You’ve heard the question plenty of times before: “If you knew that you were going to die today, what would you do?” There are lots of ways to answer a question like that, and perhaps some answers are just as good as others. The point of the question isn’t to get an itinerary of your last 24 hours as much as it is meant to reveal the true passions and desires of your heart.

In this way, death (or at least the thought of it) is a catalyst that reorients our focus and reframes our priorities. The impending, inevitable nature of death causes us to shake off the cobwebs, ignore the distractions, and really focus on what matters.

Jesus, of course, didn’t need this kind of refreshing. He was always focused on His Father, always obedient to His Father’s will, and always doing what most desperately needed to be done. Perhaps Jesus’ focus was due, in part, to His awareness of His mission. He knew, from at least the time of His public ministry, that He was destined to die. He Himself said, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him.” [Mark 9:31] So His impending death helped Him focus on the importance of the task at hand during His ministry.

In the hours before Jesus’ betrayal and crucifixion, what do we find Him doing? Praying. He was praying to His Father. But this wasn’t the prayer of a person who had neglected prayer and ignored God for so long  that now, as death approaches, they desperately search for words to make things right, trying to grow something in an instant that they have failed to develop and nurture throughout their lives. No, this is the prayer of a Son, the expression of an intimate bond that has already weathered tough storms, resisted strong temptations, and will shortly endure the betrayal of a professing friend.

Thankfully, John records some of what Jesus said in this prayer. It’s interesting to see what was on our Savior’s heart in the minutes before His trial and murder. When we know the end is near, we tend to focus on the things that are most important to us; the things we love the most. Jesus does likewise in these moments:

"I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours…Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as we are one…sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." [John 17:9-19]

In His prayer, Jesus asks His Father to unite and sanctify those who are His. His prayer is that His disciples “may be one,” even as He and the Father are one. A unity that is complete and total in purpose, desire, and action. Nothing the Son and Father ever do are at odds in terms of goals or means of reaching them. They, along with the Holy Spirit, work in complete harmony and unity. It is this same unity that God gives to His people—a most precious gift, since our human natures are sinful and divisive.

And it’s precisely because we are so sinful that we have to protect this unity that we have been given. Paul reminds us that we must “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” [Ephesians 4:1-3] So while it is true that we can’t make unity, we are commanded to maintain unity. We have to work at it. It takes effort and (if we can borrow a phrase) ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ to keep it intact. In that same passage of Ephesians, Paul says that maintaining unity requires “all humility and gentleness [and] patience, bearing with one another in love.” [Ephesians 4:2] We choose to live in unity, knowing that it will take constant vigilance and determination to do so.

Why? Well, first, it is God’s gift to us, and should be treasured as such. Second, we are commanded by God to live in this manner. Third, our unity is what sets us apart from an unbelieving world. Why else would this group of people be in this room at this time worshipping together? It would seem that there is nothing else we have all in common apart from Christ.

I would even go a bit further and suggest that if it weren’t for Christ, most of us would never have any occasion to even speak to many of the other people here in this room. Why else would our paths cross? In what other context would we find ourselves in complete agreement or commonality? We have different ethnic backgrounds, different political views, different careers and hobbies. We shop at different stores, eat at different restaurants, and go to different schools. And yet we have unity.

“But wait a minute,” you might say. “Didn’t you just demonstrate how we don’t have any real unity at all? We are a church full of people with differences!” Yes, that’s true, and it’s a good thing, too! Keep in mind that there is a significant and substantial difference between unity and uniformity. We are not called to have the exact same passions or gifts, nor are we all called to serve the Lord in the same way.

The way the Bible explains it is like this: if they body were full of eyes, where would the sense of hearing be? If the body were all ears, how could it smell? Just like you have eyes and ears and a nose, yet only one body, so too is the Church made up of a wide range of people—people who are all united by Christ, who is the Head. (For a fuller treatment of this important idea, please see 1 Corinthians, chapters 12-14.)

So, in the Church, we have people who serve as pastors, elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers, or on committees. We have people who help with mission trips, outreach projects, minister to shut-ins, and cook breakfast. There are those who hold babies, change diapers, sing in the choir, drive vans, sign checks, and sweep floors. You don’t (or, at least, shouldn’t!) have one person doing all those things, and yet they all need to be done. That’s where the diversity of the body comes in. We all do what we are called and equipped to do, serving the Lord in unity as we seek to glorify Christ and lift Him up. That’s how the Church is designed to work.

