Bible Guys Classics: Acts 6 & 7

Well, today we're going to talk about getting stoned.

Wow, it's probably not what you think. But I'm Jeff

and he's Chris, and we are the Daily Bible guys. Okay, Chris, Yep,

we're going to Today's a big challenge.

Yeah, it is a challenge. We're going to do two

truths and a lie. So you give me three statements

and I'll try to guess the truth.

Okay.

I'm going to give two truths and a lie. Okay, okay,

So and you're going to try to figure out which

one is the lie? Is that?

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay. Three statements, all right? Three things about me? Just

any random things?

Yes, Well, I've said I've had such an impressive life

it's going to be hard for you to figure out.

I was a valedictorian in my class. Okay, I climbed

the highest mountain in Texas.

Okay.

And I once hit for the cycle in baseball home run, triple, double, single,

and walk.

Okay, So two truths and a lie. Here's what I

think the lie is. I don't think you were valedictorian.

I was not the valedictorian.

I was homeschool right, right, So maybe I guess I was.

I had the best greade point.

Yeah that is impressive in baseball though, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah,

that's really good.

Yeah.

I was homeschool so I didn't have a valedictorian in

my class.

I didn't have a class. That was the problem.

All right, here's here's my two truths, and here's my

truths in a lie. I'm go, I'm gonna give you

two truths in a lie about my family.

Okay, Okay.

Number one, my brother Donnie wrecked and totaled twenty one

cars by the time he turned twenty one. Okay. The

second statement is this, I have a comic book that

my brother bought that I inherited that he didn't think

was worth anything, and it is now worth nine thousand dollars.

The third thing is is that my mother is only

four foot nine inches tall.

I don't think Donny wrecked twenty one cars by the

time he was twenty one.

He did.

He wrecked twenty one cars.

Twenty one cars.

How does he still have his driver's.

License because none of them were even insured and none

of them were reported.

Oh no, and half of them he was drinking, are

you serious?

And he started and he started wrecking cars. When he

was like fifteen fourteen.

Donny quit wrecking cars, buddy.

Well he sort of wised up after that.

Yeah, I would think, yeah, and.

Then you have to realize too. He bought cars for

one hundred dollars.

Each back in the day.

So he would buy junk beaters, beaters, and then he

would he would fix them up and then you know,

either horse around. Most of it was horsing around, some

of us drinking, and he'd just smash him. And they

were such beaters anyway that he had them totald.

So what was the lie?

The lie was, I don't have a comic book worth

nine thousand dollars. So my highest comic book right now,

because I did collect comic books by the way, from

like nineteen eighty nine to up until like two thousand

and six. So I think I have one worth three grand.

Wow, Oh I have several worth three grand. Where do

you keep those?

They're in my Oh I see, you want to steal them. No,

they're currently up in my son's bedroom.

Okay.

Yeah, So when you're going down the hall, do you

turn left or right?

You don't even know which ones? Yeah, fistful, Yeah, you'd

have to swar through like six boxes.

Yeah, that's right, we'll just sew six boxes. I'll bring

six guys.

That's funny. We'll sew through them later. Okay, So that's good.

That was a fun one.

Yeah, it was fun.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I gave it away that I wasn't a VALIDICT twentament.

Class because I knew you were homeschooled.

Oh okay, yeah, that was it.

Okay, So we are in Acts chapter six, yes, and

we're going to be looking at again as we keep mentioning.

One of the themes is.

There's external pressures on the Christians, but there's a lot

of internal pressures on the Christians. And for many of us,

we cave under the external. We cave under the idea

that somebody's going to harass us or make fun of

us because we're Christians. But on the other side, a

lot of times we give up, we give up on

our church, we give up on other Christians because of

the stresses and struggles from inside of Christianity. And just understand,

both of those are tools of the devil, not one

or the other, both right, So anyways, here we go.

In Acts chapter six, verse one, it says, but as

the believers rapidly multiplied. There were rumblings of discontent. The

Greek speaking believers complained about the Hebrew speaking believers, saying

that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily

distribution of food. So the twelve called the meeting of

all the believers. They said, we apostles should spend our

time teaching the Word of God, not running a food program.

And so brothers, select seven men who are well respected

and are full of the spirit and wisdom. We will

give them this responsibility, and then we apostles can spend

our time in prayer and teaching the Word. Everyone liked

this idea, and they chose the following, a man named Stephen,

a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, Philip

Procorus nicanor Timone Parmenus, and Nicholas of Antioch An earlier

convert to to the Jewish faith. These seven were presented

to the apostles, who prayed for them as they laid

their hands on them. So God's message continued to spread,

and the number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem and

in many of the Jewish priests were converted too. Stephen,

a man full of God's grace, and power, performed amazing

miracles and signs among the people. But one day some

men from the Synagogue of freed Slaves, as it was called,

started the debate with him. They were Jews from Syreene, Alexandrias, Celicia,

and the province of Asia. None of them could stand

against the wisdom and the spirit which Stephen spoke. So

they persuaded men to lie about Stephen, saying we heard

him Blaspheme, Moses and even God. This roused the people,

the elders and the teachers of religious law, and so

they arrested Stephen and brought him before the High Council.

