Sermon Tone Analysis

Seven Servants

Seven Servant Chosen to Serve…

“Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

And the twelve 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 Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of 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.”

A.W. Tozer once said “One hundred religious people knitted by unity and by careful organization do not constitute a church anymore than twelve dead men make a football team.”

The early church set the example for a living, interdependent, growing organism.

Their unity and power gave them a testimony that swept Jerusalem off their feet.

Multitudes had come to faith in Jesus Christ.

No persecution, no purposeful opposition, no powerful plan and no painful suffering could stop the spread of the gospel of life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The believers’ love for one another, expressed in the sharing of meals, material goods, money and a common mission to know Christ and to make Him known was clearly evident.

It has a profound effect and a great impact on the entire community.

As a result even unbelievers held the church in high regard.

, “None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,”

Is this not the type of church we are praying to God to become?

The church’s explosive growth had brought with it the need to further organize, though it was somewhat organized, they held services together from house to house, they shared the Lord’s supper, and they distributed money, food, and goods to those whom had needs.

But as they grew the needs changed and the structure of the church had to change with it.

This is an important principle: Biblical church organization always responds to needs and to what the Spirit is already doing.

Many Christians want to organize a program and then expect the Holy Spirit to get involved in it; but that is like putting the cart before the horse.

We cannot nor should we dare try to force the Spirit to fit our mold, but we must be lead by the Spirit and molded into its vision and desire for true ministry.

The church of Jesus Christ is not an organization you join; it a family to which you belong, a home where you are loved and a hospital where you can find healing.

Let us pray…

The compelling complaint

, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”

The text tells is this, “Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number…” another problem arose.

This problem stems from their rapid growth.

Just how large the church had become is not known, since they no longer kept an accurate count.

The last figure given was 5,000 in and this apparently included only men.

To that figure given we must add women and children who had joined the church since .

Taking all of that in to consideration the church was probably 20,000 or more at this point.

Think about this, without means of mass communication, email, text, or phones.

The leadership of the early church found themselves in the midst of administrative problems with such a large congregation.

To merely meet their spiritual needs and to deal with their sin must have been a really daunting task.

Then you need to add on top of all of that the caring for their physical needs as well.

Not only did that size of the church create problems, but also it explosive growth left them little time to adjust.

As a result compelling complaint arose also.

The text says it this way

“…A complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Here was an issue that Satan could use with devastating force against the church.

He had already attacked them through persecution, , “And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.”

But this attack only resulted in the faster grow of the church.

Next Satan sought to cripple the church by introducing sin directly in the Body of Christ through Ananias and Sapphira and their lying about giving.

But when the Holy Spirit struck them both dead it only showed the church to be a pure church and make it more effective in the spread of the gospel.

Having failed twice through persecution and corruption, Satan now decides to use dissension within the church.

So Satan played the race card and culture card and carried it into the church.

Churches that are dealing with internal conflict between believers whom trust Jesus yet find division amongst themselves due to ethnicity.

Will also find it message lost in conflict, its energy dissipated, and its focus hindered.

Before the church could fully evangelize to the Gentile world, it would have to deal with any division within its own ranks.

So pastor, who were these “Hellenistic Jews”?

The Hellenistic Jews were those of the Diaspora, these were Jews who were scattered to other countries outside of Palestine after the Babylonian captivity.

The Babylonian captivity or exile refers to the time period in Israel’s history when King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon took Jews captive.

It is an important period of biblical history because both the captivity/exile and the return and restoration of the Jewish nation were fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies.

God used Babylon as His agent of judgment against Israel for their sins of idolatry and rebellion against Him.

There were actually several different times during the period (607-586 B.C.) when the Jews were taken captive by Babylon.

With each successive rebellion against Babylonian rule, Nebuchadnezzar would lead his armies against Judah until they laid siege to Jerusalem for over a year, killing many people and destroying the Jewish temple, taking captive many thousands of Jews, and leaving Jerusalem in ruins.

As prophesied in Scripture, the Jewish people would be allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile.

That prophecy was fulfilled in 537 B.C., and the Jews were allowed by King Cyrus of Persia to return to Israel and begin rebuilding the city and temple.

The return under the direction of Ezra led to a revival among the Jewish people and the rebuilding of the temple.

The Babylonian captivity had one very significant impact on the nation of Israel when it returned to the land— the idolatry and false gods of the surrounding nations would never again corrupt them.

The captivity made them pure again.

The seventy-year period of the Babylonian captivity is an important part of Israel’s history, and Christians should be familiar with it.

Like many other Old Testament events, this historical account demonstrates God’s faithfulness to His people, His judgment of sin, and the surety of His promises.

These Jews used the Septuagint instead of the Hebrews Scriptures because they spoke Greek they had also absorbed some of Greek culture as well.

These changes in language and culture made them suspect to the Palestinian Jews, especially the Pharisees.

“According to the Talmud, the Pharisees made little secret of it contempt for the Hellenists, they saw them as second- class Israelites.

As often happens when we see people as something other than we see ourselves neglect happens.

We ever we see other people by the flesh instead of seeing them in the spirit, and then two happen.

(1) We treat people different because we see them as different.

(2) We treat people differently because we prefer some people to other people this is called partiality.

We treat people different because we see them as different.

Paul warns us against such a practice against such prejudice, we Christians have all been adopted in the family of God and are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

We should see one another through the lens of our Holy God in whom we are made in His image.

This is called the Imago Dei, the image of God.

On the last day of creation, God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” ().

Thus, He finished His work with a “personal touch.”

God formed Adam from the dust and gave him life by sharing His own breath ().

Accordingly, humanity is unique among all God’s creations, having both a material body and an immaterial soul/spirit.

Having the “image” or “likeness” of God means, in the simplest terms that we were made to resemble God.

Adam did not resemble God in the sense of God’s having flesh and blood.

Scripture says that “God is spirit” () and therefore exists without a body.

However, Adam’s body did mirror the life of God insofar as it was created in perfect health and was not subject to death.

The image of God (Latin: imago dei) refers to the immaterial part of humanity.

It sets human beings apart from the animal world, fits them for the dominion God intended them to have over the earth (), and enables them to commune with their Maker.

It is a likeness mentally, morally, and socially.

, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.