All of which brings us to Acts 6. On the surface, this passage is about an issue concerning food. But what’s really going on here? The Church is growing and Satan is attacking it. He is attacking its unity.

Earlier in Acts, the Adversary tried to destroy the Church through persecution, but that didn’t work. In fact, it had the opposite effect: the Gospel spread (see Acts 4:1-22 & 5:40-42). So we see Satan changing his strategy and trying to destroy the Church through corruption. Again, Luke tells us that the devil’s schemes did not have the intended effect and the Church was strengthened (see Acts 5:1-11). Now, Satan is trying to destroy the Church through dissension—disunity and disharmony. The old ‘divide and conquer’ strategy.

But his approach is (as is usually the case) much more subtle than we might think at first glance. Satan’s ploy isn’t just to get people complaining about things; his goal is to get people sidetracked from what they are supposed to be doing, and when those tasks remain undone (or done half-heartedly) the resulting damage will be far greater than the initial complaint. What he is attacking is the unity of the Church, and he is attacking it by trying to distract the Church and keep their focus anywhere but where it needs to be.

In today’s passage, we’re going to find three things that help us understand the way that God intends His Church to have unity among those who serve in its various roles and responsibilities. First, we see:

1. A valid complaint [6:1]

Growth is a good thing, but it sometimes brings other complications. Tricia and I have two young sons, and they keep growing because they are healthy and that’s what healthy infants do. But that growth means that we are constantly shopping for bigger clothes, bigger diapers, bigger shoes, and so on.

Some of this church’s Sunday school classes have, over the years, gotten so big that they’ve outgrown their rooms and had to find larger areas to meet. These are the kind of problems that come with growth—and they are good ‘problems’ to have since they indicate health and vitality. But they have to be addressed.

Imagine not buying a growing kid any new clothes or a class refusing to leave a crowded room and running out of space for people to sit. Neither scenario is pretty. Both need to be dealt with in timely, appropriate manners.

That’s the exact kind of situation that we find ourselves in here in Acts 6. The number of disciples is growing as more and more people are coming to faith in Christ. And we know (from Acts 2:42-47, and elsewhere) that one of the defining characteristics of this early Church—one of the things they considered absolutely fundamental to their existence—was meeting each other’s physical needs as they had means to do so.

That’s why you have a man like Barnabas selling all the land he owns and donating all the proceeds to the ministry (as seen in Acts 4). Not everyone did such extreme things, but we do get the sense that everyone gave something to help feed and clothe their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now, when you look through Scripture at passages about meeting the needs of others, you’re going to find two groups of people mentioned multiple times: widows and orphans (see 1 Timothy 5:3-8. and James 1:27, for example). Perhaps more than anyone else, these two groups represent people who (especially in biblical times) were virtually unable to meet their own needs. They could not provide for themselves, so if they were going to eat, it would require depending on the generosity of others.

God commands His people to help those who are in such conditions, reminding us that we too were helpless when He came to help us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Since we have been given so much, we are Spiritually obligated to help others. (Further details are given in 2 Corinthians 9:1-15, Ephesians 4:28, and elsewhere.) The first disciples took this command seriously and by the time of Acts 6 we know that they are already meeting needs in various ways, including (at the least) a daily distribution of food to widows.

Before we get any further into this, we need to ask ourselves a very important question: what are we doing to meet the needs of others? Not only those in our community, though that is important, but of those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. How are we helping one another in the faith? Are we assuming that someone else (church leadership? government?) is taking care of things or are we actively looking for opportunities to share from the abundance God has blessed us with? Do we have programs and ministries within our church that are designed to meet this need? Do we, as individuals, look for one-on-one opportunities to help out our Christian family without seeking the spotlight or recognition of any kind? Maybe the Lord is impressing upon your heart a strong burden to begin a new ministry to meet needs or maybe a strong burden to be more intentional in finding needs to be met.

On the other side of the coin, if we have needs, are we making them known? The Church is full of people with many spiritual gifts, but mind-reading isn’t one of them. We can’t have any realistic expectation of seeing our needs met if we aren’t willing to disclose those needs. It’s like someone complaining that no one from the church came to help their family move to a new home, but when asked who was invited, he says “no one” and then claims the church just should have known he needed help. Friends, that is not the way it works. No one will be there to comfort you if no one is aware of your heartache. If you sincerely need help, you have to ask.

