Organized Mercy

Clinton, our deacon Thespian, always fun to have you up here. Thank you. Have you noticed something different about me? My staff has. Is this a shirt or a jacket? Apparently, it's a sharkette. I didn't know. But I'm wearing a sharkette today. I was going to wear my jorts as well. But it was a little cold. It was a little cold, so I have pants on. But thank you and welcome. You're confused. But don't worry, it gets better. We're going to dive into the word now, OK? We're going to be in the book of Acts, and we're continuing in our sermon series, Acts Chapter 6. That's where we are. You know, in life, there are a lot of things that are easy in theory, but actually really hard in life. I'm going to give you one example, like hitting a baseball. I'm still on a World Series high here. In theory, it's so simple. You just see the ball and hit the ball. Keep it simple, we're told. But let's listen together just to see how difficult that is. Go ahead. The distance from the rubber to home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches. Subtracting 5 or 6 feet to account for the pitcher's stride, it takes a fastball traveling at 90 to 95 miles an hour, about 400 milliseconds to get from the pitcher's hand to the catcher's mitt. The batter is already at a disadvantage because it takes the human brain around 80 to 100 milliseconds just to process the image that the eyes are taking in. On top of that, it's going to take 150 milliseconds on average to get his bat around to meet the ball and 25 milliseconds for his brain to send the signal to his body to swing. That leaves him with just 125 milliseconds to gauge the pitch and decide whether or not to go for. To put this in perspective, it takes 300 to 400 milliseconds just to blink. If the pitch looks good, the batter has a 7 millisecond window to meet the ball in a position where he will put it in play. If he's too early or too late, the best he can hope for is a foul ball. OK, so it's OK that you didn't understand everything. But here's the point. By the time you blink, that's the amount of time that takes for you to decide that you want to swing or not. If you're past that time, you're going to be late, essentially. They say-- this is generally agreed upon-- that the hardest thing to do in sports is actually hitting a baseball. It sounds so easy. But if you consider just a fast ball, it's already hard enough to judge the speed. But consider it in the arsenal of a pitcher, the number of different kinds of pitches. I want to show you this chart because he's got options, which is what makes it so hard. It's not just about speed, but it's also about location. In that split second, you have to decide, is this a fast ball or a curve ball or a splitter? Those of you who like baseball, you know what I'm talking about, right? Or I mean, they're really messing with you. They have a pitch called screwball. They're really trying to screw with you, showing you just how hard it is. I have one more video. Sorry, OK? I want you to see from the point of view of a catcher how fast the pitch is coming. Take a look at this video. There is no way you can hit that ball. This is why the best-- if you just hit it three times successfully out of 10, you're going to be a gazillionaire. I mean, you're going to be a Hall of Famer. You're going to be a superstar for being successful three out of 10 times. There's no other sports that would give you those kinds of odds and consider you a superstar. Now, I bring that up. I thought you guys would enjoy it a little bit more. But I did, because I think there are parallels to actually what it means to be the church. In theory, it sounds easy, right? I mean, love one another, be united, be of the same mind, serve one another, bear one another. Like, it feels so easy when you just think about it. And then we put it to a song. It sounds even better. It sounds glorious. All of us, we want to be a part of something like that. And then you do life together. You get in cell groups. You get into different conversations. You find that you don't always agree. You find that the other person's a little odd. A joke lands the wrong way. An email gets read 10 different ways. And all of a sudden, you find that community feels a lot harder than you had imagined. In theory, church family is beautiful. But in reality, it's actually one of the hardest things you're going to do. Why? Because the church is made up of imperfect people who struggle with insecurity. They have wounds that they carry all the way from their childhood. And because life is busy and hard, you carry fatigue. At any given moment, you're seeing either the best side of them, or sometimes not so beautiful side to them. So community is hard. It's something that is going to be hard for the rest of your life. But this is something that the Lord calls us to. Partly because there isn't-- it's not because there's something wrong with UNI. Part of what means to be human is to be frail and have these shortcomings. But can you find a place where you can go and be accepted for who you are? And if you find that this is a place that you're willing to commit to, you find that God will do some of his deepest formational work in you. The goal of all of life is to become like Christ. You get there not just by being in an ideal perfect church, but in places where it stretches you and challenges you. We're in the Book of Acts. We're in chapter 2. Talks about the earliest believers, how they came together as this community of faith. And what you don't see in the Book of Acts is idealism. You see real people who are trying the best they can to follow Jesus. Real pressures and real complexity and real difficulties that come with it. Last week, we talked about, in chapter 5, challenges that came from the outside of the church in the form of pressure and persecution. But surprisingly, we learned in chapter 5 at