Pastor Mac v.21 "This Won't Break Us!" Acts 6:1-7

words of encouragement and inspiration

"A Few Minutes with Pastor Mac"
                       www.bdubjr.com

Transcript

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Whatever you say. Whatever you mean. Whatever is wrong.

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Hello and good morning. Thank you for tuning in to another podcast of Feaving Castle Matt. We hope God is blessing us all on this Sunday morning. And we hope God's only for this new week. That is upon us. If you can't make service, don't forget it. We have to give the five app that you can give your donations and fresh fruits and praise giving the right app. And um, if you can't make it to service, so don't forget about that. We always want to make sure we give opportunity to uh so season to God's ministry. And if you can't make it again, our website as well, uh Give the website and on our app, uh Gibbilify. Glad to have you again with uh a few minutes with Pastor Mac Podcast. We hope you had a blessed week leading up to this third Sunday of April 2026. And uh glad to have you. Hope the Lord's blessing you, keeping you uh is our prayer as we dig into this. This month is already the end of April. Oh my god, say next week next week will be May. Time is May. So we hope you're using your time wisely and get into the word, dig into the word, become a better Christian kingdom disciple. Each and every day. Uh let's pray. Oh God, we thank you for another time. Do you have the word? Bless your word, bless the whole letters out of our voice, through this podcast, broadcast. Let's have something to be said to be a blessing. To be a help. Show light in this vast darkness that we live in called the world. We ought to be the light, Lord, the salt of the earth. Showing people Christ, showing people how Christ loves, and how Christ delivers and set free. We love you now, O God. Thank you for what you've done, what you've gone to do. That's your word. That's the word of my mind, the meditation of all except for God's sake of our Savior. Our redeemer. In Jesus' name, we do pray. Amen. Last week I gave you the text of um Acts six, one through seven. We are never just gonna cover this. We read the entire thing of chapter six. Outlay that he was singled out as well as the spirit. But we're gonna in order to keep up with our timetable, as we put most of the time missing Sunday during Easter and Pom Pom Sunday and Easter. And we're gonna be missing one church anniversary or two, so in order to keep the timetable as close as we can. We have to chop up some of these uh chapters. We do ask that you uh read chapters on your own. I wanna have a re-intersection of the short story. Next week looks at the same last Sunday, April 7th, uh, 45 to 53. This is in conjunction with six. Uh Stephen is gonna ask and they get brought to me and uh describe the holy holy religious guys questioning Stephen, and he gives him the whole soliloquy, the story of all the way up to Christ, giving the history of. So read that chapter seven. Six and seven, but we know that's where we'll be next week, it's the same seven, twenty-five, three. But this week six, uh, one through seven, I'm gonna read the translation. Now, by this time, when the number of disciples was increasing, a complaint was made by the Hellenists, the Greek-speaking Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food. So the twelve called the disciples together and said, It is not appropriate for us to neglect the teaching, preaching of the Word of God in order to serve tables and manage the distribution of food. Therefore, brothers choose from among you seven men with good reputations, men of godly character and moral integrity, full of the spirit and of wisdom who we may not put in charge of this task. But we will continue to vote ourselves steadfastly to prayer and to the ministry of the word, suggestion please the whole congregation that they selected Stephen, a man full of faith in Christ Jesus, and filled with and led by the Holy Spirit. Philip, uh Canaan, Timon, Armenus, and Nicholas, an approach a apostolite gentile convert from Antioch, brought these men before the apostles, and after praying, they let their hands on them to dedicate and commission them for their service. And the message of God kept on growing and spreading, and the number of disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. A large number of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith, accepting Jesus as Messiah and acknowledging him as the source of eternal salvation. The word of God for the people of God for the edified. This morning on a Sunday morning. This won't break. This won't break. Go left over something small. Not doctrine, not theology, but distribution. Not prayer, but portion. Early church is growing fast, God is moving, but now there's tension in the system. People getting overlooked, voices getting loud, feelings getting real, and here's the truth growth will expose what comfort used to cover. But I love this text because it shows us a healthy church ain't one without problems, it's one that knows how to handle them. And if I'm honest, uh we may have all lived and I've lived act six. I've experienced seasons where God was blessing the vision but stretching my capacity, where everything looked fine on Sunday, but Monday through Saturday exposed the cracks. This text teaches us something personal. God didn't bring us this far to let pressure break us. He brought us, he brought pressure rather to build us. If we look at the text this morning, we see it could have been potentially something devastating and divisionary, but God uses that when we allow him, he uses that for our good and his glory. Well, one, growth will expose the strain. At verse one, the number of disciples increased, and murmuring started. Growth didn't remove problems, it revealed them. Widows were being overlooked, and attention showed up, pressure increased. And the word early Christians used for helping others is die uh diaconel or diaconia. Diaconos, diaconia, meaning service, ministry, servanthood. And all Jesus follows a call to be what? Servants. Godly growth always involves growth and love. And as servants, we are to love and be of service. And church growth that reflects only statistical increase is not sufficient. It isn't godly growth if the emphasis is only on size. You should be concerned for the overlook. You should be concerned for the destitute. You should be concerned