Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 You're listening to a live recording from Westside church in bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 00:00:06 Well, before we dive, uh, before we get into the message, once you turn to acts chapter six, um, I'm really excited about the kind of this message for today and concluding the series that we've been on for nine weeks, uh, called heroes unknown. We've been looking at, uh, unknown heroes in the Bible. People that you probably wouldn't recognize, like Tychicus the boy in his lunch. You guys remember Bezalel old Bez. We talked about him, Sarah Joseph the women witnesses the thief on the cross. We've been looking at these unsung heroes because oftentimes when we look at the big heroes like Moses and Paul and, you know, they're kind of larger than life. And it's really hard for us to see ourselves in the story, but, but the power of this book is when we see ourselves in it, when we on every page, oh, that applies to me.
Speaker 1 00:00:54 Oh, I can relate to that person. I can. Well, that helps me understand my walk of faith. And so that's what we've been trying to do over this last nine weeks is to help see ourselves put ourselves in this story. And today is no different. Um, as we look at, um, uh, a group of people that were being marginalized unintentionally by the early church, um, before we get to that, um, you know, this weekend's reminded me, you know, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday to commemorate the feast, right? That was shared between the colonists and the WAPA NAGO Indians. And these, this group of Indians opened up their table to the colonists, to the settlers that first Thanksgiving, um, shared their food with them, um, invited them into their space. Um, but we also know that it was less than a year before this, this, the devastating conflict that kind of raged our lands for, for centuries really began to happen.
Speaker 1 00:01:58 And as I thought about that, I realized conflict still exists between people. Have you noticed that the last few months, couple years, um, I've talked with families who, um, don't know what to do because they maybe didn't share Thanksgiving meals with the same family. They did two, three years ago because of the division that's come. That's been, that's been allowed to kind of come into our homes and to come into this home, right? Churches, I talk with them. Every church is in the same boat, right? Were long time members of one church have gone to another church and longtime members of another church to come to this church. And it's just been this kind of weird season of conflict. And, and our heroes today have something to teach us about how to keep our tables open, how to keep our hearts open. Now, let me just say this, that this should be true for every message, but I feel like, I feel like this is true for this message.
Speaker 1 00:02:59 A group of pastors and I were talking just a couple of weeks back about how it seems like in these days, um, the people in our churches aren't listening and I was quick to say, oh no, my church is completely different, but it's like, we know it all already. We've already formed our belief systems. We've already decided that, um, what we think about everything. And so what's happened is that we don't give room for the holy spirit to bring repentance, rebuke, correction, tweaking, um, challenging. And so I'm going to ask you to do today is just take a moment right now, if you want and ask the holy spirit to do that, to give space right now, to say, Jesus, come my heart's open. I want to hear what you have to say to me, even if it challenges me, even if it challenges my long held beliefs.
Speaker 1 00:04:04 Amen. Well, that was a setup. All right, let's dive in acts chapter six. This is a story. The church, when we get to acts six, the church is like flourishing up until the right people are coming to Christ. Every day, healings are happening. Miracles. It's just an incredible, just like this atmosphere, just lots going on. And then we hit acts chapter six and it's regarding the, the, the dispute or the disagreement that comes into the church. We look at, we start the story in chapter six, verse one. Now in these days, these days being these days of growth and fruitfulness and all of that, when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint by the healthiness arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And so the healthiness, our group of Jewish people who grew up, uh, in, in Greek or Roman culture, they came to Christ during this, the early days of the early church, but they were very much not Jewish.
Speaker 1 00:05:09 They were, um, culture ethnically, but not culturally. And then you have the Hebrews who were, they were Jews that had become Christians. And so they had these there's these there's this distribution program going on in the church. They were trying to help the poor help them needy and widows and orphans are, have always been at the top of the list when it comes to how the church cares for those in need. Right? And so, so the, but there was this group of widows, um, the Hellenistic that were being disregarded, they were being forgotten. Um, and, and so the early church hears about this, the leaders hear about this, the 12 apostles, they hear about this, and I love their response to, um, to this, uh, this problem, this dilemma, um, I've been reading a book it's really, really good. It's called subversive, witnessed by Dominique do boy.
