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Our study in Acts brings us this morning to Acts chapter six. I would encourage you to take your Bibles and to turn there. Acts chapter six. Here we have an intriguing portion of Scripture - a very fascinating piece of church history - as well as a text that gives us some very practical understandings about how to function in a church. As a Bible expositor, it's always interesting to see what God has next for me to exposit to you, and I might say that some texts are easier to preach than others. Some outline very well. Some are rich with great theological themes, and then there's texts like today. Yet the Spirit of God has not wasted his time in this text. I don't want to underestimate the importance of the text, but I do want you to understand that this is the type of text that will require a little bit different kind of presentation on my part and some thinking on your part. Because this morning, we're going to look at some principles that God has given us to help us understand how to deal with structure and leadership, and especially conflict in the church, and thus I have entitled my discourse to you this morning "Principles of Church Conflict Resolution." Follow along as I read the text this morning in verses one through seven of Acts six.

"Now at this time, while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

And the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.

"'But select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.

"'But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'

"And the statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, and a proselyte from Antioch.

"And these they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them.

"And the word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith."

Since a church is a living organism, it is always changing, and like any organism, it cannot live apart from structure within the organism and some kind of leadership. The church in Scripture is very often likened to a human body, having unique parts, all of which have their intended purpose to function within that body, working synergistically as a part of the whole, and therein you would have what we might call structure. But also, like a human body, the church has to have leadership. It has to take its directions from somewhere, and like all the organs in our human body, receive instructions from the brain to do what they are supposed to do, instructions to which they should respond obediently. Likewise, the church gets its instructions from its head, the Lord Jesus Christ, through his Word, and we, as members of the body of Christ, having received those instructions, should likewise respond obediently. Churches without proper structure and without leadership will never be able to function efficiently. Those kinds of churches would be likened to a human body that, for whatever reason, is dysfunctional-maybe because of organic brain disease or some neurological problem. But what's fascinating about a local church is it's always changing. It's not necessarily changing in terms of its purpose, certainly it should not be changing in terms of its doctrine, but it's always changing in terms of circumstances. It's always having to react to new things that are occurring. For example, in this church, we have had over the last several years a number of new babies being born, and so that means that we have to make some changes, and likewise with new members, new people coming to Christ.  That means there's more discipleship that needs to take place, and there's just a whole host of things, even within this church body, that has changed over the last several years that cause us to need to adjust to somehow meet those needs, and once you finally get to a place where you're pretty well meeting those needs, then guess what's going to happen? It's going to change again because of various factors. And fortunately, God has given us much information in Scripture pertaining to structure and to leadership within the church, issues pertaining to what we would call church polity; and we're not going to get into much of that, but a few elements this morning.

But even with all of that in place, it's impossible to anticipate all of the contingencies that might occur in a church, so therefore we must all learn to be vigilant. We've got to be alert. We've got to be flexible. We've got to be willing to improvise when we need to improvise. We've got to need be willing to change structure and leadership, all within biblical parameters, so that we can continue to do whatever is necessary to meet the New Testament obligations and mandates that God has given us. Well, this is exactly what was going on in our text today. They had to adjust. They were growing very rapidly, and they had some problems they needed to deal with. Now, before we look at what happened there in the first church, may I also remind you of another very important variable that we have to consider, and that is that Satan hates the church - faithful churches, true churches. Satan hates Calvary Bible Church. He hates every one of you that are a part of this church, and he will do whatever he possibly can to thwart the purposes of God in your life and in this church, and any other church like ours that endeavors to be faithful to the Lord. And you might recall, even in the very first church, the first thing that he tried to do to destroy the church was to persecute it, to bring persecution to the church. And what happened? Well, that just caused it to grow more. So he had to do something different. And what he chose to do then was to seduce some of the members into sin. Remember the story of Ananias and Sapphira. But God snuffed out both the sin and the sinners in a very dramatic display of divine judgment, and the fear of God swept through that church, and it purified that church, and lo and behold, what happened? It grew even more. And so now, what we see beginning to happen is Satan coming up with yet another strategy to destroy the church, to split the church, by bringing about dissension over a very minor issue; and yet you know minor issues can become huge issues. I have learned as a pastor that some things that are legitimately a tempest in a teapot can turn into Mount St. Helens. It's amazing to watch that happen, and of course Satan has many other ways of destroying churches.

