What to Do When Your Church Feels Like It's Falling Apart

And so, this is the passage that we're at. And it's been one of those passages that has just hit me over and over again because I can be such a dingbat sometimes in my Christian wonk. And anybody else there where

You revisit a passage over and over again and God's just trying to take get this lesson down? Anybody else? I'm the only one apparently. Maybe me and Suzanne. All right. [laughter] >> It's it's it's okay to not get there yet because I have not arrived either. One of the things I'm constantly reminded of is that I know the path. Like God, he shows us the next step to take. And my step is always imperfect even though I'm walking his perfect path. Amen. >> Amen. And so lot about leadership and conflict and it's also given me confidence in the word of God this week seeing that he's leading and guiding me and this church. And so I'm thankful for his sovereign plan for our church and how much better it is than even my own plan. So let's all stand together in honor of God's word as we read Acts chapter 6:es 1-7. God's word, it says this. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Helenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twel summoned the full number of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philillip, and Procarus, and Nikonor, and Timman, and Pminus, and Nicholas, a procelite from Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to

Increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Let's pray. And so God, we do humbly submit ourselves to you and to your word this morning. We ask, Father, that you would minister to our hearts. We pray that you would instruct us and lead us and give us attentive ears and help us to move more in line with what your plan is for our lives and for our church. And God, we just we want your will in everything. And as we see here, conflict arises even in healthy churches. And we see also how to respond to that conflict. And so help us, Lord, as we as we walk through this passage to be humble enough to hear what you have to say to us. May they be your words, not mine. And just speak clearly to us today in Jesus name. Amen. Well, R. Kenton Hughes in his commentary tells a story about a church back in the 1960s in Dallas, Texas. This church wound up splitting and going into a legal battle which was very nasty. It was in all the papers and it was a very closely followed court case in that local area and what they found as they were doing the investigations what was the big cause of the split. What it was it was actually a fellowship meal where the elders were being served and a child got a bigger piece of ham than one of the elders. And the elder didn't think anything of it, but someone else saw it and said, "That bothers me. I'm going to make it a bigger issue than it is. I'm going to blow this way out of proportion." Okay? And it made the papers. And as a result of that, the world mocked Jesus because Christ's church divided over a piece of ham. Now, Satan with all of his weapons, he knows that the church cannot withstand of can withstand a full frontal assault. You can look in places like

Iran where the church was suppressed for literally generations and now they've got way more mosques closing and people converting to Christianity than any other time in their history other than when the early church was there. Praise the Lord. You cannot stop the Gospel. Amen. We can even look in Nigeria where Christians are being martyed day after day after day. And you church be praying for our brothers and sisters there. And yet even that violent assault is not enough to silence the work of the Gospel in Nigeria. Amen. And so Satan with all of his weapons, he knows that the church can withstand that kind of action that will not bring down a healthy church. What he enjoys doing and what he does is he operates within a church typically with something small and left unadressed. Acts chapter 6, it shows us the church facing that kind of moment and it should shape exactly how our church handles growing pains as well. Look at the first verse with me in Acts chapter 6 verse1 says this. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint by the hellists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So there's a complaint there. Most of the time in the word when we see a complaint being arisen it's always in a negative sense. This is the only one that I could think of that was a legitimate complaint that was handled positively. I think that's because it was due to intentional neglect. What you have in the church is two groups. You have this group, the Hellenists, and you got the Hebrews. Now, they're both Christians. They're both Jews in their heritage. One, these Helenists right here, that means that they are Greekeaking Jews.

That means that they come from typically outside of Israel. That they were probably from places like Antioch or when, Pentecost fell, it mentioned all of those different regions all over the Roman world where Jews from around the world would come and celebrate the, Pentecost, the feast of tabernacles, and they would come and they heard the Gospel. They were converted and they just kind of stuck around these Greekeaking people, different culture. And then you have the locals, the Hebrew speaking. Right now, at this time, of course, Hebrew was not the common language. You have Aramaic being spoken, but that's a word for the locals here at this time there in Jerusalem. And so you have cultural differences, you have language differences. And what's crazy is that it's not a doctrinal division. It's not a doctrinal division. It's just plain old prejudice. And that is a real church, a real problem in the church of God. Let me ask you, do you love the church enough to pursue unity when it is really hard? I know that there's oftentimes cases of personal conflict. I remember I sat down roughly a year and a half ago and I listed out all the people that I knew that had departed from First Baptist Church and all the reasons that we were given as to why. One of them sticks out to me about two men that just one had a cross word with another and instead of engaging he said you know what instead of engaging trying to win my brother I'm just going to distance myself and that'll bring peace to the situation. Then the other one when they were com you know talked to about it and addressed they got defensive and they said you know what this is uncomfortable for me I'm going to leave and those are the situations that you think of where is the goal of Christ.