for the downtrodden. And to the widows waiting in vain for the first century Mills on Wheels program to arrive. It looked like a problem of prejudice and discrimination in Jerusalem with two major cultural groups side by side, the Hebraic Jews and the Jewish raised in the Jewish homeland and speaking Aramaic, and the Grecian Jews, born and raised in foreign countries and speaking Greek. And the homeland Jews often looked down on foreign Jews. Some felt that Grecian Jews were contaminated by pagan culture. Such issues require a process called growing up spiritually. A lot of us have to be in that mindset of growing spirit. Don't let everything get on your nerve. Don't let everything make you sensitive. Don't let everything make your ego wane. Don't let everything uh uh bar your mental capacities uh down. John Calvin wrote, the more abundantly God pours out his blessings, the more Satan stirs up trouble. However so correct, you don't discover actually weak spots until something starts stretching you. Uh the church started seeing this and it stretched them. And instead of them going at each other, which the potential was there, they got together and said, let us work this out. Uh, because if it ain't growing, it wouldn't be straining. Because they saw how it was growing, the church was being blessed, and the enemy always wanted to come in. I told you last week, come in when things are going well. Uh have you ever noticed in life some of my or your frustration wasn't spiritual opposition? It was God showing me where I needed to mature. Let that sink in for a second. Lean in. Let me say that again. Some of our frustration in life is not spiritual opposition. It's just God, or was God, showing us where we needed to mature. And a lot of us right now know we need to, we got some areas in our life where we need to mature because God can't take us right now where we are, because right now, maturity-wise, we're not able to handle it. God often uses pressure as an instrument of revelation, not destruction. So, what is exposed under strain is what must be strengthened for sustainability. And this walk is not easy. Jesus said it's it's not going to be easy. So if pressure reveals a problem, the next question is: how does God prevent revelation from becoming division? Well, speaking about the church and how we allow things to come in and affect us, we can't allow little things to come in and affect the church, we infect the church because we're really not possessing what we say we are possessing love for one another. If we're allowing things, minute, diminutive things to come in, take our focus of Christ because such a so-and-so or brother said something about, I mean, I heard it. Or I feel like I'm being overlooked because such and such wasn't done for me. Uh, that's a problem. And the church can't be together. We can't manifest the manifestation of togetherness, can't be there if we stand in looking at small things, making small things major, and majoring in the minors. Preach, Pastor Mac. I'm doing the best I can. So, what do we do? How God prevent, how do we prevent this revelation from becoming the division? Well, that's what they got. They got, well, I'm glad you asked. Number two, is focus will protect the assignment. Look at the text. Two, four. So the twelve called disciples together and said it's not appropriate for us to neglect the teaching preaching the word of God. In order to serve tables and manners, we got to give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word. Now that's the city. We could shut it down right here. This is the antithesis of what's going on wrong in the church today. Listen up, lean in, listen up. They didn't ignore the issue, but they refused distraction. They protected the calling. And today we got some churches who have fallen off the word. Somebody, I saw a video. We need to have a third testament. What in the world? Uh uh, we have ignored the Bible as given. We want to add to it, but yet we don't want to preach it as given because what it does is puts us in the right mind that God intended it for us to do. And spiritually, it holds us accountable for what we're doing wrong right now. That's the basis for what we uh inherited from Daddy Adam, Mama Eve. Because God held them accountable. They blamed each other, and we've had that problem ever since then that we don't want to be held accountable. So get rid of the Bible. Sounds blasphemy. Blasphemous in the church. Get rid of the Bible. We don't need the Bible. Let's read the newspaper. Let's get a magazine. Let's pull up some social media in the church. The Bible is no longer the word of God, that's what we abide by, we live by. Let's get it, let's get rid of that. Matter of fact, let's add another testament. And this testament I have things we could do. So we can always appeal to people out there who still on the verge. They not quite saved, but they they try to get from sinning, but they haven't quite let go of what's been holding them down from getting saved in the first part. So this testament will give them relief. So they can keep doing what they want to do. But everybody can't do everything, but everybody must do something. And that's how we got into this. They said we got to keep the teaching of the word. Everybody can do something. Got to keep this teaching of the word priority one, the focus. Everybody can't do everything, but everybody must do something. If you lose your focus, you lose power. Let's see, we don't keep our focus on the word of God. We allow everything and anything to come in, and the enemy come in and take a resident in our very presence. The enemy don't have to destroy you. He just wants to distract you. Let me say that rewind. Rewind, press play. The enemy don't need to destroy you. Oh, he just needs to distract you. Uh-huh. And if the word gets the word gets neglected, everything else falls apart. That's where we are in our churches now. The word is not being preached, and the word not being taught. So God's house. We've got our attention on everything else. That's why we're going to try to build. I'm not, I'm not, that's why we said we're praying. That's why I started everything with prayer. When I first got here, I said we're going to pray first. Before we started our 40, 28-day fasting, we pray. Because I don't want the church to lose focus. When you lose focus, you lose power. I don't want to be losing power at this time, this age, this season. If we neglect the word, everything else falls apart.

