Church Outside The Walls

Review

Week 1

Text:

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Topic: Charity, Justice, Reconciliation

Big Idea of the Message: The church in Acts focused on the needs of the most overlooked people among them.

We walked through 1 Corinthians and really dove into what can create division. The gist of the teaching was you need to keep Christ as the end goal.

Application Point: If we want to show the world what the church is really about, we need to show that we can listen and learn from those who are most different from us.

Christ is the only thing that can save us from ourselves. Yes our mentors, teachers, pastors, and leaders can help and encourage us to grow but the real growth comes from staying true to Christ and allowing him to change us one degree of glory at a time.

Sermon Ideas and Talking Points:

Week 2

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We then walked through how the church in Acts, specifically , was not just a church but was generous in all that they do.

We really dove into how can we give our time, money, and talents to the church? Where can you serve?

As a church, everyone has an important role. For you to keep your time, money, or talents to yourself, you are not living out the call of Christ and you are actually hindering the growth of the church.

Week 3

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Last week we hit on the Gospel and our call to share it. In , we saw that Peter simply went forth and shared the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

The one thing that he did was let the Holy Spirit work. The Holy Spirit is what interven’s and changes lives. It convicts.

It is not our job to change someones mind but rather cast the seed and let it fall where it falls.

Calvin and the reformers said this,

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“Our will is in bondage to evil, unless our wills are set free, we will never choose to believe in God”

The Holy Spirit is what changes hearts, not us.

We ended with the application of thinking, when was the last time you shared the gospel?

1. This brings us to our final week.

This brings us to our final week.

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Acts 6:1–7 ESV

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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 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. 6 These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. 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.

It can be easy to think that you will start doing the work of spreading the gospel and reaching the world when you leave home and start your “real life.”

It can be easy to think that you will start doing the work of spreading the gospel and reaching the world when you leave home and start your “real life.”

But your real life is now.

In certain issues, like racial reconciliation, it is often teenagers and young people that lead the charge.

Ethan Oltremari is a white teen from a small town in Mississippi.

He observed how racially divided his community was and decided to do something about it.

He organized Revival on the River, a celebration with a diverse lineup of praise bands and gospel groups.

He brought together leadership from people who were different from him—in race, ethnicity, gender, and age.

Ethan says that “The Lord just kept putting something on my heart—to help with racial reconciliation, to break down denominational barriers”

(Heather Hahn, “Teen Leads Revival for Racial Reconciliation,” UMC, June 29, 2017, http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/teen-leads-revival-for-racial-reconciliation).

2. While this passage is bookended by hopeful statements about the growth of the church, the bulk of it deals with a particular problem that their increasing numbers had created.

Verse 1 tells us that the Hellenistic Jews were concerned that their widows were being overlooked in the distribution of food.

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These Hellenistic Jews were Jews “who had come from the Jewish dispersion and settled in Jerusalem.

Their language and probably many of their ways were Greek.”

They likely used the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament

The Hebraic Jews were Jews who primarily lived in Palestine, spoke Aramaic, and used the Hebrew Scriptures.

These two groups of widows were separated by culture and language, and the group with less power was being overlooked, even if unintentionally.

The same is often true today:

even among believers, those with more cultural, political, or economic power can (even if they don’t mean to)

exclude or minimize the needs of people with less power.

3. The solution that they found was important:

they didn’t just try to fix the problem or cover it up, but they recognized that there was a deeper issue of power and tried to honor and dignify those with less power.

They tried to take into account the power imbalance and address it.

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As Craig Keener explains,

“Here the apostles hand the whole system over to the offended minority”

Something revolutionary was happening.

Instead of just meeting the immediate need, they chose the much harder route of reconciliation.

We have the same choice in our interactions:

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we can just try to make people feel better, or we can address the real problem underneath.

Whether that’s racial reconciliation or the issue of exclusion and gossip in our community, we can choose the option that best honors and uplifts those we are tempted to ignore or exclude.

4. In our own contexts, this could look like reevaluating our friendships.

Instead of simply asking an excluded person to hang out with us or join our group, we could ask ourselves if our group is even a healthy thing at all.

Instead of just lumping in new people, the whole system might need a revamping.

Do we need to branch out of our comfort zone and befriend people from different friend groups, grades, and schools?

Do we need to face our own prejudices and fears about people who are too different from us?

Do we need to make sure that people with different perspectives—because of their race or because of the school they go to or the activities they’re interested in—are included?

The early church grew largely because they invited all kinds of people, even those that the wider society ignored or abused.

Maybe we need to ask ourselves:

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Who are those people in our context? Who are the people being ignored? Who are the people being abused?

5. Verse 7 tells us that “the word of God spread.”

The first word of the verse (“so” or “and,” depending on the translation) lets us know that a logical connection is being created.

This verse isn’t just tacked on to the end of a story of reconciliation for no reason.

It shows that when reconciliation is practiced— inside and outside of the church—there is growth and flourishing.

When we include those who have been ignored or abused, we will see the message of the gospel reach into new places.

Their numbers “increased rapidly” (v. 7) as the church showed healthy relationships with one another and advocated for the vulnerable among them.