Caring For The Flock

Welcome to Verse by Verse. Thank you so much for joining us as we take a look at the book of Acts. We take things nice and slowly as we look and see what God is doing in the big picture of expanding the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. My name is David Humphrey and I'm the pastoral care and missions pastor here at United City Church in Humboldt, Texas. We're excited to be your church family while you're incarcerated, but we're going to be even more excited when you get out and you can come and be a part of our church in person. We love you very much. Please grab your Bible and a journal, perhaps a pen, and be ready to take some notes and let's learn together through the book of Acts. Thanks to those of you who are joining us online, whether you're behind bars or whether you are out watching us on YouTube, we're super glad that you're with us. We're in Acts chapter 6 tonight and super excited just to sort of get reoriented to our context and where we were when I dropped off a couple of weeks ago. We have been, of course, in Acts for several months now and we can see by now the church is exploding. I mean like just literally just exploding and they're just growing in numbers and in influence. I don't know if you've noticed, but it seems like the more Peter and the Apostles get arrested, the bolder they get. They're like, yeah, okay, great, and they just get more motivated, not more quiet. And so they're kind of confounding the religious leaders who don't know what to do with them. I think they got even bolder when one of the hosts of heaven literally comes in and breaks them out of jail and they're like, oh man, we got heaven on our side. What else is there, right? So that was exciting. And then in chapter 5, when we were here together the last time, the wise Pharisee Gamaliel spoke up and told the religious leaders, you better be careful. You better be careful. You probably need to just let this happen the way it will because there were some other guys, you know, they got a following and then it just sort of petered out. And they got a following and then it just sort of dissipated. And he said, you don't really want to be opposing God.

That if God is in this, you need to be careful. So we're thankful for him. He spoke some wisdom, you know, they got a little beating and went on their way happy to have received it. Remember that? It's just kind of crazy, the whole thing. So now here we are, and of course 2,000 years later, it hasn't stopped, right? You know, like, these are our ancestors, right? The movement that began in Acts really began long before Acts, but guys, this is the movement. We're in the movement. Our church was founded because of these apostles, right, who poured into some others, who poured into some others, and generations and generations and generations, and here we are. And that means when you get to pour into some others, we're just perpetuating the movement, right? Because it's not gonna stop. God doesn't need us, but we get to be part of it, and that is the true, true joy. So now tonight we're turning to chapter 6, kind of turning the page, and we've got a somewhat famous story. You've probably, if you've been around church life, you've probably heard this one. If you haven't, that's okay, but a fascinating little picture here of what was happening as they basically, the church is growing so fast, you know, when you grow, you've got to get organized a little bit better, you know what I mean? Like, of course, I know you guys have figured this out. You're a part of a really growing church. Like, guys, we cannot do things this week exactly the way we did things last week, because guess what? There's gonna be more babies this Sunday than there were last Sunday, and there's gonna be more senior adults this Sunday than there were last Sunday. That's just the way our church is growing, guys. We are just expanding, and so just like the early church, we're always having to think about our systems and our organizational patterns, and so tonight we see a really key pattern here in what they did when the disciples were increasing in number. So let's just look at it together. Chapter 6, we're gonna run verses 1 through 7 tonight. So 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. The twelve summoned the full number of the disciples, and they 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. What they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. These they said 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 get this, a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Okay, well what have we here, right? Again, they were experiencing growing pains, okay? And you know, when you were a kid and you were going through growing pains, it's kind of something's hurting. Mom, what is it that's hurting? Well, you're just growing, you know what I mean? And sometimes you grow faster than others, and you might have more pain than other times. Well, any organization that is a growing organization experiences growing pains, and the church, yes, it's a group of people, but it wasn't just haphazard, right? I mean, they had to start organizing in some ways, and our God is a God of order. You know that about God? God is orderly in everything that He does. He could have just thrown the world out there and just let it go, figure it out. No, He created the most amazing order to our bodies, right? He didn't just create us, I mean, He created us with cells, right? And all the way down to mitochondria and all the little things. Our God is so orderly, and so His church needs to be orderly, right? If you're part of a gathering of believers and it's just chaotic all the time, I mean, it's one thing we want to, of course, we're gonna follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and we don't, sometimes we get a little off and things here and there, but guys, it's to be orderly, and different people have different ideas of what order looks like, but that's really a lot about what this is, so I want us to look a little bit at what we're seeing here. Of course, these growing pains, a lot like what we feel here, and so because of the

