What Acts 6 Teaches About Every Member Serving | Acts 6:1-7

Are we there together? Acts, chapter six. From verse one. It says now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint came by the Hellenists, or rather a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the 12 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 on 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 the word of God, or the ministry of the Word. 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. Or Parmenas and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. They sat before the apostles and prayed and laid their hands on them. 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 came to be obedient to the faith. Hallelujah. I want to talk this morning about increase and some of the things that surround that, because you'll notice that this passage begins and ends with increase. It starts with increase when it says, now, in those days, or in these days when the disciples were increasing in number. And we know that the Book of Acts tells us that God was moving so powerfully that as God moved amongst them, God was adding to their number daily. I just want you to put yourself there for a minute. Put yourself there for a minute in your mind. Transport yourself back to those days in the Book of Acts. Imagine how that was. God was adding to their number daily. It wasn't just happening on a Sunday, but every single day, the number was increasing, and the number was increasing in a way that it had the authorities worried. There was a great avalanche of disciples. There was a great avalanche of conversions, people coming into the church, people getting saved. Everyone was talking about it. Something was happening through the church. Imagine the excitement that they felt. Imagine how it was amongst those disciples. And now imagine if that would happen in that way, to that degree, with that power in our day in Colchester. Imagine if we could see that kind of increase. Imagine if every Sunday we had a line of people standing, standing here, ready to give testimony to how they were out there on the street and someone just spoke to them. They were sitting in a restaurant and someone struck up a conversation with them. They were Traveling on a plane or a train, and a brother just sat next to them, and they were just chatting, or they were in a shop and someone came to be served, and they were just talking. And in that talking and in that chatting and in that conversation, something came up. And as a result of it, they've given their life to Jesus. And they're just standing here, one after the other after the other, saying, I found Jesus, and I'm here in the church today for the first time. Imagine how that would feel if our growth would increase. Because we've been growing. We've been growing. And it's, you know, it's difficult to tell on a day like this, when people have looked out the window and we've sorted out the men from the boys, as they say. And it's not always easy to see that. But I want to tell you, we've increased by. From 2024, we've increased by about 300%. So there's increase and there's growth. And I'm excited about that. But I believe with all my heart that the plan of God is that there should be further increase and further growth, that there should be an acceleration, that there should be a rapidity about it. You know what? God cares about growth. God cares about growth. And they had two types of growth. When you look at the Book of Acts, you'll see they had two types of growth. They had vertical growth, they had horizontal growth. Or to put it another way, they were wide and they were deep. There was that kind of growth. You see, sometimes you can have a church that is a mile deep and an inch wide. And other kinds of churches, they're a mile wide and an inch deep. You get a church that is so deep into the word of God, so deep into the spiritual things, but there's no width, there's no growth. There's no one coming in because they're so closed in on themselves. They're all about the word of God, but. But they're not looking outwards. And then you can get a church that's a mile wide and an inch deep, because that church is the numbers. You just see. You know, you can see them from space entering on a Sunday morning. You see the crowds going into that church. You see the vastness of it. But when you speak to people, their discipleship is not there. The depth of salvation is not there. The understanding of the Word is not there. Living of the life is not there. But in the Book of Acts, they had both kinds of growth. They were growing deep and they were Growing wide. People were getting closer to Jesus and people were being added to their number. And that's the vision that I would have for our church here in Colchester. That's the vision I would have, not only for our church, but for the other churches around that. There would be this depth and this width and this growth. And we would see a great influx of souls into the kingdom of God. And then we would see them established. That's what they had in the book of Acts. But here what we see is that that increase was not enough. Because we start chapter six with this word, that in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, so we know there was growth, but then there was a problem, and they had to solve that problem. And when that problem was solved, it says in verse seven, and the word of God continued to do what? Increase. And the number of disciples multiplied greatly. At the beginning, they were increasing in number, but by the end, they were increasing in number greatly. And so they went from one level to another level of growth. We talked at the beginning of this year, and we said that this year for our church is a year of leveling up. And I have three and a half months right now to press in to that vision. Before we reveal our vision and our strategy for 2027, we have to finish 2026 in a good way and ask, have we leveled up? And are we still leveling up in our church, in our community, in our individual families, in our faith, in our walk with God? Are we continuing to level up because they leveled up? They started when they were increasing. And thank God for the growth that