12th April 2026 : Acts ch 6 v 1 - 7

Acts ch 6 v 1 - 7

Okay, we began the service with the Word of God. We'll turn to the Word of God again. Never mind what man says, what's God got to say? And it will very often not correspond with what man is saying or doing.

I'd like to read to you from the book of Acts chapter 6 and verses 1 to 7 inclusive. And this is the Word of God. Acts 6, rather, 1 to 7 from verse 1.

Now in those days when the number of disciples was multiplying, hallelujah, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists (the Hebrews being the Hebrew speaking Jews and the Hellenists being the Greek speaking Jews) 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 same pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, 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 a number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

Wonderful. Let's pray and ask God's anointing. Lord, that's a great passage of scripture and great things going on and great things you have taught us and great things you have done. But Lord, in Jesus' name, we would that you do them now. And we would that, Lord, you spread the living flame as you did then. Do it now, Lord. Increase your power. Holy Spirit, blow your soft breeze amongst us and over us and in your kingdom, Lord, may it be that our light really does shine. with this testimony, that as we read it in the Word of God, so may it be, so shall it be unto us, because we ask it in Jesus' precious name. Amen.

Okay, I mean, this is great stuff. It's very powerful. It says in verse one, the number of the disciples was multiplying. And you know on what scale, don't you? If you've read your Bible from the very beginning of the book of Acts, in one day, 3,000 people came to the Lord just because they heard the gospel of grace and they were changed. It was different from then on. And the Holy Spirit entered into them and they were born again. And all of a sudden you've got a church.

That's growth. I mean, imagine you're looking at the north face of the Eiger. It's a bit like that, upwards and onwards and suddenly. And along with that, sometimes, all the time actually, along with that, along with the blessings, they're all also comes logistical problems. Lovely logistical problems. What are you going to do with all those people? One lady that comes to us, she's not here today actually, she said, Roger, next week you could have 20 children at Kirkhall Lane and we're not sure. And it was a rhetorical question I put to her, but I said, oh, what would we do with 20 kids? I don't know, wait till I get in or make a plan or do what you will. But the Lord must act first. And then what he faces you with is a kind of double whammy, a great blessing. And then the discovery of what you're going to do next. And what we're going to do next is what the Lord wants us to do next.

The temptation is to rush ahead and do what we think is right, especially when we're faced suddenly with such a scale of logistical issues. How did all this begin? How did all this grace and mercy and wonderful stuff begin? Where does it all sit and on what foundations? We can say the obvious answer is the gospel, but let me trace it back to you. Mark's gospel in chapter 16, and I'll read it to you from verse 20, simply says this: After the commission, it says, and they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through and accompanying signs, through the accompanying signs. And then it says, amen. That's a big end of, isn't it? Amen, that's it. A lovely finished work. They went out preaching everywhere.

You know what I always say when people ask me questions, theological questions, sometimes quite tight questions. And I say, look, you know, no matter what you believe, you've got to preach the gospel to as many people as you can, as often as you can, wherever you can, as much as you can. That's what you can do. But salvation belongs to the Lord. And if you're doing that faithfully and if you're being faithful in your walk as a disciple of Jesus Christ, the signs and wonders follow. They don't come before. Did you notice that in 16:20 in Mark's gospel? That God confirmed the word. He confirmed the life of the church. He confirmed the power of the gospel. That came first and then the gifts. You know, a great struggle that some Christians have, is they worship the gifts or they worship other things. They worship the attributes rather than the giver. Remember that, beloved, if Jesus is at the centre of your heart and your life and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ is on your lips and in your mind and in the heart and soul, then you make him the king of all things. You really do.

You know, it's a great scripture. It came to me when I was in bed at night. That occasion where Abraham took Isaac up the mountain and God said, go and sacrifice your son, your only son, and take him up to the place I'll show you. And Abraham went and took him. And on the way up, Isaac said, we've got the fire and we've got the wood. But where's the lamb? Oh, it makes me heartbreak. And Abraham said, God himself shall provide the lamb. God himself shall provide. And he was announcing the gospel right there prophetically. One day on this hill, you'll see the Lord there.

And you know something, we've got the fire, we've got the wood. but he's got the big picture and the rest and salvation belongs to him. So when you put him at the very centre of the worship, he will confirm you and what you're doing with signs to follow. This multitude of new disciples, that was a sign that the power of God was at work, the power of God to save and heal and deliver. He confirmed the gospel by adding people to the kingdom of God. And that was a great workout for those disciples. They must have been on cloud 9 going forward with that. Could you cope with it? I don't think I could. But let's see how they did cope. I'll read again from Acts chapter 4, just over the page in verse 32 and verse 33. And it says there, the multitude, I love this word, don't you? It keeps cropping up in these readings today. The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul, or one heart and one mind, or one heart and one spirit. Okay, whichever way you like to put it. Are you of one mind and one spirit, beloved? Hallelujah.

And neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they all had things in common. No one was precious. No one put pressure on anybody. And then in verse 33, it says, and with great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. You see it there again. First of all, the oneness of mind and spirit. Jesus is the focus. He's the purity of the worship. We are going to present him no matter what we do or what anybody else says. And then following, following and acting on that witness to the gospel, there was much grace upon them. God was confirming the gospel with signs, great signs and wonders. Some folks were healed, some were delivered. But you see a multitude of people being saved. Very, very powerful outbreak of the Lord. And it's the kind of atmosphere in which you think, oh, haven't we done well, isn't it?

No, it's not. It's no time to get proud. Oh, no, no, you'll kill it. You'll kill everything with pride the moment you think it stands or rests on the ability of our own efforts. We've got the fire, we've got the wood, but he's got the lamb. God will provide. Don't doubt that. That's the word of God. What circumstances do you face today? I don't know. God shall provide. God himself will provide. You've got the fire, you've got the wood, you've got the gospel, let's face it. And you know this is no time for pride. One last accessory to what I'm saying today and then we'll come to the passage I read. And it's from Philippians chapter 2 and verse 12 and 13. And it tells us there what our attitude should be and our approach to these things should be. When you know and you witness to God's blessing. And it reads like this from verse 12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, and you have, haven't you? You've always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

You know, the one thing you don't want to do, beloved, is to grieve the Holy Spirit. And that's what pride will do. It's being careful of everything. When the Lord is blessing you more than you've been used to before, and there is a multitude and there is growth and the Lord is confirming the gospel, that's a time to tread very carefully. It is. It's no time for pride. It's a time to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Not that you think somebody up there doesn't like you, not that kind of fear. Holy fear, reverent fear. God is in the midst, blowing the soft breeze of his Holy Spirit over you. And you think, that's frightening. It is, it's frightening. It's a great and wonderful blessing, but it's frightening because God is in control. Okay, and that's what the apostle wrote to the Philippians. He said in verse 13, it's God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

You ever wondered why you were made? It's one of those human questions. Why me? Why, you know, why did that happen to me? Or why did you wait so long before you showed yourself to me, Lord? Why am I like this? Why do you make me like this? And the answer is very simple, you know. You were made for God's glory. That's right. Remember when the disciple, that passage in the Bible where the disciples said, what caused this man's sickness, Lord? Was it his father's sin or his own? And he said, neither. This is for the glory of God. God is going to be glorified because I'm going to heal him. Staggering but true. You were made for the glory of God. and God's purpose in your life is for his glory. All your experiences, you take and use and you channel them and you say, what was this for? To give me wisdom, to give me experience, to give me compassion for people who are facing things that I've faced and things over which I've got the victory because I'm in Christ. And after patient prayer and waiting upon the Lord, he delivered me, he can deliver you too. We've got the wood, we've got the fire, he shall provide.

All right, so we come back to our passage, chapter 6, and all these lovely logistical problems. People, you see, when you put people together, they quite often, well, think of a group of pebbles on a beach. Can you do that? Your imagination is probably better than mine, but anyway. Some of them are washed up by the sea, and they've been in the sea a long time. So in come the waves with the tide. Up comes some of the stones and some of the shingle and some fine sediment, the sedimentary rock and igneous rock, and they're all washed up on the beach. And they're very smooth because they've been in the sea a long time. And then some falls from the cliffs or brought by other means by the wind and they fall in the same place and you get what we call shingle. The pure sand is underneath and the shingles on the top. And there's lots of rough edges on some of the stones and on some of the other stones they're very smooth. And there you've got a congregation of pebbles. Okay. Put them all in a bag. Or much easier, put them all in a scumbling machine. Have you ever seen one of those? Shakes everything up. And if you leave them in long enough, they'll all become smooth. Because all the rough edges get worn off. don't they? By being scumbled together. Do you like being scumbled? Are you being scumbled? Well, God will scumble you, because you know how he gets rid of the rough edges? Through fellowship. Through fellowship. You must have the fellowship of God's people, and it must be that the Holy Spirit is manifest in the midst in some way, by grace, by love, so that the rough edges are worn off.

What we're seeing in Acts chapter 6 is the rough edges being worn off. They've got logistical problems because people are starting to moan. They start to murmur, I'm being left out, you know, what did that person really mean in that phone call? You know, I mean, the human mind, the imagination, very powerful, very silly, very paranoid. Always thinking the worst, but when the Holy Spirit inhabits your prayers and your life, you start to think the best of people and you start to imagine the best of God for those people. And then the rough edges just, it's a bit like being in the sea. It's better than being knocked down by the cliff in a windfall, isn't it? You're in the sea a long time and you're smoothed on. And then you can minister God's grace to somebody else.