But who do you ask? How do you ask? These questions bring us back to dilemma we find in Acts 6. In this passage, the issue was brought up by a group of widows who were being neglected. They let people know about this oversight (see, you do have to tell people you have a need) and it was brought to the attention of the apostles.

The issue probably came from a language barrier. Luke (who wrote Acts) makes a point of mentioning that these were Hellenist widows, which means they spoke Greek, not the Aramaic that the Hebrews—including the apostles—would have spoken. Chances are, the difference in language was the reason that led to some widows not being taken care of properly. This is a valid complaint, raised in order to be corrected.

Not all complaints are valid, of course. During Jesus’ ministry, the Pharisees had a lot of complaints about the way Jesus did things. He healed people on the Sabbath, He taught with authority, He challenged their traditions and rituals, and He upset their carefully-guarded status quo. But none of their complaints were valid, were they? They were taking issue with the very Son of God and the work He came to do. They may not have liked it, and they certainly didn’t like Him, and they made no secret of complaining about Him openly, but volume doesn’t equal validity. They killed Him to try and shut Him up, but not even that violent act gave any credibility to their complaints.

Here’s one key way to tell the difference between a person making a valid complaint and a person just defaming others: is the complainer willing to be part of the solution? Are they willing to accept any solution other than their own? If not, chances are it’s not a valid complaint, but a self-serving issue as opposed to a Gospel-centered one. If a person comes to you wanting to complain about what a fellow church member is doing, the very first thing you should say is “have you spoken to that person?” If they haven’t, don’t listen to them murmur and gripe—hold them accountable to the Biblically-mandated way of resolved differences (seen in Matthew 18). If they aren’t willing to go to the person who has supposedly offended them so greatly; if they aren’t willing to observe the Lord’s instructions on how to handle our differences, then they aren’t making a valid complaint, they’re just grumbling.

Here’s another way to discern which complaints are valid. Ask yourself these kinds of questions the next time you hear someone complaining: Is the complaint based on a genuine need, or a perceived want or personal preference? Is the complaint concerned with the spreading of the Gospel or more with satisfying felt needs? The answers to those questions will tell you a lot about the nature of what’s being said.

The complaint in Acts 6 was made in the right manner: it wasn’t out of spite or hatred. Some kinds of complaints are nothing more than thinly-veiled criticism designed to malign or slight someone or something that the person disagrees with. Not here. The widows in Acts 6 said “We’re being neglected in the daily distribution” not something like “Those darn Jewish women are stealing all our food!” or “See, the apostles don’t even care about widows!”  

So there is a very important difference between making a legitimate complaint and making a rash accusation. It’s the distinction between talking situationally and talking slanderously: one addresses the issue, the other attacks the individual.

The God-driven growth of the Church was leading to valid complaints that needed to be addressed, which leads us to what we see next:

2. A valuable solution [6:2-4]

Valid complaints require action. In this instance, we see the apostles making some decisions based on the issue that had been brought to their attention, and we discover that their decision was a valuable solution to the dilemma.

The reason the apostles’ solution is such a valuable one is because it addresses the reality of their situation but does not force them to compromise their role and thus deprive the church of the teaching it needs. In fact, we’ll carry this thought out a bit further as we consider the two main reasons that the apostles’ solution was valuable:

A. The solution values the importance of sound teaching.

There is a very basic difference between what people want and what people need. The same is true when it comes to preaching and teaching. It falls to those who are in positions of preaching and teaching to follow the Spirit’s leading by faithfully addressing the people of God from His Word. This requires a great deal of effort, time, and energy—and it must be repeated, sometimes several times each week.

You might think that it is no big thing to stand in front of a congregation and speak the truths of God week in and week out. You may not think that any preparation at all needs to go into a sermon; that the pastor should be able to ‘wing it’ and go from the cuff. That would be a horrible way to minister to people.

It would also become an increasingly tedious method of teaching to sit under. You would only get whatever happened to be on the preacher’s mind at any given time, and only hear messages from texts that he was comfortable preaching from. This isn’t what God has in mind for those He calls and equips to lead His people by sound teaching, nor is it what He intends for those who depend on that teaching to supplement their spiritual nourishment. If you never stopped eating baby food, I suppose you could still survive, but you’re going to be missing a great deal of nutrition and vitamins—not to mention tastes and aromas—that come from moving on to solid food.

