Wednesday Night Study or Sermon on Conflict

Have you ever thought about how things spread?
Tricia and I have been on the Atkins Diet since last August. I am amazed at all of the controversy over this diet. It seems that everyone has heard of this diet in some form or fashion and many have tried it. I’m curious how it started. How did they market it? What did they do that caused it to sweep across the nation? Has anyone here not heard of the Atkins diet?
How about “The Passion”? Has anyone not heard of “The Passion” movie? It has been in the news for months. It has taken in $577 million worldwide and is still climbing. The DVD is scheduled to come out in August and that will probably sent it towards a billion dollars. Everyone is talking about it. How does everyone know about it? What was the key marketing idea that made it a success?
Many of us have been affected by the thousands of computer viruses that have been developed. We have software to protect us from them, but still each day thousands of computers become infected with a new virus that spreads like wildfire across the world in literally seconds.
Maybe that’s why I’m so fascinated by Acts because it talks about the spread of the gospel “the good news about Jesus” which is what consumed the followers of Jesus. They were completely consumed by it if you remember the conclusion of Chapter 5 “Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ”
I receive a Pastor’s newsletter online every month online. Recently I received one that was about church growth. I got to looking at it and became concerned because of the arrogant way things were presented and the formulas presented for success. Not to mention the high price tag placed on “These words of Wisdom”. It is dangerous to judge the effectiveness of a ministry based on numbers viewed from the outside. It can create a tremendous trap for the pastor to run after man-made solutions that promise a 1-2-3 magic solution for church growth and perceived success.
That’s why I would much rather study the book of ACTS than to buy these words of wisdom from someone trying to make a buck. I believe the book of ACTS was written by Luke to inspire us about the power of the gospel and about the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in each one of us who have accepted Christ. I think it’s difficult to look at ACTS and not be encouraged and excited about the fact that you & I are also involved in this move of the gospel. If we have believed in Jesus we too are empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish much in God’s kingdom. But there will be problems. Luke doesn’t skip over the fact the early church had problems.
It reminds me of the stages of a relationship marriage. > Honeymoon… > Reality…
The early church experienced this. They exploded on the scene and everything was wonderful. But then they started facing some problems. I believe this is the part to get excited about.
1. Honeymoon stage (nobody stays here long) You remember when you first got married how you went out introducing your wife or husband to everyone you came in contact with. It was so new and exciting! Do you remember when you became a Christian how you invited everyone you knew to come and see you get baptized and to come to come to church with you.
a. Powerful move of the Spirit at Pentecost > 3000 believers > 2:41
b. Everyone loved, cared, shared for each other, signs, wonders > more added to their number > 2:47
c. Healing of lame man > increase to 5000 men > 4:4
2. Realistic stage (this is where we live)
a. Physically Seized & Threatened - Arrested > prayed for boldness
b. Lies - Sin in the camp; deceit > STILL more and more people were added to their number 5:14
c. Physically Beaten – Persecution > flogging > they rejoiced.
The realistic stage is what I get excited about because anyone can do the honeymoon. It’s a piece of cake there. But, we spend a lot of our time in the trenches and ACTS gives encouraging stories and practical application for the trenches we find ourselves in today. The problems seem to be increasing and in Acts chapter 6, which is our text today, we see yet another real-world problem facing the early church. Let’s read verses 1-6
1In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
Does anyone recognize what is going on here? Of course you do! There were disagreements; unfairness, probably fights. Satan is employing one of his sneakiest and, I would say, most successful, attempts to derail the church; to stop it from growing. You’ve heard the saying that whenever two or more are gathered together >> there’s trouble? Maybe I misquoted that, but it’s true. You’ve seen it in your own family either growing up or raising your own. As people get added to the family more and more conflict happens. Some days it feels like all you get accomplished is resolving conflicts and disagreements in your family. Conflict was happening in the early church and I’m sure this incident was only one Luke listed of many that were happening.
Where you have people, you will have conflict. You have conflict with the 3-5 people in your family or the 70-80 in our church. Try 10,000 believers. There was some real potential for conflict. All of these believers were Jewish at this time, but there were some distinct cultural differences between these Jewish believers. Some appear to have been raised in a Greek culture while others were native to Jerusalem.
The real question that needs answered is what do you do when conflict occurs in the church? You always have several options:
(1) Ignore it – This does not seem to work that good. We can choose to ignore it but it will just switch gears and move to another group in the church and will show it’s head again in the future. Tempting, but not wise.
(2) Confront it – How do we confront conflict. Many time the wrong way! The Bible says in:
Mat 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Mat 18:16 But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Mat 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell [it] unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
Does this happen. Most of the time when people have a gripe with someone they run and tell everyone but the person involved which causes more problems.


(3) In the story here they chose to delegated it.

