FBC Daily Devotional – November 15, 2021

Well, good Monday morning to you, beginning a new week and coming off of a good day yesterday with God's people at church.

I hope you were able to attend in person yesterday at church. If so, let me ask you this, were your expectations met?

Isn't it interesting how we can develop certain expectations even about something like church?

And in some cases should. We should have certain expectations related to our church attendance.

We should expect that in the worship service, things are going to be focused on God.

It's going to be a God -centered worship service that we're going to have certain elements in that service.

We can expect, we should expect that we will pray, that we will read scripture, that we will sing together, and that there will be the preaching of the word.

Those are some things that we should just basically expect every week. We shouldn't always expect, we shouldn't necessarily expect that the seating will be as comfortable as we might like, or that the room will be as comfortable as we might like.

One of the things that interests me as a pastor is that the variety of things like the comfort of the room.

You can have the thermostat set on 70 degrees, and some people will be sitting there fanning themselves because it's so warm.

Now we're talking about the cooler months, they'll be fanning themselves because it's too warm, and other people will be shivering, and it's like, you know, you can't win in those things.

And I think everybody understands that, I don't hear hardly ever any complaints about things like that, which is good, it's a good thing.

But what do you expect? And were those expectations met? What about with the preaching of the word, that's especially what

I want to focus on. What do you expect the pastor to do on Sunday morning?

What is the expected emphasis that you have for him?

And what about through the course of the week? What are your expectations for those who lead in the church, the pastors and so forth?

What do you expect them to do Monday through Saturday? What do you expect to be their focus?

The reason I bring that up is because our scripture reading today is in Acts chapter 6, and at the beginning of that passage, this is the early days of the church, and the church has gotten to be quite large.

A lot of people participating in the church, a lot of people have been converted and have been baptized and become a part of the church at Jerusalem.

So one of the things the church needed to do and felt the need for this early on is to care for those in the church who were widows.

And there wasn't Social Security in those days. And so what often happened, especially for Christians, is that somebody becomes a believer in Christ and loses his job or loses his life.

It didn't happen in the early church in Jerusalem at that particular time, but that would leave people high and dry.

It would leave wives without any means of support. And in these particular early days of the church at Jerusalem, there were a lot of women who came to Christ whose husbands had died.

They were widows and they were not getting any support from the community now that they had become Christians.

So the church understood the need to give support and help out, provide food and basics of life for these widows.

Well, this became a part of the ministry of the local church. And then there arose this conflict because within the church there were different kind of ethnic groups, if you will.

There were the Hellenists, those who were, their home wasn't normally or originally in Israel.

They were Grecian Jews. And then there were the Jews, Jews.

So they had this conflict between the Hellenists and the Jews because the

Hellenists were saying our widows are not being cared for like the Jewish widows are being cared for.

And they brought this complaint to the elders of the church, the apostles.

And that led to a challenge to the apostles. What are we going to do about it?

And the way they handled that was very wise. They said, all right, to the church, choose some men who we can set over this affair, who can set over this business of making sure that the widows, whatever their ethnic background is, the widows are uniformly cared for.

And they did. They chose out a bunch of men to do this. But here's the key.

The apostles said this, it is not appropriate for us, it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.

Therefore, 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 as for us, we will give ourselves continually to the ministry of the word and to prayer.

We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Those are the two main focus points of pastoral leadership, church leadership, giving themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

So, most fundamentally, those who are, those who, quote, sit in the pews, the members of the church, the church family, the expectation of the church family for the pastoral leadership of the church should be that they give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

And I mention that because in our culture, in the American culture, the church has developed a sort of corporate mindset related to the church where, you know, pastors have become, in many ways of thinking in many people, have become sort of like CEOs and they're managers and all of that kind of stuff.

And there are so many things that pastors can give themselves to, so many distractions that are out there that they can be good things that they can administer and that they can take care of.

But if they do those things, they'll distract them from the main things.

And we need to keep the main things, the main things. That's the point.

So, here's the deal, I think. If you go to church and your pastor has given himself to prayer and to the ministry of the word and you're expecting that, and he's been doing that, then your expectation is right on and it's been satisfied and you should praise the

Lord. If you've got expectations of the pastor that are outside of that, you need to evaluate why.

If he does that, what is he going to have to give up? What is it going to take away from?

See, that's a challenge that you need to think about. If you have expectations of the pastor beyond his giving himself to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

All right. Let's make sure that in our churches, that those main things remain primary things for the work of the ministry.

All right. Well, Heavenly Father, I pray today that you would help those of us who pastor churches and lead churches, that we would have the right focus and the right emphasis.

I pray, Father, that the godly people in the pew who comprise your church, that their expectation too would be for their pastoral leadership to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

May that main thing be the focal point of life and ministry in the local church.

And this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, I hope your week gets off to a good start and the