Certainly, his chief way today is by infiltrating the church with tares-people that think they're Christians but they are not-and filling the pulpits with men that are not qualified - false teachers - many times and bringing false doctrine into the church and on and on it goes, but certainly whenever the enemy brings conflict into a church, the church instantly becomes paralyzed. Suddenly, our mandate to make disciples comes to a screeching halt. Suddenly, the leadership has to put on hold all that God would have them do and begin to shift gears to somehow put out the fire, whatever it might be. And friends, again, don't ever underestimate the power of seemingly little things, even in the church. When a bee gets in your bonnet, priorities change instantly. Even though the bee might be very little.

A majority of church splits originate from issues, quite frankly, pertaining to pride and prejudice and jealousy that always produces strife. In fact, we know that far more church splits arise from things like that rather than over Bible doctrine. Personal preferences many times are elevated by certain people to the status of divine fiat, and I've seen people go utterly berserk when other people do not agree with their personal preferences, and all of a sudden they blow up and they begin to get other people to join with them, and now what was a minor issue becomes a greater issue, and quite frankly, the real issue is no longer the personal preference, but the person. In fact, James four tells us in verse one, giving us a summary of the root of all conflict. There we read, "What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?" My, don't we all stand guilty here? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? In other words, inside of you, you lust and do not have, so you commit murder. The idea of committing murder in your heart against your brother, and you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Well, folks, that was exactly what began to happen in the early church.

Let me give you a bit of the context here. The church has grown from roughly 120 in the upper room to now, the text tells us in chapter four, verse four, about 5000. Now that figure would have represented primarily just the men. You add women and children to that, and you're probably going to have a church in Jerusalem of around 20,000 people. That's some pretty significant church growth. And with growth comes potential conflict. The more people you have, the more chances you have that somebody's going to hurt somebody else's feeling. That something's going to happen, and therefore, as churches grow, there's a need for a change sometimes in structure and even in leadership. And as we look at this text, we are going to glean a variety of of things, of principles that I believe that can guide us in resolving conflict in the church. When, not if, it occurs; when it occurs; and I would draw your attention this morning to the text here from which these principles will emerge that will help us better understand issues pertaining to structure and leadership, especially when dealing with conflict.

Now, notice verse one of chapter six. "Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food." So here you have two groups of Christians within the church. Many of them undoubtedly were saved there at Pentecost. You've got the Hellenistic Jews and the native Hebrews. Now the Hellenistic Jews were Jews of the dispersion. They were Jews that were from many other lands, many other regions. They spoke other tongues, primarily Greek, not Aramaic like the native Hebrews spoke there in Jerusalem. So they had different languages that they spoke, but predominantly Greek. And these people would also look differently. Their culture was a bit different than the native Hebrews there in Jerusalem. Their dress would be different. Certainly, their language would be different. And even to whatever degree they could speak Aramaic, they would have a very strong accent. So for these Hellenistic Jews now to be there in Jerusalem with the native Hebrews would be tantamount to, for example, our brothers and sisters in Christ from Mexico moving to Manhattan. You get the picture. There's going to be a real cultural clash here, and what we also know is that the Pharisees considered any Hellenistic Jews to be second-class citizens. So you've got this prejudice already built in there.