Speaker 1 00:06:01 Gilliard is challenging book. It's causing me to, to think differently about some things or to at least think more deeply about some things. And this is what he writes about this, this, um, what's going on in acts six, that he break widows were cultural insiders with direct access to the city and churches, dominant culture, customs and language. The Hellenistic widows were Jews who lived most of their lives in Greek speaking, cities and towns, outside of Jerusalem and returned to the city as cultural outsiders. The Hellenistic widows felt as if their outsider status was causing them to be overlooked and marginalized in the church's distribution of food. So the 12 apostles, what they do is they gather everybody together. When I say everybody, I mean, the texts makes it sound like they summered the, it says the sum and the full number of disciples by this time, that means thousands of people.
Speaker 1 00:07:00 And I don't know, maybe there was a different group. Maybe it wasn't that many, but I think it was a fairly large group that they gathered together and said, this isn't right, this isn't right. We, we, as the apostles, we shouldn't be, we sh we need to take care of this and we're busy preaching and ministering to the body. And, but we can't forget this. And so, um, and so you kind of like, why do they make such a big deal of this? Like, just fix it, you know, but why is this such a big deal and why did it make it into the Bible? And you have to think, like, I believe that this was a pivotal moment in the early church's formation, that if they didn't deal with this conflict, that they were going to end up at the very best with two different churches and at the very worst, no church at all.
Speaker 1 00:07:52 I think that that was the kind of conflict that we're talking about, that if this group of Hellenistic, widows were not going to be cared for, and if they were to continue to be overlooked, then I believe that Helena, this would have been an offshoot. They would have just started their own movement. Um, why do I think that, because that's, what's happened since with denominations and all of that stuff, we won't, we don't have time to get into all that, but that's what we do. Right? And so the early church, the leader saw this and they said, we got to do something about this. So I think that's part of it. But then I also like these 12 disciples, these disciples saw Jesus and how he ministered in who he ministered with and who Jesus invited to his table. You got to think about that.
Speaker 1 00:08:39 Like there were in Jesus invited prostitutes to his table like Mary, he invited Samaritans to his table. Like the woman at the, well, he invited tax collectors, notorious like Zacchaeus to his table, fishermen uneducated, the poor, the marginalized Jesus seems to surround himself. And so this is the backdrop for these disciples saying this, there is a, there is a group being disregarded and we, because of how Christ has showed us and lived among us, we cannot disregard them any longer. And I love that they didn't try to cover up their MIS or explain it away or that when Luke's writing the book of acts, somebody that somebody says, oh, no, keep that one out. That was a, that was a bad moment in our, Nope, it's all there. And they don't try to, they don't try to explain it away. And they also don't cast the Hellenistic widows as being divisive either.
Speaker 1 00:09:47 You don't see that anywhere in the texts, they don't, they don't blame them for, you know, you know, not, not doing enough for themselves, that kind of thing. And so, and so the problem wasn't that they hated the Hellenistic widows. That's not the problem at all. The problem was that there were systems that were built to care for the, for the needs of the people in their church, in their congregation. And these systems were not designed with this group of women and their needs in mind. So they decided, um, that they needed a council to oversee the distribution of this food, to all the widows, to both groups of widows. So the entire community selected the leaders, which by the way, the entire community was made up. Majority group was the Hebraic community, the Jewish, um, ethnically Jewish people that they were, they were the ones that were majority. And then the Helen, as there were a few of them in the mix as well, and they get to decide who's going to be on the council. So they select seven men who are known to be full of the holy spirit and wisdom. We'll come back to that in just a moment. And, and this is who they selected, Steven, Phillip pro caress, the Ken, nor tymone Parmenas and Nicolas guess what group all seven are from the healthiness, the minority group. So let that sink in for a minute. I don't think that would happen today.