we've seen. If you were with us before 2024, you know what I'm talking about. You know, about the leveling up that we've already done, the growth that we've already had. And they were leveling up. They were growing. They were increasing. But then by the end, they were increasing greatly. And something stood between them at this level and them at the new level. And that something that they identified is this, that there were many demands on the leaders in Jerusalem, on that apostolic, apostolic leadership. They were trained directly by Jesus. Hallelujah. They walk with Him. They talk with Him. He trained them. They knew how to cast out demons. They knew how to raise the dead. They knew how to heal the sick. They knew how to preach the gospel. They had it all. They were a powerful apostolic team. But they had a problem. And the problem was that all around them were the burdens and the demands of a growing community. And they put it like this. They said, should we give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables? You see, everyone in a church has a function. Every single person has a function in the church. Even if they're not operating in that function and in that calling, every single person in the church has something that God has put them there to do. And that Apostolic team were there. When they said not to wait on tables, they didn't mean, we're not going to help anyone ever. And we're just going to kind of, you know, preach the Word and then sit down in our golden thrones, as some people have nowadays, while people come and go, you know, pastor, and then serve them jollof or whatever. No, that's not what they meant. They meant that we have a very important mission that God has given us. We have a role to play, and we cannot allow all these other things that are going on to derail that. You see, there was something that they needed to do, and that something that they needed to do was to be men of prayer and. And men of the Word. Right now I can tell you that we want to be those of us that are leading here. We want to be people of prayer and people of the Word. Not because we don't want to contribute in other areas, but because that is the calling that God has put on us. That we might hold the church up in prayer, that. That we might preach the Word, that we might reach the lost, that we might establish members in their faith. But there was that problem. There were all kinds of demands and what were they to do? And what they said was, we need to get a hold of some other people and we need to raise them up into ministry so that they can also go out and look what happened when they did they get a hold of Stephen. Of the seven that they chose, the most famous was Stephen. Right? He was the most famous because Stephen operated mightily in the power of the Holy Spirit. He wasn't just serving food. No, he was helping out. He was meeting people's needs. But as he did, he had such an anointing. People were getting healed and miracles were happening. So he wasn't just helping in the food distribution, he was helping even to spread the power and the word of God around the community. But all of this was stopping their next level. You see, we can be busy and still increasing. We are increasing as a church. But there's another level that God would want us to go to. I believe with all my heart that God would want us to go to a revival level, to a level where that picture that I Described is a reality in our church where that level that I described is something that becomes normal for us, that hundreds of people, even, dare I say thousands of people, are coming to faith, coming into the kingdom of God, and we can see that, that new level. But there's something that stands in the way, and it's the same. Same thing that stood in their way, that to get to the new level, certain people have to be released as everyone does their part and takes up the burden. Did you notice that when we were looking at Ephesians Chapter four, what did Ephesians chapter four say? It said, when every member is doing its part, what happens? The body grows. Hallelujah. The body grows. It grows deep and it grows wide. When every member is doing its part. And it says that the disciples, or rather the apostles, called together the whole number. This was a serious matter. What was the serious matter? That the apostles had a hindrance to their prayers. They had a hindrance to. To their ministry, and it was that every member was not doing its part. You see, there are certain people who will always be there, who will say, pastor, why are you not distributing over here? Pastor, why are you not helping over here? Why is the church not helping us here? They are people that are always talking about how they need help. And the apostles recognized that for us to move forward, every member has to help, and we have to be released into that area of prayer and ministry. Because I want to tell you, one of the things that as a pastor, I'm fighting for every single time is for me to have the margin to be able to pray, because the phone's going, and there's this problem, and there's safeguarding and there's admin, and there's all these different things that are going on. There's pastoral problems, there's this, there's that, the other. And so I can find myself fighting for that opportunity. And yet I know that the secret to the growth of this church, and not just this church, but just to the gospel exploding in this whole area of Colchester, is fighting on our knees. I know that if I will get down on my knees, if I will pray and I will fast and I will seek the face of God. I was talking to a brother about this yesterday. We were just discussing. I was saying how it is since I came to the uk, and how there's so little understanding often about the power of prayer and spiritual warfare, of the power of fasting, of the power of really just getting into a room with God, of the power of seeing deliverance and seeing People delivered of demonic strongholds, there's so little often understanding of that. Those of you, I mean, we were in East Africa. Those of you from elsewhere in the world, you'll be aware of places where the spiritual atmosphere is hot. And what are people doing? How are the