Grace and Growth Through Imperfection - Acts 6:1-7

It's always a challenge because we go, you know, verse by verse,

chapter by chapter through the word and it doesn't always land

perfectly on these special days. And so it's all I always wonder,

you know, how can I honor you? And also a stay true to where

we're at in the word. So today I want to do a little

bit of both. And so I think that there's some

encouragement in the word to just say on behalf of our church

to all of the moms. And, and really I've just been

saying it to everyone because as I just prayed, we all got here

through moms. So we all have people in our

lives that have brought us into the world that are our moms that

we. And for the moms that are

holding newborns, the expecting mothers, the, the moms who have

their kids grown and out of the house, the moms who have become

grandmothers. And then the just women of our

church who have that spiritual gift of, of being a motherly

disciple, or we just say thank you to you.

And I am on behalf of my son, just going to share a card that

I saw him give to his mom today. So if I could just share that

this is his Mother's Day report card.

And I just there's this I'll draw your attention down to good

listener. I loved that he gave her two out

of three there. So moms, your kids are watching

she he did great in every category.

And I, I share that card with you this morning because I want

to give you something that is better than a card to all the

moms here. I want to give you the license

and the grace to be less than perfect mothers.

I, I, I want to share a quote with you that was on my heart

for that topic. It comes from a pastor named

Colin Smith. And he says inside every virtue

there is a hidden temptation. And when God gives you a vision

to be a godly mother, you will soon find that you face this

hidden danger that you might be crushed by the sheer weight of

your own wonderful vision of what it means to be a perfect

mother. No doubt we live in the

generation of A A, a time where the moms among us have probably

read more books or listened to more podcasts, gone to more

classes or Bible studies, part of more community efforts to

support you on what it means to be an excellent mom.

And that is a beautiful thing. I think that we live in a

generation where we have beautiful examples of godly

mothers that are doing a great job.

But the hidden danger in all of the excellent vision of

motherhood, the hidden danger is that you actually become buried

under the weight of perfection. And I share that with you

because we are going through a series called The Power of the

Church. And as sure as mothers today can

live under the weight of perfection because of all of the

amazing resources that can turn into burdens, no doubt we live

in a very similar time for the church.

We live in a church age that has never had more resources about

what it means to do church well and have good theology and have

a vision for the structure and the governance and the mission

and the vision and the website and the band and the sermons and

all of the things that that we can look at in the world around

us and say, wow, what a beautiful picture of what it

means to be a church. And in the blessing there is the

burden of perfection. And when we go through this

series, week by week, we're going through the very first

history of the church and we're looking for the the things that

actually stand out in our study of the first church.

That's that we see as to why the first church was so full of

power that they went from a small group of people who were

living in fear for what had just happened to their hopeful

Messiah to changing the known world. 2000 years later, we

stand gathering on on a Sunday, worshipping the same king that

that that they worshipped as their savior.

And as we go through this series, we'll probably have to

point out at times what the power isn't.

I think that's going to be one of the benefits of looking at

the first church, to see all the beautiful ways we can be

inspired for a timeless version of church that worked in the 1st

century and will work in the 21st century.

And we'll also point out what the power wasn't and the power

that we'll see today was not the power of perfection.

When you study the book of Acts, sometimes the temptation is to

say if we could just get back to Acts when the church was just

alive and growing and multiplying and spreading, then

we ourselves would experience the power of the church.

And the temptation is that is to think that they were growing and

multiplying and they became unstoppable to the Roman world

because they had the perfect institutional church.

And we're only 6 chapters in. But if you've been with us thus

far, you know that that is not the history of the First Church.

The history of the First Church is an imperfect bunch of people

in lots of imperfect circumstances living an

imperfect community enduring because of the grace and the

power of the perfect God. And so with that in mind, we're

going to look at the imperfect church and find all these ways

to be encouraged for our imperfections.

And along the way, I want to encourage the mothers you have

license. And whatever your Mother's Day

report card looks like today, I want you to leave here with the

license to be an imperfect mom that knows the power of God's

grace. So turn with me now to Acts

Acts 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, a great story in the history of the church.