Do you get upset if someone kind of looks at you and maybe maybe they just had a bad week and they're just looking at you and they're just tired and they kind of I know I've been there. I've got young kids. I've got a church that I oversee and sometimes my face I have RAF resting angry face and so you know some of us we give looks and we're not intending to give looks we're just exhausted or we're stressed or maybe we got bad news and what do what do we do? We're people that fill in the gaps, don't we? We like to read into things that really aren't there. Notice how powerful and vibrant this church was. Think about the trials that it had faced. And the church can face trials from outside the church. But when they come within, that's when they get ugly. And this was a great church. It wasn't a perfect church. There is no such thing as a perfect church. But even this church had some sinful issues pop up from time to time. A great church is not a church with no issues. A great church is one that handles issues and walks through issues together. >> First point that I want to make is recognize the problem. We see that growth, it exposed the neglect. Growth doesn't create unity problems from nothing. All that it does is it exposes the issues or it creates new blind spots for leaders. Sometimes we think if a church was healthy, it wouldn't have these problems. But Acts 6 shows us that they were healthy, that they were growing, and they had problems, too. I've got problems. You have problems, too. Sometimes I'm the problem. Sometimes you are, too. We're going to share blame here today. Okay? A church of a hundred may overlook a widow. A church of a thousand may not even see them. Problems do not mean that a church is

Failing. A church fails when the problems are not addressed biblically. When concerns crop up, sometimes people feel overlooked or they're tempted to minimize the wrong. The 12, they don't do that. What do they do? Let's look at what the word says. The 12, they summoned the full number of the apostles and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables." Skipping over to verse four, "But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." The apostles didn't say, "Oh, that isn't important." They didn't say that this issue is beneath us. They didn't say, "Toughen up, buttercup," and minimize it. See, they were devoted to the ministry of the word because that was their mission and their calling. They were called by Jesus Christ himself to do that. They were commissioned to preach the word and be Christ's missionaries and ambassadors and messengers to the world. It wouldn't be right to neglect that call in order to serve tables. That word serve tables is very interesting because it actually shares the same word as a deacon does diaonos and it's directly tied to ministry and the apostles they're not saying that serving t tables is unimportant or that it's not ministerial. It's not, oh well, they're preaching and so that ministry is more important because it's a little bit more spiritual and leadership oriented. What they're saying is that if it's done for the Lord and it's a blessing to brothers and sisters, it's ministry, but it's ministry that the church is called to walk through together. You see, strong leadership, it delegates tasks. I was looking at our church and it takes 62 volunteers every Sunday to run everything that you see. 62 volunteers.

That's a lot of people. I don't know how many people do we have today. Like maybe 198 200. All right. Pastor numbers. It We got 450 people here. Praise the Lord. I'm joking. Pastor numbers. No. All right. So, we got 200 people here. There's 62 of you that are serving in some way today. Every Sunday, that's a great opportunity to plug in and carry the weight. Greeters, tech team proresenter went down two minutes before service. And I just want to give a shout out to you guys for getting it back up for all that. So, praise the Lord, guys. They were sweating back there. >> Nursery. Praise the Lord for nursery. >> Thank you, Cath. Where's Katherine? Praise the Lord for you, Katherine. We're so thankful for you. >> Kids Quest, Sunday school, the musicians, security. All these things take place in order to meet needs that we've identified in our church. And they're all important and they're all ministry. That's a lot of volunteers. That's a lot of directors. But the apostles, what are they doing here in Jerusalem? Many of them, they're they're serving in the office of an apostle. They're functioning as teachers in that local church, appointing elders and things like that. And they're functioning as elders. They were to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. That's their calling. That's their commission. What would have happened to the church if the apostles had decided, I'm going to take on this task ourselves? That's what we're going to do. What would have happened? They wouldn't have simply lost time and burnt themselves out. They actually would have modeled that healthy ministry has to flow and depend on leadership to be completely involved and hands-on.