Now these people come to Christ; they're in part of the church, along with the native Hebrews. These were the Palestinian Jews. They were at home there in Jerusalem, and their primary language would have been Aramaic, not Greek, and they would have spoken some Hebrew as well. But you know, wherever there is cultural diversity, there's a potential for a clash. There's potential for problems, an opportunity for rivalry, for cliques to begin to develop and pride and prejudice to come in; and we would believe that these people probably also had attended different synagogues, and certainly now they had to attend different teaching venues because they had to have teachers that could speak their language. I have to laugh, the Hellenists were, without question, the ones that were rejoicing when suddenly, at Pentecost, the tongues began to emerge, because they were hearing the glorious truths of the gospel in their own language. And guess what? The native Hebrews were probably saying, "Those people are drunk," you see. And so along with this, now you've got many poor people and destitute widows that would come to Jerusalem to live out the rest of their lives, because the Jews were very concerned about caring for the elderly, caring especially for the widows and their children. This was well defined in the Old Testament law, and the Jews were rather faithful to that end. And of course, many of these widows and poor people would come to Jerusalem, and many of them were certainly there around the time of Pentecost and thereafter. And they heard the gospel. They saw the apostles. Undoubtedly, many of them were healed. My, this is the place to stay! Look what God is doing! Maybe the Messiah is going to set up his kingdom here quickly! So you have not only an influx of these kind of people naturally, but because of the church, you're going to have even more, and many of them now are staying there in that area.

Now, what's interesting is the text implies that the church had organized some kind of a program to care for the needy, to care especially for the widows. Notice at the end of verse one, it speaks of "the daily serving," and in italics it would say, "of food." That's not in the original; that's why it's in italics. But it is certainly implied; therefore, it's justified in the translation. So here's what's going on, folks, somehow, especially in light of the enormous growth of the church combined with the inevitable discrimination that would have leaked into the church because of the culture, somehow because of these factors, some of the Hellenist widows and even other poor people were being overlooked, and as a result, verse one tells us that "a complaint arose." In the original language, is a term that means murmuring, grumbling. And folks, we all have to listen for those real quiet little murmurings in the church, because those are the things that typically begin to grow into hostility and divisiveness. So a complaint arose, and there you have the problem. Now think about this: an unintentional oversight combined with the inevitable selfish pride that we all have to fight, these two things come together, and it's a recipe for a disastrous church split. Boy, wouldn't that have been great right there at the beginning of the early church? And you know, again, Satan loves conflict in the church. Why? Church conflict really fans the flames of our flesh, and when that begins to happen, it causes us to violate the two greatest commandments: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Suddenly, we're not loving God that much, and we're certainly not loving our neighbor that much because we're demanding to get our way. After all, we're not being treated fairly. After all, my preferences are not being listened to, and I don't like the way things are going around here. "By the way, what do you think?" And before you know it, we gossip and we bring in other people, and here we go. Satan loves that type of a thing. And instead of serving the Lord, instead of being about the business of making disciples and spreading the gospel, we become consumed with the conflict. Moreover, the transforming power of the gospel is suddenly called into question because other people see how we're fighting amongst ourselves and they say, "Boy, you want me to be like you? You want me to be a part of your church, so that I can join in the fight with these other people? Are you kidding me? To be a part of you hypocritical control freaks that can't even get along with one another?" You see, that's the type of thing that Satan loves.

So, what we see here in this text, and many others - but obviously because of time we're going to focus here on this text - we see several principles emerge that can help us. And the first one that I would want to point out to you is that: everyone must be vigilant to spot conflict. Every one of us. And hopefully, you want to see it before it surfaces, you want to see it before it comes, because what we see here is this complaint now makes it all the way to the apostles, and we don't know how, but somehow it made its way to the apostles, and it doesn't even tell us necessarily that it was the widows complaining, but certainly some people within the body began to see that there's a real problem here. You know every church is vulnerable to these kinds of issues because we are all vulnerable to our flesh, and certainly the temptations of the evil ones. So we've all got to stay alert.

Notice in verse two it says, "And the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables, but select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task, and we will devote ourselves to prayer and to ministry, and to the ministry of the word.'" You see that was their priority. There were many people now coming to Christ. There was much counseling and discipleship that needed to occur. Not to mention more public preaching, more evangelism, more teaching. And as I think about this, even in a church our size, it is impossible for the elders and other leaders in this church to be able to ascertain every situation, to be aware of every single possible problem within the church. So we all have to work together to that end.

