Blind Spots

Intro

I remember going through that most exciting time of every teenage boys life.

Learning how to drive.

It’s exhilarating. It’s intoxicating. It’s empowering.

It’s also nerve wracking. Especially if you are doing it with a parent.

My mom, God Love Her, is great at many things, but staying calm while teaching her sons how to drive was not in her sweet spot.

She was overly concerned with safety, paying attention, and correcting bad behavior.

Something that no young man has anytime to deal with.

One of the things that she focused on when teaching us to drive was to watch out for our blind spots.

Which is ironic, b/c she is not very good at checking them herself.

They are called blind spots b/c you can’t see the full picture and you have to pay very special attention to them.

But if you don’t then something tragic could happen.

I never knew that checking your blind spots was a thing until I was taught that they exist.

Similarly, we have blind spots in our personal lives. Places where if we aren’t intentional about addressing them things can become dangerous.

However, we generally don’t know what they are until a loving spouse, friend, child, or someone less loving points them out.

Not only do we have personal blind spots, but as we will see today, there can be some blind spots in ministry.

Again these issues need to be discussed and solved rather than ignored.

That is one of the reasons why it is important for us to be together in worship and life so that we can rightly see and address blind spots.

Simple illustration:

I read a book a few weeks ago about how to make changes within the church.

(Don’t Get Scared)

But one of the things that it suggested churches do is to bring someone from outside into your church to evaluate how its doing.

This person would evaluate the worship service, the facilities, and the congregation.

Sometimes we need a fresh set of eyes to help us see our blind spots.

The Early Church was not immune to this same type of blindness, however they did not ignore the issue, rather they sought the most God glorifying way to solve it.

Pray.

Let’s look at the text together.

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.

Gospel Centered Growth

The first thing that we see with the church is that they were continuing to grow.

They were increasing in number (v.1), multiplied greatly (v.7).

Inclusio.

Can we all agree that Gospel Centered Church Growth is a good thing.

People coming to recognize their need for forgiveness and reconciliation through the Cross and resurrection of Christ.

People finding true hope, true grace, true mercy, and true fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

That is certainly something that should be celebrated and rejoiced.

I would love to see this congregation out grow this room, this building.

I am betting that many of you would love to see that too.

Some of you are scared of growth and I get that.

Growth can be scary. Growth can be overwhelming. Growth will move us out of our comfort zone.

BUT we should desire Growth.

However, we have to be careful. Not all growth is good.

Growing a church by compromising sound doctrine and the truth of God is not good growth.

I find it frustrating to see people being led away from the truth.

We cannot compromise what the Word says.

Scripture is our foundation. Scripture is our anchor.

I will not sacrifice the gospel for growth. I will not sacrifice the truth to tickle the ears of people.

I would love to see an explosion of people coming to Christ, but I will not forsake the gospel of Jesus Christ for growth.

Not all growth is good growth.

However, gospel growth is good. That means that we are accomplishing the mission before us.

Gospel Growth means that we are following in the foot steps of Jesus and the disciples.

Gospel growth means that we are preaching and teaching the Word of God.

We are staying true to the one who saved us.

We are relying on God to grow the church and not our own ability or influence.

You may be wondering, why I am talking about Church Growth.

I can hear it now from some of the critics (not here, but other places)

It seems like you are overly concerned with numbers.

Why are you focused on growing in numbers? Aren’t we enough?

Here’s the reality. There’s a book of the bible titled Numbers.

God is concerned with numbers. So we should be concerned with numbers.

As baptists, we love our numbers.

Sunday School numbers, offering numbers, membership numbers, but sometimes we like the numbers, but don’t like what comes along with them.

“We count people b/c people count.”

Each person that follows after God is important to God.

I don’t know about you, but every time a new face walks in the door, I get super excited.

This is another person to hear the Gospel of Christ.

This is another person who can be encouraged in worship.

This is another person who may not know the Gospel. They may be hearing it for the first time.

This is exciting b/c there are no accidents. God orchestrates and organizes our days.

When someone is here we should be excited to expose them to the love we have been showed in Christ.

But with growth comes problems.

We see this happening in the early church.

The first church was not perfect. But it is a model we should be open to following.

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.

Ministry Blind Spot

Here we learn about the problem.

There is a complaint among a certain sect of the believers.

This is something that is bound to happen when there is growth of any kind.

Some one may feel like they are being left behind, overlooked, or ignored.

In this case, the complaint was neglect.

The Hellenist Widows were not being taken care of they way that they should.

Real Quick.

In Jerusalem during this time there would be 2 sects of Jewish people.

The Hellenistic and the Hebraic Jews.

This referred strictly to their primary spoken language, however, they did worship at different synagogues too.

So we can see that the first church in Jerusalem was not homogenous. It consisted of people from different backgrounds and different languages.

