Made to Make a Difference: Acts 6
Scott Bayles, pastor
Blooming Grove Christian Church: 7/24/2011
This series is inspired by and portions adapted from Max Lucado’s Out Live Your Life.
Nearly two millennia ago on the opposite side of the planet, 120 ordinary men and women—tax gatherers, fishermen, and house wives—turned the world upside down and it hasn’t been the same since. Their story is the story of a movement that stretched from the dirt roads of Palestine to the imperial courts of Rome, the jungles of Africa, and the Great Wall of China—the Jesus movement, otherwise known as Christianity.
These last few weeks, we’ve explored the stories of the early church as told in the first few chapters of Acts. In chapter 1, we saw that the early church believed that Jesus was risen, ruling, and retuning. By chapter 3, they taught us to share the work, see the wound, and serve the weak. In chapter 5, they set an example of doing good authentically, abundantly, and adventurously. As we slide into chapter six today, we’ll see the early church continuing to overcome obstacles, tackling problems, and making a difference for time and for eternity.
The Jerusalem church was continuing to grow and, like Kirk Cameron, they experienced some growing pains. Let me read the first four verses of Acts 6 for you, so we can all see what’s going on here:
But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.” (Act 6:1-4 NLT)
There are three parts to this story, each part providing us with some valuable lessons. The first part of the story is the problem.
• THE PROBLEM
The apostles were faced with a two-fold problem. While they could have easily ignored the problem and just hoped it would go away, they didn’t; rather they met these challenges head-on in a way they knew would be pleasing to God.
The first problem was the problem of poverty.
Rapid church growth brought needy people. And among the needy people were widows. Now, some people are poor simply because they’re lazy. They need to off their butts and get a job. That wasn’t the case with first century widows. They had no source of income. When they buried their husbands, they buried their financial security. There was no such thing as life insurance, pension plans, or Social Security. According to the culture of their day, the extended family was supposed to provide support. But Jews who became Christians were often disowned by their extended families, so the widows of the church were left with only one place to turn—the church. And the church responded to the problem with a daily distribution of food, clothing and money.
Poverty has plagued society for thousands of years. Even Jesus once said, “You will always have the poor among you” (Matthew 26:11 NLT). But Jesus had a heart for the poor. Early in his ministry, Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth. He went to worship at the synagogue where they invited him to read Scripture, and he accepted. The Scripture he chose to read was this: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come” (Luke 4:18-19 via Isaiah 61:1).
Jesus had a target audience—the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind and oppressed. Jesus made the poor his priority. Some of his most memorable miracles involved feeding the hungry. When orphans cry, he sees. When the hungry pray, he hears. And when widows in Jerusalem are neglected, he takes notice.
The second part of the problem was the problem of prejudice.
When the food was being distributed, some houses were being skipped. Apparently, the food pantry director was separating requests into two stacks: locals and immigrants. The Hebrew widows were being taken care of, but the Greek widows weren’t. These women didn’t grow up in Judea or Galilee. They hailed from the distant lands of Greece, Rome, and Syria. If they spoke Hebrew at all, it was with an accent.
In Jewish minds there had long been two classes of people—Jews and everybody else (Gentiles). They discriminated against Greeks. They hated Samaritans. And sadly, some of that bigotry and prejudice carried over when they became Christians.
Even more sadly, prejudice still runs rampant throughout the world, the US, Macoupin County, even the church. Prejudice simple mean to pre-judge. Are there any people that you pre-judge? Based on their skin color, their clothes, what part of town they grew up in, or their family background? The teen with all the tattoos. The immigrant with the hard-to-understand accent. The person on the opposite side of your political fence.
These prejudices we carry build walls between us and certain groups of people. The book of Acts teaches us how God feels about the person on the other side of the wall. The Bible says, “For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us… Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death” (Ephesians 2:14,16 NTL).
If we want to follow in the footsteps of the Jerusalem church and start making a difference in the world around us, then we need to make every effort to provide for the poor among us and start blasting some walls. Don’t let race, class, gender, politics, geography, or culture hinder God’s work.
So, how did the apostles respond to these problems? Well, the first thing they did was give the whole church a project—which is the second part of our story.
• THE PROJECT
What was the project? Well, the apostles called an assembly of the whole church and made this announcement: “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility” (Acts 6:2-3 NLT).
