Sunday, February 26, 2023 AM

The Priority of the Word in the Church’s Life

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for gathering us here today. It is a joy to come together and rejoice in Your truth and to love one another. We thank You for giving us Your Son, Jesus Christ, and having given us to Him, we know that with Him, You will freely give us all things, all that we need, as we are called according to Your purpose.

We know that You will do good, and all that You do is good. Heavenly Father, we ask You for this time that You would help us, that You would encourage us in Your Word, that You would guide us into all truth and to Your Son, Jesus Christ.

I pray that You would help us to get a clear view of Him in Your Word, that we will look like Him in this world, that Your work would be done in us, that we would be the amen of Your will in heaven, that as we share this supper together, this meal together, that all of our attention would be upon our Savior, Jesus Christ, from whom all of our salvation comes.

We ask for these mercies in the name of Christ, the One with whom you are well pleased.

Amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 6. Acts chapter 6, we'll be reading verses 1 through 7 this morning. Acts chapter 6, verses 1 through 7. We're going to be looking at the priority of the Word.

The priority of the Word. Thus far in the book of Acts, we have seen the early church under threat. External hostilities, the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, murderously angry with Peter and John and the apostles.

Stayed only by the sage council of a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel saying, we've seen these types of movements rise and fall, just bide your time. Surely they will go out of existence just like the other movements.

But not only has the church faced external threats, but they have also faced internal dangers as well. Ananias and Sapphira pretending to be among the number and lying to the Holy Spirit, deceiving. So external threats, internal challenges.

Another internal challenge here in Acts chapter 6. Once again, problems arising within the midst of the church, once again connected to benevolence, compassion. What is going to hold them together? Who's going to keep them together?

Who's going to lead them forward? Who's going to protect them? Who's going to provide for them? They have a good shepherd. They have a good shepherd. And we look upon here the acts of the risen Lord Jesus Christ as he builds his church.

I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Acts chapter 6. These are the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by his spirit through his servant Luke. Now, in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution.

Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven 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 the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Echainor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles.

And when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. 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.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. You know what a great blessing it is, what a great blessing it has been when you were able to bring the whole family together for a meal, every day.

When you don't have that, what a great blessing it is to be invited to the table, welcomed as part of a family. There's a great deal that has to take place in sacrifice and structure and making it a priority to come together as a family and have a meal together.

In a culture that devalues the family, demeans the family, questions the family, what a good thing to come together as a family around the table for a meal. As we live together, not everything goes well.

Every day, there can be hard feelings amongst the members of the family. Once again, what a good thing that we can come together at the table for a meal. What is such a blessed thing about eating together?

It has to do with the way God made us in His image, that we would love Him supremely, that we would love each other rightly, that we would govern His created order with godliness. Here we are gathered together as a family, and we give praise to God, we give thanks to God for what He has provided for us, and we confess and we ask that He would make the food nourishing to us.

It's not by our merits, not by our might, not by our abilities. We're certainly not trusting in the modern processes of food preparation.

I hope not.

But we're loving God supremely. We, before we eat, we give thanks to God. And then, here we are within arm's reach of one another, eating together, loving one another, encouraging one another, serving one another.

Please pass the peas. And rightly governing over that which the Lord has entrusted to us as those made in His image. All this is given to us for our nourishment, for our food. What a blessing. What a blessing.

And the Lord has given to us a meal. Lord has given to us a meal to bring us together time and time and time again, the pulse, the heartbeat of our church, to remind us of who He is and who we are and what we need.

Communion. Communion is, of course, more than a meal. It's more than the Lord's Supper. It's more than our celebration and remembrance of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Communion is something that we engage in every single day.

We are not only united to Christ at the Lord's table. This is a reminder of the reality that we are seated together in heavenly places with Christ. We are together in Him. That is the reality of the matter.

This is the result of His life, death, and resurrection. This is the truth that comes to pass by the power of the Holy Spirit, by whom we are saved in the grace of God. Our communion in Christ, our togetherness in Christ, our unity in Christ is manifest by the Spirit.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for one another. And this love has been poured out in our hearts by the Spirit whom God has given to us. But our communion in Christ, so manifest by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, is defined by the Word, is defined by the Scriptures.

