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Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

Angels in the Church

Before we open God's word, I would just invite you to bow your heads with me for an additional word of prayer.

Father, we are grateful that from our busy lives you've called us, that of all the people living on this planet, Even though this is just 1 planet among many in this universe that You care so deeply for us.

We are also thankful, Lord, that You call us into fellowship with Your people.

Today we are going to once again study your will from your word, and we pray that your spirit would guide our hearts and our minds.

Be our teacher this morning, in Jesus' name, Amen.

If you look with me in Acts chapter 6, we will continue where we were last week, looking at Acts chapter 5.

And in Acts chapter 5 we learned a number of very, very important things, did we not?

We learned, for example, that there are 10 principles we can take from Acts chapter 5 of how the church grew.

The early church was growing and had power.

The early church had power that was not worldly power.

They didn't have money, they didn't have influence, they didn't have important people, But they had the power of the Holy Spirit and that power is more important than any other power That is what we want It shouldn't matter so much to us if we are popular in this world It shouldn't matter so much to us whether we have people of influence or of means or whatever it is.

It shouldn't matter to us if the national leaders or governments are approving what we're doing.

What's most important is that God approves of what we're doing.

And when we have the power of the Holy Spirit on our lives, the church has power that can change the world.

The 10 things that we saw last week, I'll just review them very quickly.

The church has power when its members are living lives without pretense or deception.

The church has power when its members are working together in 1 accord.

The church has power when its members obey the Holy Spirit's promptings.

The church has power when its members fear or desire the approval of God more than men.

The church has power when its members fear or desire the approval of God more than man.

The church has power when its members speak the truth even if at personal risk.

The church has power when its members uplift Jesus.

The church has power when its mission is God's mission, when its members testify of their personal experience, and when its members live consistent lives all week long.

Those are 10 principles we saw from Acts chapter 5.

Today we're going to look at 1 more, we don't have a long together here, we're just going to look at 1 principle from Acts chapter 6.

The church has power when its members treat 1 another without prejudice or favoritism.

Let's see what happens here in Acts chapter 6.

If you have your Bibles, hopefully you're there now we can look at the story It's a short chapter now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying There arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists nuts pause right there First of all, it's good when the church is growing, isn't it?

This is the Holy Spirit that has been growing the church, leading the church, helping the church to reach out.

People have been convicted of their sins, they've been repenting of their sins, they've been being baptized, they're being saved for the eternal kingdom of heaven, that's a good thing.

But with good things there also come problems, right?

And even though growth is a good thing, it brings with it some growing pains.

And it says there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists.

You see my friends, back in those days, people had some racial tensions.

It almost sounds a little bit like it is now, huh?

If you look at our world today, it seems as though rather than improving we're actually digressing when it comes to society and I'm going to be really honest here I'm going to say a few things that I hope I have the license of God's word to say.

The church, I'm talking about the institution of a church at large.

Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.

Most churches are predominantly made of 1 racial ethnic background.

Now I realize there could be reasons besides, you know, locale and all the rest.

There's nothing wrong with wanting, you know, if you speak a certain language to worship with people of that language and all those reasons, but I'm telling you that the church has had the same problem Because it's a human problem and the church has not the Christian Church has not led in this area of human problems It hasn't And so here we find all the way here in the early church, this is the church that is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

They were doing all these things that helped the Holy Spirit be able to use them, but even in that environment, maybe 1 of the most perfect environments the church has ever found itself in, right after the day of Pentecost, right after Jesus had left, with people who had been there with Jesus for 3 and a half years, the 12 disciples and the 70 and the 500 who had gathered and watched his ascension, they're all there, personal eyewitnesses of Jesus and yet they still had this problem.

There was a complaint against the Hebrews by the Greeks and their complaint was that there was, the widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Somehow we must assume that it was probably, possibly, it could have been simply overlooked.

We see the leadership of the church certainly was not in favor of some sort of favoritism or some sort of preferential treatment or unpreferential treatment.

But somehow, the widows of the Greeks were not being remembered when other widows were being cared for.

In a negative way it may be called prejudice.

And the early church was having to face this and it dealt with it in a very proactive way.

The Bible says, then the 12 summoned the multitude of the disciples.

We notice some principles about conflict management here in Acts chapter 6, right?

We're not just going to pretend it doesn't exist There's a problem here The Greek widows are not being cared for as the Hebrew widows are now you'd understand The Greeks would have been in the minority in Jerusalem where this story is taking place There may not have been a lot of them But it was a problem And the disciples the 12 said we're not going to just pretend this problem doesn't exist We're certainly not going to normalize it by saying it's not a problem at all We're going to gather the multitude together and we're going to deal with the problem We're going to talk about it And this is what the disciples Said it's not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables Listen, the disciples were showing leadership here when they said we have no preference or favoritism You understand what they're saying?

They're in there saying what they're saying is if if we are If we were going to be serving tables, everyone would be treated equally.

So they're showing their leadership and they're saying it's not for us to do this, this isn't our job, so let's find people who can help Solve this problem.

Let's find people who will who will remember everyone and include everyone Everyone is welcome in the house of God.

Amen Everyone the Bible is very clear that God makes his church out of all nations.

The Bible's very clear that the message of the last days, the 3 angels' messages, are to go to every nation, kindred, language, and people.

And by the way, 1 of the things I love about this church family is that it is a diverse church family.

We don't think of each other as being of that ethnic background or that national background.

We really We don't remember those things because we're all we've all been bought by the blood of Jesus and I praise God 1 of the things I'm thankful for as a pastor is that this is a church where anyone can feel welcome It doesn't matter.

What Whether you have a you know an accent or you're from Europe or Australia or you're from South America or Africa We love them all and I love that about this church and I love this that about you This church family is such an inclusive church family, but here's the disciples struggling with this is this issue We're going to find a solution Therefore brethren verse 3 seek out from among you 7 men of good reputation Notice the characteristics of the early deacons, the first set of deacons that were going to be selected.

They are to be of good reputation, they are to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom whom we may appoint over this business.

You notice there is no prerequisite that these deacons ought to be Hebrews.

Because these prerequisites are not given to people, The Holy Spirit is not given to people based upon any ethnic background Wisdom and good reputation is not given to someone because of a cultural background They're given to people because of the choices they've made and the their heart that is filled with service and love for God.

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.

I want to just talk to you a little bit about some of these names.

Stephen means coronet or wreath of victory.

Tradition is that he was 1 of the 70 who followed Jesus so he was not part of the 12 but he was 1 of those who had been sent out on missionary journeys by Jesus been mentored by Jesus and he is he is chosen to be 1 of the 70 we also notice That there's a description of Stephen here They chose Stephen a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit If someone were to write something about you, just a little phrase, what would that phrase be?

When they thought of Stephen, they thought of someone full of faith and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if that's what people thought of each 1 of us.

My neighbor over there, he's a man of faith, a woman of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit.

I hope we're not remembered in our neighborhood solely by the cars we drive.

Because that means we just are seen driving.

They drive fast, we know who that is, right?

The Bible says Stephen was a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit and Philip.

Does anyone here share that love as I do?

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Angels in the Church

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