That nobody in the church can do anything unless the apostles say so. No, they said we're going to be devoted to prayer and the ministry of the word. Think about that phrase devoted to for a second. What are some things that people in our culture are really devoted to? What do you think? Football. All right. What else? Go ahead, shout it out. >> Work. Yeah. People are devoted to their work. >> Family, politics, >> fishing. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. Basketball. There's all sorts of things that people are devoted to, right? And we know that they're devoted to them because they spend their time doing that. They put their energy and their efforts into those types of things. You know, I decided that I would look at what Barner Research and Lifeway Research say about what the modern pastor is devoted to when it comes to the word and prayer, the ministry of the word in prayer. How often do you think that a pastor should pray? I'm just curious, how often should a pastor pray in a week >> without without ceasing. All right, now that we got the Biblical thing, give me your other opinions. Right. How? Let's Let's put a minute on there. Or hours. Eight hours. Eight hours a week. >> Three. >> Praying. What about Bible study? What about personal Bible study? I'm not talking about sermon prep. What about just devotions? How many look at this Barner research pastors spend in prayer and Bible reading in a day about five to 45 minutes. Five to 45 minutes in the word. This is personal Bible study and devotions in a week. 1 to four hours. So what is that like 12 minutes a day?

I'm not saying that this is right or wrong. I am saying that it doesn't seem like devotion. But this leads us to a second point that I want to make for us is that we have to protect the priority, right? It's prayer and ministry of the word. Charles Spurgeon, he said that the preacher who neglects to pray much must be very careless about his ministry. Why? Because without prayer, it is impossible to be in alignment with God's will. Prayer and the word are the primary ministries of pastoral ministry, but it's oftentimes the first thing that goes out the window when administrative things get noisy. And this is part of the reason that the word of God in every epistle, Paul, he addresses the plurality of elders. The reason isn't to say it's unimportant. It's that a pastor who is constantly handling administrative issues and neglects the word, which I think is the case for many men in our culture, is that the administrative things, they pile up. They get 10 feet tall. And what happens is the first thing comes out is prayer and the ministry of the word. And as a result, what happens? The church suffers and administrative problems continue to pile up and it continues to get neglected and eventually the church is failed by that pastor. But the apostles what did they do? They led and they came up with a plan. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. There's a miracle here. And what they said pleased the whole gathering. Now, remember, he gathered up all the disciples in full number. And last we saw it was what like 5,000 6,000 people in Jerusalem that came to know the Lord. And God is just growing

And growing and growing. They gather the full number together and everyone is in agreement. Hallelujah. And look at who they chose. And I just of course I joke a little bit. They chose Steven, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Procurus and Nikonor and Timon and Pararm Parm Parminus, excuse me. And Nicholas, a biker from Camden, a procelite of Antioch. These they set before the apostles and they prayed and laid their hands on them. Everyone just says that's that's a good idea. Let's get everyone on the same page. And this shows that everyone can get on the same page when God is involved. And thousands of people had to accept that decision. You see, Biblical conflict resolution requires more than just good leaders. It requires humble followers, too. It means those same people that overlooked that neglected which is the actual word there that neglected those those those Greekeaking widows had to go that's a good idea. They had to humble themselves. I preach about leaders needing to listen and now we need to hear that when godly leaders listen speak and seek the Lord, what happens is that they offer balanced Biblical solutions that we also need to have enough humility to receive it. But the apostles, they say that these men, these are the type of men that you should look for, men of good reputation, men that you know in the church, men full of the spirit and wisdom. And I think that's kind of joined together there that if someone is filled with the spirit, they're going to be wise. Many times we look for u for good reputation or maybe good thoughts but we neglect finding men who were filled with

