Growing Pains

I want you to think back to when you were a child. There comes a time in all kid’s life when they hit some sort of growth spurt. The thing about growth spurts is that not only do you grow, but you start to feel pain in areas that you had not before. The most common growing pains comes in the form of some aching or throbbing in your legs. And most kids experience this. One of the commentaries I have on this passage that we are in to titled this “Growing Pains”. I think that this is fitting.

If you have ever been in a church that is experiencing growth, you know that there are growing pains that happen in the body of Christ. Most of the time, it comes in the form of them not being prepared for the growth. I was a member of a church before that experienced what I would describe as unforeseen, exponential growth. It is hard to use the word exponential when it comes to a country church here in Stanly County. But for us, it most assuredly was.

When I joined the church, we would have anywhere between 60-70 people attending. This is above average in attendance today. A church of 40 or 50 people should never be called a small church. When most of us were growing up, that would have been a normal church. Due to the church growth movement over the last 30-40 years, we now think that is a small church because of the push of having large churches. We are not a small church.

The church that I was apart of got a new pastor and people were just drawn in by him. In a little over a year, they went from around 60 people to over 200 people. We would have to pull out folding chairs each week to put in the aisle so that some people would have somewhere to sit. But there was a problem. The problem was that the church was not ready and did not know how to handle the growth. So eventually, the church lost all of its momentum and growth and went right back to the way that it was before. This is a sad reality to a lot of churches. But that does not have to be the way that it is for everyone. In scripture, we have an example of what a healthy church structure is and how to deal with problems that arise.

Acts 6:1–7 ESV

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. And the twelve 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. 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. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

As we break down this text for today, I want to highlight the groups of people that we see in this text. We will look at their reaction to the situation and also their duty that they have to the body of Christ. As this texts progresses, we have the apostles, which would eventually be referred to as the elders and the overseers or the pastors, we have the Hellenists which would be part of the congregation, and then, when the overseers took action against the problem, we have what would be the deacons.

But first, I think that we need to acknowledge what has happened in the church when reading this text. We have bookends on this passage here that tell us what has happened in the church. The church grew. The church grew because they were being obedient in the mission of being disciples who were making disciples. This is a testament to the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That even in the antagonistic world that they lived in, the gospel prevailed. We even seen in verse 7 that many of the priests became believers of the gospel. Never count someone out of becoming a believer. It doesn’t matter how entrenched they are in a belief system, the gospel has power to save people. Who is thankful today that the gospel has saved them?

The Apostles

The Apostles were the ones who were leading the church. This is what we would refer to today as the pastor or elder. You will hear me refer to them today quite frequently as the pastors, because that was the role that they had. The job of a pastor is to lead and oversee the body. As we have progressed through the book of Acts, it is clear that the Apostles are the ones who are filling this role. The term used for pastor would not be mentioned until Acts 11. But the role of pastor was already functioning.

Acts 6:1 ESV

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.

The focus of the apostles was the preaching of God’s word and prayer. They were in a time of building. They did not have many processes in place in order to facilitate things that would come up. Because of this, a problem occured. The Hellenists(the congregation) brought a problem to the apostles(pastors). The widows were being neglected.

When we look at Acts 6, we need to understand that some time had passed. As I have been preaching through this book, I have neglected to point out some of the time periods. Acts 2 would have taken place around 30 AD while the persecution that was taking place in Acts 4 and 5 was happening around 35 AD. So there has been at least 5 years since the early church had started. In the early days of the church, it would have been a lot easier for the pastors to take care of the people. The widows were probably well taken care of in the early days. Just as the church has grown in numbers, the amount of widows had probably grown significantly. So it was getting harder and harder for the apostles, the pastors, to take care of them.

Acts 6:2 ESV

And the twelve 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.

The twelve of them. There were 11 of them and they had chosen a replacement for Judas, so now there were 12. There was not just one of them leading the congregation. And you may think that the reason there were multiple overseers was due to the size of the church. That is not the reason at all. Because in the New Testament, there were multiple churches that were all different sizes. And not a single one of them operated with a structure that had only one pastor. Churches have gotten away from this biblical structure over time. I believe that this is something that churches should really be praying about when looking at how they are structured.

I have heard many sermons on this verse. And it seems that people seem to think that the apostles, the pastors, were intentionally neglecting the body. That they think that it is beneath them to serve tables. That the apostles were thinking of themselves arrogantly and like they were better than everyone else. And this is not the heart that the apostles, the pastors had. They had a heart to take care of the congregation as best as they could. But they also had the duty to handle God’s word and deliver it to the people. They saw that what they needed to do was to find a way to make sure the people were taken care of.

This verse here is basically saying that the apostles realized that they could not do it all. Some people have this desire to separate the church from any sort of organized process or organized leadership. And that is unbiblical. Even in history, what the apostles were dealing with was not new. Moses even dealt with some of these issues. In Exodus 18, Moses had all the people to take care of and was doing it by himself. His father in law, Jethro, saw this and wanted to know why he was doing this by himself. Then he gave Moses advice.

Exodus 18:17–23 ESV

Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

Jethro gave Moses a structure of how to be able to take care of God’s people without wearing himself out. He would take care of presenting God’s law to people and handling the big matters. And he would find men to take care of the smaller things that would come up. This is similar to what we see happen in the church in Acts. The apostles, the pastors, would take care of the presentation of God’s word while they found men to take care of the needs of the people.

The Table Servers

This would be the word used in Acts 6 to describe the men that were appointed to care for the congregations physical needs.

Acts 6:3 ESV

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.