The lying witnesses said, this man is always speaking against

the Holy Temple and against the law of Moses. We've

heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy

the temple and change the customs and Moses handed down

to us. At this point, everyone in the High Council

stared at Stephen because his face became as bright as

an angel's. And then we can keep going on from there.

But eventually Stephen confronts the council. He preaches this whole

message where he unpacks all through the seventh chapter of

the Book of Acts, he unpacks all of the Jewish

belief system and points to Jesus. That's what he does.

And they just lose their minds and decide, you know what,

we're going to kill him, and that's what they do.

They stone him to death.

Yeah. So this is a great example where I think

this could be two podcasts instead of one. Sure, but

so can we camp on? Because I love Stephen. In fact,

I don't know if our listeners know this, but my

son is named Stephen because of this next story.

Wow.

So, but the first seven verses talks about them choosing

the deacons, right, so let's see how far we get

in this podcast talking about this. But but I want

to talk about that for a minute, because you know,

it's actually a pretty amazing thing what is modeled for

us here. First of all, it says the Greek speaking

believers were saying that they were discriminated against versus the

Jewish speaking believers or the Hebrew speaking believers. So we

already know that this is going to be a problem

all the way through, you know, the idea that, like,

you know, the Jewish people were God's chosen people. And

then all of a sudden Jesus comes and says, no, no, no,

Salvation is for everyone, and it's not limited to those

who are you know, the people of Israel might chosen people.

Jesus dies for everybody. And then, of course, in a

few chapters God sends the Apostle Paul, and the apostle

Paul's mission and Acts number nine he gets converted in

Actually his mission is to take the Gospel from one

group to the people who are non Jewish. So so anyway,

that is a whole deal altogether. Where you know, we're

church people. The ones that feel most entitled, you know,

feel like you know, church is primarily for them. You

could make it mean that, right. The people walk in

and they said, hey, you know, play the music of

my choice because I give ten percent of this place,

right and I've been there for twenty years.

This is what I want, It's what I like, it's

what my culture embraces.

Right right, right. And the worst, by the way, there's

always a healthy and unhealthy version of that. The unhealthy

version is, I'm going to make a very large financial

contribution to this church, and I want my name in

the side of the gymnasium that you build, which I

guess isn't the whole other topic al together. But here's

what's great is that the twelve called themselves. They called

a meeting of all the believers, and they said, our

gift is not food programs. Our gift is what God

has called us to do, which is studying and teaching

God's word. And so if we decided to do everything,

we wouldn't be a to do the one thing that

God's called us to do. And so think about the

implications of this. There's a reason why you don't go

to every single hospital visit. There's a reason why I

don't counsel every single person who says I have marriage problems.

And the main thing is is because the reason why

people like our church is because we're functioning in the

way that God has gifted us and called us to do.

And there's a reason why people say, hey, Chris, I

relate to you is because I've been allowed to do

the same thing here. So that's the reason why we

actually hire people and also trained volunteers to actually operate

in their gifts, which is why those people are gifted

in the pastoral You know, if they're a pastor, they

have the gift of counseling, the gift of care, right,

the gift of visiting people in the hospital. Right, that's

the same thing here. So all of that to say,

here's a biblical model where the pastor isn't the go

to be all, do all. He isn't the guy who

does fifty things, who's at absolutely everything right he does

he you know, in this case, they're doing one or

two things. And that says what happens at the end

the gospel flourishes everyone.

Every single Christian is gifted in some way, Chris, sir,

And those gifts are not just for you, Yes.

Those gifts are for the other.

Christians, right, And you will never be growing up spiritually

like Jesus unless you use your gifts to serve the

rest of the people. So your gift is teaching. Your

gift is in that world, and so it would be

unreasonable to expect you to also have all the other gifts.

There's no Christian who has all the gifts, right, But

every Christian has at least one spiritual gift. That means

that there's no Christian who can do all the things

that are necessary for the church. There's nobody that can

help build up everybody in the church. It's not possible.

You cannot build everybody into spiritual maturity. There's no Christian

that can do that. But every Christian can help all

the other Christians grow up spiritually, and that's the goal.

