Acts 6:1-7 | Servants

Zach Cunningham continues a series on the book of Acts.

Transcript

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Good morning and welcome back to King's Church. Excited to be here. If we haven't met, my name is Zach. I'm one of the pastors here, and I cannot believe it's already summertime. Maybe it is May. Let's go. I saw the graphic yesterday of like the continental United States, and it was like uh temperature and like the best temperature across the country. And it was a beautiful day across the country, but there was a little bit, there's a little dot over DFW. The best place to be in the United States yesterday was DFW in Denton, Texas. Okay, the most beautiful weather. Shout out. Hey um, like Owen said, uh shout out to our college students and our college ministry. And before we jump in, I just want to say something real quick. Uh, we are a church that is for everyone, but we're a church especially for the college student. And I just want to pause and honor our SALT staff and our SALT leadership team. Guys, they have been laboring hard the past nine months or the past year, praying for the campus, uh spending time with students, and it has been an incredible uh work of God in our college ministry. Owen and Carly and our leadership team has done a great job. So can we just say well done, good, and faithful? Let's get a little Carly and Owen. And uh yeah, we can't wait for this fall and uh set your phone alarms to go off at 10.02 and join us in praying for the class of 2030. Wow. Okay, I think that's right, right? Class of 2030 is coming in. It's crazy time's flying. Um before we get in here, I do want to say what Owen said is true. This summer is a unique season uh in our church. Our college students are about to go bye-bye. Some of them are gonna stay, and uh, the summertime's a unique season in the life of our church and for believers across uh the world. And I just want to say this summer, our invitation is not to take a break from faith, but to go deeper in our faith. And we are trying our best to provide resources for you and groups for you to do that. And so join us on Tuesday morning, fellas, at 6 30 a.m. We will be done by 7 30. And if you need to leave early for work, you can do that, okay? But come and pray with other men and ladies likewise on Wednesday morning, 6 30. That is for you to come and meet some other ladies. So join us, men's and women's group, jump into the Bible reading plan, and and also uh we've got this summer's gonna be great. We've got three more weeks in the book of Acts, but then we're gonna pause and we're actually gonna start a brand new series this summer. And I won't, I'll share more later, but we are going to the Old Testament, baby, okay? It's gonna be great. I'm excited for it. But before we get to the Old Testament, like I said, we got three more weeks in the book of Acts. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab that. We're in Acts chapter six today. Acts six is where we're gonna be. And I'll say this if you heard last week we covered a lot of ground in Acts 5, kind of went fast. Today we are going to slow down and not go through 40 verses, but just seven verses today. And it's a fun one, okay? This is gonna be a unique sermon, okay? If you're new, this one's gonna be unique because we've made it to a unique point in the book of Acts, okay? And today we're gonna see in the early church a problem that's gonna pop up. And it's a problem that starts small, but it's one that could blow up quick if it's not handled, okay? It kind of reminded me. Uh recently I got into like a NASA space exploration kick, you know, with like Artemis 2 and Project Hail Mary. Okay, ask my wife. Like, I go all in on things, okay, when I get there. Well, anyways, as I was learning a lot about NASA and space exploration the past two weeks, I'm ignorant. Okay, I chased a lot of rabbits the past couple weeks, and I learned about something called Apollo 13. Do you guys know what this is? I I don't know what any of this is. Apollo 13. I've been told, like, how could you not know about it? There's a movie, I think. Is there a movie about this? If you're like, how someone asked me this week, how could you not have seen the movie? It's like, because it came out when I was six months old, okay? I haven't seen the movie. Well, anyways, here's what I've learned about Apollo 13. You guys have seen the movie, you can correct me. Uh, it was an attempt to land on the moon that went sideways. And there was a problem. And there's two things unique about the problem with Apollo 13. Number one is this uh it was an external problem. Uh no, it wasn't an external problem, it was something internal. Here's what I mean by that. It wasn't like a meteor came and hit them, and it wasn't like, you know, alien pirates took over the ship. No, no, no. There was something internal that caused the problem. And here's the second thing about this problem that's unique. It was actually a really small problem at first that compounded over time. And what I mean by that, my understanding is this it started with like a new voltage design with the oxygen tanks. Okay, something small, it could have been solved pretty easily, not big by itself. But then that led to one of the tanks dropped in oxygen, okay, which is small again. And then that led to them saying, oh, maybe we should heat it up. That would be helpful. And then that led to some damaged wiring, and then that led to a pretty normal switch that made it go boom. Okay, a small problem that compounded over time. And thankfully, you know, it didn't go crazy. We got our boys back home. And I start there this morning to say this because in Acts chapter 6, we find a similar problem here. Okay, if you've been with us for the most part, the problems in the early church have mostly been external