growing pains, there was a complaint. Okay, now I know probably nobody in the room has complained because of the growing pains that we're experiencing in our church, have you? Because I'm sure nobody's ever gotten your seed in there that didn't know any better, and they probably hadn't gotten your parking place out there. Guess what, guys? Those are growing pains, right? Guess what? Nobody new knows what your seed is because we don't have a seed in there. All of this, you know, it all belongs to everybody, right? So we, growing churches have to see things through a different look, so what was the complaint that came up between these two groups in the church? That's exactly right. Okay, now let's dissect it a little bit like you know I like to do. Let's get in there and figure it out. So there were two groups within the church that are named in verse 1. Who are those two groups? The Hellenists and the Hebrews, okay? Your Bible might say the Grecians for the Hellenists, okay? I want to explain who those two groups of people are because those were just, again, within each church there might be people from different backgrounds, okay? And our church, we've talked about this before, when we made the decision as a church that we would remain Southern Baptist but remove Baptist from our title that we would not lead the first thing people know is Baptist, but it would be like the second or third thing that they might find out when they get here. What happened is our church became much more diverse, not just race, but by the people's Christian backgrounds, right? How many of you in the room grew up in a background that was not Baptist? You see this, guys? This is a Baptist church. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that we are preaching the Word of God, right, and we're staying true to it. We're proud to be Baptist. We're not hiding the fact that we're Baptist, but guys, that's a pretty interesting statistic in this room. Imagine what it is in the larger room. Guys, we got people from all sorts of backgrounds, right, and we all sometimes tend to think, well, the way we do it is the way it's supposed to be done because that's how we grew up doing it, and that's just the way it's supposed to be done. Well, the Hellenists and the Hebrews grew up from two different backgrounds and sometimes didn't see

things the same way, okay? So as the church grows, they've got people that were the Hebrew Christians or those who remained in Palestine and used the Hebrew language. Of course, we call them the Hebrews, okay? Easy enough. Those who were scattered among the Gentiles and spoke what language? Somebody tell me? Greek, right? Okay, Hellenists. Greek, if you know anything about your history, you know that's the Greek language. They used the Greek Old Testament, that is otherwise known as the Septuagint. You can really impress your friends if you use that word, or just forget about it altogether. But you're going to hear of that if you study and things like that. Sometimes we go back and look at the Septuagint, okay? That's just the Greek Old Testament is all that is, okay? So the Hellenists had one perspective on how to do things. The Hebrews had another perspective on how to do things. And who in this was doing the complaining? The Hellenists, okay? We're not throwing them under the bus, I'm just making an observation here. The Hellenists were saying that they were having a problem. But if you look at it real closely, I'm going to read the verse again, just verse 1. In these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose by the Hellenists against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So here's some things we learned about the early church in just that one verse. We've already said there's more than one group, right? Not necessarily factions, it's not like they were all fighting, but they just saw it a little differently, right? They just came up with a little different background. So there was a little bit of division, not in a bad way. So sometimes, I will say this, history will tell us that sometimes the Hebrews would look down on the Hellenists because the Hebrews were always near the temple and the traditions and they're kind of the traditional group, if you want to say. And the Hellenists are kind of new to the project, and so they didn't always see the