So as the ministry began to expand, the weight of

the ministry became heavier, the needs of the people became

more and more unique and niche groups needed to be

served in a way that they could not do just

in a generic way. And so they decided, Okay, we're

going to reach out. We're going to find these seven servants.

And that the number seven is not the issue here,

it's just that's how many they decided they needed to

solve this problem.

Right.

But the word that references these guys, these are the

first deacons, it's diaconos, and diacanos just means servant, right,

That's what it means.

It means a servant.

And so you have the apostles saying, our job is

to pray and to preach and declare the gospel, but

we need somebody who can care for the needs. So

the accusation the Greeks accusing the Jews that hey, there's

this racial issue or there's some kind of discrimination going on.

That has always been an accusation that we tend to

think other people are getting treated better than us, or

that group is getting to be treated better than my group.

They don't even dive into that part of it. They're

not trying to figure out if it's true or not.

What they're deciding is there's a problem in the administration

and people are feeling struggled, feeling minimized, and we want

everybody to be treated well, and so all right, let's

guarantee that this doesn't happen. They're not putting anybody on trial.

They're not trying to figure out whose fault it is.

They're not trying to punish somebody. They're just saying, let's

solve the problem. Let's find some servants that everybody respects.

And you can read the names. Some of the names

are Hebrew type names, and most of the names are

not right. They're more as a matter of fact. You

get the one guy, nicholasa Antioch. He was an earlier

convert to the Jewish religion and then became a Christian

right when he found Jesus. And so these guys were

presented and it says that everyone liked the idea, and

they chose these guys, and so they step in and

they begin to serve, and it solves this issue, at

least for this time.

It solves the issue.

And so you may not have the gifts that Chris has,

but if you can serve, you can solve the problems

of the people around you. And that's you being like

Jesus in the church, using your gifts to serve others.

Yeah. So for me, there's sort of two big thoughts

in these seven verses that we could apply to today. Obviously,

there's you know things model for us specifically in that story,

but for today, I would say this, if you ever

have been a part of a church or go to

a church where where the pastor is expected to be

at everything and he's expected to do everything, there's the

biblical model right here that says that is not true.

He's not gifted, and so he's not gifted or she's

not gifted. Whoever is in leadership at the time, with

all of these different things, you know, they're going to

function in their top few gifts and they need to

surround themselves with other people who are really good. And

so I'm reminded of the Book of Ephesians where it

says to some he gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers,

and so you know, our gifts are slightly different, right,

So my top gifts are teaching, evangelism, apostle, those are

my top three, right, and your top.

Three are apostle, evangelism, and leadership or wisdom wisdom.

Yeah. Yeah, So it's like, if you think about that,

that's why we know pastors who are really good speakers,

but they're terrible counselors, or maybe they're fantastic leaders, they're

just terrible speakers, right, Because that's the reason why one

person can.

Do it all.

That's the first thought. The second thought is this is

that that's why God created the church, and he gifted

each believer and we call it the priesthood of every believer.

So we are priests in that we are ministers and

that we are called to minister. And so that's why,

you know, over and over there's so many things in

the Bible and Corinthians and Enromans where it talks about

you know, there's one body of Christ. Everybody has a gift,

and you know, and just like the hand needs the

eye needs the foot on one human body. So every

role of every believer is important so that the body

of Christ may you know, fulfill all of its purposes,

and that the Word of Christ may go forward.

Yeah.

I had a time when, you know, I'm not very

good at at hospital.

Visits, for instance.

Yeah, uh, the word had gotten out when I was

a younger pastor. I literally was sitting next to somebody

who I think was looking for comfort and encouragement, and

I just thought, you know, dying is not the worst thing,

you know, going to heaven, Heaven.

Is pretty amazing. That's probably not that that wasn't what

they were looking for to No.

So dude, when you got cancer, your reaction was like,

that's okay.

Yeah, it's all right, I'm good, Heaven's good, Heaven's good.

Yeah.

And I was like, you know what, there's not too

many people that have that initial reaction.

It turns out maybe I shouldn't have been the hospital

visitation guy right back then. So we had one of

our key leaders had a heart attack, was in the hospital,

and the hospital's on the way home from the office

to work, and I had just found out about it. Yeah,

So I just and he'd just gone into the hospital.

Somebody told me he just got a room, so I

just went in and went and visited him. And when

I walked in the hospital room, he looked like he

was going to be sick when he saw me. So

he was happy somebody's coming to visiting. And he saw

me and WHI oh no, because he thought I was

coming and telling me dying. Oh no, that's the only

reason why Jeff would be here last rites.

That's so funny.

But what it happened was, I said, I just came

in to visit you.

Man, I didn't want you to be going.

He said, Dude, every person in my small group has

already been here, every person. None of them are paid.