Who is this Christ to whom we are gathered? Who is this Spirit who lives and indwells us, lives in us and indwells us and empowers us? What is the nature of the Gospel? And what is the definition of our communion and the Church?

We only know the answer to these questions by the Word. We're thinking about the priority of the Word of God. How blessed it is to gather together and sing these songs and to participate in the Lord's Supper.

But what meaning does it have unless we go to the Word of God to define it? So we're thinking of the priority of the Word, and we see the priority of the Word in our text this morning, as there are problems and there are factions and there is complaining and there are issues.

I mean, we're talking about logistics here. We're talking about the division of labor. We're talking about church organization. We're talking about polity. But when we read these seven verses in Acts 6, you know what stands out?

The Word of God, the Word of God, the Word of God. It is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. The apostles said that we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

Verse 7 says, then the Word of God spread, the priority of the Word of God. And this is emphasized in many other ways in our text as well. Something that should catch our attention, as we were just reminded here in Acts, previous chapter, Acts 5, first time we have the word church being used to describe those who are following Jesus.

What should be our priorities? How are we to understand ourselves? What does the Lord have for us? We're thinking about the priority of the Word. And this passage wants us to think about the priority of the Word in the church.

The priority of the Word, the priority of preaching Christ, the gospel of his kingdom in the church. But by so emphasizing that priority, let us not think that the authority of Jesus Christ as ministrated by his scepter, which is the Word, let us not think that the authority of Christ by his Word is restricted to the church.

He is King of kings. He is Lord of lords. The priority of the Word is for everywhere, to everyone, in every place, about everything. And as the church being salt, light of the world, the city set on the hill, the pillar and ground of the truth, certainly the Word of God ought to have priority in our midst, if it's going to have priority in all the rest of the world.

Our communion in Christ, manifest by the Spirit, is defined by the Word. Let's begin in verses 1 and 2 by noticing the priority amid the problem. The priority of the Word amid the problems in the church.

We see that there are growing numbers in the church. Now, in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying. Now, in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying. What days were these?

Now, these were amazing days. These were incredible days. These were days when multitudes were gathering into Jerusalem. It looked like it was a feast day. It looked like it was Rosh Hashanah. It looked like it was the Feast of Tabernacles.

It looked like something major was going on. Certainly, it had to be going on at the temple. But these multitudes were gathering in from the surrounding villages and cities, not to attend any ceremony at the temple up the hill.

Not to offer any kind of blood sacrifice at those altars. They were gathering together to a new covenant Jerusalem, not the old one. They were gathering together so that they could be healed by the power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ, mediated through his apostles.

And the lame were being healed and the blind began to see. The lepers were being healed. The demon-possessed were being delivered. And this old, fragile wineskin of Jerusalem is being filled evermore with the new wine of the new covenant.

Things are beginning to crack. And things are beginning to fracture. And pretty soon, the whole thing is going to bust in the blood of Stephen and the martyrs. For now, in these days, Gamaliel has stood up to the Sanhedrin and said, look, before you just kill these people outright and cause a problem, let's just bide our time and see how it happens.

And so what happens is Jesus keeps building his church. The gates of Hades are not going to prevail against his church. He keeps on adding to his church. The architect, the capstone, the cornerstone, he still adds the living stones to his new covenant temple.

Here is the good shepherd still calling out his sheep to come and follow him. And his flock is growing. He continues to build his church. The number of the disciples was multiplying. The last time we heard about the number of the disciples was Acts chapter 1, and it said there was 120 of them.

Now there are thousands. Then there were dozens. Now there are thousands. The number of the disciples was multiplying. And then there were tens of thousands. And then there were hundreds of thousands.

And then there were millions. And then there were tens of millions. And now we're hundreds of millions. Don't we have a good shepherd? Don't we have a good shepherd? And what do we have to look forward to?

Revelation 7 says, a multitude which no man can count. That's how good of a shepherd we have. I say this because we need to see here something good. Oh, there's problems. The Hellenists and the Hebrews are not getting along.