Nations and Tongues.

The Hellenistic Jewish Christians would have primarily spoken Greek.

These Jewish people were from the Diaspora.

This was the exiling of the Jewish people from the promise land hundreds of years before this time period.

They were scattered and as they got older would come back to Jerusalem to live out the rest of their lives and die in the holy land.

They not only spoke Greek but they had a bent toward Greek Culture which further isolated them from the Hebraic Jews.

So you can see there is a tension here in the First Church.

There had to be a fight to continue the unity that God had started.

Because with this feeling of neglect came a distancing and isolation.

We heard just a few weeks back that the church was ready to help whenever a need arose, so it wasn’t that there was a willful neglect of these widows, rather there was an ignorance to the problem.

Though not explicitly state here in the text we will assume that there was no ill will toward these Hellenistic widows. That there was no purposeful shunning of them.

Think about it this way…This church body had now grown to upwards of 20,000 people and it had 12 pastors to oversee that preaching and teaching were getting done so that more had an opportunity to come to know Christ.

That’s over 1,600 people per pastor. That’s an impossible job. There would be no way that the 12 could overcome those odds.

So a problem is presented that needs a solution. Not just any solution, but a God honoring, gospel-centered, need focused solution.

So that’s what the Disciples decide to do.

They create a solution to the problem.

Acts 6:2–6 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. 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.

Gospel Centered Solution

The first thing we notice is that the apostles state that “it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.”

This can sound a bit harsh to our minds.

What do they mean? Do they think that they are too good to serve tables?

Where is the servant attitude in this type of response?

The best translation of this phrase would be that “it would not be pleasing in the eyes of God for us to stop preaching.”

Wow that sounds even more stark.

How is not serving the underprivliged, sick, and hurting not pleasing to the Lord?

Here’s what is happening here.

The apostles are evaluating their priorities.

So what are their priorites?

v. 4 Devotion to prayer and ministry of the Word.

What we have to understand as a church body is that each member is gifted to serve in certain areas of ministry.

And for each member we must recognize that the way that God has gifted us tis the way that we should be serving.

This is how much more effective ministry is completed within the body of the church.

Some are teachers, some are preachers, some are servers, some are encouragers, some are hospitable, some are (fill in the blank)

That is the way and capacity by which God has created you to serve him, the church, and the community.

The Apostles are not going to negelct the situation, rahter they are going to find men that will best serve to operate in that capacity.

These first pastors had to devote themselves to praying and preaching of God’s Word.

This is an important factor for any man that is called to serve in the pastoral role.

We have to be devoted to personal prayer, study, and holiness so that the Word of God can work amongst the congregation.

If a pastor is deficient in prayer that demonstrates the detrimental reality of self-sufficiency.

Prayer is important for every believer, but as go the pastor so goes the church.

“The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must be a vain and conceited man.” -Spurgeon

We also have the difficult task of preparing at least one sermon each week.

Many see the position of pastor and think that it should be a cush job, after all you only work one to two days a week. Wed & Sundays

Look I am super grateful to be called your pastor as many other pastors are grateful to be serving their congregations.

But this calling is more difficult than it appears.

Corrie and I finished watching The West Wing a few weeks ago and I had to laugh a little as I thought about it.

The President of the United States has a staff of writers that construct, review, edit, and finalize every speech he is giving.

And he usually has a few stump speeches that are memorized and just a few times in his presidentcy he is called to give special speeches.

Yet Pastors are called to preach a new, fresh, and inspiring sermon every week.

Lest people think we are dull and uninspiried we have to “bring it” every week.

Providentially, I enjoy writing, researching, and putting together a sermon each week.

I love hearing your comments about a sermon stepping on your toes, inspiring you to think, and prompting you to ask questions.

But this is just a small part of what pastoral ministry is about.

I say all that to say this, we need help. We can’t do it alone.

And we all have blind spots, so be careful assigning blame and malaice when something is overlooked.

Instead offer to help, present a solution, or seek understanding about the situation.

Blame will only breed resentment and anger.

Unfortuneatly, There are many small churches where the pastor is called to be a jack of all trades.

Something breaks-He fixes it

Every ministry he is the teacher/leader/organizer

He becomes a jack of all trades, and a master of none.

I am grateful for FBC Louise, because most of you are willing to step in and accomplish what I can’t

You see the value in my study of the Word of God and I don’t have to do all things, I appreciate that.

I am grateful for you willingness to listen, to organize, and to be open to helping wherever I need help.

I can’t do everything and I appreciate the fact that you recognize that. I am not shy about my limitations in skill.

This is not just true for me, but for every pastor.

Our primary calling is to teach the word of God, pray for his guidance, and train the church to do the work of the ministry.

If we are unable to do these things it won’t matter what programs are in place.

It won’t matter how much money is in the bank.