We're still in Jerusalem. We have yet to spread beyond the

the the initial movement of these first believers from

Pentecost and already just six chapters in, we will have the

imperfection of the first church giving us some valuable lessons

about the grace of God. So read with me.

We'll go verse by verse through the the the 1st 7 chapter or 7

verses starting in verse one. It says now in those days when

the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose A

complaint. We have our very first complaint

of the church and I don't know how it came in.

I tend to think it was a comment card.

Doubt it was e-mail, but it was something and and and notice

what it says. It says when the number of the

disciples was multiplying. And so this is a great moment

for us to review where we've come from.

Remember this movement started Acts chapter one with just a 100

people in the upper room waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit

as the Holy Spirit fell on the first church on Pentecost. 100

people through an explosion of the Holy Spirit using the

evangelism of Peter grows to 3000 plus and now through

chapter 4-5 and six, we're up to at least 5000 people that are a

part of this initial movement of God.

Incredible Holy Spirit empowered church explosion and now Luke

has stopped counting. He now just says they're

multiplying. It's gone beyond addition and

through the multiplication, a very important lesson comes to

know about church and to know about your life and what's true

the church will be true of your families.

That with multiplication comes more of everything.

You get more people, you get more joy.

You get more evangelism. You get more of the diversion of

spiritual gifts and all of the beautiful characters that God

brings into the church. And you get more mouths to feed.

You get more opportunity for the systems to be stress tested

about, I don't know, six months ago, my son started waking up.

He's six years old. He started waking up in the

middle of night. He'd crawl into my bed and say,

my legs, what's wrong with my legs?

They hurt so bad. And the first time it happened,

Danielle and I thought, what happened?

You know, he was jumping around. He was jumping out of trees.

He was wrestling with kids. Maybe he's got a problem with

his legs. And sometimes you don't know why

it happens. But here's the the lesson

learned from that moment and the lesson happening in real time.

The church. Tommy was going through what's

called growing pains. And growing pains are painful,

but they're good. And don't be alarmed when the

growing pains come. The first Church is growing so

rapidly that they can't keep up with all of the great

opportunities that now come with people coming.

And growing pains are just part of life and they're not bad

things. And, and once again, we can just

highlight the moms here, you guys, that the mothers among us

know growing pains for to bring life into the world requires a

woman to go through literal stretching pains.

Some of you are probably in that right now.

I saw a woman who's expecting and I said, man, time's flying

by this year. She said, not fast enough.

I'm ready. And you know, and then one kid

comes, you got to go through the growing pains of now having a

little family unit. Then the second kid comes and

you're like, where are we going to put all these kids?

And you got more mouths to feed and you got more kids to haul

around and you got space is an issue and it's a good problem to

have. So if your mom going through the

growing pains, know that you're growing and if you're a church

that's in the midst of challenges that come from

people, know that this is God's way of giving us the people of

God growing pains. We like to see people get saved.

We like when people come in that are saved but not quite

Christian culture yet. So they don't know where your

favorite seat is and they might sit where you like to sit.

That's OK. That's a growing pain.

It's a good problem to have. And so the problem happening in

the very first complaint of the first church was a growing pain.

And here's what it was second-half of the verse.

It says there arose A complaint against the Hebrews by the

Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily

distribution. So in the, in the very first

church, not unlike most parts of the world, you have culture

colliding. We have the Hebrew believers who

we could say are the hometown believers.

These are the Jerusalem Israelites.

They're they're the hometown. They're going to speak Hebrew or

Aramaic. They're going to read the Hebrew

Bible. They're going to have all of the

Hebrew customs and feasts dialed in.

And then we have the Hellenistic believers who are probably still

leftover from that great Pentecost moment where everyone

was in Jerusalem. And many of the, the people that

that came from the scattering of believers have come and they've,

they've, they've given their life to Christ and they've

stayed. And some of them are widows,

which means they don't have anyone supporting them.

There is no government support system.

There is no safety net for people in need.

There is the church and the church is growing so fast that

they've now got cracks in the system that people are falling

through, namely the Hellenistic Jews who are, you know that

they're they're from the out of town.