the very end there that more believers were added to the lower, which tells you a challenge doesn't have to weaken. It doesn't have to weaken you. It doesn't have to weaken the church. It can actually make you stronger. It could actually strengthen the church. Now we're in chapter 6, as we continue in our study of Acts. Now we see a different kind of challenge that's coming from the inside of the church. Just to give you some context, verse 1, the church is growing, we see that, verses 2 and 6 through 6. In the middle of that growth, we see a challenge, a conflict breaks out. But we also see the apostles respond to this conflict. And in that response, we see that a weakness doesn't have to destroy us, that it can actually be something that leads to something greater and stronger, a pathway. And so we want to see the response. And then it ends with verse 7, the church grows even more. It uses the language of multiplies. So you have addition at the beginning. Now it's multiplying partly because the way the apostles responded and the church was able to organize itself for greater efficiency. So let's look. There's also three movements that we're gonna use as our guide today. First, we want to lean into the mess that we see here. Second, we want to build our church around the idea of mercy and finally to learn to rest in our priests. First, lean into the mess. The church is described in many ways in the New Testament, the bride of Christ, the temple of God, a holy nation, a family of God. One of Paul's favorite is actually the body of Christ. Let's think about what the body of Christ is as a metaphor. In some real way, the church, when we gather together, when we label ourselves as Christians or as followers or disciples of Christ, we actually become the embodiment of Jesus himself so that a watching world could see us and say, "Oh, that's what Jesus is like. "Oh, that's what Jesus would do." And seeing you and I, that's one of the conclusions that the world should be making in us. And if you think about it, that is actually breathtaking and it's calling for it is aspirational. It is almost too high for us to consider. Why? Because Jesus is perfect in every way. He is holy. He loves his neighbor. He loves his enemy, praise for them. Jesus taught us to pray. He is generous and is infinitely kind to the Torah's people who are broken. In other words, the Christian life isn't merely inspirational. Sometimes we reduce it to just that, come to a church, get an uplifting message, "I'm good for the week." Actually, God wants you to mirror the character of Jesus so that when your roommate or your friends or your campus friends see you, what they see in you is Jesus himself and the way you talk and the way you live and the things that you value. It's an incredible calling to lofty for any one of us. And the truth of the matter is we fall short of those ambitions and because we fall short, that happens to be one of the main critiques of the church today. We talk the talk, but we don't always walk the walk, we say. In other words, we see that the church is sometimes full of hypocrites. Something that is loving on the church every generation. What is wrong with the church? What is wrong with these Christians? They act so hypocritical. And to be fair, I think there is some truth in it. It's not entirely wrong if we're honest. But why is there hypocrisy in the church? There's hypocrisy in the church because the church is made up of people who are being formed. The entry to the church is not you have been perfected, that you have it all together and now you can come to church. You have been, you've heard the saying that the church is not a museum of saints. It's a hospital for sinners. We all know that. But what is a hospital if you think about it? It's full of people who are broken and injured. People who are resting and healing. That's what a hospital is. So if that comparison is accurate, a church is a place where people are healing. That is, there are some people who are just beginning to heal. They're still dealing with trauma and pain. And then there are some people who are further along. And for one group to judge another would be inconsistent with the value of the church. And the world sees this and they find people claiming Christians and they carry all kinds of shortcomings, including hate in their heart for people who are not like them. Of course, it's easy for people to reduce the church as people full of hypocrisy. But the presence of the hypocrisy, first we need to own it. We need to admit it when we see it in our own hearts. And we need to call it out, even in our leaders. These are things that we must do for continual cleansing of the church. But it's also a reminder that in grace and mercy, that we can look at each other and say we're all in the process of being transformed in Christ's likeness. This is what allows us to afford kindness towards each other. So when someone says a church, your church or any church is full of hypocrites, really the most honest response is that is true. You're absolutely right. But listen, there's room for one more. Would you like to join us? Would you like to grow and learn on how to follow Jesus? This passage here shows us if the church is going to embody Jesus and that is to reflect the character of Jesus, we have to hold two truths firmly in our hands. First, that there is indeed a high calling for holiness, which includes love, unity, and service, and sacrificial care of others. We must hold to the standard. We must not lower it because we can't seem to meet it. We must continue to aspire to realize the call to holiness. But at the same time, with our other hand, we hold the truth that we are a messy, imperfect people, that we make mistakes, that at times we are not kind and loving to others, that we are too judgmental against the world, that we think we have all the answers and we don't