Acts 6:1-7 - Being Truly Deeply Seen

Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful

that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either

by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray

for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,

I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,

they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will

do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a

non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't

hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the

types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

Let's pray. Father, we are in your presence. You have spoken to us through your Word. We ask,

Father, that you would so move in our hearts, that our hearts would be hungry for your Word,

open and receptive to your Word, and that your Word would form us, that your Word would give us life.

And we ask this in Jesus' name, your Son, Father, and our Savior. Amen.

Amen. So this is going to be a big surprise to you, all of you. Thank you very much, John. This is going

to be a very big surprise to you all. But I was in a coffee shop this week, and something happened.

Some of you might wonder if I have a life apart from coffee shops. I don't. I'm exceptionally boring.

I think to myself, if the Canadian government or the Chinese government wants to follow me along

and listen in on me, I'd put them to sleep by how boring my life is, by the standards of the world.

Anyway, so I come into the coffee shop, and there's like a table. I'm sitting down, and then there's

like two other tables quite close. And there's a young woman at both of the other tables. They're

obviously friends. They're chatting away. They're probably... I'm getting really old. They're

probably PhD students. I thought they were undergrads, but who knows how old they're. Young

women, from my point of view. And they're chattering away. And as I'm putting my stuff down, I notice

that there's a bracelet on the... There's a bracelet on the ground. So I say to them,

is this your bracelet? Because if it's not, I take and give it into the cash so that, you

know, whoever had it could get it back. And one of the young women looked and said, oh,

yeah, that's mine. And so I picked it up and give it to her. And she said, oh, thank you.

That's my support Palestinians bracelet in the Hamas war, in the, you know, the liberation of

Palestine. So, you know, I gave it to her. And then we had this short conversation. She was very

bubbly, not angry or aggressive. She was a very bubbly type of personality. And she said to me with

a big smile, you support the Palestinians against the Israelis, don't you? Just like that, with a big

smile. Like, of course, I'm going to say yes. And I said, so here's the thing. Some of you know,

I can be, I can be sinfully opinionated about politics. But I don't want to talk about politics

at a coffee shop. I want to be able to share the gospel with people and not talk about politics.

So I can't remember what I said. I sort of dodged it. But she was persistent. She, I guess,

was an evangelist for the Palestinian cause. So she's very insistent. And then finally, I said

something about how I, you know, I wasn't really in favor of what Hamas. And, you know, I didn't say

Palestinians as I was in favor of Hamas. And then she comes back all with this bubbly, almost flirtatious

type of encouraging me to agree with her. And then she said, well, you surely you don't agree with a

group of people who bomb hospitals. So I sort of, I probably went like this. Like, you really want me

to talk about this? So I said to her, well, they shouldn't hide missiles in hospitals. And they

shouldn't shoot Israelis from hospitals. And they shouldn't store their weapons in the hospitals

and underneath it. And she just looked at me with a big smile. She said this. And this was the part,

the parting word. The Jews are always killing Muslim babies.

The Jews are always killing Muslim babies. Now, I said it to you seriously. She said, the Jews are

always killing Muslim babies. Just like 30 seconds after that, she was talking with her friend about

where to get their nails done and what hairstyle to get with their haircut. It was just like a bubbly,

common sense thing, as if everybody knows that. The same thing that I would say, oh, that's King Edward

over there. She would just say, oh, the Jews are always killing Muslim babies. I don't want anybody

to think that I always know the right thing to say in situations. And I didn't know what to say to that.

Like, I'd never come across such a deeply horrific, anti-Semitic statement. And some of you know,

there's a phrase about the banality of evil. And that was a perfect example. Like, she just,

she was cheerful about making that statement. And I literally did not know what to say.

I've prayed for her off and on, you know, since then. I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to

see her again. I'd never seen her in that particular coffee shop before, but maybe I will.