They're the outsiders coming in and in in the widow care where

widows have come to get the food and to get the social care.

They're not getting enough of the handout.

And so we're about to get not only the first complaint.

This is the gospel good news of the book of Acts is that the

book of Acts does not give us a history of how we get all of the

division of the church. It doesn't give us a history of

of how the church splinters. It gives us a picture of a very

imperfect church that endures by the grace of God to get perfect

solutions. And so my Mother's Day shout out

once again is, is a little teaching antidote that comes

from my wife whenever there's a problem in our house.

And I'll share it with you because it's the wisdom of a

mother. She always tells our children

wherever there is a problem, there's a solution.

And kids need to hear that because kids think in their

limited view of how the world operates, that when they, you

know, can't find their backpack, the backpack's going to be gone

forever. That when they come up against

a, a problem with, you know, their hunger pains and the

things that they just see as world ending problems, a mother

has to speak into their life and say there's a solution for that.

And in the same way, sometimes the children of God look at the

imperfections of the church and they think it's all going to

collapse. It's not going to work.

And, and, and, and the word is going to come and encourage us

this morning that that where God starts something, he has the

power to finish it. Where there are problems in

God's church from the 1st century on through the 21st

century, wherever there is a problem, the gates of hell will

not prevail against the church. Wherever there is a problem,

there is a God-given solution. We're the people of hope and

inside of the church we got lots of problems and God has lots of

solutions. And this is what the

encouragement of the word for us this morning will be.

We start now in verse 2 of what the solution isn't.

The complaint rises to leadership, which is all we can

hope for of the complaints of the church.

What we hope for is that the complaints don't turn into

murmuring or splintering or people just being annoyed and

bothered and just, you know, swallowing it in a way that just

makes them bitter. We want the the complaints to be

dealt with. And in verse 2, it says then the

12 meaning the the 12 disciples now apostles of the first

church, the leadership board of the church has gotten word that

there's a problem going on. And it says they summoned the

multitude of the disciples and said it is not desirable that we

should leave the word of God and serve tables.

So not only do we have our first complaint, we're about to get

our first solution. We have our first church family

meeting. They get all of the disciples

together. They and they, they say first

and foremost what the solution is not going to be.

The solution for the apostles is not to abandon the faithful

study, teaching, preaching and guidance of the word of God.

And I don't love the translation of our church's preferred

version of the Bible, which is New King James Version.

It says it's not desirable. The ESV says it isn't good.

The word desirable almost makes it seem like the the disciples

have now found their corner of the the the the the ministry

life that is so desirable to be in the word and they're now

above serving. And that's not what they're

communicating. These are the same men that not

long ago the night of Jesus betrayal had their feet washed

by him. They understand that part of

serving is is or part of leading is to serve and and leaders,

good leaders serve, but the faithful preaching of God's

word, the leader who realizes that to serve at the neglect of

the word is not good. And that is one of the

encouragements that we can take as a philosophy of how we should

navigate the overwhelmed seasons of life within the church,

within your family. Remember the the quote that I

just read to you. Inside every virtue is a hidden

temptation. Is it virtuous to serve widows?

Yes. James calls it pure and

undefiled religion. It's it's good and it is

virtuous to serve them. Is there a temptation to elevate

the service of widows above the preaching of the word for the

apostles? No doubt people would not blame

the apostles if they got down into the the distribution of the

food and just started serving, and it would look good on paper.

But fundamentally, the reason that we see the power of the

church enduring for 2000 years is because the church's mission

is very clear. The church is the light to the

darkness of the world proclaiming the word of God.

The church is not a social program.

The church cannot fundamentally be to care for the needs of the

poor and the sick and the widows without having the primary

foundation be the power of where the love of God is rooted in the

church. And this is what is often called

mission drift, where good intending believers lose the

focus of the actual primary goal of what it means to be the light

of the world that we represent God's heart through God's word

to people who need it. And they, you know, easy one to

look at is the YMCAI mean how many people don't even know that

it got the word Christian in there.

