Acts 6:1-7 "Difficult Conversations and Faith"

Sometimes we think we have to choose between having a difficult conversation and keeping a friend. Between telling our boss or coworker about something we think is wrong, and keeping our job. Between telling the truth about how we feel and keeping the peace in a relationship.

We’ve all tried to have difficult conversations only to have them go sideways. You bring up a problem, and the other person gets defensive, so you get defensive—before you know it, you’re not even trying to solve the problem anymore. Now it’s just about who can come up with the best zinger, or who’s got the better memory for every little thing that’s gone wrong in the last five years! We go to silence or violence. Fool’s choices.

We’ve all learned plenty of bad ways to handle conflict. Some people avoid talking with anyone they have an issue with—silence—but they have no problem talking with everyone else about it, just not the person they need to talk to. It’s like they have an imaginary talk show: “In today’s episode, we’ll discuss my problems with Billy—as long as Billy’s not in the room. And if he walks in? Quick, change the subject!” Then there are the folks who drop little sarcastic jabs or passive-aggressive comments—they try to manipulate or guilt the other person without ever directly confronting them. It’s like a secret game of charades, and the other person is left guessing, “Oh, I get it! You’re mad at me… and you’ve been silently angry since last… Tuesday? No, Wednesday?” And then some people just come out swinging—this is the violence response—they’re like, “Everyone’s an idiot except for me!” and they bludgeon everyone with what they consider to be the cold, hard truth. They dare you to stand up to them. We’ve all learned plenty of ways to act like a fool.

But Jesus said, “If you have a problem with someone, go to them directly.” He didn’t stop there. He also said to approach people with love and respect, with gentleness and kindness—even if you think they’re doing you wrong. Especially if you think they’re doing you wrong.

Here’s the thing: you can’t have a productive conversation with someone if they don’t think you respect them. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t find some common ground—some common purpose you both agree on.

If someone is doing something you don’t want them to do, or if they’re not doing something you’d like them to do—you have to let them know. They can’t read your mind, and you shouldn’t expect them to just know what you want. If you don’t talk to them about it, you’re just going to let it build up into a big deal in your imagination. We all do it. We start making up reasons and motivations for why they’re acting the way they’re acting. We concoct fantasies in our head and then completely believe our made-up stories. “The reason they avoided doing dishes is because they’re lazy, have absolutely no respect for me, and are plotting to destroy my life with their deep-seated rebellion against hard work and common decency! If they stay on this path, they’re going to end up living in a cardboard box down by the river.” We never make up good and noble stories for why people do things that irritate us.

Growing up, Kim’s family accused her of pretending like she had to run to the bathroom after dinner to get out of washing dishes. Later she was diagnosed with IBS and Ulcerative Colitis—it had nothing to do with laziness or disrespecting anyone.

So try to be generous with people. Loving our neighbor as ourselves means we give them the benefit of the doubt—like we’d want them to do for us.

Today we’re continuing in the Book of Acts. We’ve seen some outside pressure on the church and conflict with unbelievers—persecution. Chapter six starts with an internal threat, some grumbling inside the church, and they actually handle it pretty well. Chapter six…

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Acts 6:1

The church has grown—it’s probably 25 or 30 thousand people now. They’ve been selling their property and giving the money to the apostles so they can distribute it to their poor members. That’s a big job. Twelve apostles and thirty thousand people!

At this point, almost all the Christians were Jews who heard the Gospel and started believing in Jesus. Most of them, in Jerusalem anyway, spoke Aramaic and went to synagogues that taught from the Hebrew Old Testament. But a growing number of them were Greek-speaking Jews, called Hellenists, who went to synagogues that taught from the Greek Old Testament—the Septuagint.

The Greek Jews had a problem. It looked to them like favoritism was being given to the Hebrews. They said their grandmas were being left out. It’s a pretty big complaint. It could have gotten ugly. This is the kind of thing churches split over—riots break out.

The Greek Christians could have done what most people do—just grumble, complain, gossip. Make up a story in their head about how the Hebrew Christians are snobs, think they’re better than us, hoarding all the food, starving our people. How dare they! Let it keep festering until it explodes and rips the church apart.

But they didn’t. They had the hard conversation. They brought it to light. That took some courage—they were in the minority. All the apostles were on Team Hebrew. But they saw something they thought was wrong and went to the people who could do something about it. This wasn’t just about food; it was about fairness, care for the people in the whole church, and the unity of the church was at stake.

So they initiated the conversation—didn’t bring a heated story about why it was happening, just brought the facts. How were the apostles going to respond? Were they going to get defensive? Be like, “How dare you accuse us, the holy apostles, the miracle-working, best friends of Jesus, of doing something wrong!”

But that’s not what happened…

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6:2-4

They agreed. They hadn’t been doing a great job of managing the benevolence fund. They don’t even want the job. It was too big for them when their primary duty was to lead the church in prayer and preaching. It would be a neglect of their primary ministry to spend all their time working at the food bank. Not that they were too high and mighty to do such mundane things, not that it wasn’t also important to take care of the other needs in the church, but they needed to keep their focus on what God had called them to do.