And there's another principle that emerges here for resolving conflict, and that is: a plurality of elders must offer a biblical solution to the congregation and include them in on the resolution. Let me say that again: a plurality of elders must offer a biblical solution to the congregation and include them in the resolution. So here's what happens here: the apostles hear of the grievance, and wisely they come up with a process for resolution, and then they present their plan to the congregation. Now this is so important. Let me pause for a second. Again, even when there are problems, this is a great opportunity for all of us to put the glory of God on display by denying ourselves and loving our neighbor more than ourselves and dealing with conflict in a way that would bring glory to God. And that's how you have to look at this. This is, in other words, a God-ordained object lesson for them, and for all of us, because we are all vulnerable to problems with respect to conflict.

And I might also add, whenever conflict is public within a church, the resolution needs to be public. Where there's private conflict, not so. But here there was public conflict, and so the apostles get involved. And now the elders have assumed that role. We don't have apostles anymore, so we would need a plurality of elders. It wasn't just Peter that came up with the solution here. It was the 12.

Notice verse two, "The twelve summoned the congregation." It was not just one man here. The twelve summoned the congregation, and as we're going to see, the twelve had come up with a plan to give the congregation. And here's where, as I would say, they offered a biblical solution to the congregation. In other words, this is very different than coming to a congregation and saying, "Boy, y'all, let's just get together and meet here. What do you think we ought to do?" Oh boy, that can be a disastrous thing. Can't you imagine if they'd have done that there in the first church? Well, the native Hebrews would have said, "Well, you know what? Let them develop their own system. I mean, we can't even speak their language. Let let them deal with it themselves." Somebody else says, "Oh no, no, I just think we all just need to love one another and pray about it. Oh, that's real helpful." Okay? And then somebody else would have said, "Well, hey, wait a minute! What are you calling us together for? We pay you guys, you guys go and handle it." ut rather than that, the 12 summon the congregation and present to them a solution that was biblical. Notice again, it says in verse two, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables, and later on in verse four it tells why. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now I want you to think here. There seems to be an implied assumption that the congregation really assumed that the apostles should handle this personally. After all, they were the paid staff. But think what would happen to the church if suddenly those who were called to prayer and the ministry of the word were to put that on the back burner. All of the discipleship, all of the counseling, all of the preparation to teach the word, the actual teaching of the word, the preaching of the word-all of that had to assume a lower priority so that they could deal with this problem. You could begin to see what would happen. It would be like asking an airplane pilot to suddenly double as a stewardess because we're low on help, or asking the farmer to come in from working in his fields to help take care of the children and prepare the meals. And I'm not I'm not mitigating the importance of those tasks. I just want you to see that there is really a uniqueness in calling and duty. Now, please understand, the apostles could have handled this themselves, but to do so would require them to abandon their post. And I also want to add, it's not to say that pastors and church staff, paid church staff, whatever, are not above doing other things, that is not the point. And certainly, even as your pastor, I'm willing to do whatever it is, and I have done that, and gladfully so. But I cannot do some things that are either a going to distract me from my primary calling, or B, some things that, quite frankly, I'm not very gifted at doing, and that's what was going on here. So they refused to abandon their post here, and they selected some other men to deal with this. And again, if you've got roughly 20,000 people in a church, I I would I would imagine that you're probably talking about maybe two to 4000 of them that were in this category of need. Many widows, and many of them would have had children, and many other poor along with them. Now let me digress for a moment, dear friends. How tragic, how tragic it is to see pastors neglect their primary duty of prayer and the ministry of the word. By the way, prayer and the ministry of the word are two spiritual disciplines that are inextricably bound to each other, and we see that all in the New Testament, and even in the Old. To see pastors that spend the bulk of their time in meetings, or visiting at the hospital, or dealing with social and community functions, versus being involved in prayer and the Word, you know, not only will such neglect be evident in their sermons, but it will be evident in the lives of those that are in their congregation. Not to mention their own life. Being devoted to prayer and the Word is a shepherd's number one priority, and I thank you that you understand that, and you allow me to function within those parameters. Many a flock, I believe, is spiritually malnourished and weak because they are constantly fed the silage of sermonettes, rather than the rich grass of Bible exposition that is grown in the fertile fields of rigorous study and watered by the tears of fervent prayer. God-centered preaching and teaching. Really captures the heart of a man. It captures him with the inescapable truths of God and then forces that man to grapple with those truths and to make a choice.