It started as such a faithful desire to disciple people and it

turned into a very nice gym. I don't want to offend anyone

that has a good gym membership and a family pass to the Y

Fantastic gym has zero to do with discipleship.

Why? Because they made a good thing

the primary thing and and here's the encouragement for what is

true of the church, It's true of the family.

There is a pressure, I think, in the burden of perfection.

There is a great lie that is told to parents that the most

loving thing you can do for your family is to do everything and

to have some sort of vision for your family where your children

will have everything that they've ever dreamed of having.

They will be involved in every sport and every activity, and

summers will be nothing but vacations and fun times.

And you will do everything you can to give your children

everything. Inside every virtue is a

temptation because there's something in your heart that is

good. It is good to live in such a way

that our kids feel loved and cared for, But an entertained

kid and a kid who has is good at sports and a kid who has, you

know, every vacation you can imagine that does not have the

foundation of the word in their life is not on the right track.

So the solution to having the growing pains of a season where

it just feels like the whole thing is is about to collapse is

to come back to the foundation, to come back to the foundation

of the Word of God. And I will say that if you want

to find a through line for why the church has continued over

the last 2000 years, it is that faithful people have stayed

faithful to the Word of God and to prayer and trusted that as

you seek first the Kingdom of God, He will take care of

everything else. And that is my encouragement.

To the burden of perfection that lays on the shoulders of every

mother in this place. If you seek first the Kingdom of

God for your children. If you seek first their heart to

know God, to love God even at the cost of all of the

extracurricular, God will make sure that he takes care of

everything else. And so now we come to the

solution. Verse 3.

Therefore, brethren, as he speak, as they speak to the

multitude, seek out from among you 7 men of good reputation,

full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over

this business. But we will give ourselves

continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

And I'll just say it again. I've already spent a moment of

our time in the Word emphasizing this point, but it comes up

twice in the Word as we go through the book of Acts study

and look for the power of the church here is 1 to highlight

their solution to the multitude of disciples that needs to solve

an imperfection is the formula for a thriving and faithful

church. If if you're here not only as a

you know, as a gift to your mother, but maybe you're here

church shopping. Let me just it might not be this

church you land on. Let me tell you what to put on

the the list that you're looking for to commit to a church that's

going to be faithful and good to join what they just said.

There are two things. One, the leader said we are

going to stay faithful to the word and to prayer.

If you're looking for a good church, find a church that is

faithful to the word of God in prayer.

Find a church that has leaders that are faithful to the

preaching of the word of God and faithful to the administration

of prayer for the church, which means don't worry about the

stuff that I think sometimes is why we're in the series called

Power of the Church that is confused as the power of the

church. Who cares about leaders?

They're charismatic, doesn't matter.

Charismatic leaders. They, they, they've got some

return on the, on the gift of charisma and they've got a lot

of things that can push you in the wrong direction.

Because if you find a charismatic leader and that's

all they have, you're going to find somebody who disappoints

you, who cares about leaders that are funny and leaders that

have the best strategy for the CEO church.

Look for the leaders who are committed to the word of God in

prayer. And then it says, find 7 men,

find these servants who are qualified by three things.

So you find leaders that are committed to the word in prayer

and you find servants of the church.

They're committed and qualified with a good reputation, meaning

the way that you see them in the church, high moral character.

They have a commitment to do what is right both in the church

and out. They are people that are known

wherever they go as as faithful high moral people.

That's one qualification. 2 is they're full of the Holy Spirit.

Now this qualification is, you know, worth a little bit of our

thought this morning because as we saw in Pentecost that the

Holy Spirit is poured out on the church.

Every believer has the Holy Spirit.

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

The same Spirit that rose Christ from the grave is in you, making

you who were once dead and sins alive in Christ.

To be a believer, a born again believer, means that the power

of the Holy Spirit has made you come alive and regenerated your

heart. But it's a qualification because

it says they're full of the Holy Spirit.