The church is a community. The pastor isn’t supposed to do everything. God brings the people He needs into a local church to do all the things that church needs to do. In this case, they needed help distributing the food to the needy.

So, they listened to the complaint and did something about it. This is the beginning of the deacon and elders ministry in the church. They were to choose seven men who had a good reputation, who were Christians (that’s what "full of the Spirit" means), and who were wise—meaning they weren’t idiots—but also meaning they knew God’s word and tried to live according to it. Wise people understand that following God’s commandments is wisdom, ignoring His commandments is foolish.

There was a disagreement between the Hebrew Christians and the Greek Christians. But as soon as it was brought up, they found common purpose and addressed the issue. We’ve been talking about how the early days of the church were full of miracles—how about this one? A bunch of religious people having a disagreement and finding a solution that made everyone happy?

They had a conflict, but they asked themselves, “What do we really want?” What’s a common purpose both sides can get behind? They all wanted unity in the church. They all wanted fairness. Their solution reflected the love of Christ.

Any time we have conflict with someone, we not only need to speak up and say what we want, we also need to stay focused on the ultimate goal—restoring the relationship and making sure everyone is treated with respect and dignity. Keep our feelings about the issue separate from our feelings about the person.

And when someone comes to us with a difficult subject, we need to take a step back and recognize it probably took a lot of courage to confront us. Don’t get defensive. Try to listen. Try to stay calm. Ask clarifying questions. Make sure they know you’re listening and you understand what they’re upset about. Don’t react to their emotions. Don’t get sidetracked. Remember the goal: restoring the relationship. Think about what you want the outcome of this conversation to be. Don’t try to prove you’re right—that’s a fool’s choice. Find a common purpose and see if you can work together toward that common goal. Make the person feel safe to bring their issues to you—that you care about them more than whatever the conflict is about.

Don’t make the Sucker’s Choice. The Sucker's Choice is when we convince ourselves that there are only two possible options—and they’re both bad.

“I can either speak up and upset the person, or stay silent and let the problem continue.” “I have to choose between being honest and being kind.” “I can either tell the truth and risk the relationship, or keep quiet and maintain the peace.”

It’s seldom true. There’s usually a third way—where you can achieve both goals if you keep your cool and open your mind a little.

And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. Acts 6:5-6

This section is really an introduction to the story of Stephen, which we’ll get to next week. It says he was full of faith and the Holy Spirit. He was a Christian who acted like a Christian.

We’ll also meet up with Philip again, but the rest of them not so much. They all have Greek names, which shows a lot of consideration and wisdom from the Hebrew apostles to put Greek men in charge of the distribution. How do they know the Hebrew widows won’t get left out now? Because they trust these men to do what’s right.

Interesting sidenote, the last guy, Nicolaus, was a Gentile from Antioch. Luke, who wrote Acts, was also a Gentile from the city of Antioch, which was going to become the missionary headquarters of the church.

Why seven? No one knows for sure. Maybe there were seven distribution centers.

The plan seemed to work, and the church continued to grow…

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

They were meeting in the temple, much to the Sadducees' frustration, but a bunch of the priests started to believe in Jesus.

The way that last line is worded is very interesting, “A great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.” Obedient. To the faith. Do you think of faith as something you have to be obedient to?

We tend to think of faith as belief, as intellectual assent, as if we can believe something in our mind without it having anything to do with how we live. But that’s not how the Bible talks about faith. Faith is always something to be acted on.

We tend to believe lots of things that we don’t really act on…

You may believe eating right and exercising is important to your health, but that doesn’t stop the lure of the couch and that bag of chips.

You may believe family is important, but life gets busy and before you know it, another day has gone by without calling your mom or playing with the kids.

We all believe saving money is important, but then again, new gadgets, new shoes, or just the thought of going out for dinner tonight seems more pressing.

And who doesn’t believe we should get enough sleep? Yet we fire up the video games, or start a new season of Revenge of the Binge Watchers!

We believe a lot of things we have no intention of following through on.

But the way the Bible talks about belief—faith—it’s always to be acted on. Obedient to the faith.

Our obedience isn’t what saves us, though. We’re saved by grace through faith—we are saved as a free gift from God (grace) by faith in Christ that we’re supposed to do something with.

How is this any different from being saved by works? Is believing a work? If we’re saved by faith that’s to be acted on, then how is that different from saying we’re saved by the things we do because of our faith?

This is a huge confusion in many Christians’ thinking. Let’s see if we can clear it up…

Our faith is in Jesus. He’s the One who died, rose again, and offers us salvation. He’s the One who makes us right with God. We can’t add anything to what He’s done for us.

That seems clear enough.

But our faith isn’t just an intellectual acknowledgment of the gift He gives us.

Today’s Angel’s birthday—there’s a bunch of birthday presents waiting for him to open at home. The gifts are there. They’re for him.