But rather than that, the twelve summon the congregation and present to them a solution that was biblical. Notice again, it says in verse two, "'It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.'" And later on in verse four it tells why, "'But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'" Now I want you to think here. There seems to be an implied assumption that the congregation really assumed that the apostles should handle this personally. After all, they were the paid staff. But think what would happen to the church if suddenly those who were called to prayer and the ministry of the word were to put that on the back burner. All of the discipleship, all of the counseling, all of the preparation to teach the word, the actual teaching of the word, the preaching of the word - all of that had to assume a lower priority so that they could deal with this problem. You could begin to see what would happen. It would be like asking an airplane pilot to suddenly double as a stewardess because we're low on help or asking the farmer to come in from working in his fields to help take care of the children and prepare the meals. And I'm not mitigating the importance of those tasks; I just want you to see that there is really a uniqueness in calling and duty.

Now, please understand, the apostles could have handled this themselves, but to do so would require them to abandon their post. And I also want to add, it's not to say that pastors and church staff - paid church staff, whatever - are not above doing other things, that is not the point. And certainly, even as your pastor, I'm willing to do whatever it is, and I have done that, and gladfully so, but I cannot do some things that are either A: going to distract me from my primary calling, or B: some things that, quite frankly, I'm not very gifted at doing. And that's what was going on here.

So they refused to abandon their post here, and they selected some other men to deal with this. And again, if you've got roughly 20,000 people in a church, I would imagine that you're probably talking about maybe. 2-4000 of them that were in this category of need. Many widows, and many of them would have had children, and many other poor along with them.

Now let me digress for a moment, dear friends. How tragic...how tragic it is to see pastors neglect their primary duty of prayer and the ministry of the word. By the way, prayer and the ministry of the word are two spiritual disciplines that are inextricably bound to each other, and we see that all in the New Testament, and even in the Old. To see pastors that spend the bulk of their time in meetings, or visiting at the hospital, or dealing with social and community functions, versus being involved in prayer and the Word. You know, not only will such neglect be evident in their sermons, but it will be evident in the lives of those that are in their congregation. Not to mention their own life. Being devoted to prayer and the Word is a shepherd's number one priority, and I thank you that you understand that, and you allow me to function within those parameters. Many a flock, I believe, is spiritually malnourished and weak because they are constantly fed the silage of sermonettes, rather than the rich grass of Bible exposition that is grown in the fertile fields of rigorous study and watered by the tears of fervent prayer. God-centered preaching and teaching. Really captures the heart of a man. It captures him with the inescapable truths of God, and then forces that man to grapple with those truths and to make a choice.

A man will either bow down and worship the One and the True and the Living God, or he will stand up in rebellion and turn and walk the other way. One of those two things will happen. He will either see the glorious light of the gospel and see the majesty and the excellency of Christ, or he will hear the truth and decide to reject it, and thus God will harden his heart even more, and keep him in the bondage of his crypt of darkness. Many a man has been sealed in that crypt because he has rejected the truth. But friends, the truth has to be preached. Indeed, God-centered preaching will either harden or soften a man's heart. Cotton Mather, that great old preacher in New England some 300 years ago, said this, and I quote: "The great design and intention of the office of a Christian preacher is to restore the throne and dominion of God and the souls of men." A powerful quote, and indeed, that is my prayer for you, week in and week out, especially when I come and stand before you. Whether it's going through the Psalms expositionally, as we do on Wednesday nights, or whether it's here in the pulpit on Sunday mornings or Sunday evening. My prayer is that as his messenger, the message preached will somehow envelop you with the light and of the glory of God. That you will see his holiness, and that somehow, like Moses, that light will continue to radiate off of you throughout the remainder of the week.