And maybe next time I come across such a statement, I'll know what to say. Now, I'm saying all of this

because the Bible text that we're looking at today is a story about prejudice causing division

in the early church. And some biblical commentators try to downplay the prejudice, but they shouldn't

downplay the prejudice. There is prejudice, and it becomes noticeable and a source of complaint

in the early church. And so we're going to look at that story. It's not the same type of prejudice

prejudice as that prejudice of the Jews are always killing Muslim babies. But all prejudice

is wrong. And all prejudice has the possibility to grow to murderous extremes and to banal extremes

so that you don't even, you're not even thinking that you should repent of it. So let's look at this

particular story. It's Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 7. Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 7. And some of you

Acts 6:1–7 Acts 6:1–7

are probably thinking, like me, that most of the times they've heard sermons on this, the prejudice

aspect sort of gets effaced or done away with, and they get into whether or not, you know, this is the

institution of deacons and stuff like that. But here's the story, and it begins like this. Acts chapter 6,

Acts 6:1–7

verses 1 to 7. Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, now just before we go any

further on that, just to explain, I've said that this is an eyewitness-based history of the first 35 years

of the Jesus movement, probably written before the year 67 or 68 AD. And there's two reasons for that. You can

ask me about that over coffee or send me an email, maybe even written in 66 or something like that.

Actually, very simply, there are two reasons it was probably written beforehand, is it ends not with

Paul having been martyred, but just in jail. And he dies, I think, in 67. And the other thing is that

Jerusalem hasn't been destroyed, and that's in 70. So it's almost definitely written before those two

events, Paul's death by execution under Nero, martyred, and before the destruction of Jerusalem.

And so in this phrase, it's not like once upon a time language. In fact, what it is, is in the

original language, it's, you know, there's a God, I think it's a Greek God, Janus. He's a God that looks

both ways at the same time. And it's a very helpful thing. Sometimes there's parts of the Bible that are

Janus texts. They look both ways at the same time. And so it's a linking phrase. It's referring to the

fact back to what's just happened. And this is all within probably a year of the death and

resurrection of Jesus. And it's looking at what just happened, which was the apostles all arrested,

spending the night in jail, rescued by the angel, their witness before the Sanhedrin,

Gamaliel having them spared from execution, but they're still whipped. And they rejoice that they

have this honor to bear witness to Jesus and the church grows. And so that's what they're linking

to this. The church is growing. There's hostility, but the church is growing. 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.

And in the original language, the word neglected is a very good word. It's a very accurate word. They

were being neglected. Now, a couple of things. First of all, Hellenists and Hebrews, there's no really

good way to translate it into English. This is a cultural distinction. And so basically, it's a

distinction between two groups of people who would have been living in Jerusalem in those days.

What they call the Hellenists are people who, the Jewish people, just like today, you know,

there's Jewish people all over the world. Lots of Jewish people in Ottawa, Vancouver, Manhattan,

and there's also some in Israel, of course. So the Hellenists are Jewish people who have been part of

this diaspora, maybe for decades, maybe for generations and generations. And they've lived in the pagan

world, the Greek-speaking, Latin-speaking world. But they've now come back to live in Jerusalem or in

the area. And they have become culturally Greek. That's what they've become. So, you know, if they're

going to have their salad, it's going to be a Greek salad with lots of feta cheese and black olives.

It's, you know, so the food they eat, the jokes they tell, the stories they tell, the things they

remember, they all come out of a Greek culture. What are called the Hebrew, so it doesn't, they all

speak Greek probably, but it doesn't necessarily mean they don't speak Hebrew or Latin or Aramaic.

But they're culturally Greek. The Hebrews are long-time Palestinian Jews. And just one other aside,

we all know that in this culture, for me to talk about Palestinian Jews living in Jerusalem in the

year 34 is a political statement, would be viewed as a political statement, maybe even as something

colonizing, which is ridiculous. For most of this stuff, we have to have belly laughs at it,

because it's ridiculous. C.S. Lewis once said the devil, I think he was quoting Thomas More or

something. The devil hates to be mocked, hates to be laughed at. Maybe that's what we need more of.

But this Hebrew group are people who are mainly long-term Palestinian Jews. Their primary language

would not be Greek, but Aramaic. Now, they might also speak Hebrew and Greek, by the way, but culturally,

they are comfortable, most comfortable that Palestinian Jewish culture. Now, just to show that

it's not specifically talking about language, is, you know, some of you know the Bible very well,

know that later on in another place, Paul writes that he's a Hebrew of Hebrews. And he uses the same

word for Hebrew. But he himself was from the diaspora. He himself grew up not in Jerusalem,

but somewhere else. But culturally, he's a Palestinian Jew, and he refers to himself that way.

So there's this cultural difference, two culturally different communities in the same physical area,

and there's tension between them. And people from both communities become Christians. And now people

from the lesser, in a Jerusalem context, they are the lower ones. Like maybe if they were in Athens,

the Hebrews would be the lower ones. But in Jerusalem, they're the lower ones, the Greek-speaking

Jews. And look what it says again. They arose a complaint by these group against the Hebrews,

the Hebrew Jewish Christians, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Now, one of the things which must have made this neglect especially hard is the neglect comes in the

context of jaw-dropping generosity and love. Like just jaw-dropping, gobsmacking generosity and love.