Wonderful. That's fellowship. That's the power of God in the body of Christ. Takes away the rough edges. And instead of moaning, they start praising. If you're not praising God, you must be cursing and moaning and complaining. And when it says here, murmuring. And the apostles saw that and they thought, okay, we've got pastoral problems because of the growth. It was because they were being blessed that they had the problems. How did they answer it? Did they go to the job centre and get somebody to look after it? No. Did they get somebody with special qualifications? No. What did they do? Let's cut to the immediate and obvious answer. First of all, they went to the church with what God gave them. It was a congregational decision. There was no one person, no lone star ranger like we found Moses at the beginning of the service. And his father-in-law said, you're doing it all wrong. You're going to wear everybody out like that. No, take it to the body and delegate and see what the Lord brings for you.

And that's what the apostles did, it is very wise, and they appointed, they said, seek out seven Spirit-filled people for the wisdom and the Holy Spirit. Seek out from among you. If there's a need and you're praying about it, God will probably involve you in the answer. So from among you, God will call out people to different things and different roles. It's a question of time. Or is it a question of growth? It's better than murmuring. And there's no other solution to it. It doesn't matter what role you appoint people to. They must be spirit-filled people. They must be God's people. Too often in churches, you see people appointed to things they're not equipped for because they're not in Christ. No good. That's not going to wear rough edges off, is it? That's going to create more moaning and it often does.

Seek out from among you 7 spirit people. There's got to be spirit-filled people in amongst you to do that, hasn't there? And how do you receive the Holy Spirit? Oh, you must wait upon the Lord. I don't mean the seal of the Holy Spirit in salvation. I mean the ongoing anointing. I mean that refreshing spring, like spring water. You know what you're doing, you know what to do, you know how to respond, because you've got the counsel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. We're looking for people like that to take up these roles, said the apostles, because it's crucially important that they're done properly. And that's what they did. And they appointed them over the business. How did they appoint them? Did they send them to college? No. Did they prepare them in some other way? No. What they did was to lay hands on them, present them to the church and pray over them and bless them with the anointing of God. And that is the most powerful thing you can do with anybody. That laying on of hands is so fundamental to the Christian faith. So many people shy away from it. But it's that connection, that, that blessing, that conferring of the Holy Spirit on a person and their lives. Do it. Pray. Don't wait for somebody else, you do it. And that's what they did and they were appointed in God's way. God's appointment, done God's way to God's things. What's the outcome? What's the outcome?

Let's look at it. We're given the answer. We're given these seven wonderful names, aren't they? I don't know who these guys were, how they ended up. But I do know this, I know what happened as a result. Verse 7, it tells us there, the word of God spread. And what happens when the word of God spreads? We saw it earlier. God confirms it with signs and wonders to follow. The word of God spread and the number of disciples increased. They didn't level off, they didn't plateau out, they didn't come to a standstill, they kept going up. And something amazing happened. Some of the priests came to the Lord. That is amazing. It really is. They've been steeped in Judaism all their lives. They've been trained up in a priesthood as little boys, Levites. They'd never known anything else. And now they knew Jesus. That's amazing. And they came away from that and there must have been a lot of pressure on them to make that statement, I'm now in Christ. It's a bit like a Muslim coming to Christ in Syria or something like that. It's quite a statement.

And the gospel was being preached and lived out by God's people so powerfully that he confirmed it and he confirmed them with those signs to follow, salvation and those things which accompany it. Now we should be jealous of this stuff. We should. We should be jealous of all these things. But give way to jealousy first and then afterwards to good common sense and say, what was the basis? I know, let's just do that. And the basis was that they were faithful in all that God said, kept God's word, waited on the voice of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, and only did what God said, and only responded in God's way, and God confirmed it, and they multiplied.

We're all of equal status. The only difference is one of function. You are all priests of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you take that seriously, then maybe, maybe, you've heard the word of God today to you. Let's just pray.

Lord, this message concerns Spirit-filled folks being Spirit-filled and be being Spirit-filled every day and living out that life which is so precious, so powerful, that even when we don't speak, it's a testimony to those people around us. Make them jealous of us, Lord, so that they inquire about our faith. Give us boldness, Lord, to speak it as we should, and follow it, Lord, with those signs which accompany salvation, that they may be saved and added to the kingdom. Build your church, Lord, the way that you will, with whom you will, in the way that you want to, and be glorified in it, Lord. Please involve us, every person in this room, in Jesus' name. Amen.