same things. But when we see this daily distribution, you see that? They were having a daily distribution. What do you perceive that that would have been? Provisions for the needy. And where did all of that come from? Think back to what we've talked about over the last five chapters. Yeah, everybody in the church was always right. They were holding their things loosely, and so they're all trying to help each other. Somebody was sharing with us yesterday, we had a group's training with a consultant who came in to give our group's team some helping us with some strategy and things as we grow as a church. And he was reminding us that 90% of people in this time and in this place were very, very poor. 90%. So the whole living commonality and all of those sort of things, it was also, it's not just a Christian culture thing. The Christians were doing it better than anyone, but guys, there was a lot of need. There was more poverty per capita among the early church than maybe we would see in our church experience. So they were all helping one another. The daily distribution obviously refers to the fact that the sharing with each other got organized and became a daily handout of some type. So when that happened, it kind of reminds me, this little question, some of you guys have worked in preschool, and have you ever heard them saying, well, he got more goldfish than me? Y'all ever heard that? It kind of reminds me of like the preschool, but anyway, the Hellenists are like, well, they're not getting as much as these over here, and what's going on, and we're not being treated really good.

Now, we don't know how, if they were saying it in a condescending, mean way, but we can see they're trying to come with a problem, and let's get a solution. Now one thing I want you to notice that is very important before we step out of verse one is why were they doing this with widows? Anybody got an idea? Okay, of course a widow, generally speaking, would be a person who is in more need than another person. Now that doesn't mean that every widow is destitute, okay? We have widows in the room, we've got widowers in the room, it doesn't mean that, but in this biblical time and the way their society was organized, a widow was in a very vulnerable position, okay? Now I don't know if you've noticed this, I think I've mentioned it in here before because I love this, but turn, if you would, back to Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 18, and I want you to see an emphasis that actually spans from cover to cover in this Bible that includes widows always in a list with two other groups of people. Some of you probably already know who they are, but somebody, when you get there, read Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 18. Nice and loud. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Okay, and who is that he that Deuteronomy 10 is talking about? Deuteronomy 10, 18, if you missed that. He's talking about God, and He is described as helping especially three groups of people. And guys, I promise you, I could give you a list of about 15 verses from cover to cover in this Bible where those three groups of people are listed together. That God cares for those three groups of people especially, and that His church is to care for those three groups especially. The three groups are widows, orphans, and who? The stranger, which is referring to immigrants, people who are in a land that is not their own land.

It's part of God's name. It's one of His names. Yes, it is. Father to the fatherless. Yes. Guys, it's just inherent in God's character to care for the most vulnerable. And so we're not trying to, again, we're not looking down on anybody for their background, but you think about it. All three of those groups of people are very vulnerable in any society. If you're outside of your homeland, right, you're a little bit disoriented sometimes. How many in the room have either traveled to another country or, how many have traveled to another country? Okay, how many have lived in another country? And when you live in another country, it just feels different, doesn't it? You're like, wait, I don't have the same rights and privileges here, right? I'm not like a sub-human here, but I'm not, when we lived in Brazil, it just felt a little different. I had to do things, whatever they said, right? Dave? When I was probably 10 to 12, my dad was in the airports, and we went to Germany for three years right after World War II. And we, as a Boy Scout troop, we'd actually go into the village. These people, they would be excited if we brought a cardboard box that they could burn and have heat in their fireplace. So, at a young age, it was interesting. Exactly, yes. So those three groups of people, guys, of course, we've already talked about the widows and why they would be vulnerable, talked about the sojourner or the stranger or the immigrant and why they're vulnerable. What about the fatherless?

Aren't they perhaps the most vulnerable of all? Right? So, these are children who have lost parents for whatever reason. And that's why, I mean, you look at James 1.27 is another really good spot where it talks about pure religion before God our Father is this, taking care of orphans and widows in their distress. Like you said, you can talk to me about religion, but here's religion, let's put the pen to paper, let's do something to help somebody in a serious thing of need. And so, the church is to be God's arm within the world of caring for the most vulnerable. And so, all of those things to say, they're just doing what the Old Testament taught them to do. The new church is just looking at, oh, okay, well, yeah, we're going to take care of widows. These are some of the most vulnerable among us. So verse two, I like it because not only did they come with a problem, they were solution-oriented. Okay? You ever had a boss or somebody say, hey, don't bring a problem to me unless you've got a solution to go with it. That's actually really good advice. It might be a bad solution, but I need at least a solution. Like come up with something, but don't just hand me a problem and say, well, I don't know what to do. Well, we got to think so, but they got a solution, okay? So the solution in verse two is, the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Well, the solution is verse three, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, and we will appoint to this duty, but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. So basically you've got in this, they've got a plan, but couched around that plan is the reason why we need a different plan. It had to do with priorities.