strongholds being broken? People are praying, people are fasting. They're not playing games with that because they know they're in a war. Well, if I can have the space and if other leaders around me can have the space to be able to intercede and to pray and others would join with us in that prayer, I believe with all of my heart that what would happen is we would go from simply increasing to increasing greatly. But what has to happen, Two things have to happen. Number one, prayer has to start. And I thank God that Brother Francis is starting to take hold of the area of prayer. We're rising up a prayer ministry in this church. We're raising up prayer as a priority in this church. Because when God's people pray, things happen. When God's people pray, strongholds come down. When God's people pray, demons come out. When God's people pray, the opposition falls away. When God's people pray, the spiritual atmosphere in a city changes. When God's people pray, people that were closed begin to listen. When God's people pray, children in families that were backslidden begin to turn back to Jesus. When God's people pray, the finances that the church doesn't have to get the job done begin to come in and the bank account fills up. And the things that are needed, the resources that are needed, become available. When God's people pray, doors are open. When God's people pray, new buildings become available. When God's people pray, there's an impact on the city and even the governance of that city has to change. When God's people pray, knife time begins to go down. When God's people pray, then the drug problem begins to fade away. When God's people pray, those homeless people around that are struggling there on the streets begin to find their Lord Jesus and their Savior. When God's people pray, things happen. So we're raising up prayer. But also when God's people serve, when God's people contribute their time, when God's people do something in the house, things also begin to change. When God's people begin to say, I'll get up at 9:30 on a Sunday morning. In fact, I'll get up at 8 o' clock or 7 o' clock and I'll get changed and I'll be in Church at 9:30 at least once in a month. And I'll serve on team. I'll serve welcoming at the door, or I'll serve preparing the refreshments, or I'll serve on the media team, or I'll serve in the Sunday school. Not because I feel called, but because I'm a child of the house. And a child of the house doesn't wait to be to. To feel the pull before they do the washing up. They don't wait to feel the pull of the calling before they do the ironing. They don't do it because of what they feel. They do it because of what they are. They're a child of the house. When God's people begin to say, I will serve, then what happens is that things get done. And when people come into the house of God, then they see that the house of God is a place of structure. The house of God is a place of order. The house of God is where things are getting done. Otherwise they come in and they say, I went to that church and no one welcomed me because no one was there yet. No one welcomed me. I arrived at 10 o' clock because I wanted to know more about the word of God. I wanted to find out about this Jesus. But I arrived and the pastor, he tried to welcome me, but he was so busy preparing teas and coffees and cleaning the floor that he didn't have time to really welcome me properly. The welcome team turned up later, but by that time I was already in the building. The welcome team turned up when the praise and worship had already started. The. The different departments were not there. Things were in disorder. But when God's people serve and God's people give their time, then they come in and they see a house that is well run. When a businessman comes, a businessman who is dealing every day with finance, who is dealing every day with things of excellence comes in. What does he want to see? He wants to see a house that reflects the excellence that he expects in his own business, in his own life. And when he sees that, he sees a place of excellence, he says, this is somewhere where I can fit. This is somewhere where I can look for advice. And said he comes in and he says, well, I spoke to Pastor Sean, but you know what? I don't think Pastor Sean can advise me very well because I'm running my business efficiently. And I look around and I see the children of Pastor Sean in the house are running around like crazy people. They turn up an hour late. They do everything just very. In a very shoddy. Way. What can he teach me about leading? What can he teach me about business? Look at the people that he's leading. It sends a message. It sends a message. But when God's people are serving, they come into the house and they find excellence. They find people who are serious about God. When someone is new and they want to ask someone about how to walk with Jesus, are they going to ask the person who was there at 8 o' clock getting things done, making sure things were ready, or are they going to ask the person who gets up 11, wanders in, they don't even look like their shirt was ironed, and who are they going to look to? These things matter. Their gospel matters. They're not just normal things, they're gospel matters. When everyone serves, we do something that has excellence, we do something that shows the attitude of the church towards God. And people come in and they want to be associated with that. They want to be associated with that excellence. They want to be associated with that house. Hallelujah. And when God's people serve you by margin, for the leaders of the house to lead. For the leaders of the house to lead. You know, I was hearing yesterday someone was giving an example about war games. You know what war games are? You know, before anyone goes to war, they have to plan out, well, if the enemy comes this way, we'll go this way. If the enemy throws a bomb here, we'll throw a bomb there. If they try this, we'll do that. And then when that war is going on and there's someone flying their plane and there's someone else, you know, out there on the ships and people are. The troops are out there doing their thing. There's a room somewhere, a war room, right? And there's