to the church. Okay, and what I mean by that is like the Jewish leaders providing persecution on the church, the Romans, kind of external problems. But Luke, in Acts 5 and Acts 6, he shifts the scene to internal problems. And we saw it two weeks ago, right? Acts 5. There was a problem of greed and deceit in the early church. Drake taught it. And today we get to another problem that rises up inside the church. And what's fascinating about this moment is that it seems like we actually learned something about the enemy here. Okay, like the sermon before the sermon is this that if Satan can't defeat a movement, he'll try to divide it. Like if he can't take it down from the outside, he's gonna try to take it down from within, a divide and conquer approach. And we see this happen in churches, right? But not just churches. This happens to the family, this happens in marriages, it happens all across the country in different nations. In fact, if you study like world history, a lot of the major empires on the earth at one point in time, like Rome or Alexander the Great, like they weren't taken down by a bigger army or like a bigger force from the outside. No, why were they taken down? It was division from within. It fell because of problems within. Okay, and that's true in churches, it's true in marriages, it's true in the game of survivor. Okay, I love survivor. Like, if you can't take down the alliance over there, what do you do? You try to break it up, you try to divide it. It's the only way you're gonna win. And what happens in the book of Acts, and why I think it's helpful for us to see today, is because today we're gonna learn how the early church handled conflict. And I think as we look at it, we're gonna learn a thing or two along the way, whether it's navigating conflict in your marriage, your workplace, your friendships, but especially in the church. And so I think these seven verses are gonna be helpful for us. Okay, we're gonna look at three different phases uh today. We're gonna look at the problem, the solution, and then the response to the solution. Sound good? A problem, quick response, a solution, and then what happens as a response. Okay, we're gonna spend most of the time on the problem because that's life, baby. Okay, look at verse one. We'll start in verse one, and in the first two verses, we get the problem. Okay, we're gonna start with some encouraging news. Look at it, Acts 6, verse 1. If you got it, say got it. In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, okay, which is great, right? Pause right there. Jesus told them, the early church, like, go and make disciples of many nations. Go reach people, tell them about my ministry and my message, and it seems to be working, right? More people and more people in the book of Acts are having their lives transformed by the gospel of Jesus. Things are going great. This is good news. And notice it says, as the disciples were increasing in number. That's also great news because you notice it doesn't say as the converts were increasing in number. It doesn't say as the attendees were increasing. No, here Luke uses a word and he emphasizes it, and it's the word disciple. And it's a Greek word that's not static, like an attender, but it's dynamic. Okay, it carries action. And the word disciple, it means learner. Okay, and it carries movement with it. And I think it's helpful for us to pause and to look around and say, you know, King's Church, well, not the biggest church in the world, but this is a verse that we're praying would be true here in Denton, is it not? Like, this is why we planted the church eight months ago, because we want to see more and more people come to know Jesus. Okay, we look around in this city and we see the lostness, and we want to plant a church to help the other churches in the city reach the lost people in the city. Okay, that's why we planted a church. Okay, a lot of people ask questions like, why plant a church in Denton? Well, here's why, because we don't view planting a church like opening a new restaurant in a town, like another option for people to kind of check out, like, oh, another option, let's go check it out. Guys, we don't view church planting like that. We don't view church planting as opening a restaurant in a town, but opening a farm in a starving country, and that's different. Like we see the lostness and the need, the starvation for the word of life, and we want to help provide that in the city. We want to see lost people come to faith and look around. Okay, it's happening. Okay, but also we don't want to produce just attenders, but disciples, okay, people who are learners, okay, people who love Jesus and want to grow in their faith. Okay, we want to be a church of lifelong learners, okay, where college students and empty nesters can both have an open Bible and a pen and humbly come because we all have something to learn about our King and life and his kingdom. That's why we're doing men's and women's group, plug again, okay? Because it's an opportunity for us to rise early, come to the table, and learn something about our pursuit of holiness. Okay, I say this. We don't just want to be a church that's growing in number, but growing in our faith, right? Okay, so that's what's happening here, and it's awesome. Good news, but also verse one, notice the main verb here. Go back to it. It says, In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, there arose a complaint. Or in other words, it seems like the more people there were, the more complaints there were, right? More people, more problems. And it's good for us to see here because I'm encouraged by this verse, okay? Because here's the question Can there be both a growth in disciples and a growth in drama at the same time? Well, yes, okay, both can be true here. Okay, it's almost always true, actually. You grow