up a little bit.

That's it. You leave out saying, "The pastor preached today." What did he preach about? "I don't know, but it was exciting." That kind of mess goes on in churches across this nation. I'm so thankful for this church that allows me to give myself to the Word of God and prayer. When I stand before you, I can say, "Thus saith the Lord," and thunder it from Mount Zion and say God has a word for you today.

What did the apostles tell them? Look at verses 3 through 5: "Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch."

The word "therefore" that starts verse 3 takes us back to what was previously said. The apostles said in verse 2 that they could not leave the Word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men. The Greek word for seek is "episkeptomai," and it means to look at, to select, oversee, or supervise. The congregation were told to look over the church and select men to appoint over this business.

What kind of men were they? It tells us. Number one: they were "men among you." Not only does this mean that he is a believer, which is very obvious, but he is in the church. He is among us. Churches should be raising up leaders from within. I have been pouring into different men that felt a call to some kind of leadership or teaching or small group for 20 of the 23 years I've been here.

This is normally how we do it: we hire from within the church. We bring you on and pay you for what you have been doing as a volunteer the whole time. This is very key. Why do we do that? Because they already know our church's DNA. I don't have to teach them the culture of our church; they know the culture. They have already accepted me as their pastor.

People from without? I'm either their boss or somebody they work for; I'm not their pastor. They don't know me like that. But from within, they have already settled that thing. I've been their pastor for years. So we hire from within because these people are among us. Number two: "men of good reputation." This means men of integrity. They are above reproach, like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 refers to.

This was important for the seven to have because they would be handling large amounts of money and purchasing food. Remember, there are 20,000 people. Money that people sold their homes and land for was brought to the apostles at the time. Now these seven men are handling this, and they needed to be men of integrity because they're handling large amounts of money and food.

They couldn't be fooling around getting their little paw in the cookie jar, taking some of the money, sliding it in their back pocket. No, they had to be men of good reputation. Number three: "full of the Holy Spirit." This is vital. Men who were yielded to the Spirit of God in their lives, sensitive to receive a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, and having discernment to detect when people come to them lying about their situation.

They needed to be like Peter was with Ananias and Sapphira in chapter 5. They tried to come and say, "This is the money of the land we sold." God gave him a word right there and said, "How is it that you lie to the Holy Spirit like that? When you had the money in your hand, it was yours. So why do you think you need to lie about it?" The Spirit of God quickened him to let him know they were being deceptive. This is why these men needed to be full of the Holy Spirit.

Number four: "full of wisdom." They must have theological and biblical knowledge, but wisdom to apply it to the proper context. It's one thing to have knowledge; wisdom gives you the understanding on how to apply that knowledge in the proper context. They needed to be full of wisdom, like the sons of Issachar in 1 Chronicles 12:32, who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do.

After the qualifications were given in verse 3, the apostles reiterated in verse 4: "we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word." I'm saddened by the fact that many pastors have left the Word of God and prayer to instead get themselves involved in the business of the church. No longer are there shepherds and pastors feeding and tending to the flock of God, but now they are CEOs making millions of dollars on the business side of the church.

They are more involved in marketing themselves than giving themselves continually to the Word of God and prayer. If God has given you a book to write or you're given a platform where you're getting invited to conferences to speak, great. However, we must not get involved in the business. That is for men like verse 5 is describing for us here. Notice how all seven of them had Greek names. All of them were Hellenists.

Seeing that the Hellenists felt slighted, they appointed seven Hellenists to be over the business. How loving and wise of the apostles for doing this. They were sensitive to the neglect of the Hellenists by choosing Hellenists to oversee this business. That was wisdom.