I think if you just isolated this verse, especially that verse two, it almost could sound arrogant, couldn't it? I mean, it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. As if they were speaking like that was beneath them. No, no, no, no, no. That's not at all what they're trying to say. Number one, why would, in this era, why would the apostles have an even more primary purpose? primary role of being the teachers and setting in order the church. They've been with Jesus, guys, and there's nobody that compared to the apostles. They needed to, we've got, we've got direct orders from the king and we're the ones to maintain this. Nobody else got the privilege of walking with the king like we did. And those of you who are now walking with him, right, in the spirit, haven't had the kind of time that we've had with him. So these guys are like, okay, this is not saying, oh, we just can't wait on tables. No, that what they're saying is we've got some priorities and there were two. What were their priorities? You see it right now. I think verse four, praying and preaching the word. Okay. Now I'll just tell you something you, a lot of you don't know in the room, but one of the things that our staff does on every Thursday afternoon at one 30, you can show up any Thursday if you want to. At one 30, you'll meet the whole staff of this church in the lobby and we have walkthrough and walkthrough means the whole staff, Lane's here, Lane's my witness. He knows he's, he's part of walkthrough every week. We gather around and we are all given assignments around getting everything ready. Like we go and straighten chairs in the, in, in there we stack chairs, we move this, we do that. We just do a lot of things. It unifies us as a staff and it's, it's just servant leadership. And when we, before we leave to go do our tasks, we all do our hands like this and we go, we stack chairs.

Now it might sound kind of funny, but what we're trying to say and what our staff is building, Dave Kenny's the one that created this years ago when he was here, is that the staff is not above stacking chairs. We are not too good to stack chairs. We can do anything anybody else can give us a mop, give us whatever we need to. If we need to clean the toilet, we'll do it. We're here to serve the church. So I think that's not, that's not exact. That's not what these guys are saying here. What they're saying is we need to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Okay. So the 12 gathered the others, making sure they could maintain the right priorities. And, uh, they said, you know, serving the widows of course was an incredibly important ministry task. And this was not downplaying that. We're not a church nor do we ever need to be with a country club mentality. That's like, I'm here catered to my needs. Do what I need. Yes. When both parents had leprosy, did the children go with them or were they basically orphans raised by their parents? That is a very specific question that I don't know the answer to. But you've been thinking on that one. It just kind of came to you. Yeah. About, about the fatherless. Yeah. And we know how those who had leprosy were ostracized from the community. That's a great question. Does anybody know the answer in the room? Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Paul, just, just tell us. Okay. Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Yeah. So they didn't want to take a chance on communicating a very communicable disease to the children who were not, and it may would have made the children unclean as a parent would consider. So yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Thanks for asking. Anything, any questions at any time? Okay. You can throw me off as much as you want to.

But look, no, it was, it was very much, it was very, it was very much in line, but kind of the idea that I had, you know, we have people and, and I've seen people in churches over the years and serving in churches for multiple decades now who come to church kind of with a country club mentality. You know, it's kind of like, okay, I'm going to pay my dues and I need you to do this for me and this for me and this for me. And then I'm going to go out. Right. Put on the show, please. I'm ready for the show. I feel really good now. I've been to church done. And I'm out guys. That's not biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity is we're all part of the team. We've got a lot that we need to do here. If we're going to reach this community, sign me up, coach, put me in, what can I do? And so that's what we see modeled here. And I want us to look if we would add another passage that is so super important and it is in Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus. Okay. So in our Bibles, it's going to be called Ephesians. I alluded to this verse because this is a very important verse that we're actually seeing acted out in Acts. So of course this letter to the church in Ephesus came later than what we're reading in the book of Acts because Paul is not yet on the scene. He's coming soon. Give it another month or so. We'll probably be talking about Paul. But Paul wrote letters to the churches and was giving them instruction about things. And he is clarifying the role of church leaders in Ephesians chapter 4. The whole chapter is amazing, but I want us just to read verses 11 through 14. Because what's happening here is Paul recognized that as the churches continued to grow, everyone needed to have a clear understanding. Okay, now what's the pastor's role? What are the leaders here, what are they to do? Are the leaders here to do the ministry for us and we just watch them do it?