Yes, yes, there's problems. But this is a good thing, that the Lord is adding to his church, that the church is growing. We know that growing numbers bring growing pains. We see that from the Scriptures.

The book of Acts tells us more than once about how growing numbers cause growing pains. And I have heard it from the lips of my own dear brothers and sisters. Not around here, these parts, don't look at your neighbor.

But I have heard it said, oh, it's okay if we don't have new people come. New people cause new problems. Having more people means we're going to have more problems.

It's okay.

Well, that's true. That's really the case. That's absolutely the case. The more folks that are brought into Christ's kingdom, and the more folks that are brought into any local church, guess what? The needs are going to multiply.

And they're going to diversify. And it's going to be more difficult. And as long as I'm focused on me, myself, and I, my anxiety is going to remain high. However, we have a good shepherd. And he can handle it.

He can handle it. And he'll bring us through the trials. Now, the problems come from what? Here's the growing numbers, but look at the growing pains. There was a complaint. A complaint arose against the Hebrews by the Hellenists.

The Hebrews versus the Hellenists. Well, who are these people? We kind of have an idea of who the Hebrews are. But these are Jews who grew up in and around Jerusalem. These were the locals. They grew up in synagogues where the scriptures were read, and the psalms were sung in Aramaic and Hebrew.

They were accustomed to hearing the Semitic language. The Hellenists came from abroad, far off in the Roman Empire. They were Jews too, but their original language was really not Aramaic. And they spoke the universal trade language of the Roman Empire, which was Greek.

They spoke the common Greek, Koine Greek. Why are they called Hellenists? When Alexander the Great conquered the Mediterranean Basin and all the east, up until the borders of India, he spread the Greek language and the Greek culture everywhere.

And the mascot for the Greek culture was Helen of Troy. Thus, Greek culture was called Hellenistic. And if you were a local, and you were once raised in local customs, and then you went all Greek, you were called Hellenized.

Now, it's more than simply a cultural difference, and it's more than simply a language difference. There is an historical, political rift going on. Because a villain by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes, a Greek king, a Greek emperor, tried to forcibly turn Jerusalem into the model of a Greek city.

And he committed atrocious, unspeakable acts against the people to the point where he was dividing the Jews who sided with him, and thus they were Hellenized, versus the Jews who were trying to hold the line, and they broke out into civil war against one another, and there was a revolt called the Maccabean Revolt.

And that lies in the background to this. Here are all of these Jews who were raised in various parts of the empire. Some were homebodies, they were the locals. And here are these people who, you're not from around here, are you?

And they're all together in one church. Now, we have been hearing some wonderful things about these folks, haven't we not? What have we been hearing so far? We've been hearing in Acts 4 in verse 32, now, the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

Neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. We hear in verse 12, this same group of folks, they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.

One heart, one soul, one accord. They have been in remarkable unity, expressing love for one another. And now, all of a sudden, there's some sort of rift that has taken place. And this rift is being explained by the Hebrews and the Hellenists.

This is not being put into the text. This is not being rendered for us to consider that they are to continue wearing badges of honor. I'm a Hebrew or I'm a Hellenist. This is explaining the nature of the problem.

They're not to... The people in the early church are not to be identifying by these names as their primary characteristic. They're not to be walking around saying, well, I'm a Hebrew Christian. Somebody else saying, well, I'm a Hellenist Christian.

That's not why this is in the text. This is in the text to tell us how it is that a problem emerged. There was communication challenges. There was a difference between cultural expectations. And the fact is that the widows of the Hellenists, the widows who had grown up from abroad, had come into Jerusalem through various travels.

Maybe their husbands died after they made their retirement pilgrimage towards Jerusalem. They were being overlooked in the daily distribution. This was a real issue. There was an overlooking. Well, what was going on?

If you were a Jew and a widow, you lived during a time of the temple system where benevolence was handled through the temple, and you would go and you would make sure to receive your little palm-sized little loaf of bread to sustain you to the next day.

That was the benevolence of that corrupt Second Temple Judaism. Meanwhile, the children who were supposed to be honoring their mother and taking care of her, why weren't they spending any money to take care of her?