a business, it gets more complex. You grow a family, you got more mouths to feed, okay? You gotta buy a minivan, like us, okay? Growing problems are good problems to have. They're better than dying problems, right? And so it's encouraging to see that even in the early church, problems were normal, and problems are expected. And that's good for us to see here, because healthy growing churches can have issues. Okay, and newsflash, every church that has people has problems. And so here's why I say it this morning, okay? So if you're new here and you come into this beautiful wedding venue and you're like, I'm coming for a fresh start, okay? Because my old church has problems. Newsflash, every church has problems, okay? Do I have news for you? There are some sinners amongst us in this room, the biggest one standing on the stage right now. And so, like, here's what I'd say to you, okay, if you're coming, like, uh, if you're here and I'm here, we got problems here. And that's not an that's not actually that big of an issue. Every church is gonna have problems. And so if you're looking for the perfect church, keep looking. But I think it'd be helpful for us to be careful not to have a consumer mindset that's quick to criticize but slow to contribute. Because even the best churches have problems. And so, what's the problem here? Well, keep reading. Look at what it says. There arose a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution. Okay, so there's a problem. And it's a pretty simple one, okay? An increase in people has led to an inefficiency in the food distribution. And while that seems like a very small, solvable problem, it's one that has baked into it all kinds of issues that if it can't figure itself out, if they can't figure it out, some big dominoes are gonna come crashing down. It's like that meme, you know, the domino is the small one and it goes to the big one. Like if they can't solve this, it can lead to a lot of issues. And so, first we have an organizational problem, uh, but quickly it leads to a communication problem. Okay, and this happens in our world. Notice the verb again. It says there arose what? A complaint. You see the word complaint uh is the word to grumble. Okay, there's some grumbling going on in the church, okay, which, if we're being honest, is a pretty natural response for all of us when a problem comes. Humans love to grumble. Okay, you see this if you read the Bible in the Old Testament. Israel was known for a lot of things, but they were especially known for what? Grumbling. Okay, God delivers them from Egypt, grumble. Uh, they don't have food, they grumble. They don't like the food that God gave them, they grumble. And what happens in the Old Testament, if you read it, God tells them, this community, because of all your grumbling, and because of your complaining, I cannot bless you in this state. And what happens is complaining disrupts a community. This is why Paul writes to the early church in Philippi, in Philippians, what? Do all things without grumbling. Or complaining. Why? So that you might shine like stars in a crooked world. And so for us too, like we want to do that, right? We want to shine forth the gospel in Denton and at UNT and T dub, but we have a helpful warning here that complaining can disrupt a community. Like, nobody wants to join a community full of complainers or grumbling about problems. They got enough problems. So we want to be a church that's resolved not to do this. And we learned pretty quickly here that this complaint was actually a warranted complaint. Like here we say, not every complaint is bad. This one actually shows like an organizational problem and a communication problem. But the deal was here, there was a value problem. Some people were feeling devalued here in this text. What do I mean by that? Well, the issue here is some widows are being neglected in the daily distribution, it says. And that word distribution, it means service, uh, which we'll come back to later. But basically, it was a service that passed out food or clothes or money to widows. And just pause, like that's close to God's heart, right? Like the care for widows? Because in that culture, and even in our culture, widows were some of the most fragile parts of the community because they had no family to take care of them, especially older widows. And you can read this all over the Bible. One of the marks of the people of God is that they would be people who care for widows, who care for people who can't care for themselves, and also who won't benefit them back. Okay, so this is close to the heart of God, right? The brother of Jesus, James, wrote this. What is pure and undefiled religion visiting the orphan and the widow? And so that's what is close to God's heart, and that's a call on the church to care for widows. And what's interesting about this church in Acts, it seemed like they actually understood this. Like, didn't they have a system for caring for widows? Like, they understood this, but something was happening here, and it actually exposed not a value problem, but a cultural problem. Look at what it says again. Notice the parties here. A complaint arose from the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews, because their widows are being overlooked. Okay, we see something unique here. There's two groups of Jews here. Okay, if you read the book of Acts, this is not a divide between Jew and Gentile. This is a divide culturally. Or in other words, there was some friction in the culture that was impacting the church. And these two groups are unique because they're actually both ethnically Jewish, but they had different culture. Okay, there's not racism-driven divide here. No, this is a cultural divide. These two groups had different cultures, different shared beliefs and values and practices. Okay, and we see this in