Oh, you know, we pay them to do that. Guys, I've been in churches before where I've heard those words said by someone who didn't want to volunteer. Don't we pay people to do that? Guys, everybody in a growing church shows up saying, What can I do to serve? How can I do this? Obviously, we do not pay everybody to do all the things that happens in this church. I want us to read verses 11 through 14 and I'm just going to read it here. This is Ephesians chapter 4. He gave the apostles, this is Jesus who gave, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers. Different groups of some primary categories of spiritual leaders. And here's what he gave them to do, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. As a pastor, I'm called of God to the role of pastor, of shepherd. That's what pastor means, you know, it's just shepherd. I am called by God not to do the work of ministry for the saints. I am called to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. And this Acts chapter 6 here is where we're starting to see that organizational pattern starting to play out. Oh, okay, we're not doing everything. This group is not going to wait on the tables, not because we're above it, but because we have different priorities, and this group we're going to equip to do this.

Now, they didn't leave the widows with just any old Tom, Dick, and Harry, did they? No, they chose men of God. They chose men full of the Spirit, and we're going to talk through that. But guys, this is a very important thing to look at. Guys, as you do the work of ministry, as you can see in this whole progression, the body of Christ is built up, and we all mature. You want to know how to mature? Yes, we need to sit in our Bibles, and we need to grow, but you want to know a really great way to mature? Get in the game. Like, get in there and serve, and you will grow. Denise. That's very good. That's exactly right. Those are the kind of things that we're trying to create here, and maturity comes as you get equipped to do the work of ministry. We talk a lot as staff about having conversations. Some of you didn't even know that a staff member had this with you, but you've had this conversation. Some staff member has come to some of you, and they've tapped you on the shoulder, and they've basically had an I-see-in-you conversation. You know what an I-see-in-you conversation is? I see what God is doing in your life, and I know that God could use you in this role. Guys, we're not just trying to fill gaps. We're trying to release the people of God into ministry. Yes. Yes. 1 Corinthians 12. What does it say? Please. Exactly. Yeah. We're all part of the body, doing different things, working together.

So that's what we can see here is the apostles here are gathering up the saints to equip them to do the work of ministry. You know, children, especially when they're young, they need everything done for them. Adults do not. Well, here's the thing guys, spiritual children need to be fed. Listen to this, maturing believers need to learn how to feed themselves and to feed others. Everybody gets the privilege of serving in some way or other and so I want us to just see who they choose to serve the widows in verse 4, okay? I want us to see this. Look at verse 4. We're going to choose, appoint to this duty, hold on let me let me get there, sorry about that. Yes, we will devote ourselves to prayer in the ministry of the Word. I'm sorry, we're gonna go back to verse 3. I put the wrong verse there. We're gonna pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, and that's who we're going to appoint to this duty. So seven men among you of good reputation, that's what repute means, okay? We are actually in a season right now in our church of deacon nomination, okay? We've got a couple of deacons in this room. Raise your hand if you're a deacon in this room. A couple of deacons in the room. You may not have known that because deacons aren't, it's not a place where we're trying to lift people up in honor and let's have the Hall of Fame of the deacons of the church, okay? No, I've been in churches where that was a thing. Some of you have too. We're laughing, but we've been in places where it was like, it's not that we don't show honor to deacons, but guys, this passage that we're talking about today is like the heartbeat of when the deacon type ministry was born. They weren't calling them deacons in this passage just yet, but they're gonna start calling them deacons. You want to know that one of the responsibilities of our deacons is taking care of our widows. Why is that? Because that's what they were doing in the beginning here in the book of Acts. We make sure every widow or widower, every homebound person in our church that we know of, is on a list that our deacons divide that list up and check in on those people. Some of you in this room know that because you've had those