Well, because they had declared it Corban. And they were giving all that money to the beautification of the temple. Because, I mean, the temple had a lot of gold and silver, but, boy, they needed more.

They needed more gold. They needed more silver to cover even other artifacts that were already covered in gold and silver. They needed even more. And so, if you wanted to give your proper temple tax and your proper amount to the temple, but you wanted to write off your expenses that you would normally be giving to your parents, just call it Corban.

And that way, you get a two-for-one, and you can make the money set aside for the care of your parents, and you could just give that to God. You were going to spend it anyway. And then you could keep more of your take-home check, right?

This is one of the areas in the New Testament where we read Jesus got angry. He was indignant about how they treated the little children, and he was indignant about what they did in the temple, and he was indignant about them not taking care of their parents.

So, this temple system was providing benevolence to the Jewish widows, but feel free to give. And, oh, yeah, Jewish widow, if you have two mites left, that's fine. Go ahead and give that, because we'll toss that on to the beautification of the temple.

But here's your little bit of bread. What happens when the widow turns to Jesus? What happens when the widow no longer goes through the ceremonial washings? What happens when the widow won't give any more offerings because she believes in Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God slain for her?

What happens? She has no more support. And probably even more distant from those children who were supposed to take care of her, Jesus said, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He said his gospel would divide families.

So, what now? Well, the church is going to take care of those widows. That's the job. The church is going to take care of the widows, and all of these Jewish widows who were already on the temple benevolence role, well, it's a very simple thing.

We're just going to take that list and put it right over here, and the church is going to take care of them. Who was overlooked? The Hellenist widows, who hadn't been a part of that benevolence system, but now desperately needed help.

They were being overlooked in the daily distribution. Do you see how it happened? Was someone being villainous? Was someone being selfish and mean and prideful? Growing numbers means growing pains, and so the widows needed to be taken care of, but it was not desirable that the apostles leave the ministry of the word of God to serve tables.

It was desirable that the widows be cared for. It was not desirable that the priority of the church change because of the new problem. More folks does mean more volume of needs, more variety of needs.

In our text, we see that there is a need of compassion and that complaints were being lodged. Complaints in the church?

What?

Well, it's because of the need of compassion. Communication was a challenge. My primary language is Aramaic. Their primary language is something else, but we can all try to get together on the trade language of the Greek.

It's kind of hard to communicate sometimes. There are cultural differences, but the main need, of course, was communion. They were unified, unified, unified, unified. All of a sudden, there's complaints, there's a problem.

Already, we can begin to identify factions that if they were made holy, if these factions are sanctified in some fashion and driven deep, then there's going to be a bad division in the church. These are important problems, but the priority must not be violated.

The ministry of the word attended by prayer ought not to be left behind, neglected, and abandoned in the light of the new problem. This priority has been hard fought. Let's think about this briefly. Let's make sure that this is the priority of this church, and let's make sure that this ought to be the priority of our church.

So let's look at that. In Acts 1, in verse 8, what did Jesus say to the apostles? He said, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

What does it mean that they are witnesses? Read Luke 24. They were testifying from all of the scriptures who Christ is to all the world, and so it is their main job to be witnesses of Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the rest of the earth, and so their primary objective must be met by a priority of the word, the teaching and preaching of the holy scriptures, the preaching and teaching of God's word, the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Christ's kingdom.

That is the priority. This was what Peter did on the day of Pentecost. Being filled with the spirit means that you become exceptionally biblical, and he began to preach Christ from all the scriptures.

He did this again with John in the temple in Acts 3, for which they got arrested, and they were told to never do that again, and Peter and John on trial in chapter 4 said, we're still going to do that again because we're going to obey God rather than man, and then they went back to the church, and they all prayed that God would help them preach more Christ than they ever had before, and in chapter 5, they did just that, and they got arrested and beaten for it and told, don't ever do that again, and, well, they're going to keep it up.

This is a hard-fought priority. Are they doing the right thing? Are they being too narrow-minded? Are they being too focused here in making the preaching and teaching of God's word the priority? Are there not critical issues that need to be addressed?