If you go back and you read, what they're doing is they're caring for the poorest of the poor.

And how are they caring for them is people with means are selling their property and making huge

financial contributions so that the least of the least can be cared for. That's like jaw-dropping,

jaw-dropping generosity, jaw-dropping love. And in the context of jaw-dropping generosity and love,

there is prejudice still. And the prejudice leads to this one group being neglected.

So what do they do? What are they going to do about it in the rest of the story?

And by the way, in the ancient world, in our Canadian culture, we all think we know what should

be done. And one of the things, and if you haven't read Tom Holland's book, Dominion, or if you haven't

read Glenn Scrivner's book, The Air That We Breathe, everybody should read Glenn Scrivner's book, The Air

That We Breathe, which is shorter and easier than Tom Holland's book, Dominion. But in the ancient world,

the Roman centurion would say, what's the issue? Who cares about widows?

They would say, in fact, the natural order of things is the strong.

Stay strong. We earned it. We deserve it. The gods demand that we be fed.

Who cares about widows? They're just women.

People in Canada who are going to critique this story unwittingly are speaking like Christians

without realizing it. But what are they going to say? Well, let's see what the apostles say.

And it's actually quite shocking to Canadian ears. If we just listen to it, you think about how you

read this with your neighbors. Verse 2, so the 12 and the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples

and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

What? What did they just say? There's a complaint about prejudice. There's a complaint about people,

the least of the least, going hungry. And the first thing they want to say is, it is not right

that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables?

Now, let's be honest. All of our Canadian neighbors would say that's the wrong answer.

That's the wrong answer.

Now, in a Canadian culture, we'd be expecting an apology. We'd be expecting resignations.

There's all sorts of things we'd be expecting. Now, just as we're trying to figure out what's

going on here, and by the way, this is the wonderful thing about walking towards difficulties

in the Bible, is that it's when you walk towards difficulties in the Bible, you know, you've heard

me say before, I wish I could find out where I, somebody asked me about it, and I'm not smart

enough to figure this out myself. Like, I read it somewhere. I just can't remember who I read it.

Like, stories like this are both a mirror for us to see ourselves and a window to see God

in the world as it really is. And so, it's when we walk towards difficult passages and

think about them that we start to see ourselves. You see, so part of the problem is that for

Canadians, Canadians generally have a silent mantra that they say to themselves. And the

silent mantra is, I need the Bible like the fish needs a bicycle. I need a Bible like a

fish needs the bicycle. I need Jesus like a fish needs a bicycle. So to say that the most

important thing is to open the Bible is like an eye-rolling comment. And that's partially because

that's how Canadians think. And so that's a bit of a problem. But the second problem with

their comment, and this is now, I'm going to talk about the Bible in a moment, but this

is to make the apostles' words actually seem a little bit more difficult and also more relatable

to why it actually is, at least in appearance, a difficult response. See, one of the things which

is going on here in the text, and it happens with prejudice, it touches on a very deep human fear

and a very deep human longing. And one of the things that we fear is being unseen and unheard.

One of the things which many women say is that when they reach a certain age, they become invisible.

Nobody sees them. Nobody sees them. Nobody sees them. It's hard to talk about, but it sure doesn't feel good.

But interestingly enough, the fear or the complaint of being unseen is genuinely an intergenerational issue.

One of the concerns for teenagers and young people is that they're unseen.

Nobody's seen them when they're thinking about what to do about the job market.

Nobody's seen them when they're thinking about what to do with housing prices and rental things.

Nobody sees them. Nobody hears them.

And then, of course, obviously for lots of other groups, people maybe even right here,

they're very frustrated because at their place of work, it feels as if when they speak, they're unheard.

And that when they're even looking for promotions or for other types of people that contribute,

they're completely and utterly unseen.

In fact, if we were in the right type of context, maybe if you're in the right type of small group

or mentoring group, if this topic came up, it might discover that one of the people in our congregation,

that they're moved to tears about the fact that they feel deeply unseen and unheard

and how deeply wounding it is.

And so their initial response

sounds a lot like

people, men,

who aren't seeing them and aren't hearing them.

But that's not what's going on.

Let's look again at what they say in verse 2 and then read the rest of what they say.

And the 12 summoned all the full number of the disciples and said,

it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Therefore, it's a funny thing there, therefore.