They're all just Christians who love each other. Right, And

now came He said, Man, you didn't have to stop by.

My group loves me. They've been here, they prayed with me.

They've all just left. And he says, so thanks for

stopping by, But I thought you were coming to tell

me I'm dying, right, come to give you a guilt

class rights, And I just left going.

That's the church.

Yes, when there's no leader, there's no influencer, there's nobody,

not the top or the bottom, nobody expecting any one

person to do it all. But the people in his

group stepped up and said, it's our job to encourage

our brother because we love him, and that was fabulous.

That story reminds me of it's a pretty big challenge

for somebody who zips in and zips out and they

don't have any connection in the church. You may find

yourself when you are hurting and you're wishing that somebody

would come to your aid. You may think to yourself, man,

I wish I had connections of the church. So the

benefit isn't just knowing people's names and feeling more comfortable

when you attend a church. It's actually living life with

somebody who.

Knows your story.

Who can you know, be your brother or your sister,

or your friend or your assistant person whatever, somebody who

gives assistance. And that's the way it is.

So I was just a real temptation in our current

culture because of COVID and all the online streaming things.

More and more there's been some research has done on this.

I's read a report today about it that so many

Christians think I don't really need the gathering anymore. I'm fine.

I just watched Jeff and Chris online and I'm happy

get to hear the music and do a little bit

of worshiping. And I don't need the church. The church

needs you, right right, So the local gathering of people

need you, and there will be a day when you

need them.

Yes, yeah, you need the church way more than you

think you do.

Yes, that's right.

And by the way, I was at a restaurant just

two or three days ago. I think I told you

the story where I ran into two people who were

there who recognized me and said, hey, we know you, Chris.

And I said, oh, how long have you been coming

to my church? And they were with me at my

previous church, and they said, h over ten years. And

yet they had just said, we've never had a personal conversation. Well, well,

and I said what do you mean, I said, how

could you? And they said, oh, you said hi to

us a thousand times. You baptized both of our kids,

right right, and and we've shook your hand a thousand times,

but we've never had a personal conversation. Now. I did

not ask those two people whether or not they had

other friends of the church, and hopefully they do, but

it just reminded me that it is possible for somebody

for me to be their pastor and for them to

waltz in and out faithfully where I'm preaching eighty five

percent of the time and for ten years I don't

even know their name, and they've never had a conversation.

Yeah, well, you're one of the pastors, right right, you're not.

There's no way that every single person could pastor, or

any one of us could pastor thousands of people, right,

But you and I lead the pastors. We lead the

ones who care for all of the people. I've had

multiple times where people say something similar, Hey, it's such

a privilege to meet you. It's so nice to meet you,

and I almost happy to meet people. But in the

conversation they'll say, we don't come for you. Yeah, right,

we're engaged with this group or or these Bible teachers

or these people who care for us, and so we

love your teaching. That's great, or it's not dependent on

your right And that's when the church is able to

minister each other.

And that's how.

The earliest church was able to scale to the thousands.

As a matter of fact, before the dispersion happens here

in another couple chapters. Some estimates are that there were

hundreds of thousands, maybe over one hundred thousand Christians just

in Jerusalem. How is Peter supposed to take care of

a hundred thousand Christians? It wasn't possible, right, right. It

was the fact that they were meeting house to house,

they were caring for one another, and that the leadership

structure was paying attention to boy, there's this issue, let's

solve it. And in this circumstance they appointed seven other leaders.

Peter didn't have to get all the glory. James didn't

have to get all the glory.

We're going to point.

So there's Steven and Nick and Or and Timoon and

all these guys, and they're going to do it and together.

Then that's how the church can scale and heavy, massive

impact on society because they can collectively serve one another

and then turn it out and serve in the community.

So we didn't even address Stephen. Yeah, yeah, Well, now

tomorrow we we'll pick up Steven, pick up Stephen. Tomorrow,

we'll skip his great, big, long message, but we'll finish

up with the circumstance that happens and all the things

that begin to happen after.

Yeah, So if you're listening today and you're you're not

a person who attends and gets connected relationally, and maybe

you're just the person who sort of tunes in. Maybe

maybe a challenge is to come and get connected because

you need people more than you think you do and

they need you more than you know.

And then another.

Challenge would be too, If you are connected, that's great,

but are you using your gifts? Are you stepping up

and are you complimenting those around you so that all

the gifts are being used and that everybody is benefiting

from how God has gifted you.

Yeah, So tomorrow we're going to continue on with the

struggle that they're facing, but also the tremendous advancement of

the Kingdom of God.

So that's what we're gonna talk about tomorrow. Uh, what

are we called the Bible? The Daily Bible, guys, mhm

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