Speaker 1 00:11:24 Was that a, was that like, did I undersell that just a little bit? Yeah. I don't think that would happen today. I don't think, I don't think leaders necessarily in the church would allow that to happen today. Something that maybe leaders in the church needed to repent from, but there's this sense of like, how did that happen? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if the disciples and the majority were afraid that changing the system of food distribution would leave the majority out, they would've made sure there was more, there was a majority represented on the leadership team. They were not afraid that the pendulum would swing too far by giving voice to the minority group. It's really intriguing. I mean, it's just to kind of think about that, the social dynamics of this going on super interesting to me, and we just kind of like passed over it. Right. We don't think about that, but in the current climate, I'm like, huh, that's interesting. And that, and they chose spirit, filled people with wisdom to oversee the new system, people that had open hearts, open tables, and they knew that they didn't have to worry about the majority now not getting fed. They knew that everyone would be taken care of.
Speaker 1 00:13:03 I was serving, I've been serving on the board of directors for our denomination. It's a group of 25, um, elders that, um, um, most of us were elected. And so I was elected last year and as the, um, the highest decision-making body in our denomination. And so, so, um, so I've been serving there since last June. I remember my first meeting last June in June, 2020, and I'm sitting there, I'm not a voting member yet. And so I'm just kind of, I'm an observer. And, um, and, um, on the agenda was a conversation, um, regarding racism. And I remember sitting there listening to it. One of our black pastors begin to tell his story of being disregarded by our denomination.
Speaker 1 00:13:59 He didn't have an ax to grind. They didn't, there was no sense of an agenda behind it. It was just his story shared, shared in a way that was just like, this is my story. And it sounded so much like the Helen is like, there's this, there's a group of people that, that have been disregarded in our church family. And there was this acknowledgement by the leaders that some had been excluded from the life of the church. And I so appreciated the response of our leaders who didn't, um, try to be defensive or try to explain it away or try to just minimize his story and just say, well, that's just one story. There's other, all of these other stories. They just simply listened and gave voice to someone who represented a minority group in our movement. And weren't afraid of what might happen.
Speaker 1 00:14:58 And as a result, our denomination has become better for it are more inclusive, more, um, well-rounded do you know that there's brothers and sisters in Christ, who, who, when they talk about this, highlight the healthiness and I've been in church my whole life and nobody ever highlighted the is every message I've ever heard or preached from act six, always has to do with how the disciples released authority so that the church could continue to grow as an organizational decision, not a social decision. And yet those voices that are, have been marginalized, read the story differently, and now I'm better for it. And I hope you're better for, and I hope our denomination is better for it. And I know the early church was better for it because the word of God, verse seven, 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.
Speaker 1 00:16:11 I love what Evan talked about last week, how he showed us how the good news of Jesus is for everyone. Do you remember that? Where if you were here that he's, he, he started listing groups of people that, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for everyone. It is good news for Jews. It's good news for Gentiles is good news for Samaritans is good news for the Greek. It's good news for the Roman. It's good news for the Canadians and the Americans for liberals and conservatives. That's when it started getting quiet in the room and for straight and gay, it's good news for everyone.
Speaker 1 00:16:48 But if we allow the world or politics, or even some of our Christian traditions to dictate how the church responds to certain groups, we will miss the move of God among us. And I'm convinced that when we enlarge our tables and invite others who are unlike us, who have different thoughts and opinions and views of the scripture to kind of sit with us, what will happen is that the word of God will actually increase not decrease. The number of disciples will exponentially expand, and the whole community will see the value of giving their lives to that kind of unity. Or we open up our hearts and our tables to other voices that may have been marginalized in the past, thought a lot about how we respond to those in our community who have been ignored and forgotten. And I've just chosen. I'm not going to buy into the narratives I hear out there and the social media and the news stations. I'm just not going to buy it. I know there's some, there's some truth in all of it, you know, on both sides of things. I get that. But yeah, they don't, they don't have God's interests in mind. You know, that the political parties don't have God's interests in minds. They know that they're not none. None of them have God written in to their platforms. I want to allow the word of God to speak to us, let him, uh, let him be the driving force in what we think about the different issues we're faced with.