See, what they're doing

is they say

this neglect,

first of all, they're saying that this care

for the least of the least

is very important.

This neglect is very important.

But before we give the response,

you're also forgetting something else

which is very important,

which is the word of God

and prayer.

So now we take

the importance, it is very important

important

to care for the least of the least,

especially amongst the community.

It is very important

that there is no prejudice,

that that neglect is dealt with,

and it's very important

that God's word is preached

and that people pray.

Therefore,

and in verse 3

and following,

we see the therefore.

Therefore, verse 3,

brothers and sisters,

pick out from among you

seven men of good repute,

full of the Holy Spirit

and wisdom,

whom we will appoint

to this duty.

But we will devote ourselves

to prayer

and to the ministry

of the word.

And what they said

pleased the whole gathering,

and they chose Stephen,

a man full of faith

and of the Holy Spirit,

and Philip,

and Prochorus,

and Nicanor,

and Timon,

and Parmenas,

and Nicholas,

a proselyte of Antioch.

These they set

before the apostles,

and they prayed

and laid their hands on them.

Now you'll notice

that they're all Greek names.

This doesn't mean

that they were all

necessarily Hellenists,

but it would be very unlikely

that none of them were.

It was very common

for Palestinian Jews

to also have a Greek name,

just as it's very common

for immigrants

to come to our country

from another country,

and they have their Chinese

or their Malaysian

or their Nigerian name,

which might be hard

for Canadians to pronounce,

so they have their Chinese name

and a Canadian name,

or their Malaysian name

or their Rwandan name,

and they have a Canadian name.

It's a very common thing now,

and it's a very common thing

back then.

But it definitely shows

that they pick people

who obviously have

some degree of sympathy

with this,

and the whole congregation,

both the Hellenists

and the Hebraists,

love the solution,

love the people,

and they go for it.

So what we see here then

is that the apostles added

something which our culture

thinks is not needed.

As I said,

to the average Canadian,

I need the Bible

like a fish needs a bicycle.

I need the gospel

like a fish needs a bicycle.

In fact, you know,

and this deeply affects Christians,

I might be one of the few people

in the room,

because I'm a pastor,

I read books about, you know,

how to be a pastor and all,

and there's a very, very common

saying in evangelical circles

right now which says

that if your church

was to vanish,

would anybody in the community

notice it?

And the implication

of the question is

that it would be a terrible thing

if we vanished,

and nobody noticed it.

And what they mean by that,

then, is that really what it is,

is if the church isn't running

the Boy Scouts

and the food banks

and doing this

and doing that

and hosting the AA things

and all these things

for the community,

if they're not doing that,

then we're unimportant.

Well,

that's actually having the world

determine our agenda.

It's not what the Bible says.

The fact of the matter is

that there's only one group

in all of Canada

that will tell people

that there is a God

who truly does exist

and there is a Savior

who loves them.

It's not the Boy Scouts.

It's not any other group

like that.

It's only the church.

And so that's actually

a fundamentally important thing

for the church to do.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't

do other types of things

to help the poor.

That's not the point.

But it's...

The point is that

there is this fundamental priority

upon the church

to equip Christians

and to proclaim the gospel

so that people

who are lost

can be saved.

That's our fundamental priority.

It's the number one job.

The others are consequences

of receiving the gospel.

And the consequences

aren't the gospel.

The gospel has consequences.

Always does.

But the consequences

aren't the gospel.

What is the gospel?

Well,

the gospel is

that Christ died

for both

Hellenistic Jews

and Hebrew Jews.

Like that very,

very fundamental thing

that we worship

a God

who saw human need

and Jesus died

on the cross

for the Dalit,

the lowest caste

in India.

He died

for the elite

in Nigeria.

He died

for the Politburo

in China.

He died

for Biden

in the White House.

He died

for the slave.

He died

for,

well,

he died

for everybody.

I mean,

not everybody

receives.

But God

doesn't say,

you know,

I think I only

want white people

or I only want

black people.

No,

there's absolutely

no prejudice

in God.

And the other

thing about it

is that the gospel

is this message

that Jesus

sees you.

Like,

he sees you.

Nobody gets you

like God gets you.

He sees you.

And the amazing thing

about the gospel

is he sees you.

He sees

how you have

screwed up

your marriage.

He sees

how you've been

fantastic at your marriage.

He sees how you've

screwed up with this.

He sees

the things that you're,

he sees you

and yet even

seeing you,

you all the way

down for you,

he dies for you.