check-ins. Raise your hand if you've had one of those check-ins from somebody, and whether you need it or not, how did that make you feel? Yeah, it feels like you're cared for, okay? Because we want to see our church just tries to organize itself by the Bible. We don't do everything right, guys, but I just want you to see the roots of where this all came from and why we do things the way that we do, and this is why. We're told here, choose men with a solid reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom. I think the second two really kind of one flowing out of the other, right? If you're full of the Holy Spirit, then you are full of wisdom, right? But I think that also would lay out, it doesn't say that in this list, and we're not going to go to other places. There are other places that give more description of a deacon, but guys, generally speaking, it's not someone brand new to the faith. Is that putting down new believers? Absolutely not. No, we got a lot of new believers in this church, and praise God that we do, okay? But a deacon is someone who is growing in wisdom, right? And who others look at. Right now in our digital worship guide, which you can see on Sunday, you can click on it, is the deacon nomination form because as our church has grown, we need to grow our deacon body so that there are more quiet servant leaders who are just taking care, right, of areas in the church. Just servant type things, guys. You want to know who I call when I hear about someone in need in our church? I generally call the chairman of our deacons, who happens right now to be Bruce Poole, if you know him. Incredible man of God, man of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, and we've got a whole host of men that would fit that category. And so guys, it is a servant role. It is meant to be kind of a quiet role. It's just, we're here to serve. I love what it says here that, you know, they're gonna care for the widows, and then look at where it says, what they said pleased the whole gathering, and then they chose, they give a list. And I want us to kind of walk through this list because I think the list is interesting. One thing about the list, well, I'll just read the list again. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, chose Philip, and then Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, if that's

how you say it, I don't know, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. Now you don't know this, and I wouldn't have except that I looked it up. those are all Greek names. So what that's telling us is this particular group was chosen almost certainly were all Hellenists, okay? That's not saying that the Hebrew men would not have taken care of these Hellenist widows, but that's just the way that it played out this time, okay? So let's let's think about each one of these men and what we know about them. Anybody ever heard of Stephen? Yeah, yeah, we're about to get to Stephen. I don't know if you if you look down to verse 8, coming soon, okay? Next week we're gonna get to know Stephen and Stephen is a very famous character in the book of Acts, okay? Sadly it's gonna be a short story, okay? But we're gonna hear about it, okay? So we've got Stephen and you've heard of him. You've got Philip. Anybody ever heard of Philip? Okay, real famous guy in the book of Acts. Had a really amazing interaction with an Ethiopian eunuch, and we're gonna get there, okay? It's a great story in the book of Acts. So you know those guys. Now how many of you guys remember the story of Prochorus? Yeah, that's one of Lane's over here bowing his head. Yeah, yeah. We don't know much about him because Prochorus' name is never mentioned again. There is some church tradition, okay? So this is not in the Bible, hear me, but church tradition says that he was one of the 70 that Jesus sent out. Remember that 70? You know, there's a lot of people in the New Testament that they're not named. So some church traditions would say that and that he died as a martyr. Maybe that's true. I don't know. Then you got Nicanor, Timmon, and Parmenas. You know those guys? Completely unknown, right? Sounds like Parmesan, doesn't it? That last guy looks like he just flipped S and N and you got Parmesan. So that's not him. Totally unrelated. Then you got Nicholas. We got just a little bit, they at least said proselyte from Antioch, which means he converted to Judaism and then became a Christian, okay? So he became Jewish, a Gentile who became Jewish and then became a Christian. So two out of the seven are well-known. I just don't think that that is, I think that's by design, guys. That's not what this kind of ministry is about. This is just quiet