Well, the apostles knew the profound importance of prayer and the faithful teaching of the word, and nothing was going to distract them from that. And again, oh wouldn't Satan love to see that happen? In Ephesians chapter four, verse 11, we read that God gave to the church pastors and teachers - these would be teaching shepherds; he gave them to the church. Why? "For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." And as a result, he goes on to say, "We are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming."  And sadly, dear friends, many churches are filled with people who are nothing more than spiritual toddlers, and they are deceived by every manner of charlatan that comes into the church with some phony, twisted, manipulated understanding of a text. John MacArthur has said, and I quote: "Their calling is to mature the saints (referring to pastors), so they can do the work of the ministry. By neglecting that calling, they doom their congregations to languish in spiritual infancy. Programs are no substitute for the power of God and His Word. Those whom God has called to the ministry of prayer and the Word must make it their priority." How true! How true!

You know, later on, the apostle Paul exhorted Timothy in First Timothy four, and he said, "Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe." And here's what he was told to do as a pastor, "Until I come," he says, "give attention to" number one, "the public reading of Scripture." And technically that's a reference to the actual reading of the Word and the exposition of the Word that's occurring right now. And secondly, "to exhortation,' and that's application of the word to our lives, and then thirdly "to teaching," and that is a reference to the systematic teaching of Bible doctrine. That's the priority. And he goes on and he says, "Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you." In other words, God has called and gifted you to do those things. Don't neglect that. Don't let anything distract you from that. That is your priority. So he says, "Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed upon you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery." Then he says, "Take pains with these things," be absorbed in them, "so that your progress may be evident to all." And yet, my friends, as we look across the evangelical landscape today, we see the gross distortion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We see an attempt to constantly widen the gate of the gospel to be inclusive to anyone, no matter what they believe. We see pastors becoming entrepreneurs. We see churches becoming social clubs and congregations becoming increasingly like the world. Why? Primarily because pastors have neglected prayer and the ministry of the word.

In the late 1800s, after preaching a powerful sermon, that great preacher Alexander White, who was pastor of Free Saint George's West in Edinburgh, Scotland, he was stopped by one of his congregants, who exclaimed, "Doctor White, you preach today like you had just emerged from the throne chamber of the Almighty." To which he replied, "In point of fact, I have." Dear friends, please understand, we need men today who will emerge from their closet of prayer and will fling open the door of the vault of their study and be able to ascend this sacred desk and say, "Thus saith the Lord." That's what we have to have, and nothing should distract us from that pursuit. And the apostles understood this very well.

So back to the issue of the conflict, we see this plurality of elders offering a biblical solution to the congregation. In other words, they explain to them, "Here's what we need to do, but here's some things we would like for you to do, and we want to include you in the resolution." So again, in verse two, it says that, "'It's not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.'" By the way, the word "table" here could refer to a table, or even it was used to describe a counter used by those that tend to banking or money matters. And so we know this was much more than just handing out some food to widows here. This was kind of a welfare type of a system. So notice the solution offered, verse 3,  "'Select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.'" And here we see a third principle that emerges that helps us understand how to deal with conflict in the church, and that is: select qualified men from within the church. Select qualified men from within the church to deal with it.

Now, while women have unique and vital roles in the church, we see biblically that leadership is always restricted to the men, especially in the context of conflict resolution, and there are many other the New Testament texts that make this unescapably clear. Now, notice they say select men from among your own ranks in essence. Now certainly this was the only church, it's not like they could go outside to some other church to get these men, but I think what we can also glean here is that it's important to train up men from within our own ranks and to use them in the structure and the leadership of the church. Certainly, when there's conflict, this is why we have, for example, our SIT program here in this church. Men don't become godly leaders just by osmosis, just because they show up at church every now and then. It takes a systematic plan of constant involvement on my part and on the part of others, to not only help men understand the glorious truths of the gospel - to understand systematically the wonderful doctrines in the Word of God - but also to know how to apply them. And over the years, what begins to emerge are men from within our own ranks that can lead.