Realizing that they couldn’t do everything themselves, the apostles delegated responsibility first to the whole church, making them responsible for choose who would lead the program and second to the seven men chosen. The apostles knew that in order to resolve the problems of poverty and prejudice the entire church had to be involved.
Today, locally we have friends and neighbors who can’t pay their bills. Nationally, we have an economy that suffocating under a mountain of debt. Globally, over half the world’s population live on less than two dollars a day and 1.75 billion people are desperately poor! How do we respond to these things? We do what they did. The whole church got involved and they unleashed their best and brightest people on their biggest problem. Rich Stearns, the president of World Vision once said, “Poverty is rocket science.” Simple solutions just don’t exist. Most of us don’t know what to do about the avalanche of national debt, withholding of lifesaving medicines, the corruption of seaports, and the abduction of children. Most of us don’t, some do!
Some people are pouring every ounce of God-given wisdom and insight into the resolution of these problems. That’s why we need organizations like World Vision, Compassion International, Living Water, and International Justice Mission to carry on the legacy of the Jerusalem task force of Acts 6. Locally, we need people who have a heart and a head for helping others to step forward. We need to give them this responsibility and support them all the way. Remember that none of us can do what all of us can do.
How do we support them? By having the same priorities as the apostles, which brings us to the last portion of the story.
• THE PRIORITY
The apostles reveal the primary solution to every problem, by maintaining their priorities. What was their priority? Peter said it plainly: “We will put them in charge of this work. Then we can continue to pray and to teach the word of God” (Acts 6:3 NCV).
Praying and preaching. That’s what was most important in fighting poverty, prejudice, persecution or whatever other problems the early church encountered. If we really want to make a difference, if we’re serious about changing the world, then it can only be done through much prayer and the proclamation of God’s word.
Every time one of the apostles got arrested or a problem arose, the early church saturated the situation in prayer. They prayed as if prayer was their only hope. And God listened. Our passionate prayers move the heart of God. The Bible says, “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16 NLT). Prayer doesn’t change God’s nature; who he is will never be altered. Prayer does, however, impact the flow of history.
When the Israelites went to battle against the Amalekites, Moses selected the mountain of prayer over the valley of battle. The Israelites won. When Abraham learned about the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, he stood before the Lord rather than rushing out to the cities. And Jesus. Our prayerful Jesus.
Awaking early just to pray.
Dismissing crowds of people to pray.
Ascending a mountain to pray.
Cleansing the temple so others could pray.
Crafting a model prayer to teach us how to pray.
Jesus immersed his words and his work in prayer. Powerful things happen when we do the same. Prayer changes things.
So does the word of God.
When we share God’s word as it was intended, it reaches into people’s hearts and chips away at the bitterness, the anger, the discontentment, the prejudice, the hatred, and everything else that doesn’t look like Jesus. The word of God has changed the world in more ways than we can imagine. The preaching of God’s word was instrumental in abolishing slavery in Europe and America. One of the most iconic leaders of the Civil Rights movement, Martian Luther King Jr., was a Baptist preacher who saturated his messages in Scripture. It was the passionate preaching of the Great Awakening that gave rise to the American Revolution. If there is one book that has shaped America’s art, architecture, commerce, education, ethics, family life, freedom, government, healthcare, law, language, literature, music, politics, science, social reform, and much more, it is the Bible! The word of God changes hearts and changes history.
We need to get God’s word into the hands and hearts of as many people as possible. We need to get into God’s word so that God’s word can get into us.
Conclusion:
Jim Wallis was a seminary student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School when he and some classmates took some scissors to the Bible. They decided to eliminate a few verses. They performed surgery on all sixty six books, starting with Genesis and not stopping until Revelation. Each times a verse spoke to the topic of poverty, wealth, justice or oppression, they cut it out. They wanted to see what a compassionless Bible looked like. By the time they finished, nearly two thousand verses lay on the floor and a book of tattered pages remained. If you cut concern for the poor and compassion for the oppressed out of the Bible, you cut the heart out of it.
Peter and the rest of the apostles understood that the only way to make a difference in a world of problems is by working together in a united effort to meet people’s needs and change people’s hearts! You and I were made to make a difference in our world. We do it the same way they did.
Invitation:
As our worship team comes forward, I want to invite you to get involved in the solution. If you’ve got a heart for helping people and you’re interested in volunteering your time and talent, come talk to myself or one of the elders about ways that you can start making a difference in lives of people in our communities, while we stand and sing.