The spirit. Notice that oh excuse me I went the wrong direction. The third point here is pursue Biblical solutions. We need to look for qualified, spiritfilled servants. All of these men that are listed here, these are all Greek names. Every single one of them. And that's just amazing that the church selected seven Greekeaking Henists to oversee this ministry and the murmuring stops. The apostles, they didn't ask for the Hellenist to calm down. They didn't adjust their culture or anything like that. They didn't pretend like culture and language were unimportant. They just addressed the problem in a way that proved that everyone within the church matters. Notice in verse six that these men, they were commissioned by the apostles and they were entrusted with this ministry. You guys do what seems right here. They had real ownership. And so they build a structure that lets both of these groups, the Hebrew speaking widows and the Greekeaking widows to all have their needs met and genuinely cared for without erasing what made the conflict arise in the first place. They didn't say the Helenists had to stop being a Helenist or the Hebrews had to stop being Hebrews. They just addressed the root issue which was neglect. Now some people they see this as the first deacons within a church and in some ways this is true because being a diconos that's where we get our word deacon from. It's the Greek word. It just simply means a servant. And so if you serve someone then you are deaconing in that moment. But there's a difference between the act of service diaonos and the office of deacon. And let's take a look at what Paul he

Gives us the kinds of men that we are to look for as leaders. And he and yeah, he's using this in terms of deacons, right? He says, "Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tonged, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. Let them also be tested first, and then let them serve as deacons. If they prove themselves blameless, their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but soberminded, faithful in all things. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. Moving on to Titus chapter 1. Here's what it says about this office. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, talking about overseers, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or drunkarded or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good. I know I'm kind of conflating these, but we're talking about just characteristics here. Just characteristics of godly men. But hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled upright holy and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction of sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it. You see, character and being spiritfilled and having a good reputation are not soft qualifications. Like the word of God outlines the kind of character and these seven men, they met these The word defines the meaning for our

Benefit. And if you look here, these guys, they were close to conflict. They were hands-on in it. And it's not a loss of control for the church, if anything, it was a blessing for the church. And so what happened to the church in Jerusalem? In verse 7, it says this, "And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." Because the church cared for its widows well. Okay? Because they move forward in wisdom and relied on the Holy Spirit, this led to growth in the church. Neglect leads to stunted growth. It leads to decline. It leads to apathy. Faithful care leads to blessings. And this is true in so many areas of our lives, isn't it? Like we reap what we sow. We know that we get into things, we get out of things what we put into it. We know that, you know, we've got 20 or so shutins in our church and our deacons, they oversee them. And I know that our deacons would love to have people go and visit and minister to them, to sit with them for an hour and just give them company where they don't feel com feel forgotten. They need your kind word and they just need a little bit of time. And who knows how God might use that them to be a blessing to you and to themselves. But notice this that the fourth and final point propel the mission. The unity that they experienced propelled Gospel work. God he increased the number of disciples and it multiplied. It wasn't like just addition. It multiplied greatly. Even the priests, many of whom had rejected Jesus Christ, were coming to faith in him. Think about that for a moment. Because of the great love that was being demonstrated by the church, because of the great wisdom, it was very attractive to people. And Jesus, he told us that his people being united would have a Gospel witness in this world. That's why church unity matters. Look at what Jesus said. I do not ask for these only talking about you know the disciples but also for those who will believe in me through their word. Talking about you that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Listen, the glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one. That's Jesus's prayer for us. So that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me. Moving on, earlier in Jesus's ministry, this is the night that he's betrayed. He's he's washing their feet. He's spending Passover with them. He gives them this new commandment. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, by what? Loving one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. How we handle disagreements and conflict is directly tied to our effectiveness in ministry and evangelism. In fact, Jesus says that's a form of evangelism because a church that divides over ham makes a mockery of Christ. But a church that unites in love and finds ways for ministries to thrive. Man, that shows a watching world that we are united in Christ. When leaders take valid complaints seriously and they solve problems and they hand real responsibility over, then that is a church that can trust its leaders. But if leaders hide and dodge and minimize issues, then that's a church that learns something and it