sermon ministry. Yes, sir. When I was selected to be a deacon years ago, one of the things the pastor had taken us through deacon training was like a week-long training. One of the things he emphasized, and I never go back to prove it, but he talked about the name deacon, which they weren't called deacons as you pointed out, but that's the foundation. Sure it is. But that word really means out of the dust. That was the point he was trying to make. This is a servant position. Of course, I grew up in a church where the deacons were like, you know, they were kind of floating on the air. Everything was done only if the deacon wanted to. That's not what deacons are supposed to do. No, no, no. It's purely a servant ministry, but I have also been a part of churches where deacons were a part of the organizing structure, not for servant, but for power, like where there's power struggles. And guys, I just want you to know something about United City Church. That is not what our deacons are at all. Like, zero. There's none of that. They are a group of servants who are here to serve the church, and we don't need to look at them as more anything than anybody other than great servants. Like Jesus washing the feet. Exactly. Thank you so much. So that is something for you to know, and they, of course, in verse 6, these they set before the Apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them, okay? Some of you have probably been to a deacon ordination service. We're raising our hands a lot tonight like a bunch of Pentecostals. Somebody raise your hand if you've been to a deacon ordination service, right? Yeah. When we go through all of this process of deacon nomination, I'm sure there will be some men who are interviewed. That's the way that it works. There's an interview process first with some of our deacon leadership to let's make sure that we're right, that we're at the same place spiritually, that we're on the same path. We're in support of the church in every way. But what I want you to know is, at that deacon ordination service, we will do this exact thing. We will lay our hands on them, and that's just a symbolism.

You guys gave the same symbolism Sunday morning when you reached out your hands. It's not like you're radiating, you know, like a superhero, you know, magic power towards us. But we're just symbolizing the very same thing. When you're in a big body like we have here, that's the way we want everyone to feel like we're blessing you, we're sending you, we love you, we trust you, we're excited for your mission, and we're in support of you. And so I do want to just give just a super brief, but just to help, I wanted this to be a little bit instructional, because deacon ministry is a quiet ministry in the church, and many people don't even know what it is and how it works. But you are a part of deacon ministry because this is that season that we just go through every few years, when if there's someone that you know, a man of God in this church that you feel like would fit those descriptions, and again, there's more that the scripture gives us a little bit later in the epistles, you can nominate them. Nominating someone to a deacon doesn't mean that they're going to be a deacon. They get a say in the matter, right? To choose if they're ready to step into that role of servanthood. And so I just want to encourage you to be a part of the process. I think that's the biggest thing that I want to say. I know so many men of God in this church who would fit the category beautifully, and it's just a servant role. This also is in no way to diminish the role of women in ministry in this church. I think everybody knows that this church would fall apart if it was not for all of the women who lead and who serve and who do all sorts of things in this church. And Pastor Chris has made very clear his stance on women in ministry, okay? You can just go back and look that one up on YouTube and watch. He gives very clear parameters that women have absolute places in ministry, and in this church, they're not going to be in the lead pastor role, right? And that's not what we believe to be the biblical model. But guys, we have women in high levels of leadership on our staff and in high levels

of leadership all around. This is just a role. We're just going to look at what does the Bible say, and we're just going to go by what the Bible says. That's all we need to do. No need to debate it. We're just going to go with it because the Bible is right and true. So I don't want it to look in that way, but I want you to just see the result of all this is verse 7, which is just so exciting. 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. Now it's a little bit interesting to me that verse 7 didn't read, and the widows got fed. Because I think that was the problem we started with, right? The problem that came up, the complaint was the widows aren't getting the kind of treatment that they need. But the result of equipping these men to step into ministry and to love the body well was that the word of God increased. Yes, the widows got what they needed, and that was important. But guys, the most important thing is the increase of the word of God, and we want to see the number of the disciples multiplying greatly, not just in Jerusalem, but here in our area, guys. We see the number of disciples is multiplying. And then this last little statement that I know it almost just kind of you just sort of flip over it if you're not careful. A great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. What does that mean? I thought priests were religious people and doing the right thing. Yeah, there were so many of the priests, right, who were in religious roles, and they knew things about God, and they knew a lot of the Old Testament information, but they were not yet believers in Jesus.