And I think what we can assert from that is that these are

people who are displaying an abundance of the fruit of the

Holy Spirit. As you read Galatians and you

get the list, the Holy Spirit full of love, they're full of

joy, full of peace, full of long-suffering, full of

kindness. And when you have a leader that

has that qualification as a servant, you're going to have a

church experience that is blessed with men that are not

just, you know, yes, I have the right theology and yes, I have

the, the, you know, the regenerate experience.

But people who are abundant in what the Holy Spirit will do as

you walk with it. And then it says wisdom.

And my favorite definition of wisdom is being able to navigate

the challenges of life in a God honoring way.

So you find leaders that are committed to the Word in prayer

and you find servants that are qualified in this.

And you found a pretty good church.

The governance may vary, the music may vary, the style may

vary, but if you're committed to the Word and the servants have

these qualities, you found a good church and you found an

imperfect church 'cause they all are.

And so here's the word for encouragement again, as we look

for these moments now, to offer the grace to be less than

perfect. What I find striking about this

list, to have high moral character, to be abundant in the

fruit of the Spirit, and to walk in wisdom, especially in our

culture. These are not the things that

you're going to find on an actual report card for school

people who are walking in these qualifications who are known in

their community as being reputable for these things.

They didn't learn them in college.

You probably didn't get them off YouTube.

I think the best way that you can develop these not the only

way, but the best way to develop these qualifications and young

men and women for the future generation of the church is

right inside the home. And as I, as I consider this, I

just once again, we've already said Happy Mother's Day, but let

me honor you. Never underestimate the

influence of a mother to produce disciples of Jesus.

Never underestimate the influence of a mother to produce

character and Holy Spirit, fruit and wisdom in the lives of young

people. I think it's God's design that

he has made mothers so nurturing and so gentling because these

attributes come into a heart through nourishment.

And I will just say as my mother sits right over here, my, as I

consider my qualifications, and I hope you have considered my

qualifications as well as you're sitting under me talking about

the word of God, I consider my mother.

My mom is the person who, as I look at my very first childhood

Bible, it said, you know, the person who gave it to you, Mom.

My mom helped me memorize Scripture through singing to me

when I was arguing with my sister, she'd sing Ephesians to

me about getting along. My mother is the person who

taught me how to pray out loud and and the person who taught me

the power of intercessory prayer.

Because my mother prayed for me and the qualifications on this

list. Of course God and his

sovereignty can insert them into a heart in all of his amazing

ways. But today we remember that so

many people that are now serving this generation of God's church

that has power are serving because of the nourishment of

the love of the mother. So we say thank you and I say

keep going. We, we, I, I look to the future

and the horizon of the church. And I think I'm just, let's just

pray for the mothers who have access to these young hearts and

these young mom or these young minds now.

And it says as they as they raise up and they give this

command, it says in verse 5 and the saying, please, the whole

multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man

full of faith and the Holy Spirit.

Hold on to that name. We're going to look at him next

week. And Philip and Procris, Nicanor,

Timon, Parmenus, Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch as a side

and just give you some discipleship.

When reading biblical names, go fast.

You guys don't know if that's right.

I don't either. They're all Greek names.

The the wisdom it says choose from among yourself.

There was a problem within the Hellenistic the Greek community

of this Jerusalem church and they chose 7 Greek servants.

The wisdom of the first church was that so often within the

problem lies the solution and they chose 7 servants that spoke

Greek and that could care for these people and know their

culture. And they appointed them to be

the servants to make sure the imperfection of the church did

not stay imperfect. That a growing pain turned into

growth. That is the power of the church.

That God has grace to make imperfections something that we

grow from and the same please the whole multitude.

This is a great verse to underline in your Bibles that

where there are problems and where there are church gathering

meetings and where there are decisions made to try to move

forward to take the imperfections and turn them to

growth. It is OK to celebrate what God

is doing and I just appreciate that that is true.

Now that I know that you know, in, in, in my time and as as

being part of a leadership of a church, the church will always

have problems. I remember when I first started

out, I, I'd get to the the list of the problems and we'd come to

solutions and I think finally my work is done.

Now we can just get back to the word and the worship and the

church will always have problems.

The church will always be imperfect and so will your

families. So will the lives of your

children. So will the interactions that

you have with the, the, the kids that you're raising.