Are there not needs that have to be met? And if they get too narrow focus in ministry in this early church, then how in the world is this ever going to work? They are simply following as disciples. Notice the multitude of the disciples.

The disciples were multiplying. Disciples are not above their master, correct? And disciples follow their master. Disciples in Jesus's day would follow their rabbi. Whatever the rabbi did, they would do.

If the rabbi ate with his hand in a certain way, they would eat the same way. If the rabbi ducked under a branch, they would duck under the branch the exact same way. Whatever the master does, that's what the disciples are to do.

And what did the master do in Luke chapter 4? In a very similar situation, when there were many needs. Verse 42 of Luke 4. Now when it was day, he departed and went into a deserted place, and the crowd sought him and came to him and tried to keep him from leaving them.

Why?

Because he'd been healing them and casting out demons, and there were all these needs. But, verse 43, he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.

Do you see what Jesus made as the priority? The preaching and teaching of the kingdom of God. That has to be the priority. And he makes this the priority not only by example, not only by model, but by mandate.

John, look over in the Gospel of John chapter 21, and how Jesus addresses Peter, the same Peter here in Acts chapter 6, working with the apostles to ensure that the preaching and teaching of God's word remains a priority.

Now what does Jesus say to Peter? John 21, verse 15. And so when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these? More than these fish that we caught?

He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

He said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things.

You know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. So what in the world is Peter doing, refusing to put food in the mouths of widows? Didn't Jesus say, feed them? Peter understood what the Savior meant.

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And in the feeding and the nourishing and the tending of Christ's sheep, the priority was on the ministry of the Word.

The priority was on the ministry of the Word. And here's why. Whatever threatens our communion as the church can only be rightly understood by the Word of God. When a problem arises within the church, some issue, some need, some complaint, if we then say, well, we've been obviously spending too much time in the preaching and teaching of God's Word, so now we need to divert our attention to try to help and solve this problem and try to address this complaint, we have now lost the ability to even clarify the problem and clarify the complaint.

We've tossed aside our compass so that we may find north. We have to use the Word of the Lord, the scepter of Christ's authority in our lives to try to understand and clarify the problem in the first place.

It is fine, just absolutely fine, brothers and sisters, to notice a problem in the church. Man, we are failing in need X. That's perfectly fine.

That is good.

Time to pray. Time to ask for wisdom. It is absolutely fine to say to someone, do you know that we have need X? Now, at some point, this turns into some buzzing complaining that begins to foment. And, you know, at some point there's a bunch of complaining and concern, but then nothing's happening.

Do you know why? Because we have to clarify the problem by the scriptures, clarify the problem by the word. This is why we encourage you to talk to your elder. So that the elders in the ministry of the word can bring clarity to the problems that we can know by the word of God, what is it that Christ wants us to do?

He's our shepherd. He's the one who's going to lead us into the right response according to the scripture. So we put off complaining for clarifying, clarify the problem in the word. Twelve says, look, it is not desirable that we leave the word of God and serve tables.

That is just the wrong, the wrong idea. But we're going to concentrate on the priority. Someone said a long time ago, and it's worth repeating as long as we know what it means. The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.

The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. And that is extremely, extremely difficult. We need wisdom lest we be tossed to and fro by every new wind of doctrine. Where is our communion?

Where is our agreement? Where is it that we come together in unity? Is it not in Christ? Is he not the one who has purchased us by his own blood? Is it not Christ who is our shepherd and our king? Is it not Christ who is our savior?

Is it not when we all bow the knee to his authority that this draws us together in unity? This is why there must be a priority upon the scriptures, for this is the scepter of his lordship in our lives.

The word of God interpreted in the light of Christ. That's why there must be a priority upon the word. Let's pray and let's have our meal together this morning. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word.

I pray that you would help us to trust you. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are our good shepherd. Help us to trust you when we fear the changes that often appear in our lives in the fellowship of our body.

Help us to remember all that you have done for us in giving yourself for us. Help us to remember your faithfulness. Help us to remember your authority and your power. We thank you for sending us your Holy Spirit that we would not be orphans, but that we will be comforted and to be led in all things that you have said and that you have taught.

God, we praise you. We thank you. We give you the glory. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.