Welcome to ECB's weekly sermon podcast. ECB is
an international church in Bangkok, Thailand,
with dozens of nationalities worshiping together.
We invite you to connect with us from wherever
you are through our website ecb .asia or our
mobile app. And now we pray that you are blessed
by this week's sermon. I appreciate last week
Pastor Phil opened our series on the presence.
living life with the Holy Spirit by having us
meditate on the transforming presence and how
the Holy Spirit has kind of two time dimensions
in which he transforms us. One is instant. Sometimes
he'll say, I'm going to give you a gift right
now. You're different in this way. And most often
and throughout our lives, he lives in us and
takes us through the gradual process. of opening
more and more doors in our heart and letting
Him live there too. And today I would like to
take you, as we work through our theme verse,
let's read this together. Since we are living
the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading
in every part of our lives. And last week we
focused on the individual work of the Holy Spirit.
And I want to expand that from me to we. Because
all the personal pronouns up there are plural.
And the Holy Spirit doesn't just want to change
your heart. He wants to change the cultural norms,
the group think, and the habits of the groups
you're a part of. Families, life groups, workplaces,
schools. He wants to get in there and rearrange
the furniture. So we're going to practice a little
of that together. So as the lights come up a
bit, I want you to turn to your neighbor and
make sure they know your name and find out what
city they were most recently in before they came
to Bangkok. I'll tell you why I'm doing this.
I'm an elementary teacher at heart. That is my
training. And there are going to be four or five
times throughout the sermon when you're going
to talk to each other. I want you to know who
you're talking to. Make sure you turn both ways
so nobody's left out. What's your name? What
city have you been in most recently? All right.
Let's wrap it up in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3,
2, and 1. And the choir director called the choir
back to your attention. Thank you. Wow, I can't
get them to stop. Thank you very much. That was
great. I saw people get up out of their seats
and move across the aisle to make sure nobody
was left out. The sermon has been preached. As
we talk about the reconciling presence, I picked
this passage because Acts is a book full of power
signs. It begins with Jesus physically rising
up into the sky, stunning the apostles, and angels
standing nearby saying, He's coming back the
same way you saw Him go. It continues with the
Holy Spirit coming down and taking that... Power
of Jesus that had been packed into one individual
and now spreading it in sign of flame and wind
and other languages and growing the church within
a day to 3 ,000. It continues with miracles and
signs and healings and jailbreaks. And then you
come to this story, and it's normal, everyday,
mundane, people cannot get along, and leadership
has to do something about it, right where we
all live. So I picked this one. I can relate.
Let me read you the story. From Acts chapter
6. But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there
were rumblings of discontent. The Greek -speaking
believers complained about the Hebrew -speaking
believers, saying that their widows were being
discriminated against in the daily distribution
of food. So the Twelve called a meeting of all
the believers. They said, we apostles should
spend our time teaching the Word of God, not
running a food program. And so, brothers, select
seven men who are well -respected and are full
of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this
responsibility. Then we apostles can spend our
time in prayer and teaching the Word. Everybody
liked this idea. And they chose the following.
Stephen. A man full of faith in the Holy Spirit.
Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas,
and Nicholas of Antioch, an earlier convert to
the Jewish faith. These seven were presented
to the apostles who prayed for them. As they
laid their hands on them, so God's message continued
to spread. The number of believers greatly increased
in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests
were converted too. One of my favorite ways to
look deeper into any story in Scripture is to
think of it like a movie producer. As this story
goes, where do I have to change the camera? So
let's break this down into scenes. The story
begins, wide angle, all the believers increasing,
the church growing. The camera zooms in on one
particular group of the church that's complaining
against another group. The camera zooms in on
the leadership team to call everybody together.
Then the camera zooms out as everybody works
together to choose seven. And then the widest
angle again as the believers increase greatly.
And priests began joining too. Now, do you see
what I see? Look at the beginning. Look at the
end. This is one of those idea sandwiches. Believers
increasing at the beginning, believers increasing
at the end. The Hebrews loved idea sandwiches.
And there's a technical name for it. It's called
chiasm. And it means there's something going
on at the beginning and something at the end.
But at the end, it's slightly different. And
you can track the sandwich. It can have multiple
layers. This is the simple version. I analyzed
the text and found there's actually eight. different
incidents or words moving towards the core of
the proposal, and every one of those eight is
mirror -imaged in the opposite order as you exit
the story. But you don't want a 15 -point sermon.
So we're going to keep it simple. Chiasm is like
knock -knock jokes. Knock -knock. So some of
you know the routine, right? I don't know which
country originated it, but in America, if someone
says knock -knock, you say, who's there? And
then I say, art. You say, are who? I say, R2
-D2. Or knock -knock, Dwayne. Dwayne the tub,
I'm dwelling. It's really dumb stuff, okay? It's
dad joke, highfalutin material. Knock -knock
jokes ask the listener to ask a question. Chiasms
ask the reader or listener to ask a question.
And here's the question chiasm asks you to ask
about the story. What is it in the middle that
changed the ending? Because you see here the
ending is not exactly the same as the beginning.
The ending, there's increase, but it's a greatly
increase. And now priests are called out as a
new group that's joining the church. So what
is it about that meeting of the 12 with the group?
What is it about that that changed the crowd
from just increasing to increasing greatly? In
fact, what is it about the crowd that changed
them from complainers to working together to
choose seven? So we're going to break it down
like this. Instead of a 15 -point sermon, let's
go for three. What happened? And we're going
to spend most of our time here. If you analyze
a story well, the lessons from it and the application
flow pretty quickly after that. So we'll dig
into what happened. Spend a little time asking
why it worked. And finally, would it work for
us? Let's take a look, all right? What happened?
This is an easy three points. There is a problem,
there is a proposal, and then there was a propulsion.
Propulsion as in propelling like a rocket, taking
off, lifting something higher. Let's dig into
the problem, and I need your help, okay? I'm
going to say a number of times, they had a problem.
And when I say that, I want you to say, what
kind of problem? All right, let's practice. They
had a problem. Here we go. There were rumblings
of discontent. People were talking, but the groups
in protest were not talking to each other. They
were talking to everybody else. And the rumors
were going around, and the speculation was going
around, and the assumption was going around,
and they had a problem. That was a little weak.
They had a problem. They had a communication
problem, and that wasn't all. The Greek -speaking
believers were Jewish, but they were from outside
Israel because their history included hundreds
of years of exile and not all the families returned
when they were allowed. And as those who lived
in exile had descendants, they adopted the language
of the empire, which was Greek. Like English
is a common trade language today, Greek is what
anybody spoke if they wanted to do business.
And so the Jews in the outskirts of the empire,
outside Israel, would learn Greek, but with every
language comes a new way of thinking. And the
Jews who spoke Greek absorbed some of the Greek
ideas and habits, and the Jews that were at home
considered themselves more pure than those who
lived outside. And so when the Jews outside who
spoke Greek would come to Jerusalem for festivals,
They could probably speak some Hebrew, maybe,
but they were recognized for who they were and
looked down on. They had a problem. They had
a cross -cultural problem. And then we have the
widows. Implied here that the widows did not
have any family to take care of them, because
the Jews were like many of the Asian cultures,
and unfortunately not my culture as much, but
they respected elders and cared for them. All
the way through life. Americans do do that. It
just looks different. But the widows who did
not have family to do that. Had a problem. Financial
problem. They needed someone to take care of
them. But put it together. Greek speaking widows.
From outside Israel. And there was a weirdly
high number of Greek speaking widows. In Jerusalem.
Because some of the religious teachers. in Judaism
had been spreading this idea. If you die in Jerusalem,
you get a better resurrection. And many of the
Greek -speaking Jews, they knew that was home.
And so if they could, they would move there.
And as is the case in our day, women often outlive
the men. And we end up with Greek -speaking widows
in Jerusalem with no family connections and not
enough Greek -speaking synagogues to care for
them. So they had a problem. Greek -speaking
women, no family connections, ethnic minority,
this was a triple vulnerability. And then the
Hebrew -speaking believers, they had their own
kind of problem. They were Jews. They were the
locals. And within the church, some of them,
it seems, were responsible for distributing food
to the widows who needed it. And they probably
spoke Greek, too, because it was the trade language.
But they probably, like we often do, we go back
and forth between our languages. And when we
get upset or emotional, we flip to our heart
language, right? And I don't know how this conflict
started. Maybe it was intentional, but maybe
it was something like this. Hey, all you widows,
make a line. But the speaker is speaking in Hebrew
because they forgot it's a mixed crowd. So the
Hebrew speakers get in line and all the foreigners
are bunching up in kind of like. And so the Hebrew
speaker remembers, oh yeah, switch to Greek,
get in line, back there. But then in the mind
of those who don't understand, the Greek speaking
widows are like, why is he yelling at us? Why
is he sending us to the back of the line? Why
did he tell everybody else they could go first?
And when you have a crowd of 3 ,000, how long
does it take for speculation and assumptions
to grow? It may have been innocent, we don't
know. But they had a problem. They had a language
problem. We experience this all the time, right?
That's not all. Discrimination. That was a real
thing. Within the Jewish religious system, let's
slow down just a little bit on this one. The
Hebrew -speaking Jews were the ones who controlled
Judaism. The local temple, the religious system,
the religious court called the Sanhedrin. They
were in control. And there was corruption in
the system. Jesus even called them out. When
he accused, in public, he accused the priests
of cheating widows out of their property. Taking
advantage of their lack of connections and legally
pulling fast ones so the property ended up. as
temple property or priestly property. And Jesus
called them out also when he flipped the tables
of the money changers in the temple, saying,
this is supposed to be my father's house, a house
of prayer for all nations, and you've turned
it into a den of thieves. Make the connections.
He's criticizing their exchange rates and flipping
the coins out because it didn't really belong
to those exchange people. They've been ripping
people off. So normal everyday priestly society
in Jerusalem practiced discrimination and took
advantage of people. And it seemed to be that
this problem had followed the believers into
the church. At least that was the rumor. They
had a problem. An assumed power problem. And
then word finally reaches the apostles, the guys
in charge. And the leadership team, I don't know
how long it took, but eventually they realized,
we better deal with this. This is threatening
our ministry. Jesus called us to teach and tell
what we saw him do before he died and after he
came to life. That's our job. And if we devote
ourselves to this ministry, they had a problem.
What kind of problem? they had a leadership problem.
So now it's time to turn to your neighbor and
let me give you a little guidance. You can share
something you heard that was wow or oh or what
and you can decide what those mean. Turn to your
neighbor and have a little chat about what you've
heard so far. Finish up in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,
4, 3, 2, 1. Thank you. They had a problem. Wow,
all right. A multicultural, multilingual, multigenerational
problem. So let's get to the proposal. What was
so special about this proposal that changed the
problem into a propulsion? The apostles said,
we apostles should spend our time teaching the
word of God, not running a food program. And
so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected.
full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, we will give
them this responsibility, then we apostles can
spend our time in prayer and teaching of the
Word. Lo and behold... Oh, hang on. Sorry, this
is not working the way I thought. Don't look
at that! Let's talk about what they did not do
first. The apostles, in their proposal, did not
try to ignore it and hope it would go away. They
also did not blame the Greek speakers for being
extra sensitive. Would you just be quiet? And
they did not blame the Hebrew speakers for being
racist, greedy people. Would you just stop it?
They didn't try to fake or force unity. And this
is a double temptation to everyone in leadership.
You can fake the unity by refusing to deal with
it and telling everybody, get on with your job.
You can force unity by commanding a solution.
And sometimes leaders have to do that in crises.
But we can overdo it and force unity and shut
down disagreements. Instead, they invited the
whole crowd to forge. Meaning, enter the heat
of disagreement. Submit your heart to the uncomfortable,
awkward conversation. Stop talking about people
and start talking with people. And let the heat
of disagreement and the awkwardness soften the
heart until we can get a solution that works
for everybody. If you look here, even in their
proposal, it's a chiasm. The topic in their first
line, we apostles should spend our time doing
what? And at the last line, then we apostles
can spend our time doing what? Okay, here we
go again. And Luke, who authored this, is telling
us, go ahead, ask. Ask what is it in the middle
that makes that difference from... This is threatening
our ministry responsibility to, now we can devote
ourselves to it, and prayer. What is it? Well,
there's some criteria embedded in there. You're
going to pick some people, people that are well
-respected, which means they've been in the community
long enough to be known. Okay, it's not someone
who just walked in a week ago and, whoa, love
their speaking style, let's put them in charge.
They've been in the community long enough to
be known. And another criteria is that it should
be obvious these people are full of the Spirit.
What, full of the Spirit for mundane, everyday
administrative work? Yes, not just miracles.
What, full of the Spirit for table waiters? Yes,
not just for miracle workers. Another criteria
was full of wisdom, which just means they have
the skill to do the job. Put these all together,
and the apostles are telling the crowd, pick
based on character, not campaign promises, not
appearance, not speaking ability, and not because
they look like, think like, and vote like you.
Turn to your neighbor. Talk about the proposal.
Wow, or oh, or what? Up to you. And wrap it up
in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thank you.
So we've talked about the problem. Multi -generational,
multi -lingual, multi -cultural problem. Their
proposal of getting people together. Now let's
talk about the propulsion, because this is very
interesting. Really? Come on, Luke, you've got
to be exaggerating. Everyone liked the idea?
This is not normal everyday conflict. Right?
How many times does that happen? Really? Everyone
liked the idea, Luke. The Hebrew -speaking majority
who just got the finger pointed in your face
saying, you're discriminating. They liked this
idea. Really? The Greek speakers? The minority
who was in danger? Maybe the discrimination was
real. They liked this idea. Luke says, yeah,
everyone liked this idea. And they chose the
following. Stephen, man full of faith in the
Holy Spirit. Philip. Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon,
Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, an earlier
convert to the Jewish faith. Now what I did not
know, someone had to tell me, every name up there
is Greek. Do you think that's a mistake? Do you
think that's an accident? The majority Hebrew
speakers did not. Use their power to put their
people in charge. Another thing that shows this
outcome is very interesting. This propulsion
of the gospel is that three names in this list
are like a table of contents that you can click
and it sends you to the next chapter in the video.
Stephen, immediately after this story, gets two
and a half pages of text. As he does more than
wait tables, the Spirit is so active in him,
he's performing miracles. He's speaking the word
of God so powerfully, he angers competing groups
outside the church and they get him killed. He's
the first Christian martyr. Immediately after
Stephen is the story of Philip. Another one and
a half pages in the book of Acts. as he takes
the gospel message north out of Jerusalem to
Samaria, another ethnic minority that the Jews
did not like. And then the Spirit leads himself
to meet a royal official from Ethiopia, and the
gospel goes with him south. So Philip is a hinge
of gospel breaking out beyond Jerusalem. And
the final name in the list is Nicholas, and it's
not the guy's name, it's where he's from that's
significant. Antioch is almost the rest of the
book of Acts, because it's the headquarters of
a church that sent out the apostle Paul, who
then took the gospel to the rest of the empire.
See why the apostles followed the Spirit's leading
and said, Pick table waiters who are full of
the Spirit. When the Spirit puts you in charge
of anything, even a little thing, notice four
names up there. No story of it. They're never
mentioned again in Scripture. But they were part
of a solution that propelled the gospel. So,
God's message continued to spread. And in the
chiasm, the idea sandwich, this is parallel to
the complaining that was spreading before. Now
it's changed. And the number of believers greatly
increased. Now look, Luke has already said twice
that the day of Pentecost, that miracle resulted
in 3 ,000 people joining the church. And in a
later incident, Luke says, now we're up to 5
,000. I think by now he's just tired of counting.
All right? Greatly sounds like, yeah. And then
he calls out a group. Many of the Jewish priests
were converted too. This is the same class that
had just killed their Messiah a couple months
before. This is the same religious power structure
that conspired and successfully thought they
got rid of this Jesus thing. This is the same
power structure. That started the whole discrimination
problem and corruptionist system for real. That
was not speculation. This is the same power structure
backed by wealthy, aristocratic, elite influencers.
What changed? Why are they now joining the church?
These priests, before they killed Jesus, they
knew his teaching. That did not convince them.
These priests, They heard about the miracles
and probably saw some and met some of the people
that had been healed and that did not convince
them. These priests... heard about the resurrection
from eyewitnesses, and knew about the empty tomb,
and heard the story from the soldiers, and that
did not convince them. These priests in their
own city heard about the sign of flame, and flame,
and what's it, wind, and languages, and saw and
heard the miracle of understanding across linguistic
boundaries. And that did not convince them. These
priests saw Peter go from a Messiah denier to
a public courageous preacher. And that did not
convince them. But when the Holy Spirit took
out from under these same priests' influence
people who were an ethnic majority. and moved
those new believers to act contrary to the priestly
corruption in normal, everyday ethnic politics,
and moved these people to bless and empower and
honor and serve ethnic minorities who were vulnerable,
the priests saw the good of the good news, and
that convinced them. Got anything to talk about?
Turn to your neighbor. Wrap it up in 10, 9, 8,
7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thank you. What happened?
We had a multi -generational, multi -cultural
problem. But a proposal from the apostles changed
the whole thing into the propulsion of the gospel
and the church expanded. So we've looked at what
happened, but let's ask why it worked. Because
chiasm asks us to ask a question. What happened
in the core that changed rumblings of discontent
to God's word spreading? What happened in the
core that changed multi -layered cross -cultural
mess? Everybody liked it. What happened that
changed believers increasing to believers increasing
greatly and priests? Let's take a closer look
at the proposal. Now here's the thing with chiasm.
When it asks you to ask the question, it doesn't
always answer it for you. The biblical writers
often set up the story and then require you to
talk with your friends and work it out. That's
okay. Here's what I think I've worked out that
you should talk at lunch or life group or sometime
later and say, is that really true? But I think
we can infer that it worked because the apostles
trusted the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit was
already at work in them and among them and through
them. Let me break it down. It's not that they
came up with a plan and then said, hey, Holy
Spirit, got something for you to do. No. It's
because they knew he was already at work following
the outline Jesus had already given them and
the way of life Jesus had already given them
and the work of Jesus on the cross given to them
and the Holy Spirit was pushing that forward
and outward and inward. And so you can infer
that the Holy Spirit had confirmed their calling
to be word workers and the Holy Spirit had not
changed their calling to be widow workers. Someone
else would have to do it. They saw the Holy Spirit
was already filling other people too. They had
that confidence and they trusted that the Holy
Spirit would foresee the need and prepare people
with wisdom to meet the need. It didn't have
to be all them. And the Holy Spirit would guide.
All the people to discover the people in their
midst that could fill the new need. The Holy
Spirit was at work in them to lift individuals
above their own self -interest and look also
to the interests of others. The Holy Spirit was
at work among them as a group to submit to the
apostles' leadership. and participate in their
proposal to find the seven needed. And the Holy
Spirit was at work through them to create a new
kind of community that was attractive to others.
Before you turn to your neighbor, apologize for
waking them up and then share what you've heard.
All right, wrap it up in five. Four, three, two,
one. We've looked at what happened. We talked
very briefly about why it works. Question, would
it work for us? Wrong question. It's not an it.
It's a he. Does he work for us? I mean, he has
our good in mind, but he works in us, among us,
and through us. He work in and among and through
us. I propose he already is. Look at the nations
in this room. Look at the nations if you get
to know people, people from cultures that actually
would prefer not to be in the same room together.
Over here, a few weeks ago, I met a guy, an American
like me, who told me as we chatted away that
he went to get his hair cut by an Iranian. If
your national leader were bombing another country,
would you let someone from that country take
sharp tools around your head? He was not reckless.
He saw it as an opportunity to show the love
of Jesus across geopolitical interests. See,
the answer to the world's problems is not winning
elections, winning wars. or getting higher numbers
in the polls. It's not getting your party to
have more control over more people. It's about
the Holy Spirit getting into us and ours to give
us the gift of self -control. The Holy Spirit
is at work, calling together a people from among
the nations who regard heaven as our primary
citizenship. Would he work in and among and through
us? I think he already is. Read this with me.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire
and the power to do what pleases him. Here we
go again. Standard English is a northern Midwest
dialect that has erased the plural. We have no
separate word for you, singular and you, plural.
But in the Greek, that's you plural. So I would
actually prefer a southern United States dialect
that should be read like this. For God is working
in you all. Giving. Now, after I did this, someone
came up and said, actually, there's a further
pronoun. It's called all y 'all. Okay. God is
working in all y 'all. Giving all y 'all. I'm
a Yankee. I just can't do this correctly. The
Holy Spirit's interested in the group. This helps
me so much in conflict because by nature I am
a conflict avoider. I stay quiet about things
and I don't have a strong sense of urgency until
I do and then I blow up and attack people. God's
been working on me and one of the ways he works
is he's given me this confidence. It has become
my prayer. when I'm facing someone that I think
is not treating me well, and when I coach others
through conflict. This is my prayer. Father,
I know your Holy Spirit works in me to transform
me. I trust your Holy Spirit's working in them
too. It makes a huge difference. He is already
at work transforming community, desire, groupthink,
and cultural habits. Read with me, please. Since
we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the
Spirit's leading in every part of our lives.
The plural pronouns are obvious there, addressed
to the group. Would He work in and among and
through us? He already is. He is leading. And
finally, I said this wrong in the first service.
It was not Jesus' final prayer request. It was
second to last prayer request. His final prayer
request was, Father, do I have to do this? But
your will instead of mine. The power of the creator
laid it down to serve those who are vulnerable.
And this community in Acts did the same thing.
Living out his second to the last prayer request
in John 17, where Jesus said, I am praying not
only for these disciples. but also for all who
will ever believe in me through their message.
He prayed for you. And in an eternal mind of
omniscience, maybe he even said your name. But
the prayer goes on. What was he praying for you
about? He said, I am praying that they will all
be Just as you and I are one. As you are in me.
And I am in you. And may they be in us. So that.
Are you ready for this? Why does he want us to
be one? So that. Read with me. The world will
believe you sent me. The strongest apologetic
to convince outsiders is how you treat each other.
And the Holy Spirit is desperate to answer that
prayer. I said I chose this story because it's
a normal, everyday, mundane, no miracles kind
of story. I was wrong. This is the miracle of
real unity in deep diversity. And the Holy Spirit
wants to do it again. When the Holy Spirit works,
differences that normally divide become opportunities
to display the gospel. So in true Pastor Pablo
tradition, I'll give you one question. Do you
trust the reconciling presence? I'm not going
to pray out loud. I'm going to invite you to
do business with your father right now. Just
be quiet for a moment while our worship team
comes. And you talk to your father about what
he wants to do in your group. Thank you for tuning
in to the ECB Sermon Podcast. Whether near or
far, if you are looking for community or are
in need of prayer, We welcome you to engage by
sending us an email to office at ecb .asia. If
God is calling you to support our ministries,
you will find giving options on our website.
And remember to join us next week. God bless
you.