Cross the Line, Go All In

Well, good morning everyone. It is good to be with you. My name is Carlos, and I’m our senior pastor. It is Mother’s Day, and if you are in the room, will you help me give it up? To everybody watching online—maybe we have some moms who are at home or traveling or visiting their kids—we’re so glad that you’re here. Welcome to Gateway Church.

We’re so glad that this morning we’re spending some time together kind of wrestling through a passage in Acts chapter six. I don’t know about you, but as I got older, I remember my community started to expand. You know, when you’re a kid, you have a community that’s kind of locked in at your classroom. It’s maybe the people you go to church with, or people you play sports with, or your cousins, your aunts, your uncles, your theos—whatever your family looks like.

Then, as you get older and you get to make decisions about your life, it begins to expand. Now you’re in middle school or high school, your friends group changes, and your mom and dad are like, “Well, what happened to so-and-so? Aren’t you friends with them anymore?” You really begin to grow these muscles of community as your community grows. Then you go off to college, and your family of origin doesn’t know any of your friends from college. At some point, we decide we’re going to continue to grow our community. Maybe we move to a place like Austin, or New York, or LA, and you have to figure out what community looks like as it’s growing.

Then many people decide to get married, and now you’re growing something new. If you choose to have kids, or adopt, or foster, now everything’s growing. The question about growth is not whether it is exciting—because for many, growth is exciting—the question is that at some point, there begin to be questions about the growth of your community. Whatever you’re building around you—roommates, marriage, or your own family—we begin to ask questions like, “Will this work?”

I remember for Libby and me, we have five kids, but when we had our first one, we were like, “Oh my gosh, this is going to be amazing.” Then we had him, and Libby basically gave birth to a little man. He was 30 pounds by the time he was six months old; he was massive. If you’ve ever seen my wife, I don’t know how she did it. It was like she was carrying a koala bear everywhere. He learned how to walk at eight or nine months old, and he would run into walls because he was too big to stop himself. You’d just hear a thud. We thought, “Can we have more kids like this? This is not sustainable!”

Eventually, he grew into his body, but I remember those early days where we wanted to get everything right—the right stroller, the right clothes. Being Gen X, our parents thought clothes meant status, so they bought our oldest son Ralph Lauren. By the time we got to our fifth kid, he just ran around naked because it wasn’t sustainable. Buying a kid a $40 shirt he’d wear for two weeks didn’t fit the budget. That’s what happens in life. We have relationships and community, and it grows and changes. We ask: Will this work? Is this sustainable? Can it last?

That’s the context for Acts chapter six. In the early church, the people following Jesus have seen him live a sinless life, go to the cross, die, and be resurrected. He spent 40 days with the disciples re-emphasizing his teachings, and then he sent them out. They began to preach the good news and faced some early persecution, but now they are seeing rapid growth in their spiritual community. The early church is thriving and the gospel is being preached boldly.

Here is what I want you to understand: The Holy Spirit not only empowers the church, but also organizes and unifies the church. We will have challenges when there is growth. This community had a tension they had to face, and they had to ask: Are we really going to be an “all in” community for all, or are we going to be subjected to just a few kinds of people?

Acts 6:1 says that in those days, when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. People were not just saying they believed; they were becoming disciples, surrendering their lives, preferences, and worldviews to Christ. Yet, in the middle of this momentum, a complaint arises.

If you are new to faith, you might wonder how there can be complaints in a community of unity. Some grow up thinking the pastor is always right and anyone who complains is “demonized.” But pastors are not sages; they are people who are part of a community. We already have a King, and His name is Jesus. We are just stewards.

The complaint was between Greek-speaking Jews and Hebraic Jews. There was a hierarchy involved. Those in Jerusalem were likely raised a little higher, while those who spoke a different language felt like second-class citizens. This wasn’t just a logistical oversight or an administrative issue; the first complaint in the early church was about culture. This is not a new argument. Even spirit-filled communities experience cultural tension. We can worship and give together, and yet there will be tensions.

The tension itself isn’t the problem. Real unity is not the absence of conflict. Conflict means there is a level of trust to bring an issue forward. We don’t demonize people; we work through these things. Look at how the community responded in verse two. The twelve gathered all the disciples together and said it would not be right to neglect the ministry of the Word of God to wait on tables.

The apostles didn’t keep the issue private; they brought it to the forefront because unity requires transparency. They weren’t saying the widows or the poor weren’t worth their time. They were saying this is a shared responsibility. They were expanding the leadership team—the first one in Scripture. They realized that not every need is your assignment, even if it is a real and urgent need.

I saw a car yesterday with 50 bumper stickers. Every sticker was likely a value they held—fight for this, love that. I love passion, but you are one person. What is God asking you to do? Tim Keller used to say the greatest threat to ministry is not always sin, it’s distraction. Ministry is anything you do on behalf of God toward others. We can’t be an extension of God in 50 different directions. Reposting something on social media isn’t the same as feeding or clothing someone. We have to get away from the phone and into proximity with people.

The apostles told the community to choose seven men who were known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. Why only men? In that cultural context, women unfortunately had few rights and were often seen as property. But even if men were put in charge, we know who likely did the heavy lifting! The apostles empowered the community to pick people with a good reputation and spiritual qualifications.

The task was administrative—organizing food—but the qualifications were spiritual. There is no divide between spiritual and practical work when it’s done for God. Spirit-led people live open-handed. Henry Blackaby said if Christians suddenly renounced their personal agendas and responded in radical obedience, the world would be turned upside down.

The apostles committed themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Without prayer, ministry becomes self-powered instead of Spirit-empowered. I remember trying to surprise my wife by doing the laundry. By load two, the game was on, I got distracted, and Libby came home to piles of clothes rather than a clean house. I had the idea but wasn’t empowered to execute it. How many times do we jump into a mess without being informed and just make it worse? We need both knowledge of Scripture and a life of prayer.

The proposal pleased the whole group. They chose seven men, and notably, all seven names were Greek. The Hebraic Jews agreed that the Greek community had a need and that Greek men should lead it. The good news of Jesus doesn’t just reconcile us to God; it reconciles us to one another. We have orthodoxy (what we believe) and orthopraxy (how we live it out).

They didn’t avoid differences or silence voices. They worked through the tension. It’s hard to do that in the church if we don’t practice it in our personal lives. Do you have friends who are different from you? Or do you live in an echo chamber? We need to build the muscle to work through conflict.

The apostles laid hands on these men—affirming, commissioning, and sending them. They were saying, “We see God’s work in you.” We still do this today. We have spiritual overseers at Gateway who keep me accountable. It’s about dignifying service and empowering people who are “all in.”

Because they addressed these internal issues, the Word of God spread, disciples multiplied, and even many priests became obedient to the faith. A Spirit-led community is transformative. So, where are you still holding back? Are you willing to move from convenience to commitment? From comfort to sacrifice? From isolation to unity? Conflict is there to work the selfishness out of us. My challenge to you today is: Are you all in? Is your life fully surrendered to Him?