someone in that war room and they're strategizing and they're speaking to the guy in the plane and they're saying, go this way. And they're speaking to the people on the ship and we're saying, do this way. And they're giving direction. They're seeing the whole picture and they're making sure that everything is strategized about and done in the right way. Imagine he gets into that war room. Russia has attacked the uk. They have landed at Portsmouth, I don't know, somewhere in the UK they have landed. And now it's time for the war room. And the generals are there in the war room and they're going, okay, come in, come in, Pilate, before, where are you? Where are you? And they're like, oh, no, you know, that Guy, he was, he had a late night and you know, it's just. Okay, let me speak to our ships captain. Where are you now? Oh, we just stopped somewhere because, you know, and now the generals have like, you know, there's maybe three or four generals in charge. And they say, okay, look, look, you go and fly a plane, I'll go and deal with a ship. Russia will destroy us, right? Everything has to have a certain order to win a war. And when God's people serve, they give margin to the people that are leading, to the people that are called to be on their knees day and night, praying for you, praying for the church, praying for breakthrough in the kingdom. The people of God serve and by that margin for those that are leading. And we have the evidence of it right here. You see, they were increasing, just like us. They were increasing, they were adding to their number. People were coming in. It was a wonderful thing. But then just seven people, just seven. Imagine that. Not 100, just seven people, began to take up the burden, began to do the work. And it was the same with Moses. You remember Moses, he had a father in law, he was called Jethro. And Jethro came to see him and Jethro said to Moses, what you're doing is not good. Because Moses was up and down all over the place. Someone was saying, oh, you know, my neighbor has been throwing rubbish over my fence or something, or, you know, my wife has been burning the food or whatever it was. And he would sit there judging every single case, just dealing with every single case. And Jethro said, you will wear yourself out and you won't go anywhere. He said, what you need to do, you need to choose some other people. You need that anointing on them too. They need to work. Then you can be released. Then things can run the way, and that's the way they're supposed to. And that's what happened here. It happened here. Just seven men took up the slack. And suddenly, suddenly Peter was there. I don't know what Peter was doing. He was running. You don't have food? Have food. Okay, let me go to Sainsbury's. Let's get to Aldi. Let's get some food for so and so. Oh, here you are, brother. There's some food. Okay. Oh, oh, this one here, they don't have food either. John, have you got any food? Okay, let's go down to Booker Wholesalers and let's get some and let's bring it and all of that. And then suddenly Stephen was there. And Stephen took up the slack. And Peter said, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do now? Oh, I know I can prepare a word for these people. Oh, let me get in my prayer room and begin to pray. And so Peter begins to pray and John says, oh, oh, the other seven are also doing it. Suddenly, I've got time on my head. Let me pray. Let me begin to intercede. And as they began to intercede, they got to the end of the passage, and it says they increased greatly. They went to another level. We can go to another level if every member begins to do their part. And I feel like I've said this so many times, but I just really want to encourage you, church. We can all do something. We can all do something. We're going to send out next week. I've got a form that's coming out. I know we all love to fill in forms. I know it's like your favorite thing. I know when I say fill in a form, you're like, oh, thank you, Jesus. I was praying that someone would give me a chance to fill out a form because I just don't have enough forms in my life. But nevertheless, we've been praying for you. And God revealed to us you need more forms in your life. So we have decided to create a form. But the point is this. We want to ask a simple question. We want to ask, what are your gifts? What are your professional qualifications? You know, we don't have first aiders in the church. How many people here work in care or the medical profession? Don't be shy. We don't have first aiders in the church. We don't have any first aiders right now. What are your professional. I'm not using that to shame the medical profession. I'm using that to show that maybe you have a. Maybe your profession gives you talents in finance, investing. Maybe your profession gives you talents in other areas. So we want to know what are your professional qualifications? What is it you do that you were trained for? And we want to say, how can you use just a little bit of that and invest in the church with that gift, with that ability? Because, you know, one of the things I've been away this weekend, we've been learning a lot about doing a lot of. Of training in church governance and stuff like that. So you can imagine I've had a really exciting weekend learning about risk assessments and safeguarding. You can imagine how the praise and worship was just amazing as we thought about those things. But here's the thing. One of the things I've seen looking at the churches that are accelerating, that are growing, you ask them, well, what about your finance? Well, they say, well, we've got a finance team, and on our finance team, there's this guy from our church, he's an accountant and he gives his time. And there's this other guy and he's an investment banker and he gives his time and there's this other guy and he's a strategist and he gives his time. And what about. You've got this amazing hub when people come in and there's teas and there's coffees and food and it's amazing. Oh, yeah, we know this guy, he's a chef and he volunteered to do that and he started that. And actually, not only is he doing that, but he's training other people how to do that as well. And