Isn't good. And I'm preaching to myself there, church. Our unity does not depend on the fact that we're all alike. It doesn't. We're not all alike. We have a lot of differences in this room, don't we? We don't all wear the same clothes. Some people they like they like someone's hair. Some people they like their lack of hair. Some people they don't like tattoos. Other people are totally fine with them. Some people love having drums on the stage. Other people they still struggle with that. Some people love hymns. Some people don't. Some people love praise music. Some people don't. We're not We don't find our unity in that. We will never find a stable ground in that. We will not find unity until our unity is found in Jesus Christ. >> We are all sinners who have been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Because Christ has reconciled us to God, we now have the responsibility and the privilege of pursuing reconciliation with one another and seeking out each other's best interest. Remember what Paul said, and I'm going to close with this. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the peace in the bond unity of the spirit, in the bond of peace. Amen. Head, heart, hand. Here's here's what God wants you to know from this sermon. God, he wants you to know that Biblical unity requires a church to address problems faithfully, to protect its priorities, and entrust ministry to qualified people. The church didn't fake unity. It recognized a problem, came up with a solution, prioritized the word of God in prayer, and the Gospel advanced. So, thank the Lord for that. Here's

Here's what you should believe from the passage. That's what we should know. This is what we should believe. God, he wants you to believe that loving Christ's church means caring enough to confront problems rather than ignoring them and trusting God's wisdom to lead us through them. Think back to what I said about that question of pursuing unity when doing so is hard. Do you care enough about Christ Church to pursue unity even when it's hard and uncomfortable? And this is how we should live and apply this to our lives. This is what you should do. God wants you to pursue peace by addressing problems biblically, serving others sacrificially, and taking responsibility for the ministry that God has called you to this week. If you've been overlooked, don't allow don't allow resentment to build up. Don't let it fester. Go and talk to that person. A complaint arose from the Helenists and it was a legitimate thing, go and talk to that person, whoever it might be. If you've overlooked someone, humble yourself and make it right. And if you see a need, don't complain about it. Ask how you can help meet that need. And we've got a lot of needs. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we do ask that you would be with us today. Minister to our hearts as we've heard your word as my toes are very sore from your word today. I know that there's many people whose toes have also been stepped on, Lord. And just pray that you would help us, God, to wrestle with your word. Move our hearts, God. And as we as we consider this and how it applies to us personally, we ask and plead for you to work in our lives. We love you so much. We submit to you. This is your church, not mine, not the elders, not whoever's

Been here the longest. This is your church because you died for it. You bought it with your own blood. So lead us Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Let's all stand and let's worship together. >> Take my life [singing and music] and let it be consecrated [singing] Lord to thee. Take my moment [music] and my days. Let them flow [singing and music] with ceaseless praise. Take my hands and [singing and music] let them move at the impulse of [singing and music] my love. Take my feet and let [singing] them be swift [music] and beautiful. Love for thee. >> Take my voice and [singing] let me sing. [music] Always only for my king. Take my [singing and music] lips and let them be filled with me [singing and music] from me. Take my silver and my [music] gold. Not a mic [singing] would I withhold. Take my [singing and music] intellect and use every [music] power as you choose. Here am I. [singing and music] Follow me. Take [singing and music] my life for thee. [music] Take my [singing] will and make it thine. It shall be no [singing and music] longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own, it shall [singing and music] be thy royal throne. Take my [singing] love, my [music] Lord, I pour. At your [singing] feet, it's treasure [music] storm. Take [singing] myself and I will be

Ever only [singing] for thee. [music] Here [singing] am I [music] me. Take [music and singing] my life. [singing] It's all worthy. [music] [singing] Take [music and singing] my life so [singing] [music] you are here. [singing] [music] All of me. [singing] [music] Take my life. It's all for me. [singing and music] Take my [singing and music] life and let it be consecrated [singing] Lord [music] to thee. So Lord, that is our prayer. That you would just [music] take us right where we're at. As imperfect people that are devoted to you, God, help us to go from here united in the sacrificial blood and ongoing life of Jesus Christ. Lord, you rule and you reign even today. And so as your people would go from here commissioned to make disciples and share the Gospel, unite our hearts in your word, we ask that you would be with us as we share in a fellowship lunch. We pray that you would bless that food and the hands that have prepared it, God. We just ask that you would help us to go from here filled and encouraged for this week. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.