Some people rank “preaching and teaching” near the bottom of the list when it comes to things they want their pastor to do, but there is simply no way around it: the Scripture gives absolute vitality and prominence to the preaching and teaching of sound doctrine. Doctrine is a fundamentally important part of Christian maturity, unity, and perseverance. Consider what Paul says in Ephesians 4:

"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,  to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,  so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." [Ephesians 4:11-16]

Doctrine—sound teaching—is what enables the Church to avoid falling into falsehood, buying every new idea (or newly-packaged old idea) that comes along, or becoming prey to Satan’s subtle attacks. God gives preachers and teachers to His Church in order to ensure that the body is built up in the unity of faith and the knowledge of Christ—growing up in every way into Christ.

A church without doctrine, to paraphrase Proverbs 25:28, is like a city without walls: anything can come and go as it sees fit. False teaching is allowed to creep in and take root; heresy can stroll right in the front doors; division and disunity can split a church in two before anyone’s aware of what’s happening.

Consider this example: a church in Texas split several years ago. Each faction filed a suit claiming legal right to the facilities and finances of the ministry. It was a nasty, drawn-out fight that went all the way to court and, as you can imagine, attracted the attention of local news media. They investigated the story and discovered that the initial event, the one thing that started the chain reaction that led to the split of this church, happened at a church-wide dinner. An elder sat down at the table to eat and noticed that the child sitting next to him had a bigger piece of ham than he did. I wish I were making that up, but I’m not. It really happened, and was publicly announced for all the world to see.¹

Now, you can draw a lot of conclusions from that kind of story. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know for certain how it happened. But I can say this: that was a church which did not have a strong emphasis on the preaching and teaching of God’s Word. How do I know? Because that church was full of people who were willing to attack each other and refused to work out their differences. They chose to publicly sue each other and split apart instead of thinking about their testimony to the community around them. They chose to harbor bitterness and spread dissension instead of confronting issues and resolving conflict. They went to a secular judge instead of their Heavenly Father. They chose to let a piece of ham—a piece of ham!—shatter their unity and ruin their witness. No one expressed humility, no one practiced discipline or accountability, and no one seemed to think that glorifying Christ was more important than getting their way.

Before we get too caught up in denouncing this church in Dallas, we need to step back and look at ourselves. The only way that something like that won’t happen here—and I mean the only way—is if we are saturated with the right combination of Christ’s love and Christ’s life. If we are firmly grounded in the doctrine of Scripture and faithfully putting it into use in our lives; if we make every effort to maintain our unity through the proper preaching and practice of sound doctrine.

B. The solution values the importance of serving together.

The second thing that makes the apostles’ solution valuable is that it highlights the importance of God’s people serving together in unity. It is interesting that in the entire New Testament, you never get any indication that a church was given only one leader (elder or bishop). Instead, there is an emphasis on a plurality of leadership. We can’t go into all the details of this today, but the point I want to make by mentioning this is that we are supposed to have a cooperative unity among those who minister in leadership roles. There is only one Head of the Church, and that is Christ. Some of His people will be called and equipped to lead others (as we saw in Ephesians 4), and that means they will have authority—but they will never have an authority greater than His, and their authority extends only as far as it agrees with and submits to the authority of Christ.

Also keep in mind that “leadership” doesn’t always equate with positions of human authority. A person can, and often does, lead by serving and meeting the needs of others. Jesus, as you remember, washed the feet of His disciples. He performed the task of a servant, literally getting His hands dirty to show by example what He meant when He said: “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” [Matthew 20:28] He would show this idea even more fully by willingly giving His life in our place as He died on the cross.

It is exactly this kind of servant-based leadership that God intends for people in His Church to practice. And it is to be practiced by all those who are in positions of leadership and authority, which does not just include pastors. This is why, by the way, getting a visit from the deacon instead of the pastor isn’t a sign that the church doesn’t care about you. Do you know that I have heard that very thing said? Not too long ago I found myself speaking with a member of another church in town who had recently been sick and here’s how the conversation went:

            “Well, I was in the hospital for two days and the pastor didn’t come to see me. I guess that means the church just doesn’t care about me at all.”

            “So no one came to see you?”

            “Oh, no. I’ve had plenty of visitors from the church: my Sunday school teacher, several members, and my deacon.”

            “Well, that seems to me like the church cares about you a great deal!”

            “Well then why didn’t the pastor come by?”