create enough space for people to explore. We need to hold both truths, and doing so, to the degree that we hold these both truths together, that is aspirations and honesty. This will lead us to humility, to recognizing the deeper humanity, the journey that we are all called to, and ultimately in the body of Christ, a deeper community. That kind of community is not only just good for the church, and for those who attend church, but for the watching world, this is the compelling message. The world doesn't expect us to be perfect, but the world wants us to recognize that when we lead with an inconsistent message, that we should be first to correct and to change course. That leads to seeing people as they are, not perfect, and it creates, it doesn't create this performance or keeping a certain image at all costs. We want to be a people who are honest and growing, and recognizing that grace covers us. When we jump into this passage here, we see in verse one, the mess that I'm talking about. There are certain widows in the church, the early church, who are being overlooked for the distribution of food. Back then, widows were one of the most vulnerable people in the community. They didn't have financial safety net, or legal protection, and often were easily overlooked, and sometimes exploited. Widows are part of what's called a quartet of the vulnerable that we talk about here at the church. Orphans we talked about last week, and then next week we'll talk about immigrants, or sojourners, and the poor. Today we have a better safety net. We don't have senior citizens necessarily struggling the way they used to. But the modern widow, if we're using that definition, should include anyone who is overlooked and unprotected, who are invisible and on the margins of our society. For the moment, I want to highlight human trafficking. Those who are exploited for someone else's profit, usually it has to do with labor or sex. What I realize is how little I know about the issue. Other than that, millions and millions are affected by it. I want to learn, and I want to invite you to learn with me. And part of that is to invite you to the screening of "Buyin' Her." This is a very recent movie this year, actually. And all the reviews suggest that this is a powerful film from a ministry called Exodus Cry about the realities of prostitution and human trafficking. Let's learn together so that we can help the widows in modern society. Now, back to the early church here. As a way of supporting the widows, they created a daily distribution of food to help them with their need. And what you need to understand is there's two types of Christians early on at this moment. There's what's known as the Hebraric Christians, and the Hellenist Christians. Hebrar Christians were basically those who spoke Jewish or Aramaic, and then you had the Hellenists who are the Greco-Romans of the period. They were more modernized, and they made adjustments to their colonizers. But they were trying to come together because they have come to believe in Jesus. But what you see is the church taking care of them, which is good, but it was uneven in its care, which is the mess that I want to talk to you about. The concern here was brought forward to the apostles, the leaders of the time. Notice that it's not gossiped about, it's not complained about. It was simply presented to the apostles to listen. And what you see in the apostles is not defensiveness, but they humbly listen, and they make course correction. I believe this is a model for how to organize ourselves as leaders in the church. They don't deny the problem, they acknowledge the gap, the high calling to take care of all people because they're all equal, and so they move closer to it by establishing a new office called Deacons. This is what it means to lean into the mess. You don't deny it, you don't hide it, you don't gas like people who present the problem, but you listen, you learn, and you try to make remedy to it. Because we all recognize that there is a higher calling, and if we're falling short of that, we should do our best to meet that calling that's leaning in. Most of us won't do that. Most of us will end up complaining. Most of us will end up being defensive. This is part of the simple nature we carry. But here's the reason why often you are going to complain and grumble. It's partly because you are idealistic. You have a vision of the church that is too perfect and that is unrealistic. No one said it better than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this is a quote that we often cite here. He says, "He who loves his dream of Christian community, "more than the Christian community itself "becomes the destroyer of that community." Meaning your dream, what you think the church should be, is greater than the actual church itself. Do you understand that? And you love your vision, your dream of this perfect church, than the actual people of the church. The actual church is made up of broken people. And that destroys the community that you're a part of. Because you're always judging. You're always telling people they're falling short. Or you remain distant, because you feel like these people don't get it. Or they don't do it the way I think they should do it, so you become indifferent. And you find yourself unable to actually function in the life of the church. It's this ideal version that's going to create resentment in your heart. And that's what you Bonhoeffer here is warning us of. But if we choose to receive the church for what it is, what it really is, which is a community of broken people, sinners who are just trying to follow Jesus by his grace, then we would expect misunderstanding. And really disappointment sometimes, even with our leaders. But those moments, they don't have to weaken us. They can push us towards humility, honesty, conversations of understanding, forgiveness if needed, and