our own church. Okay, we got different cultures in the room. We got some southerners here. We also got some Midwesterners here. Go green. Yeah, you see, it's cultish, right? Like we got culture, cultish, culture divide. Okay, we got in and out people and Whataburger people. We got the mean green and the pioneers, okay, the longhorns and the Aggies. Okay, there's a cultural difference. You see, back then, the Hebraic Jews were the Jews that wanted to conserve their culture, the older traditions. They spoke Aramaic, they enjoyed the older way of doing things, and they wanted to carry that forward. But the Hellenist Jews were the ones who were spread out because of the diaspora or the dispersion, and they were heavily influenced by the Greek world. They spoke Greek. They were influenced by the Greek world. Maybe you learned about the Hellenization period in history class, right? Hellenized, that means Greek, okay, Alexander the Great, anyone? Okay, these were Hellenist Jews. And so we have a complaint right here that comes from the two groups. Okay, which at first, you know, you read this, it's pretty easy to assume the worst, right? About problems, about neglect. Like we do this in relationships or in marriage, like assume the worst. Like you read this, it's probably like, oh, the Hebrew Jews hate the Hellenist. They want them to die, starve them, you know, like they hate those guys, or whatever it is. But honestly, look at the text. We're not told much about the motivation here, are we? Like we get a fact. The Hellenist widows are being overlooked. But it could have very easily just been a logistical problem. I mean, when you get a problem, maybe assume good intentions here. You see, the church back then was 90% Hebrews. And so whoever was doing the bread thing probably is just passing out bread to those they knew first. That by the time they got to the Hellenist widows, they ran out. Okay, they may have just been good, they may have just been bad at math and division. Anybody else bad at math here? Okay, it's helpful with issues to assume the good intentions. Not to get worked up, right? And post on Facebook. But either way, with the good intentions or not, this is a problem. And this is a combustible problem. Why? Because the crack is on a fault line that's cultural. So the question is this how do they solve it? Well, let's move back, let's move forward to the solution because they address it quickly and head on. The complaint, it wasn't broadcast, it was brought straight to the apostles. Look at verse 2. The 12 summoned the whole company of the disciples, everybody, and said, It would not be right for us, the 12, to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. Okay, which sounds harsh at first. Like, what's going on here? Well, picture the scene. The 12 apostles, they gather all the people and they realize that this problem it can't be solved by the twelve. They said it would not be right for us to give up preaching the word to wait on tables. And you have to understand what's going on here. The apostles, they're not devaluing care and they're not devaluing ministry. No, they're valuing what? The preaching of the word. They realized that they had a role to play, and preaching the word was their role. In other words, it's a statement of priority, not superiority, right? Our priority is preaching the word first. And that, if you read the scriptures, that's consistent, right? With what Jesus commanded them to do, but also us to do. Like, you have to understand it's not preach the gospel or serve people. It can be both. But there is an order there of priority in the word. Because the number one problem with the world, and the number one priority, is first reconciling God and humanity. Like you read the scriptures, the story of the Bible is what? That mankind, all of you, are supposed to live in fellowship with God. But what happens in Genesis 3? There's a gap, there's a chasm, a crack in that fellowship. But through Jesus Christ, isn't this good news? Through his death and resurrection, paying for our sins, he has made a way for us to be reconciled to God. That's Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. That's the first priority, but very quickly under that is the reconciliation that we have amongst people to be ambassadors. That's Ephesians 2.11 to the end, is it not? See, there's a priority here that Peter shows here. And we want to be a church that's committed to these things. And so Peter goes, This isn't so much a value problem, it's a limit problem. He's saying, we got limits as people. He's not saying he doesn't care for widows. What he's saying is he's not good enough to do it all. And all of us, right, we run into limits. You got limits? Okay, when I was a college pastor, I got asked to do a lot of weddings. Okay, I did 25 weddings over the course of a few years. And I was getting tired of doing all these weddings every weekend. My family was getting tired. So it started to where I had to say no to doing some weddings, and that offended them, right? And I can understand it partially, it's a big day for them, but people got limits, right? And also in this church, people ask us questions in the past nine months. Like, hey, why doesn't King's Church do this thing? Or why don't we have this ministry or this or that? Or how come you and Drake and Carly and the staff they don't meet with me every week? For coffee. Or they don't come to every small group. Or they don't do every care visit in the church. And the issue is similar here. Like it's not that we're too good to do something, it's that we're not good enough to do it all. We got limits, okay? We got kids, okay? Baby Cameron is needy for Carly, okay? We got limits. And here's another thing: our church, we got limits, we can't do it all. Okay, yes, we're called to care and minister to