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Toza said, uh A.W. Toze said, the church that can't worship must be entertained, and men who can't lead a church to worship must provide entertainment. I don't want that to be said. We must be led by the word of God. Can't lose focus, can't lose uh, can't be distracted. The apostles, the enemy does everything he can. The apostles understood. We can't let activity replace anointing. So they protected the priority of prayer and the word of God. That right there's a nutshell what we got to do. We got to keep on doing that. Um, because the most important thing is the word of God. They kept that. They said, we won't lose it. So what they did, they got seven men. Said, listen, y'all handle all of this the day to day. And I think that's what we get to the elders. The elders took care of the spiritual. And I've set aside some brethren here for elders, and the deacons took care of the physical needs of the church. Actually, the elders be spirit, they're helping the pastor with spiritual things. And I talked to them, and we'll be getting more as we go along, but there's an order to it. And as long as you keep the order, God is able to release the power. That leads into number three. First, growth will expose the strain. Second, focus will protect the assignment. Third, when order is restored, power is released. That fifth verse, suggestion please the whole congregation. And they selected Stephen, a man full of faith. Well, now he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus, Nicana, Timon, Pernaeus, Nicolaus, who was a proselyte, Gentile, congregate. They got these brethren together. Before the apostles, they prayed and commissioned them, anointed them, dedicated them. And the message of God kept on growing in spirit. You can rightly identify and you can go ahead and connect that churches that are dying might be not on the word of God. Because the word of God will increase. It will bring increase to the church. And we said in verse 7, and the word of God continued to increase. Yeah. They raised up qualified people. They handled the issue with wisdom. They stayed spirit-led. And look what happened. The word spread. Disciples multiplied. Even priests got saved. That means those priests from other religions, other theology got heard about Jesus and got saved. And when the house gets in order, God starts sending over for. This wasn't just administration. This was alignment for acceleration. And when you fix what's off, God will release what's next. I don't know about you under the sound of my book, but I want God to release what he's got for me. So I'm trying to stay in order, trying to be available for whatever he got next for me, because we want to make sure we're doing the disciple kingdom business. And that is, we are to follow Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ. Because he did it for our and he's commanded us to do that. So it don't matter what's going on in the church, because we have to do the Father's business. But we gotta understand that God has us in his hand. And since we are in his hands, he commands. So we gotta make sure that we do all we can to get the message out to a dying world and tell somebody about Jesus. You don't mind if I talk about him, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, baptized in the Jordan, and one Friday on a hill called Calvary, he died died like a sinner. Blood like a blood donor, died till the sun stop shining, died till the moon dripped away in blood. But that's not the end of the story, thank God. Three days later early Sunday morning he got up from the grave, and I dare you one time to tell you tell him thank you for all he's done because chains are broken, doors are broken, uh, enemies break invitation is extended now. If you don't know Jesus and the pardon of your sins, if you would like to get to know him better and get saved. Allow him to come into your life. Simply say this prayer. Jesus, I need you in my life. I believe you died and rose again on the Thursday. I trust you to control my life and to enhance my future. If you said that prayer, it's as simple as ABC. Accept, believe, and commit. If you did that, we would love to hear from you. You may contact us through our email, get praiseon at house of praisepp.org. Or you may go simply to our website, www.houseofpraisepp.org. Contact us and someone from our discipleship team will get back with you with all the information you need in order to begin this new life in Christ. We love you to life. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you again for listening to our podcast. We hope something was said and be a blessing for you and be a blessing for you this week. We know that we are still in the hands of God and we will trust Him to keep and deliver us. Bless you, God bless you. County Line, we love you to life, and you can't do anything about it. Look forward to next week. The Lord says the same. We hope that you are praying and reading your word and staying true and standing on the promises of the Lord. God bless you, and we'll see you next week, Pastor Mac.