And

we have to

acknowledge that

being seen

is a complicated

issue.

How is it

complicated?

Being seen

and heard

is a bit more

complicated

because all of us

are involved

in a dance.

I want you

to know me

and see me.

I don't want you

to know

and see the things

that I've done

that are really wrong.

And you don't

want that

with me either.

One of the issues

in marriages

is,

you know,

the desire

that,

you know,

the husband

and the wife

keeping things

from each other.

things that

are embarrassed

about

and ashamed

about.

And so,

you see,

there's,

we think

that what we

want is to

be seen,

but we all

know that

in a different

context,

what we

definitely

don't want

is to have

certain things

about us

be seen.

Listen to,

listen to the

gospel,

how psychologically

insightful

and profound

the gospel

is.

If you could

put up

the text

of John

John 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3,

we're going

to just

slip to

John

John 3:16

chapter 3

verses 16,

a very famous

verse,

16 to 21.

And this

is Jesus

speaking.

For God

so loved

the world

that he

gave his

only son

that whoever

believes in

him should

not perish

but have

eternal life.

For God

did not

send his

son into

the world

to condemn

the world,

but in

order that

the world

might be

saved

through

him.

Whoever

believes

in him

is not

condemned,

but whoever

does not

believe is

condemned

already,

because he

has not

believed in

the name

of the

only son

of God.

Here's

the,

that's all

profound

stuff,

worthy of

profound

meditation

and memorization.

Listen to

this next

bit,

verse 19.

And this

is the

judgment.

The light

has come

into the

world,

and people

loved the

darkness

rather than

the light

because their

works were

evil.

For everyone

who does

wicked things

hates the

light and

does not

come to

the light

lest his

works should

be exposed.

But whoever

does what is

true comes

to the light

so that it

may be clearly

seen that his

works have been

carried out in

God.

This text

brilliantly

captures the

fact that

on one hand

we have a

profound desire

to be seen,

but that if

we're honest,

our desire to

be seen is

complicated

because we

don't want

those bad

things in

our current

life and in

our past

to be seen.

And the

wonder of the

gospel is

this.

God sees

those things

that you

hide from

yourself.

He sees

those things

that I

hide from

myself and

from others.

He sees

it.

He sees

me.

And still

he loved

me, Jesus

did, and

died for me

that I

might be

forgiven and

made right

with God.

Some of us

know that one

of the best

possible gifts

that we can

get is when

somebody gives

us a gift

that we

don't know

that we

need.

But we

really do.

Maybe it's

going to

another country

or entering

into a new

stage of life

or moving

to a new

city or

entering a

new stage

of life

like in

university

or living

on your

own or

whatever,

and somebody,

a parent or

a grandparent

gives us a

gift, and we

sort of get

the gift, and

we sort of

look at it

and think

that's sort

of odd, and

then a couple

of months in

or a year

in, all of a

sudden we

realize that,

whoa, I

really needed

that gift.

I didn't

realize I

needed that

gift.

And that's

also part of

the thing

which is so

wonderful about

the gospel.

The average

human being

doesn't realize

they need a

savior.

And God

saw and

heard our

deep needs,

and even

when we did

not desire it,

he provided,

and even

when we did

not realize

that we

needed a

savior, he

sent Jesus

to be our

savior.

savior.

And you

see then, if

you understand

why do we

need the

word of

God?

You see, what

the word of

God is, the

word of

God is sort

of expressed

in a bit

of a, sort

of a funny

type of

phrase.

If you go

through all

of the

book of

Acts, the

word of

God refers

to the

good news

about Jesus

understood in

light of

the Bible,

and the

word of

God is the

Bible understood

in light of

the good news

about Jesus.

That's what

the word of

God is.

And why do

we desperately

need it?

Because if you

think about

this, this is

exactly the

type of

medicine we

need to

deal with

neglect and

sin and not

being seen

and not being

heard.

We are

reminded from

the Bible

that God

sees me.

He even

sees the

things about

me which

are terrible.

And still

he loves me

and still

he sent his

son to die

for me.

And he

does that

for me and

for people

that I think

I'm better

than and

people that I

think,

I'm worse

than.

And he

does that.

And he

does it

without prejudice.

And if we

realize that

the very

heart of the

gospel is a

God who

sees us and

acts to us

without any

prejudice but

only with

love, how

on earth can

I then have

prejudice?

