Your Path to the Extraordinary
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· 10 viewsIn our progression of discipleship, God wishes to use us in the ordinary, and this will be followed by the EXTRAordinary! It's momentum...
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Your Path to the Extraordinary
Your Path to the Extraordinary
Text
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. 2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, 6 whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.
7 Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.
Introduction
NEWS FLASH
I don’t normally start with a News Flash in my message, but today is the exception...
NEWS FLASH: The church is going to face challenges!
“What?! You’re kidding!”
Nope. OUR church has, is, and will in the future face challenges. It’s a fact.
And we don’t sugarcoat everything for everybody in this church. We simply teach and preach the truth, because the Word itself is perfect as it came from the mouth of God!
We don’t claim to have a perfect church...
And if you are looking for the perfect church, you’ll spend the rest of your life searching and you’ll never find it.
BUT - while we are NOT a perfect church - I can stand at the height of this platform and proclaim more confidently than ever, that IN THIS CHURCH, we stand on PERFECT TRUTH!
And, though we’re not PERFECT PEOPLE, we are serving a PERFECT GOD! Who has placed upon us a PERFECT ANOINTING!
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Jesus turned to a bunch of imperfect people, and said to them, “You get the Holy Ghost, and you’ll receive POWER!!!”
And so, NO, we are not perfect people. And NO, this is not a perfect church!
But I’ll tell you what makes all of that irrelevant and “A-Okay”: it’s that WE WALK IN THE HOLY GHOST!!!
If you don’t understand why we’re seeing the results that we’re seeing, or why you feel what you’re feeling, I can clear that up for you real quick:
There’s a stream of the Holy Ghost that we are finding… and we have determined that when we find the stream of the Spirit of God, we’re not going to settle for ankle-deep - WE’RE DIVING ALL-IN!!!
Body
The Problem
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.
Acts 6:1
I would first draw your attention to the fact that in this day, the number of the disciples was growing.
And as you grow, more challenges surely arise.
We, at New Life have seen growth over the past several months. God has blessed us! And it’s not really OUR growth - it’s HIS growth! HIS kingdom.
And in all of this, something that we have to change within ourselves is that we have to stop thinking small.
The saying goes: “Think small and you’ll be small. Think big...”
And I thank God for a Pastor who has vision and is continually pushing us forward.
But what we have to do is fall in with that vision and begin thinking big!
Let me ask you a question: If someone you know put it in their will that you would be the one inheriting their ‘63 Corvette Sting Ray and their paid-for 2019 F-150, the next time you have the option to get a place with a certain size garage, are you going for the 1-car garage, or the 2-car garage?
The answer is easy.
And when God speaks to us - particularly through prophecy and His Word - and He says, “Hey, church, I’m about to grow you and bless you,” you don’t just sit by and leave things the way they are!
You prepare for the blessing!!! You think big, because you have the faith to believe that what God said is true: BIG things are coming!!!
...
SO… the number of disciples was multiplying. Then what???
1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.
Acts 6:1
So there you have it. The church grows, and it faces a challenge.
What was the challenge? I’m going to try to explain this as simply as possible...
A complaint came up in the church from the Hellenists. (these Hellenists: Greek-speaking Jews who are now residing in Jerusalem)
And the complaint was that the Palestinian Aramaic-speaking Jews were in charge of food distribution to ALL the Christian widows.
And now an animosity is building up because of a language barrier between the Greek-speaking Jews and the Aramaic-speaking Jews. Some widows were now being neglected.
It was a cultural wrinkle that came about in a growing church!
Now - I want you to know something today: God has a multicultural church!
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
His blood can and will cover EVERY color of skin!
It doesn’t matter what your language their native tongue is, that tongue can still be able to speak a Holy Language!
And God is going to have a multicultural church!
I believe our church will be a multicultural church! And we’re going to be open to and ready for that in here.
We’re going to love every kind of human being, no matter who they are or where they’re from. We’re going to speak good things to and about them.
And
We’re not going to say anything that might drive them away.
Racial slurs aren’t okay. Maybe you don’t find it offensive… but maybe they do. And maybe they don’t come back in here no more...
God’s going to have a multicultural church! And I want to be a part of that.
And so this issue arose out of a multicultural, growing church.
The Solution
And they had to come together to find a solution to this problem.
2 Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
:2-
So their solution to all of this is very important for us to understand today...
They told the people to select 7 Christian men among you (who can speak Greek), who you approve of, and we will appoint them over this business. “And we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
(This was not an arrogance that “we can’t be out of pocket doing this lowly business, we must study.” No, it was, “We have a responsibility first to teach and preach the Word. And we are the apostles. We are responsible for the whole church. We need someone to do this so that we can still minister effectively.”)
And when they brought this before the people, verse 5 says, “And the saying pleased the whole multitude.”
Qualifications of the Chosen 7
3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
5 And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, 6 whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.
3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
Acts 6:3-
Acts 6:3
The Qualifications
Full of the Spirit
Full of wisdom
Laying on of hands
High Requirements for an Ordinary Service
Don’t you find it interesting that for a particular service such as making sure that the widows got their distribution, they had some high requirements?
When you do the laundry, you don’t normally say, “Oh God, anoint my hands, that I may not receive the stank off of these clothes I’m about to place in the washer!”
When you take out the trash, brother, normally I would say that your wife probably does not proceed to pray in the Holy Ghost over you for your walk out to the Shelton Sanitation trash bin.
Now maybe when you come home from work you’re so nasty that she has to travail or intercede over you...
But let’s be honest here...
This was a very ordinary, every-day service in the church.
These men had high requirements for an ordinary service.
But the reason for that was, they had a great expectation that - if they will walk in the Holy ghost in the ordinary things - God will
The Man Called Stephen
Full of faith, wisdom, power and the Spirit
Your Path to the Extraordinary
My Extraordinary Starts With My Ordinary!
The initial thought about being used in the Holy Ghost is that it involves miracles, signs, and wonders, which, no doubt, is true.
9 “Whom will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”
But this passage is clearly implying that these men would be led of the Holy Ghost to “serve tables.” Such a small, ordinary, routine act of service could also feature being led by the Spirit!
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Stephen, in particular, was used in this fascinatingly unique act in the Holy Ghost, and then soon after he is mentioned performing wonders by that same Spirit. It was a progression of being used in the Holy Ghost, used in Spiritual Gifts.
You can walk in the Holy Ghost in ordinary things, and God will then inevitably follow that with a walkway of extraordinary things!
In prayer!
In the word!
In depth!
In worship!
Video of Madagascar
Video of Madagascar
What you are hearing is the recent General Conference in Madagascar.
That’s the sound of 13,000 people rejoicing because on the first night over 300 people got the Holy Ghost!
There never used to be a church AT ALL in Madagascar, much less the EXTRAORDINARY that you just watched.
But one day, some missionary somewhere said, “I’m going to go out there and do the ordinary work of witnessing to people, of praying, of studying, of working in the kingdom - because if I’ll just do that, eventually, at some point, GOD WILL HAVE TO DELIVER TO US THE EXTRAORDINARY!”
Conclusion