greater love, unconditional love. That mess doesn't have to weaken us. It can actually make us better people, a greater church. And you actually see this in all the important relationships of your life. Think about your wife or your husband, your marriage. Or think about your parents. Think about your friends. All the relationships that you hold dear to your heart, it's probably because they were along the way, sometimes difficult moments. Or you have to really work through something. A challenge, a misunderstanding. And you found that actually, that those moments help to strengthen your relationship. All the important relationships of your life actually has this already built into it. The messiness. That's how you become closer. That's how you become stronger. So we're told the church is messy. That does not surprise you. And we're told not to avoid it. Not to remain distant or indifferent. And that's the temptation for a lot of us, but you don't want to get hurt. It calls you to move forward. It calls you to greater understanding. With grace and wisdom, we are able to build, here's my next point. Community of grace. We are able to use mercy to realize the vision of God's church in the New Testament. Let's go to verse two here. "And the 12 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." I'm gonna give you a little Greek here. It's the word diaconia trapezius. And here it's literally translated ministry of waiting on tables. And that's what actually turns into the word deacon. In the English translation. Okay. So deacons are instituted because there was a need for mercy to be communicated, for a need to be met in this idea of like serving. And then Peter tells us, the instruction here is therefore brothers pick up, pick out from among the seven, among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will point to this duty. And verse five tells us who they are. Stephen, you know, maybe Philip. He appears in Acts eight. And then we know nothing about Prochorus. There is Nikonor, not to be confused with Nicotine, his toxic cousin. Okay, there is Timon. Okay. Sorry. There is Parminus. Okay. Parmesan cheese and Nicholas. Okay. All the names here, all the names are Greek, if you notice. And that is actually interesting because they're choosing deliberately from the group that's marginalized. This shows us the apostles are interested in powering the people who felt slighted and it's also enables unity among the people. Now, Peter gives us reason why he's appointing these deacons. Verse four, we will devote ourselves to prairie says and to the ministry of the word. And then we see the Greek word diakonio logo. Okay. And he's basically saying we can't neglect prayer and the word, the ministry of the word 'cause that's the foundation of the church. But what I want you to kind of zero in on is how that phrase is mirroring the phrase we just read in chapter and in verse two, diakonio trapezii to serve tables. And this is an intentional symmetry he's presenting. He is essentially saying the ministry of the word and the ministry of the table are equally important. It's not like the disciples here are saying we have more important things to do. We gotta preach and we gotta pray. So we're too above like that work of waiting on people doing whatever work that's necessary to help serve the church that's beneath us. That's not what they're saying. He is comparing the ministry of the word and ministry of the table to say they're both important. One feeds the soul, one feeds the body and both are signs of Jesus, his presence. James, the half brother of Jesus as this true religion is caring for widows and orphans and keeping yourself unstained from the world. Notice their mercy and holiness. Okay. Compassion and conviction, they all kind of come together. Compassion for the widows and orphans and conviction staying unstained from the world. Scripture holds them together. We're always trying to pull them apart. Some of us make Jesus about justice and mercy. Others lean doctrine and holiness as if it's superior. But Jesus never chose between truth and love. He preached the kingdom and he washed feet. This is why the early church in trying to organize itself, remember these are the first moments of the church that was mostly organic, a family of God. All of a sudden they find that the church is growing and they have a need to organize themselves. Historian Rodney Stark notes this that in the first century when the plagues came into the city, these Roman cities, most people fled. Most people did not want to remain to serve people who were dying. Plato one time said, how can a man be happy when he has to serve somebody? Serving someone was seen as a weakness, but Christians would actually do the very opposite. They stayed and they cared for the sick. They would even risk their own lives for their own enemies. Why? Because they saw in Jesus a servant. They saw in Jesus mercy, that it wasn't just sentiment, but it was embodied in this very person. Serving others to Jesus was not a weakness, it was strength. And so they followed the lead of their shepherd and they lived it out, even at the risk of their own lives. And at this moment, this conviction will lead them to shape the church, to create a structure where mercy was the goal. However a church decides to structure itself, a church needs to have people experience the mercy of God. So you have deacons who are being formed at this moment, but why? So that it could be a framework for mercy in the church. That's the goal of having offices in the church. So that compassion is not spontaneous, but it's actually built in, embedded in the structure itself. We have to understand why we have the office of deacon. And so that people will experience the mercy of God. See, every church has a structure. Some churches will have a structure that leads to a very charismatic leader, somebody who