people, but we got a special heart to care and minister for college students. That's our priority that God has given this church, and we're called to that. Okay, and yes, that doesn't mean we won't do other things as his church matures, but we do have limits as a church. And Peter, he's saying that here. And we could say it here like, we're not gonna let the expansion of the gospel be limited by personal capacity. We can't do it all. And some leaders they struggle to do that, right? They struggle to delegate leadership, like they don't want their thing to outgrow them, and they put all the pressure on it. It's hard for them to release authority, and it stunts them a little bit. And so, what's the solution? Well, look at what Peter says next, verse 3. He says, Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Okay, and I love that word ministry there, okay, the ministry of the word. It's the same word for service that was used earlier in the bread service. And what Peter is saying here is this we will devote ourselves to the service of the word. And what he's doing there is very intentional. Peter's saying, no, no, no, no, we're all servants. Like all of us serve. Okay, this isn't an I'm better than you thing. No, all of us are servants. That's why he starts with the word brothers and sisters, saying, no, no, no. He's elevating them. Can you see it? And he's lowering himself. We're all part of the same family, we're all servants. And he says, preaching and leading is how I serve. But I need people to step up and serve the needs in our community. Okay, all of us need to step in and play our part in different ways. And I love this. Peter says this we're going to increase our capacity by elevating leadership, but not just anybody and leadership. Look at what it says. It says, Select from among you seven men of good reputation. He says, pick some people who've got good reputations. And what does that mean? He gives two qualifiers. Look what it says: full of the spirit and full of wisdom. Okay, now notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say find people who are good at spreadsheets. It doesn't say people who have free time or margin or people who are just really, really, really want to lead something. No, it says find someone who's full of the what? The Spirit of God. Someone who is submitted to the Lord, someone who's a believer, who has the Spirit, but also has a good reputation because of what? Either the fruit of the Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit, likely both. Like find someone who's loving and joyful and patient, but also someone, in this case, that has the gift of administration or mercy or teaching. Like you gotta find someone where the spirit is obviously at work, but also someone who's full of what? Wisdom. And that idea is someone who's skilled at life, okay? They have the ability to navigate problems and life and people. Like, don't just find someone who's eager, but find someone who has the competency to get the job done. Okay, like it's good that you love the Lord, but can you do the task? Like, can they pass out bread in an organized way? Like, can they carry a tune on the worship team? Okay, it's good that you're eager, but can you do the job? Can you park cars in an organized way? They don't hit each other. Can you lead? And I love getting this passage so early in our church plant, because it helps us communicate something that we want to communicate. It's our desire here. We as a team in a church, guys, we are looking for men and women who are also full of the spirit and full of wisdom that can help lead. Like I said earlier, the staff has limits, but we want to elevate people to maximize impact. Okay, this is why we do connection groups in our church, one of the reasons, and in Salt Company, because we realize there are too many people in this room to personally care for and to disciple well. And we got some people in this room who are amazing at doing those things. And so when the carpenters have a baby, guess who makes the meal train? Their connection group. And when a shepherding issue comes up and someone needs care, guess who jumps at it? Laura Slade, Aaron Roach, Josh Voland does really well. Okay, we have people who are great at serving the community. When we have needs and kids, Hannah and Faith jump up. When we need help organizing volunteers, Ryan Satoff jumps in. Okay, this is one of the reasons we're praying for leaders in this church and also praying for elders to be raised up in this church. Because look around, we are a growing church, but we're not yet a mature church. Okay, we're so thankful for our ascending church, the Commons. They provide provisional elders who provide oversight here. But one of the marks of a mature church is a full local elder team, and that takes time. And maybe the best way I've been thinking about it, it might be helpful for you, is there's a difference between a healthy church and a mature church. Okay, we're growing, okay? This church, we're young, we're healthy, but we're not yet mature, okay? We're like a baby church trying to roll over on our belly, okay? We have no idea what we're doing, but we're healthy, we're growing, God's moving. We're healthy for where we are, but but people can look at our church and they can get upset because we're not mature in a number of ways. Like, hey, why don't y'all have this ministry yet? Or hey, why haven't y'all planted another church yet? Like in that healthy churches plant churches, and y'all haven't planted a church, people will say these things. And here's what I'd say you guys already know this. We don't judge the health of a five-year-old for not being able to drive a car or run a marathon. Okay, we don't judge the health of anybody for not being able to run a marathon, okay? But we can be a healthy church and not just mature. It