It won’t matter b/c if the pastor’s personal relationship with God fails so will the church.

We have heard over the past several years tragic stories of moral failure, abandonment of faith, and other stories of pastors not living holy lives.

This has caused chaos and havok on congregations.

This has caused pain and heartache.

It has tainted our witness when prominant pastors and theologians fail b/c they let power, status, and wealth get in the way of prayer and ministering the Word of God.

We all have limitations and those limitations are based on our skills and our calling.

This is what the Apostles recognized. They knew their calling. They knew their limitaions so they needed others to come around and pick up where they were limited.

They called the whole group of disciples together to cast a vote on the men that would fill this void.

This is one place where we as Baptist get our structure for church government.

We are working together to continue the mission of God and through agreement with IMPORTANT decisions (like leadership, budget, etc.) we can move forward in a God honoring way.

Then we get a list of names of these men that were called to serve the widows of the Hellenistic congregation.

Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus.

These men were not just picked b/c they showed up. They were picked b/c they met the criteria set by the Apostles

What was that Criteria?

v. 3 Good repute, full of the Spirit, Full of Wisdom

These men were exeplary in their faithfulness to God.

They were devout believers.

They were students of Jesus’ Teachings.

They were honorable. They were coachable. They were wise.

Wisdom-meaning that they feared God and loved people

Their reputations were solid. They were led by the Spirit.

Too often we just want to find someone to fill a spot b/c there are spots to be filled.

Give me a warm body and we will make it work.

But we have to understand that if someone is going to be in a position of power and influence they need to be worthy of that position.

These men met these qualifications and the congregation agreed to allow them to serve the church.

This is beautiful picture of how the church should operate.

The church is both an organization and an organism.

Meaning that we need structure to run properly and we have to be flexible b/c the we are ever changing.

New needs arise depending on the current make up of the church.

We have to always be evaluating, assessing, and changing to meet the needs of the congregation.

The choosing of the seven is a beautiful picture of this process.

There was agreement with those chosen. The men were bathed in prayer before their commission.

This is church done right.

We know very little about most of these men.

However, as we continue on our Journey through Acts we will come across two of them.

Stephen and Philip.

It’s important to realize that all these men were filled with spirit.

They were committed to the cause of Christ, the mission of Christ, and will of Christ.

This chapter is where many churches get their example of what the office of deacon should look like.

In many churches the deacons act like more like a board of directors than servants.

If you have been or will be called to be a deacon in the church notice that your primary responsibility is to serve the physical needs of the congregation and to aid the pastor in doing ministry around the church.

I am grateful for the 2 deacons we currently have serving this body. They are committed to making sure that ministry is done right and well here at FBC Louise.

As we grow and as we change we will have to add more deacons to the church to help serve the church well.

I want you to pray about this ministry.

I want you to pray for those who might enter into this type of ministry.

I want you to pray and see if this is a ministry that you feel called to.

I want you to know that I continue to pray for the future leaders and servants of this church body

You should too. You should always be praying for past, current, and future leaders of this congregation.

So why do we need to fix our blind spots with Gospel centered solutions?

So that the Gospel can continue to reach the Lost

Acts 6:7 ESV

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.

Gospel Centered Mission Focus

We see that the issue was solved quickly and without interruption so that the disciples could get back to doing what they were called to do spread the gospel.

God’s Word was being prayed, preached, and taught in the early church and b/c of that God’s was blessing the church by increasing their number by multiplying them greatly.

God’s Word changes hearts.

God’s Word changes lives.

God’s Word penetrates the hearts of even those opposed to God if they have an open heart and mind.

Just look here “a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”

These were the same ones who condemned Jesus. They were the same ones who persecuted the Apostles.

These were the religious ones who opposed the Gospel and yet, God saved them.

He came to save even those who stood opposed to him.

He came to save those who were hostile toward him.

He came to save those who were in rebellion against him.

He came to save broken, sinful, rebellious people.

He came to save you and he came to save me.

This is the good news of the gospel.

You are never out of reach from the grace of God.

No matter what you have done, no matter where you have gone, no matter how much you continue to mess up…

God’s Grace is still abundant.

God’s Grace is still Sufficient.

God’s Grace is still within reach.

You don’t have to clean yourself up to get to God.

He comes to you right where you are and rescues you from yourself.

He comes and takes you by the hand and says join me, follow me, and I will give you life abundant and life eternal.

Submit and follow after him.

It won’t be easy, but I can garauntee it will be worth it.

These priests were going to have to give up their livelyhood, their status, and their infulence to follow after Jesus.

And they said Yes.

Will you say yes regardless of the cost.

Will you submit to his lordship

We are going to have a time a prayer and reflection.

During this time if you feel the Lord Calling you, submit your live to him come and talk to me and I will pray with you.

He is calling you…Will you answer him?

Pray.