Now, it’s one thing to want your pastor to be with you in difficult times. There’s nothing wrong with that idea, and most of the time, he is there. But a pastor is not the only one who can (or should) minister to those who are in need. A pastor is not the only representative of the church, especially not in areas of meeting physical needs.

Think about it this way: Who brings you food in a restaurant? The waiter. But why not the chef? After all, he cooked it, so shouldn’t he bring it to your table? Or why not the manager? Yes, the manager should be bringing each meal to every table for every customer. He’s in a customer-service based industry, so isn’t he paid to make the customers happy? They might be happiest if the manager brought out the food and hand delivered it to every table, so that’s what he must do. They’ll all refuse to attend that restaurant unless the manager himself promises to bring them the food!

Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Can you imagine one of the Hellenistic widows opening her door to see Stephen standing there with her food and then refusing to take it because Peter wasn’t the person delivering it? Of course not! The widow’s need is being met, and it’s being met by her church body, and it doesn’t matter if it’s coming from Peter or Stephen or Jim or Bob. It’s being done in the name of Christ, by the people of Christ, for the glory of Christ, and so it counts just the same regardless of whatever face is attached to it. Do you honestly think the pastor is the only one who can minister to someone in need?

Let me state it plainly: if a pastor doesn’t visit you in the hospital, it does not in any way mean that he does not care about you, and it most certainly does not mean that the church does not care about you. In fact, if we understand Scripture correctly, it might be a sign of the exact opposite. If a pastor spends the majority of his time visiting the sick, visiting church members, visiting prospects, visiting funeral homes, visiting shut-ins, etc. then he isn’t spending any time on preaching or teaching. And that, as we just saw from the Scriptures, is his primary job. That is what he absolutely must do.

And isn’t it a bit demeaning to those who serve as deacons (or teach Sunday School, or simply care enough to pick up the phone and call you) to suggest that their ministry is somehow inferior to that of a pastor? That’s what is being implied by those who feel slighted when a pastor doesn’t visit them but someone else does. Is the pastor endowed with some sort of special power or indwelt by a different Holy Spirit than a deacon? No, the only differences are his roles and responsibilities.

Take deacons, for example. When Scripture talks about deacons, they are never seen as inferior in any way. In passages like Acts 6:1-7, Titus 1:5-9 and 1 Timothy 3:8-13, deacons are held to the same character qualifications as elders (pastors).² In fact, the only distinction is that deacons are not required to be able to teach, giving us a strong indication that their role is to be more service-oriented. Again, in no way is this inferior. The work of a preacher and the work of a deacon are not to be compared to each other and judged based on any human criteria. Each of us is to be faithful to the calling God has placed on our lives. If you are called to be a preacher, you must preach. If you are called to be a deacon, you must…deac? In either case, the focus and primacy must be given to the role you are assigned as a result of God’s calling on your life.

Do you remember the example of the restaurant we mentioned earlier? Do you know the main reason that the manager doesn’t bring each and every customer’s food to their table? It’s because that isn’t the job the owner hired him to do. That’s not to say that waiting tables is ‘beneath’ him or that he’s ‘too good’ to bring food out of the kitchen. That’s not to say that he is better in any way to a waiter or a chef; but he was hired to do a different job than waiters and chefs. The owner isn’t going to hold the manager primarily responsible for undercooked steak or spilled beverages, but he will hold the manager accountable for the things he was hired to do.

It works the same way in the Church. Pastors are called and chosen to do a certain job, and as we see in Acts 6, the main focus of that job is to be devoted to prayer and the teaching ministry of the Word. That doesn’t mean a pastor can’t, or won’t, or shouldn’t do anything else—just like a restaurant manager will often come by tables and ask customers how their dining experience is going or lend a hand in the kitchen if the chefs are getting swamped with orders. But Christ calls pastors to do a specific job and that is what they will give an answer for.

Have you ever noticed that even Jesus didn’t do everything Himself? He sent out His disciples to go from town to town. He sent Peter and John to prepare the Passover for the rest of the group. He often withdrew from large crowds. He raised some people from the dead, but clearly not everyone. He didn’t heal every sick person in Israel. He fed 5,000 once and 4,000 another time, but He didn’t give every person every meal during His three year ministry. There were plenty of poor people, sick people, needy people that Jesus did not directly minister to. There were times when He went off alone to pray and times when He got tired and rested. 