And when it says they became obedient to the faith, that's another way of saying that some of the religious leaders were getting saved. Then they were no longer just religious leaders. Now they're born-again believers, and they're becoming obedient to the faith. And what kind of a sway comes? When a leader has a conversion, what happens? Yeah, they carry a different weight. Not because they're necessarily more important, but people look to leaders, right? When the coach, we have a lot of coaches in our church, okay? And I'm just going to tell you something. When the head coach of one of the football teams invites his players to come with him to church, it says something to them. They're like, this is my coach? Wait. So he has an influence. And we could say that about a lot of other groups. So this is an exciting thing that religious leaders who had been opposed, and as we know, it was religious people that put Jesus on the cross. And it says here that some of the result of just the church getting organized and the church giving ministry away is that priests are becoming obedient to the faith. But again, just to go back to that Ephesians chapter 4 thing, we also see that when ministry is given away and the apostles and the prophets and those who are at a certain level of leadership start giving ministry away, the people who are ministering now start to mature, and the whole body starts to mature, and now we're just all doing ministry together, right? I mean, I was so excited just this past week. I've had an example of this because often when we have young couples, of which we have a lot in our church, who reach out, or not even necessarily young, but those who are going to get married, when they reach out to our church through our website wanting premarital counseling, and those requests come to my desk, and that's not because I do all the premarital counseling, because goodness knows I couldn't do that.

But we're getting an increasing number of young couples, which is great, right? That's young couples wanting biblical guidance before they get married. Don't we want more of that? I mean, let's get off on the right foot. So I got another one the other day, and I just started one. I'm like, man, what are we going to do? And I was like, well, you know what, I'm going to reach out to one of our ministry leaders, because you know we have Re-Engage, which is a wonderful marriage discipleship ministry that happens on Wednesday nights. So I reached out to Craig Hammond. I'm like, Craig, who's also a deacon, great servant. I said, Craig, we've got so many young couples reaching out for premarital counseling, and the staff, like it's becoming more than the staff can handle. And I said, why don't you reach out to some of your trained marriage leaders and see if some of them would be interested in doing it. I mean, it wasn't an hour later, I had like five couples said, yeah, we'd love to do premarital counseling. And I'm like, see, that's how the church is supposed to work. It's not the pastors and the staff doing everything for the congregation. It's us kind of like rallying the troops. Hey, we've got some ministry to do over here. Let's go do it, right? We need your help doing this. And so I could have had the joy, because I love doing premarital counseling. It's amazing. It's truly a joy. I'm going to do some literally in one hour. I've got a couple coming in that I'm going to get to talk to. I love it, but I want everybody else to get to have the experience of the joy of ministry. I don't want to take that from all of you. I want you to get to experience that joy as well. OK, I want us to close. It's about six o'clock and we got others coming in here in just a minute. You know, did you guys see that now our church, we started financial peace last Sunday morning, and this room is full. Thanks again for joining us verse by verse through the book of Acts.

I hope that you have learned a lot. More importantly, I hope that you'll apply these things to your life this week. Share it with a friend. Great thing for you to just have some discussion with the other people around you. Share the things that God is doing in your life. Again, remember the Bible is a book about God far more than it is a book about us. So let's learn about him. Let's grow to love him more and more. Here at United City, this is not the only thing that we have on the Pando app. We would love for you to follow some of our other content. Some of our worship services, along with music and the messages, as well as podcasts. We've got a lot of great content. We would love for you to follow that. Also, if you would like to be in touch with us here at United City, the best way to do that is by writing us a letter. You can address that to Prison Ministry at United City Church, 1-9901 Townsend Boulevard, Humble, Texas, 77338. We'll read that, we'll pray for you, and somebody will write you back. God bless you, and we'll see you in the Word.