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 h M