Speaker 1 00:18:37 I'm not going to, we're going to pick a side. I'm going to, I'm going to choose Jesus and try to follow him the best that we can. Right. Remember God. So loved the world, everyone in it. And he wishes that none would perish, but all would have everlasting life. So, you know what he did, he gave himself for that vision. He so believed in it that he died for it. See, I believe that we're not just hurting other people. When we limit the size of our tables to only those who are like us or live near us, we are actually working against the gospel itself, undermining the very thing Jesus stood for.
Speaker 1 00:19:23 See the world is shrinking their tables. It just keeps getting smaller and smaller. And everybody's kind of, you know, I don't think we do chat rooms anymore, but if we did chatrooms, everyone's got their own little chat room. And then they got, they're all fighting talking in there and there's talking to each other because they all agree with each other. And you know, no other voices are allowed in, you know, and where, if you have a different voice, you definitely don't want to go in that chat room. You know, that kind of thing. And so it's like, and then there's this other chat room on the other side is doing the same exact thing. But this is the other, other side of the argument, you know? And I'm like that don't spend your time with that stuff. There's enough here to give your life to, for your whole life, to find the way of Jesus and to enlarge our tables.
Speaker 1 00:20:12 That's what Jesus is asking us to do. Just like he did with the church in acts chapter six, to give space and voice to all God's people. I was thinking about my friendships, my close friendships that I have, I was thinking they just span the breadth of political ideologies, sexual identities, um, just, you know, denominational affiliations. And these are all just my Christ following friends, by the way, I thought about getting them all together at my table. And then I thought better of it. I like, do I really want to do that? Do I want to bring them all and have them sit down at one table? But I thought, you know, and I haven't intentionally done this by the way. So don't please don't think highly more highly than you should have me. I, this, this, this, this happen where there are people in my life that if they knew I was friend with so and so they'd be like, oh no. And if that person knew I was wrong with everything, they're like, whoa, you know? And it's like, but this is the way of Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:21:18 In Luke chapter 14, Jesus is at, he's not at a tax collector's house this time. He's not at a prostitute's place. He's not at a, um, at, at a Samaritan's home. He's actually in the home of a Pharisee having dinner, just Jesus just keeps making us uncomfortable. And he says, he says to the man who had invited him to dinner, he says, when you give a dinner or a banquet, don't invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be rebated. The resurrection of the just isn't it. I mean, I've imagined around the table or this guy's friends, the rich and his family.
Speaker 1 00:22:08 Right. And I don't think Jesus is saying don't, don't like, hang out with your friends. I just think he's saying, get more friends, enlarge your table, invite others into your relationship, into your circle of relationship. You don't have to discount one to include the other. Jesus is asking us to expand our hearts, to bring all in to his banqueting table, where he can figure out all the nuances of relationship between the healthiness and the Hebrews and how all that's going to work. And, but he does give us some ideas in scripture about how we can open up our hearts like this. It can seem impossible. Can't it like, Ooh, you're asking for too much, but here's, there's a couple of ways. And one is in Philippians two and I really felt like God brought me to Philippians two, as I, cause this has nothing. It doesn't feel like it has any connection with acts chapter six. But then I was like, but I felt like the holy spirit wanted me to do this and you're not going to like it. This is the way to, this is the way to expand your table and deal with the resulting conflict that will happen when you expand your table, you're ready for this. Do all things without grumbling or disputing.
Speaker 1 00:23:32 You're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. All things, you know, that passage we like to, we like to focus in on the all things, right? In all things with prayer and supplication, we love that verse. We preach on that one in all things, pray in all things pray. But man, in this climate, in all things, stop fighting, arguing grumbling. You're like, that's not, that's the culture, Steve that's that, that we live in that that's that's that's we have to, if we don't, if we don't stand our ground right now, what are you afraid of? See, Paul is saying to us, listen, the way to expand your tables, to include people that are not like you is you got to stop grumbling about everything. And I'm talking, I'm talking to the people online, not to this crowd here. I'm talking to people. I'm like, yeah, we got to stop that.
Speaker 1 00:24:35 We got to stop arguing that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. The way we shine is by not grumbling or complaining or arguing, especially in the midst of conflict because Paul was facing conflict in Philippians, in the, in the city of Philippi. It, I mean, everywhere. He went, he faced conflict between Jews and Gentiles, Christians, Jewish Christians that were like, no, you gotta be circumcised. Gentile, Christians like, Hey, you doing that? And there was this fight constantly. And Paul throughout his writings, you have to read it without understanding. And when he says do all things without grumbling, he's talking to us, the people of God who weren't able to get along with one another, see fear of conflict, fear that we might, we might not get our way, fear that, that we won't get fed. While another group gets fed. All of that fear limits our relationships. It closes us off. It doesn't expands our tables. It minimizes our table.
Speaker 1 00:26:12 I want to take a moment. I've said some pretty heavy things. If you're, if you didn't feel that heaviness of this, you probably weren't listening. So that's okay. That's okay. Um, but I feel like we needed to take a moment and sit in this story and this narrative, and maybe reflect on how, how you've responded, how your heart is responded in this moment in the season, these last two years of how you've allowed. Maybe you have allowed some grumbling to begin to emerge in your vocabulary and your social postings and all of these things. Maybe just reflect on that, but I'd have to reflect on that. I want to take another minute and just like ask the Lord, Lord, how, how do you want me to enlarge my table in this season? Is there someone that I can invite to my table? Is there someone I should be reading or listening to? And, and, and how can I be a little known hero in somebody else's story by opening up my door, who in my life could use your love and your care and your listening there. So let's just take a few moments and just take a time just to let this words soak into the soil of your heart, let the holy spirit do what he wants to do with it.
Speaker 1 00:27:47 I imagine for some of us, it's a, maybe there's a little repentance that needs to happen because we haven't been living this way. And the holy Spirit's just kind of acknowledging that right now in your heart. Just go ahead and take a moment and ask the Lord to forgive you.
Speaker 1 00:28:17 And then the second thing that I think we need to do to become people that enlarge our tables is to become more like Jesus. You know, I think so often we focus on other things. We read other things. We spend time listening to other things, and Jesus is asking his church to be reformed into his image, to be refashioned, according to, as a word, even when it's,
Speaker 1 00:28:53 Even when it's not culturally appropriate or the right thing to say or do according to somebody's rules or whatever, it's like, I just want to follow you. Jesus. I want to become like you. I want to, I want to be formed by you. I'm going to be submitted to you. I want to surrender to you. I want to surrender my thoughts to your thoughts. I want to surrender my, my passions to your passions. I want, I want my life to be formed more into your image. Jesus. And I'm confident that as we allow our lives to be formed more into your image, Jesus, we natural Bri product will be in large tables and open hearts. The ability to hear other voices speaking to us in the body of Christ
Speaker 1 00:30:06 Jesus constantly made it uncomfortable for the insiders. He just kept pressing his friends to think beyond their current tables. And so Jesus, we ask that you keep pressing us to think beyond, to think bigger, to think more expansively regarding your gospel, Help us Jesus to shine like stars and this corrupt world, Jesus help us to shine like stars in this argumentative world, help us Jesus to shine like stars in this disgruntled world, Guiding lights to you.