And how

could I not

desire to be

one who

sees people

and hears

them?

how could I

not be one

that if

somebody says

you're not

listening to

me that

I potentially

am really

struck to the

heart by

that?

And at the

same time

as that

sin comes

to me and

confronts me,

because I

know that

Jesus saw it

and has

forgiven me,

it gives me

a place to

stand.

And rather

than getting

defensive, and

rather than

attacking, and

rather than

getting on my

high horse, and

rather than

trying to cause

a power play,

or anything else

like that, that

I can say, it

might not be

right away, it

might be 48

hours, 72

hours, it

might be 72

days, it

might be 20

years, but say,

you know what,

you're right.

You're right.

Only the

gospel gives us

a secure place

to stand that

does not

unmake us.

that we can

acknowledge those

things, and

repent and

amend our

lives, as the

gospel becomes

more real to

us.

And that's why

you see, brothers

and sisters, it

is so essential

that the first

thing that goes

on in a church

is that the

word of God

is shared

to those who

do not know

Jesus, to

those who do

know Jesus.

It is our

life, it is

our health.

In fact, actually,

if you look, if

you could go back

to Acts, and

go to Acts

Acts 6:7

chapter 6,

verse 7, Luke

sort of coins a

phrase, he

invents an

expression, and

it's in verse

7, and the

word of God

continued to

increase.

Well, what does

that mean?

Sorry, I'll read

the whole thing.

And the word of

God continued to

increase, and the

number of the

disciples multiplied

greatly in

Jerusalem, and a

great many of the

priests became

obedient to the

faith.

It's a wonderful

picture of what

happened.

But you see, the

fact of the matter

is, it's because

it's the word of

God that feeds the

church, that creates

the church.

The church is a

creature of the

word of God.

That's what we're

seeing here in

that sect.

That's why it's so

important.

And so what's

going on here is a

very important

principle, and it's

an important

principle.

You know, when I

said that we need

to be praying about

whether we're doing

God's work and

God's way, and just

pray that God will

provide.

And part of the

thing here is to

showing that it's

not a matter that

preaching the word of

God is like this, and

everything else is

completely unimportant.

No, it's not a

matter of

importance.

There is a need for

care and for

organization and for

administration and

looking after the

little kids in Sunday

school and all that

type of stuff.

That's very important.

It's not like there's

this and there's this.

There's this.

And the church needs

to say, we need to

make sure that it's

not that my only job

should be sharing the

word and praying.

And by the way,

prayers here would have

meant both private

prayers and what we're

doing now, which is

corporate prayer.

You need to make sure

I'm spending enough

time on that, folks.

And you need to have

your small groups that

are taking time with

that.

And the Sunday school

needs to have that as

first and foremost.

But on the other hand,

like what Shannon does

for the church, like

she's going to be

stepping aside because

God's blessing her and

Owen with another baby

and like there should be

high fives all around

for what she does.

It's so important.

And for Barbara Allen

and, you know, for

Marlene and what she's

done for the Sunday

school and I could go

on and on with people

have a service heart

for the needs of

children and just the

whole congregation.

Those things are very,

very important.

They have to be done.

That's the lesson of

the text.

Lesson of the text is

these things really have

to be done.

And don't just think of

organization at the end

of the day.

You need to have that

organization involved in

such a way that the

word of God is being

proclaimed and shared and

taught and modeled.

And that there's prayer

because that's our food.

That's what we desperately

need.

That's what I desperately

need every week.

That's what we all need.

I invite you to stand.

Bow your heads in prayer.

Let's pray.

Father, you know the

different things of prejudice

that we're blind to.

Just are.

Just part of our culture

and we just sort of

accept it.

But you see it and you

hate it.

Father, we give you

thanks and praise that you

really do see us.

That at the last judgment,

nobody will be able to say

to you at the last judgment

that, God, you didn't see me.

Like, nobody will be able

to say that.

Nobody will be able to say

at the last judgment.

God, you didn't hear me.

You do see.

You do hear.

You sent Jesus to be our

Savior.

And so, Father, we ask that

this precious Jesus, the

person of Jesus and what

he's done for us, which is

so precious, will become

more and more real to our

heart so that we will be

less defensive when we're

caught out doing wrong.

We will be more open to

repent for you and when

necessary before others of

the wrong that we've done

and make amendment of life.

Father, we thank you for

the wonder of the gospel.

We ask that you would kill

any prejudice, any racism

within us.

And we ask all these things

in the name of Jesus, your

Son and our Savior, and all

God's people said, Amen.

Amen.