takes time, it takes leaders. And we want to be a church that raises up leaders and church planters and disciple makers. And that's what's interesting in the book of Acts, verse chapter six. The church is growing and it's healthy, but notice the problem forces them to grow up as a church. Like it actually leads to more leaders being raised up. But notice what it says. There's a phrase here, it's important. It says, Select from among you seven men of good reputations. Can you see that phrase? From among you? Or in other words, these were not random dudes off the street. And they weren't strangers from that nobody knew, and they weren't the new kids on the block. No, these guys were known. Their character was tested, their faithfulness was evident. And I think that's helpful for us as we build this church. Because if you're sitting here hearing the sermon, you're like, all right, Zach, put me in. I'm ready to play. Let's roll, I'm ready to lead. Put me somewhere. If that's if that's you, I say that's great. Okay, I love, we love ambition and excitement. But can I tell you what leadership starts with? It starts with being known and it starts with being faithful. And it starts with serving, in this case, serving bread. And so maybe the question for you is this have you said yes to being known at King's Church? Like, have you joined a group? Have you started serving? Guys, those chairs that you're sitting on, they're uncomfortable. I know that, but they don't just magically appear there on Sundays. We got dudes coming at 6 30 every morning who do this, who serve. Have you started serving? Have you started contributing in ways that you can with the resources you have, with your gifts, with your treasures, with your talents? Have you said yes to joining this church? Because sometimes the question is not, are you gifted? It's are you known? And not just by pastors, but by the people. They didn't pick those guys, the people did. The people said, These are our leaders. And so how are we gonna grow this church? The answer is together, with all of us doing our part, like in Acts 6. And so that's the problem, the solution. And you can see verse 5, everybody's pretty thrilled with the solution. Look at it, it says this this proposal pleased the whole company. And so they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. We're gonna see some more of him next week. And they chose Philip, we're gonna see him a bit later, too. Uh, they chose Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Pumba, Parmonus, and Nicholas, okay, a convert from Antioch, okay? And look at verse six. It's so I try so hard, God's be funny. Um, verse six. They had them stand before the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them, and then look what happens as a result. Here's a result, verse seven. And so the word of God spread. And the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number. And look at this. And a large group of priests became obedient to the faith. And so there's this incredible response here. It says three things. Number one, the word of God spread, which is important, right? To Peter. And so the priority for Peter, it was the right move. Okay, preaching the word was important. And then the second thing that happened, it says the disciples increased greatly. More and more people came to faith as a result of more leaders leading the thing. And then, third, even a large group of priests came to faith, or in other words, more Jews joined the fold. Okay, which is amazing. And I'll end with this. We just kind of just step out of the story. Probably the most encouraging thing from all of this is what could have divided them actually multiplied them. Can you see it here? Like God's economy, math is very different. God used their inability to do math to multiply the church. A complaint that could have split the church actually strengthened it. Like the thing that could have been a distraction to the mission actually clarified the mission, and they served people, which is part of the mission. And that's my hope and prayer for this sermon and for our church, nine months in. Because here's what I learned about Acts 6. When the church handles a problem with spirit-filled wisdom, what happens? The word of God spreads, and leaders are raised up, and churches are planted, and more people bow the knee to King Jesus and learn what it looks like to live in his kingdom. And so as we head into the summertime, why don't we pause and why don't we pray that God would do that here? Can I pray for us? Lord, I'm so thankful for Acts 6 in the life of our church. And Lord, I am so thankful for leaders in this room because we're not necessarily in a position with no leaders and we're desperate. No, God, you have raised up men and women in this church and men and women at Salt Company. Lord, thank you for the 29 leaders that you have raised up because we see a need where college students are being overlooked, not in bread distribution, but in the gospel being distributed on the campus. And you have raised up leaders among us to serve UNT and Texas women's. And God, would you do it in the community as well? God, would you give people in this room a vision for how they can use their life? God help us see that it all starts with serving and going low and being known in a church. God, we're so thankful. Would you raise up people? God, we love the gospel message. Jesus lived and died and rose again. Lord, would that motivate us to say yes to stacking chairs, to serving kids, and serving the widows and the homeless in this community? God, give us a vision for this church. Help us fix our eyes on Jesus. Getting up early and serving is worth it because Jesus is worthy of everything. And we sing it now to you. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. You guys can stand and let's sing some more.