Moreover, I would also argue that when it comes to resolving conflict, we need to stick with people within our own ranks, men within our own ranks, rather than going out, hiring some other organization, and bringing them in and having some type of a tribunal to figure out what's going on, and then usually what happens is there's a compromise that really doesn't resolve any of the issues.

Now, notice the qualifications set forth by the spirit-inspired apostles. These men need to have three things. They need to first of all have a good reputation. In other words, they must be well respected by not only those in the church but those outside the church, and this is consistent, by the way, with the qualifications of elders as well as deacons set forth in First Timothy three and Titus one. I mean, after all, how can a man have any credibility to lead and care for undoubtedly large sums of money, if the people who know him really don't respect him?

They also had to be full of the Spirit. In other words, their character and their conduct must demonstrate their total surrender to the Spirit of God, as the Spirit of God reveals himself in the Word. In other words, they had to be men who were obedient to the Spirit of God. They had to be men who were, frankly, Christ-like, men who bore the fruits of the Spirit. And then, thirdly, they had to be full of wisdom. In other words, if I can put it this way: they have to be men of the Word. They have to be men filled with theological understanding and able to apply divine truth to the very practical situations of life. These are the kinds of men you want to lead in a church, especially in times of crisis, in times of conflict. Now some might ask, "Well, weren't these the first deacons?" I don't think so. They are never called deacons. There's no mention of a formal office here. In fact, there's no mention of deacons anywhere in Acts. It's always just a reference to elders. I do not believe that these men were the first deacons -diakonos, - from which we get our word "deacon," it really denotes service in general. It can even include women who would serve. But here, these men had a very specific calling.

Moreover, if you look at this, all seven of the names were Greek names, indicating that they were probably all Hellenists. They were probably all men chosen from the offended party, and that would certainly not be a representative group to be deacons within a church. So these men were to become leaders of a very, very important function of a very large church, a ministry that was in disarray, causing conflict, a disastrous, dangerous situation. I would also think that these men were probably hired. They probably became paid church staff. Think of the enormous amount of energy and time it would take to deal with several thousand people in need, such as this.

Well, here we glean yet another very important principle, the fourth in our little list, and that is: nominated leaders must be affirmed by existing leaders, nominated leaders must be affirmed by existing leaders. Notice verse three, "Select men from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.'" You see, friends, the congregation's selection of leaders in a church should never be final. The final affirmation must be reserved for the shepherds, for the elders of that congregation, of that flock, those whom God has placed in authority as overseers over the flock. You see, the elders of a church, if indeed they meet the qualifications of an elder set forth in Scripture, need to have the final say. I know most of you understand this; we've taught on it before. But there is no such thing as a democracy in a church. That has been something that has been forced onto the church and has caused enormous problems over the years, but likewise, there should never be an oligarchy in a church. It's never just the rule of a few. There needs to be a plurality of elders that meet the qualifications of an elder that lead the church. The churches are to be led by these overseers, not by the congregation. The shepherds, not the sheep, must lead the flock. Indeed, the elders will have spiritual insights and be privy to information many times that the congregation will not know anything about. And so, while the congregation may choose a particular man, the elders may know something that might perhaps disqualify that man, or they might know that that man's gifts are in another area, and we are helping him to discover those and develop those. And so we want to reserve this man to be used over here, or whatever.