so not only do we have a great place for teas and coffees, but we have some young people who didn't know what to do with the career and their life. And so he's bringing them up and he's mentoring them into that. And what about your media team? Oh, yeah, we've got this guy, you know, he came one day, saw what we're doing, he works at the BBC and he said, you know what? I want to give some of my time. And you see what happens. People just bring what they have and they say this and, you know, sometimes you hear them say, you say, but what about that department over there? What made you think of that? Oh, we didn't have that department. We never had that. We never thought of that department. But someone came and they said, you know, I have this profession and I don't know what to do. So we just made a department for them, right? You might come to me and say, I have a PhD in herding cats. And we'll say, we've got a department for you. You know, church is all about herding cats. You can work in the Sunday school. So what do you have? What do you have? Everyone? You remember Moses? What did God say to Moses at the beginning? What do you have in your hand? He said, I just have this staff. What God could do with that staff, you wouldn't believe. So even if you have a qualification and you're saying, I don't know how that fits. Let's talk. Okay, so we're going to be giving out those forms. And even though if you do love filling out forms, by the way, if you do love filling out forms, would you come and see me at the end? We need to pray for you, for deliverance. But nevertheless, I can't think of a better way than just giving you a bit of paper. Take you 10 minutes, and you can say, this is who I am. This is what I do. These are my gifts. And I say gifts because maybe, you know, maybe your profession is you have a qualification that allows you to do finance or something, or whatever it is that you do in your business, but you also have a gift of playing an instrument or you also have a gift of something else, whatever it is. So we want to know both your profession, your qualifications, and your gifts as well, because everyone has a place. And when every member does its part, the body begins to grow. And we have a vision that our church is going to grow and grow and grow. Hallelujah. Someone told me the largest church that you can expect to build in this part of Essex, realistically is 600. As soon as I heard that, you know what I thought? No. I want a church of 3,000. Because, you see, there's what man can do, there's what statistics can tell you, and there's what the SC Spirit of the Lord can do. You know what? In this town, I think there's like 120,000 people. 120,000. It's probably actually more than that. But when you look at the official figures from a few years ago and then now when you look at the number of Christians, it's in the low thousands. That's a lot of people that are waiting to hear about Jesus. And it all depends on this one thing. Will we take seriously what we said at the beginning of 2026? And will we level up? Will we level up? And leveling up doesn't look like you working every Sunday and every Monday, day and night and wearing yourself out. What leveling up looks like is you saying, let me bring my gift and give a little. And it depends on everyone giving a little. And suddenly you've levelled up. I was talking to. And we're going to close in just a minute, but I was talking to someone from one of the buildings biggest churches in the country. They have thousands of members. Every Sunday, thousands of people come into that church. And I said, how do you record your members? Because, you know, right now we have a list of people that come, but we don't have a membership list. He said, well, we changed the name of members to partners. We don't have members. We have partners in the gospel. And he said, we have partners. And I said, so how do you register them? He said, well, they go through an Induction. And then you become a partner when you give regularly and you serve regularly and you attend regularly. So that's the qualification. And also in their case, you're engaged with a small group regularly. And he says, we call them partners. And they said, every month we have a partner gathering and we get together as partners. Because he said, you know, members are those that contribute, members are those that are active. Why? Because the body grows when every member does its part. Hallelujah. Are you ready to finish 20, 26, leveling up for Jesus? Are you ready for Colchester City Church to go from where we are now, which is just over a hundred people, to maybe a thousand or two thousand or three thousand? And I'm not talking about growing wide. I'm talking about growing wide and growing deep. A church of thousands of disciples living with all of their hearts for Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Is that worth praying about? Let's clap for Jesus and let's pray. Hallelujah. Father, we give you praise. Let's stand together. I feel like we're serious about prayer when we stand up and we give it some energy. Father, in Jesus name, we thank you, Lord, for the church that you are building. We thank you, Lord, that you have placed us here in Colchester, that we might make an impact, that people might come to Jesus, that people might hear the gospel, that miracles, signs and wonders might be a reality in our midst. And Father, we pray in Jesus name, mighty name, we pray, my Father, that every member will do their part. That, Father, every member will get involved. That, Father, you will begin to establish prayer at the heart of our church. That every member will be praying, that every member will be serving. And that, Father, we will grow from the place of increase to the place of increasing greatly. Father, would you help us to, Lord, take this word and make it a part of our hearts, to get it deep into our hearts. That, Father, we wouldn't just hear an inspiring word, but we would hear a battle cry, but we would hear a call to action. That we would take action, that we would begin to move out in faith, increasing our prayers, increasing our service, and that we would go from increasing to increasing greatly in Jesus name.