There will be all sorts of imperfections.

And I just remind you once again where there are challenges.

If you're in a season of feeling overwhelmed, if you get to this,

this message and you just feel like, man, I just hope I can

make it to church 'cause I just have the burden of life on me.

God is faithful to bring solutions that work into your

life. And so it says in verse 6, They

set before the apostles, and when they preyed on him, and

when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

And in a sense, these seven men are now commissioned to do the

work of serving tables. I, I, I appreciate this, this

little line in verse 6, that this was not the apostles being

so busy in the word that they, they, they tried to get through

this as quick as they could. They called an entire church

meeting. They saw seven people raised up

and then they prayed and they commissioned them to the work of

serving to the work of just caring for needs.

In this instance, it's the work of distributing food to widows.

There is no elite work in the ministry scale of the church.

The the the pulpit is foundational, but it doesn't

mean it's better. There is not, you know, the the

inner circle of those who know how to play an instrument and

they're going to really get prayed for because it's so

important. And then, you know, the the door

greeters can just kind of take care of the what what is ever

leftover in the service of the church.

They prayed for service. There is ordinary people doing

ordinary work that becomes holy. That is the power of the First

Church. And I once again can't help but

think of the the moms among us. You do invisible work so often.

I think one of the reasons I probably take Mother's Day more

seriously than Father's Day, although they're both equally

important, is because mothers do such behind the scenes work.

I mean, literally your commissioning as a mother is to

wake up in the middle of the night as your first project when

everyone else is sleeping, doing your hardest work.

And just know that in the community, the Kingdom that you

belong to, your work is holy. To serve and to care for,

especially to care for the needs of people that no one sees.

You know, I stand up here, everybody sees me.

You guys go and you serve in ways that care for one soul, a

couple of kids that could change the world because of your

nourishment. And so for that reason, I just

want to pray for you at the end of this that God would make you

see that you're commissioned to do holy work as well.

And then verse 7 it says then the word of God spread and the

number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem

and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith will

end here. The rest of the chapter we'll

look at next week as we examine the witness of Stephen.

But notice how it ends. Look at the the the very short

journey that we took that was probably very stressful at times

for the church. It started with a complaint to

to raise the alarm on a real problem, real people having real

hurt, real neglect, real imperfections of the church.

The leadership had to make a church wide meeting.

If you've ever been to one, sometimes they're not very fun.

They made a real decision and in the end of it, in all of the

imperfections and the challenge and the the likely tension, it

says the word of God kept spreading in the very first

complaint and challenge and tension of just the the

internals of the church. The mission was unfazed.

The word of God kept spreading, disciples kept multiplying and,

and Luke puts this in just to give us extra encouragement.

He says even a great number of priests were obedient to the

faith. These are people that were the

hardest to reach, the closest to the old way of doing things, the

old covenant. Even the priests were coming.

And so here's the great reminder for us in 21st century chaos of

the American Church. Salvation comes from the Lord as

the Church endures and grows and multiplies and baptizes new

believers and goes through a new generation of disciple and

people. It is all because of the grace

of God. The Church, in all of its

imperfections, had a perfect Savior that in spite of its

faults and failures and tensions, figured out a way to

keep the mission moving. And this will be my final

Mother's Day encouragement. I share this with dads as well.

Salvation comes from the Lord. No child was ever saved because

of a perfect mother, and no child was ever lost because of

imperfect parenting. The best we can do is trust that

in all of our imperfections, God gives us grace to keep the

mission moving. So we stand here.

The mission of the church is unfazed and all of our

imperfections of the modern world.

And God will continue to use the faithful preaching of His word

and the commitment to prayer and people who are qualified by the

Holy Spirit and wisdom to serve His Church.

And it is going to endure. And the same is true for every

family that is represented in this place.

Your families are imperfect. The moms and dads are imperfect.

Hey kids, you're imperfect too, but God has grace to keep it all

moving forward to His glory and to our joy.

Thanks for joining us today. If you would like to watch the

full service, check out the link in the description.

For next steps and to learn more, visit calvaryboise.com.