So ultimately, that affirmation needs to stay within the realm of the elders, not the congregations. You know, many churches never mature because their leaders do not meet the qualifications of First Timothy three and Titus one, and as a result, pastors who neglect their calling of prayer and the ministry of the word begin to produce a church that lacks discernment. It's an amazing cycle, isn't it? If you're not hearing anything from the pulpit that will cause you to grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ, and you're not gaining in discernment, you're going to be like those children Paul warned us about in Ephesians 4 that are going to be "tossed about by all the trickery of man by every wind of doctrine," and that's what happens very often. And then, as a result, these congregations now become filled with many times tares. I believe that there are many evangelical churches that have far more non-believers in them than believers, and even with many of the believers - many of them because they've never been taught anything - have no discernment. They have no theological acumen. They are basically doctrinally illiterate. They don't know how to apply the word of God to their life. They're immature, they're shallow, and yet they're leading the church. You're putting them in charge through a democratic process, and when things come up, you're going to ask them to make the decisions. And then, lacking discernment, they continue to choose even more unqualified leaders, and they perpetuate the cycle of of immaturity and ignorance, and then eventually, guess what happens...the church splits, and one group goes somewhere else, and they start the whole thing over again. What a mess! You know, there are some 900 churches in Davidson County alone, it's amazing, and most of them have been started because of church splits. Inconceivable. So it is so crucial to have qualified leaders and then let them lead. Trust them to lead, and if you don't trust them, then you need to get leaders that you do trust.

Now notice the unity that this process produced in verse five, and, "The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit..."  Isn't that great? Wouldn't you love to have that title? "Yes, this is so and so...this is a man that is full of faith and of the Holy Spirit..." "'And likewise Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch." So seven men here again with Greek names, they were probably all Hellenists; and how appropriate to choose men from the offended group to resolve this situation to somehow oversee this operation. You know what that tells me? The native Hebrews, the native Hebrew Christians, when they heard of all of this, were probably, oh, they were probably so hurt and so disappointed that this happened, and probably out of their love, they said "You know what? Let's choose some godly men from within their own ranks. Let's trust them to deal with this so that there won't be any possible insinuation that we might be handling it in a way that is biased." I can see the love and the unity here. They were probably unaware that any offense had ever occurred. And along with that, I bet a few of them, if not all of them, were thinking in the back of their mind, "Boy, we certainly don't want to be selfish here. We certainly don't want to lie to the Holy Spirit. Remember what happened a little while back with Ananias and Sapphira?"

So they chose Stephen. Stephen later on became the great evangelist that was martyred for his faith. They chose Philip, who also became an evangelist. He took the gospel primarily to the Samaritans. You remember Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch, and nothing else is really known about the other five men.

So in verse six we read that, "These they brought before the apostles." In other words, this is the group that the congregation had chosen. "And after praying," in other words, after the apostles now had really affirmed in their own minds that yes, indeed these are men that we can support, "they laid hands their hands on them." That was a way of publicly affirming these men, indicating that their leadership was fully endorsed by the church, by the leaders of the church, and that they were free to serve in this capacity.

Now, folks, as we close this morning, please understand the enormous dangers that were averted in what happened here. Two things could have happened. Number one: the church could have been split wide open with conflict. And secondly, and equally as catastrophic: the apostles could have been distracted from their primary calling of prayer in the ministry of the word. Isn't it amazing what God did here? But instead of that, instead of the church being crippled, verse seven we read, "The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith." Isn't that an incredible thought?

Well, very some very practical principles here for dealing with structure and leadership, especially in times of conflict. Number one: everyone must be vigilant to spot conflict. Secondly: a plurality of elders must offer a biblical solution to the congregation and include them in on the resolution process. And then, thirdly: we need to select qualified men from within our own ranks. And then, four: these nominated leaders must be affirmed by existing elders and then given the authority and the freedom to lead. Well, may we all rejoice in the power of the gospel-a gospel to transform lives. Amen. And for the truth of Scripture that gives us divine wisdom to help us understand how to operate this this glorious organism, this body of Christ, the church, and we rejoice in that exceedingly. Let's pray together,

Father, thank you for these truths. I pray that you will help us to apply them even in our own lives and certainly apply them in the life of this church, and we thank you for the ways that you continue to unite us together in love and in purpose. And Lord, I pray that you will continue to do exactly that, that you might be glorified in our lives and in this community and around the world. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen.