Episode 224: Different Callings, Same Mission | +Quigg Lawrence

Introduction

First, I really feel sorry for you guys because I'm trying to get my timer to work. Because even you're a preacher, you don't know if it's an hour. You don't know if it's twenty minutes. Usually, it leans to the hour. So, Brian, see if you can get that thing to work. Tell me about appropriate time to bring her home, baby. Bring her home.

So, maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but I came into the world as a roommate. I spent, I was gonna say nine months, but it was actually seven and a half months with my twin sister. The ironic thing is back in 1959. Yes, that's right. How many decades? '50s, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, February. February. February. How many decades is that? I'm eight decades y'all. Okay. Anyway, so I had a roommate, Gracias, you know? I had a roommate and my mother had no idea she had twins. There were no ultrasounds or at least where we lived in Richmond, Virginia. No ultrasounds, and so the doctor kept telling my mom, hey, you need to lose weight.

And I don't know if this is true, but my mom swears it was true, and she was a little bitty gal. The doctor said, here, eat lettuce. And so, for like the last couple months of her pregnancy, my mother was eating lettuce, not very nutritional iceberg lettuce. And when time came to be fulfilled, it was time for the birth, the doctor came in and I popped out. Now, my mother would say, Quig, actually you didn't pop out. I went through labor to get you out. Anyway, I came out and then the doctor disappeared. I mean, seriously, after he delivered me, he went straight out of the theater, the Operating Theater. I believe back in those days he was lighting a smoke. I mean, it'd been a whole five minutes since he had one. And while he was out having his smoke, who should appear but Leslie, my twin sister, two minutes later. That's how impatient that guy was, two minutes.

Anyway, I love her. It's been great growing up as a twin. The only thing I would tell you is if you have twins, please, in the name of Jesus, don't ever dress your little boy like your little girl in little Lord Fauntleroy kind of things with knee socks. It's a wounding thing. So, you're laughing because it didn't happen to you. It was terrible. And I had big ears as a kid too, so it was just really a problem.

A Reflection on Calling and Ministry

But anyway, I was talking to my sister maybe thirty years ago. She was in a PCA church, a really good church at Key Biscayne Presbyterian. And their pastor is kind of famous. His name is Steve Brown. You may look him up. He's an amazing preacher. But my sister kept referring to me all the time as a preacher, a preacher, a preacher, a preacher. And that ain't exactly Anglican language. So, I wasn't going to set her straight. I'm like, sis, how many hours a week do you think I actually preach? My first church, we had three services. So maybe if they're twenty-four minutes long, I mean, you're pushing right at an hour. But yet, I might work fifty hours a week or whatever it is. Just like mothers, you know, preachers don't necessarily write down every time code. We just do our job.

So, anyway, she kept calling me a preacher, preacher, preacher. I'm like, but sis, the other forty-nine hours a week, I do other stuff. And so, calling me a preacher is kind of a reductionist. Because actually, sometimes, I'm a pastor. And sometimes, I visit people in the hospital. And sometimes, we organize things. And too many times, I'm in meetings. And you see what I think is that maybe I was trying to set my sister right, but maybe the Lord was actually speaking truth. Because somehow, from the time of the early church till today, everybody expects, you know, a scintillating sermon that just grabs you and you're like, oh my gosh. It's the best thing I've ever heard in my life.

But you want the pastor to do that studying in, you know, five hours a week. Let me tell you, the Lord may do that, but usually, he requires work. Work to get into the word of God. And what we found recently is, that's so important to do your study, and to study the words in Greek and Hebrew, and pray, and read multiple versions, and how does it apply. But you know what the most important part of the sermon preparation is? Or equally as important. To spend about the same amount of time in prayer that God would speak.

So, I don't know about your family, but my family was complex and complicated and broken. Yeah. And so because of that, we somehow built an elaborate defense system. And I'll tell you, sometimes I preached in a stadium before with 10,000 people. And I realized like, Lord, who am I? I'm even from a different country. But who am I to speak to these people? I don't know their hurts. It happened to be Rwanda. They've been through the genocide. They've had their mom killed, their dad killed, their sister killed, their brother killed. Somebody's been molested. All these hard things and yet, we're bringing the word of God and only God can navigate his word through all those elaborate defense systems.

And so, maybe my sister's right. Maybe, maybe Americans have it wrong. We've turned it on its head. Maybe pastors should be less a concierge and more of a student of God's word. Maybe pastors should be less program maintainers and spend more time in prayer. And that's not so we can just be religious and feel the presence of God. It's so we can rightly prepare and feed you. Our job is to equip you for every good work and teach you to obey everything the Lord has commanded.

The Biblical Context

Now, I want you to go to Acts 6, and I want you to see what's happening. Now, know if you can turn to Acts 2. I want to read one verse just to give you context.

For God so loved the world... — John 3:16

Go to Acts 2, and we want to see. Where's the one where it says, oh, here it is. I got it. It's Acts 2:41. So, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell and there was a bold sermon given.

So those who received the word were baptized, and they were added that day about 3,000 souls. — Acts 2:41

Could you imagine today, like after this sermon, if all of a sudden, 3,000 people came to faith in Christ and all of a sudden, our sanctuary, it can't even hold. In multiple services, couldn't hold everyone. How would we disciple those people? How would we get to know them? How would we mature them in the faith?

And so, what we see as the church is exploding growth. Go back to Acts chapter 6. It says, in those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, something happened.

In those days, when the disciples were increasing in number. — Acts 6:1

Have you seen the reports? Barna, all these other people that study this? What's happening to the church in America? What are the numbers compared to 1950, compared to 1960, compared to 1970? They're dying. Do you guys know how many churches are for sale? Do you know how many churches have eight people in them or ten people or twenty people? Do you know we had the biggest church in Roanoke that was, by all accounts, a great church in its early days, just had to sell its building. To me, that's sad. I'm not Southern Baptist, but it's still sad to me.

But we see in the early church, we see explosive growth. And what I want to say is, that's not merely descriptive of what happened long ago. That's actually prescriptive. Healthy things grow. Living things grow. And I don't ever want to settle for seeing the church just shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink to where like a museum with 10 or 12 people sitting in the building and we want to acknowledge that living things grow and that the early church was exploding with growth. They were doing some things maybe that we're not doing.

In those days, the disciples were increasing in number. Maybe God would use you to bring some folks that don't know him because if you don't ask, no one will.

Challenges and Solutions in the Church

So, it goes on. They were increasing in number, and then what happened? I love this. This is like the story of the entire Bible. It's the story of every person. This awesome stuff is happening, and rather than rejoice and be excited and go, yay, God, you're awesome. What happened?

In the church. Right. They started murmuring, and I get that. You know, if I go to McDonald's, not that I ever do, but if I did go to McDonald's, I want my fries a certain way. And if they're not exactly the way I had them, the best time I've ever had them, I'm upset and usually I'll send them back. And that goes, don't do that. They'll spit on your fries. I'm like, I want good fries. I do want that. How about you go to Hardee's? Want to go to Hardee's? I want a biscuit. I want it light. Light in color, I want it fresh, and I want it very warm. If I get one that's too dark, that's hard, or cold, I send it back. I want what I want. Amen? Amen. And if I don't get it, what do I do? I complain. Yeah, it's a spiritual gift we've honed. Complaining. I didn't say it was a good spiritual gift, but it is a gift and it is a spiritual in nature.

So, anyway, in the early church, they were increasing in number and you can just imagine this kind of exponential growth. Imagine if your business or the place where you worked exploded in growth, like 50-fold. You wouldn't be equipped to handle it all. You wouldn't have all the structures in place and a complaint came, and what was the complaint? It was very simple. In the early church, you had Christians who were Jews. They were Jews and they spoke Aramaic and they were from around Palestine. They spoke Aramaic, maybe a little Greek, but they spoke Aramaic. They read the scriptures probably in Hebrew and that was their culture.

But there are other Jews that had dispersed. Right? They dispersed all over the world, and they were Greek-speaking, Greek culture. In other words, some of them probably couldn't even understand the language the other Christians were speaking. Completely different culture. And so what was happening is the apostles who were Jews were busy doing the work God had called them to do. They were preaching and teaching, discipling, and baptizing, doing the work, the ministry, but something fell through the cracks. And what fell through the cracks? The widows.

And I don't know about you, but I had a mom who was a widow. And nothing was more tender to my heart than making sure that my frail, eventually frail, and vulnerable mother was loved and taken care of. Like, if you don't care for a widow, you do not have a heart. If you don't care for a widow, you don't have God's heart.

And in Isaiah chapter 54, again, he's talking about Israel, but it's there. He says to the widow, I'm going to take your reproach away, and I will be as a husband to you. I said that once in my church to a new widow, and she just about decked me because she was in so much pain. And I learned I just need to keep my little mouth shut. But inside, I was thinking, but God still will do it. He will be your caretaker, your strength, your provider, the one who loves you, the one who walks with you. He will be as a husband. He won't be your husband. He will be as a husband.

And so, we see the Greek widows are being neglected. I mean, that stinks. How would you like to go to a party and everybody else is being served except for your people? It's unfair. Like, even a kid would know. It's unfair. And so, there was a legitimate complaint. Pastors, let me talk to the two of you right now. How many complaints have you gotten in twenty years of ministry, Brian? How about you, Tim? Have you seen any scorchers come our way? I have a couple I wish I could show you. I'm like, this is an A plus in like scorched somebody. It's amazing. But sometimes, what we try to tell our younger pastors is, even if the presentation is awful, even if the person is acting—watch my words, not very nice—there can be truth in what they're saying. Even if they don't say it nice, even if they don't say it with love, we have enough security in Christ to say, well, maybe the Lord is speaking to me through this Balaam's ass here to tell me some truth that I need to hear.

And the reality is, it was unfair. It was dividing the church. It was hurting the feelings. You know, feelings. It was hurting the heart. It was bringing division. It was Satan going, oh, you know what? You guys are so big. You're growing so fast. There's such unity. The Holy Spirit's going. I'm just going to plant some division amongst you, and I'm going to do it along cultural or perhaps even racial lines. Do we ever suffer that?

And so, what happened? And so, the first thing that the apostles did is they did not dismiss the complaint. And they realized, you know what? People are telling the truth. This is not right. This is not fair. We need to fall on our sword and admit we have not done our job. We have not overseen this. We need to do better. And so, the widows were neglected. It says, and the 12 summoned a full number of disciples and they said, okay, well, we'll start waiting on tables. No, that's not what they said. What did they say?

Says it right there in the scriptures. He said they said first, it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. So, it is it is paramount to the church. I mean, the Great Commission, teach them to obey everything I have commanded you, Lo, I'm with you always. Without the teaching of God's word, where's the good news? Without the teaching and preaching of God's word, how do you grow?

Right? We need pastors and shepherds, evangelists and teachers. And so, this is not right. We give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Verse 3. Therefore, brothers, so these Jewish Christians who were apostles own the problem. And now, if you're congregational in nature, you'll love this. They involve everyone, especially those who are Greek, in addressing the problem. Right? They're super wise. They're involving the offended parties and everyone to come together to seek the mind of Christ and to find men of good repute, full of the Spirit, and of wisdom to do the ministry of the table so that the apostles could do ministry, the word, and prayer.

So, let's look at it. Therefore, brothers, pick out among you seven men. Now, ladies, before you get uptight, there is—or mad—there is one lady named as a deacon in the New Testament, and her name would be, drumroll—Phoebe. Phoebe. And Christians argue, was she a servant or was she a deacon? Was she ordained? Laddie, daddie, daddie. All I know is there is evidence in the New Testament that you could stand on. Phoebe.

But in this case, the apostles said, we want seven, a perfect number, and we want men. And we want these men to wait on tables. And the most amazing thing to me is who the people picked. Now, let's look at the names of people.

So, first of all, it says, you brothers find seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we so—this comes away from congregationalism to more like Anglican world where there's overseers. They lay hands. They say, y'all pick them, but we're going to lay hands. We're going to anoint them. We're going to commission them. And so, you see both congregational and kind of episcopal hierarchical ecclesiology going on. Google all that.

And what's interesting is, what were the requirements to serve a table? Right now, have you noticed, every fast food place, almost every business, goes, hiring. Do you have a pulse? Hired. When do you think like, hey, man. God's doing big stuff and God's on the move and like, we've got to do what God's called us to do. So, find somebody, y'all. Find, dig up somebody with a pulse. But he didn't do that. They wanted men that were full of the Spirit, full of wisdom.

What we don't know yet in this passage is that later, two of those men would become bishops. And what we don't know right away is that at least six of these men would be murdered. They'd be murdered for their faith. So, you better have people called by God who are full of the Spirit, who are full of wisdom.

How many guys have applied for a job? Maybe you're desperate. You're in that season of life like, I just need—I need a job. And you go to apply and they see your resume and like, you're just too qualified. No. No. No. No. No. But I'm willing to—no, sir, you're you're too qualified. God, when He's addressing the needs of widows, He picks people that are too qualified because He loves them.