has a lot of authority, somebody who is very gifted, and the church is built around his charisma, and perhaps you've been at a church like that. Some churches build their churches around the giftings of their leaders. Okay, they use giftedness to say we're gonna do this, and these are our priorities. And then there are some churches that focus on the hierarchy, people who have different places in that structure. But biblically speaking, a church's leadership is to be built around mercy. The goal of having any office is that people might feel and experience the mercy of God. What is mercy? That's the soft, sentimental feeling. Mercy is always love moving towards a need. It's compassion for the feeling, patience for the struggling. And in this case, a practical care for the hurting. It's all mercy. It's all part of the mercy ministry. And we all need it because each one of us, we have moments of weakness, and struggle, doubt, and failure. And Jesus wants to meet us there to the people and the leaders of the church. We carry wounds and burdens that we can't fix ourselves, and so we need others to help us and guide us. If the church is built around anything other than mercy, then only the strong would be able to call a church his or her home. We need mercy because we get tired, we get weak, we struggle, all of us need Jesus, his mercy through the people of the church. Now, I wanna show you, because this is part of the question and answer from our survey. A lot of you had questions on how the church is actually governed. We have elders that had just been called to a season of being trained. These are our elder candidates. And we also have deacons, and we have, of course, the congregation. Elders are called in the body of Christ to shepherd the people of God. And they do it by praying and teaching the word. So they are our spiritual leaders. They're guiding us like a shepherd might, protecting us when there is false teaching. This is what elders do. They spiritually lead us. Deacons, they practice compassion with their hands and feet by serving the practical deeds of the church. And we have a number of deacons here at the church who have been serving the last 10 years. We have 90 deacons throughout the church. On any given Sunday, you might see them serving from the parking lot to the hospitality. But these are our leaders. And then we have congregation members, that's you, that join in on the work of God by responding faithfully to what God has called us to be on our mission. So at Tapestry, that's what we have. We have elders, deacons, and the congregation. You might be asking the question, as some have, why is it so late in terms of installing our elders? First of all, the season of training is not something to be rushed. Because these men become spiritual leaders in your life. We wanna test them for a season. So for a year and a half, we're going to have them be tested and get trained. And that's the season that we happen to be in. But elders are going to serve you. And I wanna show you this chart here, if you can go to the next chart. In most churches, we see this structure. Elders who shepherd and make sure there's proper teaching. And then we have an executive team made up of our top staff members. And then we have staff members. There's about 28 of us total. And then we have deacons that make up about 90. And then we have our congregation. This is our church. But this is usually a top-down version that most churches use. But I wanna show you, because I believe this very deeply, that leaders are servants. So we've flipped this model, and we wanna show you how it's the job of the elders to serve the church sacrificially. And that the executive team and the staff and deacons all exist to serve the body of Christ. Because ultimately, greatness in the kingdom of God is defined by service to the people. And we wanna see in our structure where mercy is promoted. It's what we are going after together as a church. And in the different pockets of the church, that we might experience the mercy of God. This is the leadership that Jesus modeled. And this is the one that we want to embrace together as a church. We do not want any elders to be lording over you. To create agendas that they wanna carry for themselves. We want elders to listen to the congregation. Especially when it comes to areas of need. And create opportunities where mercy of God is experienced. Finally, we can do this by resting in our priests. You see in verse seven, the word increase. The disciples multiplied. Many priests believe. That's not a throwaway detail there at the end. Many priests came to believe in the Lord Jesus. As the savior, they heard the message of Jesus as the true and final sacrifice. And all of a sudden they realized that they were talking about that Jesus was fulfilling the story. He wasn't telling a new story. That the altar, the sacrifice, the priesthood was all pointing to Jesus. And that's why many priests, these are Jewish priests, they came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. We can do what we are called to as elders, deacons and members of the church because Jesus did it first. He sets the pattern. He shows us the example. He's the one who intercedes. He's the one who protects us. This is why we can follow because Jesus went before us. I'm gonna invite you to stand if I can have my worship team come forward, okay? Friends, I want you to take a moment now and pray for your church. Here's what I see. I see a young church and I see imperfect leaders who are doing their best. And sometimes I hear grumbling and complaints which is normal. That's part of what it means to be part of the community. But I wonder in the midst of complaining, if you've ever prayed for your leaders, if you ever thought to yourself, these are humans called by God to do their best that they can. Instead of being worldly, responding with our flesh,