Now here is the biggest question of this whole passage. Why did they ask for this to be delegated to others? Let’s pick up in verse 2:
2So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
Why did they delegate this? Was it beneath them to wait on tables? We know better then that. These men learned from Jesus what it meant to be a servant. This was not beneath them. Were they lazy; trying to shirk their responsibility? Were they afraid of conflict; not wanting to get involved? NO. The truth is they recognized the ploy satan was bringing against the church. They knew what their job description was; prayer and the ministry of the word.
I remember when we were searching for a Pastor and we came up with all of these responsibilities and duties of the Pastor and also the Youth Pastor then I got an email which read
Pastor Search Committee Report

In our search for a suitable pastor, the following scratch sheet was developed for your perusal. Of the candidates investigated by the committee, only one was found to have the necessary qualities. The list contains the names of the candidates and comments on each, should you be interested in investigating them further for future pastoral placements.
• Noah: He has 120 years of preaching experience, but no converts.
• Moses: He stutters; and his former congregation says he loses his temper over trivial things.
• Abraham: He took off to Egypt during hard times. We heard that he got into trouble with the authorities and then tried to lie his way out.
• David: He is an unacceptable moral character. He might have been considered for minister of music had he not 'fallen.'
• Solomon: He has a reputation for wisdom but fails to practice what he preaches.
• Elijah: He proved to be inconsistent, and is known to fold under pressure.
• Hosea: His family life is in a shambles. Divorced, and remarried to a prostitute.
• Jeremiah: He is too emotional, alarmist; some say a real 'pain in the neck.'
• Amos: Comes from a farming background. Better off picking figs.
• John: He says he is a Baptist but lacks tact and dresses like a hippie. Would not feel comfortable at a church potluck supper.
• Peter: Has a bad temper, and was heard to have even denied Christ publicly.
• Paul: We found him to lack tact. He is too harsh, His appearance is contemptible, and he preaches far too long.
• Timothy: He has potential, but is much too young for the position.
• Jesus: He tends to offend church members with his preaching, especially Bible scholars. He is also too controversial. He even offended the search committee with his pointed questions.
And, our choice is:
• Judas: He seemed to be very practical, co-operative, good with money, cares for the poor, and dresses well. We all agreed that he is just the man we are looking for to fill the vacancy as our Senior Pastor.

• Unfortunately Judas has turned us down and we are taking Rev. GW Horne as our Pastor because he promised to be in prayer and seek the Holy Sprits direction for our church.
Thank you for all you have done in assisting us with our pastoral search.
Sincerely,
The Pastoral Search Committee.
A pastors primary responsibility is to prayer and to minister the word of God. Are there many other things to get done? YES. Are they as important as attention to prayer and to the study and preaching and teaching of God’s word? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I mentioned earlier that I believe Satan is employing one of his sneakiest and most successful attempts to derail the church; to stop it from growing. Is it conflict? No. It’s distraction. Conflict is only one of many things that Satan will use to distract us. Many of us have seen how conflict in the church can suck huge amounts of energy and time. It can drain the life and energy of a church. It can bring the ministry to a standstill. How is it that a slender bull-fighter can stand up to a 2000 lb bull? With a simple fluttering of a red cape, always sending it’s energy in the wrong direction; close enough to look correct, but off the mark. Satan loves to consume our time with trivial things and he is very good at it. Did the apostles just neatly sidestep the problem? No. They commissioned seven men chosen by the people who were not only spiritually strong, but also were very wise. These men were very capable of resolving the issue and so it was delegated to them, freeing the apostles to continue the very important work of prayer and the ministry of the word. In fact we see later in this chapter that Stephen was so wise that those he debated with became very frustrated because they couldn’t stand up to him.
The church is past the honeymoon stage and entering the realistic stage.
Satan tried to scare the church with threats >> Then he tried to weaken it with sin >> Then he tried to beat it up with whips >> and now he tries to distract it with conflict.
BUT INSTEAD WHAT HAPPENED >> pickup in verse 7.
7So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
The church was tested once again and it passed the test. I have to wonder what would have happened if the apostles had decided to tackle this problem on their own.
1. They may not have been even qualified to resolve the issue. It’s possible and likely that the men chosen were more qualified then the apostles to resolve these issues.
2. Leave out verse 7. There were many issues that I’m sure began to crowd the elders meeting agendas for the apostles. I’m assuming the church was over 10,000 people at this time. If the apostles had started to focus on all the administrative tasks and issues rising in the church, the study, preaching, & teaching of God’s word would have been diminished and the number of disciples would have either slowed or stopped.

The word of God is unstoppable!!! The good news about Jesus is unstoppable!!! That’s what we learn from verse 7; not just verse 7, but that has been a theme all through the book of Acts. The good news of the gospel is unstoppable!!! I find that tremendously exciting, thrilling, exhilarating! Here is something that cannot be stopped! It is powerful and effective! Just the name of Jesus can bring miraculous healing and transformation. The Holy Spirit who lives inside each of you who believe is unstoppable! He is all powerful! We have studied and read about the miracles, signs, and wonders. Do you think anything can stop the ministry of the word through the power of the Holy Spirit! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! NOTHING CAN STOP IT!!!!! We are part of a kingdom that cannot be shaken; a kingdom that cannot be stopped; we have access to power that cannot be matched by any person, nation, or power. Be encouraged!!!!
But we are also in a war zone. If you are an active believer, you are in a war zone. The more active you are, the closer you get to the front lines.
Satan will try to intimidate us. He will try to discourage us. He will try to take us out of the race with sin. If we continue to persist, he will threaten us. He will try to distract us with many other things. In the next chapter of Acts we will see that he ups the ante even more. He will try to kill us.
Be confident in the power of the Holy Spirit and the word of God. Be like the believers we read about here. “Never stop proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the way”
I am confident in the proclaiming of the word of God through the power of the Holy Spirit! If we are faithful in this task of taking every opportunity to share the good news of Jesus Christ, many will come to know him as a result and you and I will continue to be witnesses to it’s transforming power!