Anyway, so they go and say, will devote ourselves, the apostles said. We're going to devote ourselves to the ministry—devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Prayer and ministry of the word. Again, if you were to send an anonymous survey to most pastors and you said, okay, like on the iPhone. Do you ever get this where they give you your daily report of use? I think this thing lies. I did not spend seven hours and twenty minutes on my phone today. It's impossible. It must be something wrong with this phone.

What if God gave you a report on, hey, here's your daily accounting of the time you actually spent in God's word and the time in prayer? Oh. It's bad enough if you're a lay person. What if you're a pastor, shepherd whose job it is to equip people, to teach them to obey everything the Lord has commanded? But you're busy running programs. You're busy being a concierge. You're busy doing a hundred great things but you're neglecting the one thing that is needful. Actually, two things. The time in the word and in prayer.

And so it says, while they laid down that clear distinction of duties, it says, they were all pleased. All the people, especially the Greeks who had been offended, they were pleased. They pleased the whole gathering. When does that ever happen in church? Never. Like, no matter how good the singers are, the band, or the preacher, somebody's going to love it, somebody's going to hate it, but it says, in this case, because God was behind it, he had orchestrated it. It says, everybody was pleased with what was happening. And it says, so they picked out— it pleased the whole gathering. They chose seven men.

They chose Stephen. You may remember him. He was murdered. They chose Philip, and these names are hard: Prochorus, Nikanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas.

Now, what do you recognize about those names? Are you sure? Tim always does that. I'm—I always hate to answer his questions because I know it's a trick sometimes. They were Greeks. What's brilliant about that? You have people who are rightfully offended. You involve them in addressing the problem, and then those that they pick, and that the apostles laid hands on, were Greeks. They're going to do a little better at the table speaking to those who don't understand Aramaic.

And so, they picked these men. All right. Let's close it down. Verse 6. And they, before the apostles, laid hands on these men. Let's look at verse 7.

And the word of God continued to increase; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. — Acts 6:7

What is—the fruit of the apostles not being defensive? What is the fruit of the apostles going, yep, you’re right; we have neglected these widows. Shame on us. We need to do better. But, the way we do better is not to neglect our main calling, but to involve other people.

You guys ever heard about the Negro Leagues in baseball? You ever heard of Satchel Paige? He may have been the greatest pitcher in the history of—I—I heard, I don't know if it's true, but I heard that Satchel Paige would tour around the country with only himself and a catcher. And he would take on the best fast-pitch softball teams, and he knew he didn't need an infield or an outfield because he was going to strike them all out. And that's awesome for Satchel Paige, but it doesn't work well in the church.

Any more than if we had Steve up here doing a one-man band thing—I think that's kind of creepy anyway. Could you imagine Steve playing bass, then hitting the keyboard, then doing this with his foot, and then singing, and looking back, and directing the choir? It's crazy. Here's the takeaway.

Here's the takeaway. The church grew as a result of this structure, this ministry. But, here's the question I have for you. Have you been operated on? Have you had a surgeon who worked on you? What would it have been like the day you get wheeled into LewisGale or Carillion or UVA or Duke, wherever you're going,

and you come to the door of the hospital and there is your surgeon? Good morning, sir or ma'am. Nice to meet you. Welcome to our hospital. And, oh, by the way, you need to go to pre-admission. You walk over to pre-admissions. And who's there but the same surgeon? Oh, we're so glad to see you, but you're going to need to go to the billing department. Okay, we'll go to the billing department. Who's there? Your surgeon. Then they say, you need to report to the third floor. You go up to the third floor, and there's somebody to receive you. It's not a nurse. It's your surgeon.

On and on and on and on and on. You can't be Sam Drucker. You can't do everything. And so, what I want to know is, would you want your surgeon doing twenty-five things, or the main thing?

So, what do you want for your pastors? Maybe it means, y'all need to preach some to us. Maybe it means you need to say, you guys, love all the programs, love all that, but you, your job is to equip us, period. Your job is to equip us, the saints, for the work of ministry.

And so, friends, I want to say, a lot of you may not get a collar and be an official deacon, but all of us are servants of Christ. And you need to, one, step into that role. Number two, when you see us getting busy with so many things that are not the main thing, you need to say, stop it. God's people deserve better. Be of courage, friends. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.