But what if we go home after church and he refuses to open them? We say, “Angel, those are your gifts,” and he’s like, “I know. I believe those are my birthday presents.” But then he doesn’t do anything with them. If he doesn’t act on his belief, he doesn’t receive the gifts.

Every week, I offer you the Gospel—the free gift of salvation. Pure grace. A gift wrapped in the perfect love of God. But what if you think, “Yep. On some level, I believe Jesus died for me. I have faith. I believe.”

But then you don’t do anything with it. You don’t open the gift. You have faith, but you don’t act on it.

Jesus died to forgive you of your sins—He rose again to give you hope. What does faith that is acted on look like? Do you confess your sins? In prayer to God? Do you admit you’ve done things He doesn’t want you to do, thought things He doesn’t want you to think, or left undone things He told you to do? Do you take those sins seriously? Because those are the things that will ruin your life, destroy your relationships, confuse your reality, cloud your thinking, shipwreck your plans—the consequences of those sins would have been death and eternal separation from God in hell if Jesus hadn’t rescued you. Sin is a big deal. Have you spent time talking with God about all that? Being sorry for your sin? Asking Him for strength to do better? Studying His word and searching for the wisdom to avoid more pitfalls? Do you trust that God knows how you should live your life better than you do? Because that’s what faith that is acted on looks like. It looks like responding to God’s kindness with repentance and humility and trying to live the way He told us.

Here’s an analogy, maybe it’s something like this…

You get bit by a poisonous snake—it’s deadly. The only cure is some antivenom that costs a fortune—no way you can afford it. But someone who loves you sells everything they own to buy it for you.

That’s good news, right? Someone bought the expensive antivenom for you! Here it is!

That’s the grace part. It’s a gift. But here’s the faith part…

You could just refuse to believe someone would do such a thing for you—or refuse to believe a snakebite could kill you—or refuse to believe antivenom works. Refuse to believe any of those things, and you would still die.

Or, I suppose you could be like, “I believe you, but I’m not going to actually take the medicine.”

That seems pretty dumb, but it’s not the first time you believed something but didn’t do anything about it—like getting more sleep, eating healthy, and that gym membership you haven’t used since January. Anyway, if you don’t take the medicine, you’d die.

Or, I suppose you could take the medicine but ignore the instructions that go along with it—like maybe you’re supposed to drink plenty of water and avoid sugar for the next 48 hours, or else it won’t work. But you don’t listen—you drink a case of Mountain Dew, eat a bag of M&Ms, and the antivenom doesn’t work, and the snakebite kills you anyway.

But here’s what I’m trying to clear up—what can actually save you?

Because if you do believe—you accept the generous gift, take the medicine, follow the instructions—and you live—what actually saved you? Was it your action of taking the medicine—what if it was fake? Was it you following the instructions to drink water and avoid sugar? No. It wasn’t anything you did at all. You were saved by the sacrificial generosity of the person who bought the cure for you—you were saved by the antivenom. All you did was receive the gift and use it properly.

You were saved by grace through faith that had to be acted on.

Let me over explain and make it painfully clear: All of your sin is like a deadly snakebite. Jesus purchased the cure with His own life by dying on the cross. He offers you forgiveness and salvation as a free gift. Grace. You receive it by believing it’s true—you receive it by faith—but faith that has to be acted on. How do you act on it? You turn away from sin, turn toward God and His mercy, and walk in faithfulness. Knowing full well that you’re walking in a world full of deadly snakes and you’ll need to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next…

Without Jesus dying on the cross and promising you forgiveness—the things you must believe—it would do no good to turn away from your sin or try not to sin anymore or be faithful. That would be like drinking water and avoiding sugar to try and save yourself from a snakebite.

I kind of preached two sermons today—one on having important conversations and one on the importance of being obedient to our faith—the difference between faith and works—how saving faith must lead to faithfulness. A double feature. You’re welcome.

But they had a common theme.

Remember these three things: 1) Don’t avoid difficult conversations—address them with grace. 2) Stay focused on common goals and don’t fall for the Sucker’s Choice. And, 3) Live out your faith—don’t just believe—act on what you believe every day. Especially in how you handle conflict.

We saw the way the early church handled some conflict. It was pretty impressive. It’s inevitable, especially in a community like a church. But how we handle it will be the difference between whether we grow or get stuck in a rut. We have to have our difficult conversations with grace, wisdom, and a clear focus on the mission God has trusted us with.

At church, at work, at home with our family—we need to learn how to have those conversations with wisdom. If you would like a really good resource on how to have difficult conversations—practical tools to help you have difficult conversations with your wife, husband, children, co-workers, your boss—I highly recommend the book Crucial Conversations. Read it, download the audiobook, and give it a listen—it goes a lot more in-depth than I was able to today, and it’s a fun read. Very relatable.

Let’s commit to being a church that doesn’t shy away from tough conversations or from living out the faith we profess. May we handle our conversations with grace and wisdom. May we have the courage to address issues head-on, the wisdom to seek God’s will and treat each other with kindness and respect, and the humility to work together for the good of His kingdom. May our words and our faith that must be acted on bring glory to Christ and growth to His church. AMEN.