Now, would you accuse Jesus of a lack of focus? A lack of compassion? Of course not. He was focused solely on doing what He came to do. He could have spent years healing the sick or raising the dead or feeding the hungry—and He would never have been done with His work. So He did those things when He was led to do so, but He never allowed those tasks to keep Him from what He was called to do.

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. This isn’t a ‘get the pastor out of work’ argument. I’m not suggesting that a pastor can never conduct a funeral or stop by the hospital or go on visitation or attend a chili supper. He can, and undoubtedly will, do these things. But what we must remember—what the apostles in Acts 6 were so adamant about—is that those things are supplemental to a pastor’s main purpose. He can do those things in addition to being prepared to preach and teach but he dare not do those things in place of being prepared to preach and teach.

Whether or not a pastor would prefer to be speaking with people or prefer to have his nose in a book really isn’t the issue either. A pastor may truly want to visit everyone who is sick, or who misses a Sunday, or who moves into a house within two miles of the church—but he cannot. To do so would be detrimental to the people he has been charged with leading. His preferences cannot dictate his priorities. (And this is to say nothing of a pastor’s God-given, Scripturally-mandated command to take proper care of his own family, loving his wife as Christ loves the church and raising his children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. These are no small matters either, since Paul is clear: “He must manage his own household well…for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?” [1 Tim. 3:4-5]

So a pastor, by his very calling—by the very command of Christ Himself—must be devoted “to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.” [Acts 6:4] Can we agree on that?

Here’s the problem: an article in a magazine called Christianity Today revealed that the average pastor spends three minutes a day in prayer. Three minutes. Does that sound like someone who is “devoted” to prayer?

Now we have to ask ourselves an important question: why is that the case? Why are these men in pastorates not devoted to prayer? Firstly, there has to be a great level of personal accountability in any pastor’s life. If he is not devoted to prayer, then he must make it so right away. He has to be disciplined and self-controlled when it comes to prayer and the ministry of the Word. There are no excuses.

But can we also honestly agree that we, as God’s people, often contribute to this epidemic? We expect our pastors to attend every church function, be involved in associational work, hold staff meetings, visit the sick, go on retreats, preach three times a week, meet with the deacons, conduct funerals and weddings, and on and on. And we certainly expect our pastor to be a good family man, taking care of his wife and kids in the way God commands. And we want him to have a good reputation in the community. And we don’t want his yard going too long between cuttings, because that might look bad. And we want him to welcome new members and write letters to those who visit. And we want him to avoid temptation and live a holy life. And we want him to be devoted to studying the Bible and praying. Do you see how this all adds up?

Now, if you hear this and think that I’m just trying to make excuses for a pastor to be lazy, then you aren’t really getting the heart of what I’m saying. If you hear that list of expectations and think “well, that’s what we pay him for!” then you really don’t understand why God puts pastors in churches. What you ‘pay him for’ isn’t to keep you happy or run a good public relations campaign; what you really ‘pay him for’ (whether you know it or not) is to be faithful to the job God has called him to do, and that is to be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word. To build up the body by equipping the saints. That is the job Christ has chosen him for, and if and when he fails to do it, then it harms the church—much more than if he were to miss a meeting or not go to the hospital to visit the sick.

If I can, I hope you will allow me to speak candidly and openly for a moment from a personal perspective: at the most important level, I am not a preacher because I chose to be. I am a preacher because God chose me and equipped me for this work. But because that is true, my responsibility is to figure out what the role of a preacher is and then to be faithful in that role. I have to use Scripture to determine how God would have me pour my life into His service and His people, and I have to use discernment to figure out how best to do that.

What that means, in a very practical way, is that I can’t do everything by myself. I can’t meet every need (or even know every need), nor can I minister to every person in every situation or attend every function in every age group or possibly live up to the expectations of every person in an entire congregation.

But I’ve been on staff here for 14 years, and I hope that some of you know me well enough by now and have seen me work long enough by now to know that I am not a reclusive hermit that is unavailable to help those in need. Nor am I a stubborn codger who preaches to people he doesn’t bother speaking to at any other time. So please don’t hear what I am saying today as some kind of defensive argument against a pastor being involved in the life of his church and people, because that’s not what I belief and that’s not how I behave.

But also understand that when I have to make decisions about what I can and can’t do in the life of a church, about how my time has to be spent, that my primary responsibility as a servant of Christ is to be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word. That means there may be times when you think I ought to be doing something else, and there may be times when I want to be doing something else, but you and I must both take this task of preaching seriously, even when it requires making difficult decisions and discerning what is ultimately best.

