Management 101 Series

Acts 6: Management 101 - 3/5/17

Turn with me this morning to Acts 6.  I hope you are looking forward to what God has to say to you today.  Each week when you come, I hope your attitude is always This is going to be GOOD!  Because the truth is that if you come expecting a great blessing, you’ll find one.  If you come doubting you’ll get anything out of the sermon, believe me, you WON’T - no matter how good it might be.  

A little girl sent a letter to a missionary in a faraway country. Apparently her teacher had told her not to expect an answer from the missionary, because they sometimes get more letters than they can answer. So this little girl's letter simply said: "Dear Rev. Smith, We are praying for you but we are not expecting an answer." 

I hope you want an answer, you want to see God touch your heart today.  If so, then join me as we pray.  PRAY for God to speak.

This is going to be good!  Because today we have a passage that hits home right to where we live!  Most of us won’t witness an ascension to heaven or preach to thousands who all walk the aisle for salvation.  And even though we read these accounts, they are not where we live.  But CONFLICT in the CHURCH - now THAT’S a topic that we can relate too.  Sadly - that is true!

Every church has it’s share of conflict.  I don’t care what church you visit - it may look great on Sunday morning as a visitor; but when you delve a little deeper into relationships, you will find that every church has its skeletons in the closet.  There is a dark side to every church.  Because the church is made up of imperfect people.  Come back tonight, and we are going to look at Galatians 2 and see the time that Paul had to rebuke Peter to the face!  Even spiritual leaders make mistakes!

So, here is our lesson today.  I begin reading in Acts 6:1.  Read Acts 6:1-7  Today we want to talk about the problem and the solution.  We are going to learn from the apostles several ideas about handling church conflict.  The first thing we see is the 

Problem - and it is addressed in verse 1 as a 

Concern - In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.  One group in the church came and expressed a concern.  Their widows were being overlooked.  They felt neglected.  It doesn’t really matter how much truth there was to the concern, because “perception is reality.”  What mattered is that they FELT like they didn’t matter.  

It’s sort of like what happens in our country with the whole “Black Lives Matter” campaign.  Often truth and reality get overlooked and what gets emphasized is feeling and perception.  Are there biased, prejudiced police officers?  Of course!  But there are many, many others who care deeply about people of ALL colors.  Yet the police force all gets painted with a negative stereotype by those in the movement.  Here these Grecian Jews were complaining, You’re neglecting OUR widows!  They wore Tshirts that said Greek Widows Matter!

But look also and see the 

Catalyst - there was a reason this concern arose.  It says In those days when the number of disciples was increasing. . . This is a time of great growth in the church.  Very likely this takes place some time later, maybe a couple years after Pentecost.  There are many new people coming to faith and joining the number of disciples, and along with that brings CHANGE!  Now anytime change comes, people start getting uneasy.  We start pulling out the phrase “That’s not the way we’ve always done it!”    We like our comfort zones.  We don’t want anyone to rock the boat.

The church was growing, people were being added, and as a result we see the 

Cause - of the problem: there were two different people groups in the church.  There were the Grecian Jews and the Hebraic Jews.  So first there were Jews from Israel.  They grew up in the area, spoke the language - Aramaic, knew the culture, came out of the synagogue, had family in the area, and they were a close, tight knit bunch who were used to everyone holding similar religious views.

Then there were Greeks.  They were still Jewish - but years before their families had left Israel.  They came from hundreds of miles away, they spoke a different language - Greek, they had a different culture and a different set of customs, they were used to being around those of a variety of religious viewpoints, and they often didn’t have many family or friends in the area.