The apostles called for the congregation to pick out 7 men to take care of this for them. This passage is widely regarded as the institution of the office of deacons. You may think to yourself that this doesn’t have anything to do with deacons because it does not used the word deacon at all. When it speaks of finding people to “serve”, the Greek word that is used here is “diakoneo”, the word that we get the term deacon from. It means to serve or to minister. The word deacon literally means to serve.

They chose 7 men to do this. Why seven? I don’t think there is anything magnificent about the number here. They probably chose as many as they thought they needed. Does this mean that every church should find 7 deacons to serve? No, because all churches needs are different. In some churches, like ours right now, 7 would be way too many deacons. While in others, 7 would not be close to being enough.

They chose 7. 7 men who were good business men, who were community leaders, who were vocal and gave a lot of money to the church. No. Why does this happen today? Why do churches tend to bypass biblical qualifications to put people in positions? This is not what scripture tells us. It tells us that they chose men who had a good reputation in the community and were full of the spirit and wisdom. If you want to look at a more detailed list of qualifications of deacons, you can find that in 1 Timothy 3. But what is said here in Acts 6 is a good summary of what we need to look for in deacons. When we think about churches that we have been in over time, could we look at the deacons and for certain say that they meet these requirements? I can say that in some churches I could say that this is true, yet in others that it would be a decisive no. I am thankful that our church has said that it is better for us to not put men in this position than to put men in this position who either don’t want it or are not qualified.

They chose 7 men. They appointed them to run the church so that the preacher could focus on preaching. That is not what is said here. But this is a very common thought of what the duty of deacons are today. The deacons run the church. Don’t act like you have never heard this before if you have been in church very long. The question would be is this the biblical stance of the duty of a deacon? Or is the duty of a deacon to serve. It is not my intention to try to tear down how churches treat their deacon ministry. But if scripture is clear on something, we should probably follow how scripture details it. In the bible, deacons are not business managers but rather they are table servants. They do this by taking care of the physical needs of the body of Christ.

Here in Acts 6, Luke lists for us the ones who were chosen.

Acts 6:5 ESV

And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

If you are familiar with the book of Acts, then the name Stephen should stick out to you. This is the man who will be the first martyr that is recorded in scripture after the resurrection of Jesus. He will be a very prominent figure in the rest of chapter 6 and 7 of Acts.

Acts 6:6 ESV

These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

You can picture this as the first deacon ordination. These men were set apart to serve the body of Christ for their physical needs. And the apostles approved of them. They knew that these men would meet the needs that would come up. They knew that these men were changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and had a passion for taking care of the people of God. And they prayed for them.

The Congregation

I don’t want to leave our passage today without speaking of the congregation of the church. Although, it does not mention them much in this passage, what happens with them is very important. When we go back to Acts 6:1 “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.” There was a problem that came up and they let the apostles know.

I know that you may think this is silly for us to look at, but it most definitely is not. I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard of “anonymous” complaints in a church. Especially when it comes to the pastor. I had a pastor friend tell me this week that for 3 years, he would come into his office on Mondays and he would have an anonymous letter on his desk that would list out why the person did not like his preaching. He knew who it was, so after 3 years of this happening, he took the letter, wrote the guys name at the bottom of the letter and handed it back to him and told him he forgot to sign it. After the gentlemen was handed the letter, he never came back. Although the pastor still received 3 more letters in the mail that the man refused to put his name on. A church cannot handle problems that are anonymous. Being anonymous breeds confusion, chaos, deceitfulness, lies, backbiting, and contention. If the congregation has things going on, and the pastor doesn’t know it, then how can the pastor handle it?

Kevin Ezell, who serves as president of the NAMB, tells of a story that happened to him while he was pastoring. He had someone come up to him and complain that they were in the hospital and he never came to see him. The problem was that he never knew that she was in the hospital. So he told her that he was sorry because he had no idea that she was in there. And she told him, “well you should have known without me telling you”. We have got to do better than that. If any of us want to be cared for, we need to let people know. That is why I say frequently that if there is anything going on that you want me to know about, then you need to tell me.

Also, at the same time, we as the congregation need to take the opportunity to point people in the right direction. If you have anyone coming up to you that has an issue with someone, then they need to go to that person and work it out. Not you. That is gossip and that breeds disunity. God is not pleased with unresolved conflict. The same thing with me. If there is something that I need to know, don’t go to everyone else but me and tell them, come to me. So that we can work things out. But if something is anonymous, then that means that no one is behind it and I can’t resolve issues with a non-existent person. A healthy church sees problems, brings them up to the one who needs to know, and finds a way to solve the problem.

This is a picture of a healthy church structure.

Conclusion

As we bring this passage today to a close, I want to look at the very last verse. Acts 6:7 “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” This is our application for today. We see the example of the church in Acts. We have been looking at what a healthy, biblical church looks like since we began going through the book of Acts. It is clear, right here in this verse, that a healthy church increases. Now, will there be times when it isn’t increasing? Absolutely. But when you look at a church over time, they will experience people coming to faith and being baptized.

You may want to look at our church and think to yourself that there is no way that we could say that about ourselves. I want to correct you on that. 3 weeks from today, on October 1st, we will be baptizing 2 people. People who have heard the gospel and responded to it. They believe that they are sinners who need a savior. That Jesus, who came and lived a perfect life, died a brutal death, and was raised from the grave 3 days later is that savior. And they have turned from their sins and believe that Jesus did that for them. This is a breath of life in a church. To see 2 people make their faith public for all to see.

That challenge that we have today, as a church, is what are we doing to see our church grow. Maybe sharing the gospel is more than you can handle. I understand. But maybe you could invite someone to church. Take that first step today in being part of growing the church of Jesus Christ.