That’s exactly the idea behind what the apostles’ said in today’s passage. So having said all that, we can now turn back to the situation in Acts 6. The apostles know that there is a valid complaint that must be met. The apostles do not say “Let them get their own food” or “Tell them to be quiet” or “Don’t bother me with this stuff” or “We’re too important to wait on tables.” Instead, they say: “This is a need that cannot go unmet, yet it would not be right for us to take on that responsibility. If we do, our own responsibility will suffer and other needs will go unmet.”

How do they meet this need? Be sure to notice that they don’t say “find the first seven guys you can and put them to work.” No, these must be men “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” [Acts 6:3] That alone should tell us of the importance the apostles placed on seeing this need met: their decision not to take on the task themselves should in no way imply that they did not see the need to have the task accomplished. It was important and needed to be handled with care and diligence.

So they asked the people to chose men full of the Spirit. Why? Because the problem was a spiritual one (disunity) and required a Spirit-led correction. And when it was addressed in the proper way, we see that it led to:

3. A visible result [6:5-7]

Well, we’ve reached the conclusion of the matter, at least as Luke records it for us in Acts. This particular issue is never brought up again in the pages of the Bible, which would lead us to believe that it was resolved according to the apostles’ plan. That would seem to be the case judging from the initial reaction as well, since we are told that the people were pleased by this solution. They understood that the apostles had a very specific task that they needed to fulfill—and the people understood the importance of this task.

The issue isn’t whether meeting physical needs is more important than addressing spiritual ones; the issue is that the Church is required to do both and God has given certain people who are gifted in each area. They are to work together in unity to provide the kind of ministry God intends to be characteristic of His people.

Keep in mind that saying the “people were pleased” doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone got their way. Some might have preferred that the apostles hand-deliver all the food each day. Some might have preferred that they preach less often (or at least in shorter spurts!), but preferences cannot control practices. There will always be ‘some people’ who disagree with everything and everybody. These divisive agents cannot be allowed to threaten the unity of the Church.

Why? Because when the body of Christ is working as it’s supposed to, here’s what happens: “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly.” [Acts 6:7] This is a dramatic, visible result that comes directly from the unity that was maintained by resolving the complaint with a combination of sound teaching and serving together.

Let me ask us this question: why, as a Church, are we here? Why aren’t saints immediately taken to heaven the moment they receive Christ? Because God, in His wisdom, has ordained that His people be one of the means by which He tells of Christ to others. That is our calling. That is our commission.

Is that how you view the Church? Do you think of this place and these people in terms of the Gospel? When you think about who we are and what we do, is your main concern about protecting our preferences, preserving our heritage, or proclaiming the Gospel?

We started this morning’s message by thinking about a profound question: “If you knew that you were going to die today, what would you do?”         That question gets right to the heart of what matters most to us. So, as a fellowship, what if we knew that we only had five years left until Christ returned? Or only one year? What would we do? What should we be doing to fulfill the commission He’s given us?

In closing, there are two things I want us to consider as we strive to maintain the unity that God has given us as His Church:

First, we have to identify our main role as a body of believers. We have to look at everything we do as a church as discern whether or not our focus is on sharing the Gospel and proclaiming Christ as God’s Son. Anything that splits our focus or spreads us to thin has to be reexamined in the light of what God calls and equips us to do.

Second, we have to indentify the main roles of each person within that body—some will serve in one way, others will serve in a different manner, but all are required. When one part fails to do something, the whole body suffers. (Try using only one of your arms for the rest of the day and see what I mean.) This means that we have to let each person do the majority of their service in the areas they are called to serve in.

When people look back on this period in the life of the Church—when they look back onto the history of this group of people—will they be able to see evidence of our unity in Christ? Will they be able to say about us what was said of that first Church: “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly”?

1  This story is told by R. Kent Hughes in his commentary, Acts: The Church Afire (Preaching the Word Commentary series, 1996)

2  There is some scholarly debate as to whether or not the seven men in Acts 6:1-7 were deacons, since the word is not used directly in connection with them. Also, two who are mentioned again (Stephen and Philip) are able to preach and teach, something that deacons are not generally tasked with in Scripture (though it does not mean they could not do so). Whether these seven men were technically ‘deacons’ or not, they served in a manner similar to deacons. Thus, it would seem that the qualifications placed on them in this passage could easily apply to all deacons as well.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version.