Deacons in the Life of the Church--1 Timothy 3:8-13 (April 21, 2024)

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And then you can turn into your

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Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 3, 1 Timothy chapter 3. And you know normally we go through books of the

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Bible, so last week we finished up going through the book of Acts. We started it back in August and finished it last week and we'll be back in Proverbs for a bit this summer, but our practice is just to go through books of the

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Bible, but every now and again in between books of the Bible or we'll take a break for a few weeks here and there and address some other things and so that's what we're going to do over the next several weeks.

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We're going to take this opportunity of being in between books to address some topics that as a pastor

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I believe are needed for our church and so next week as we kick off our Love Life week, the director of Love Life Greenville, his name is

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Kylie Waldrop, he'll be here preaching as part of that as we pray to end abortion and we pray and promote a culture of life and so that'll be next week.

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Then the following Sunday, May the 5th, we'll address raising godly children, child training and what

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I hope will be a very practical sermon for parents and grandparents and one day we'll be parents, but today we're in 1

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Timothy chapter 3 verses 8 through 13 on the subject of deacons. Now, the first question that might arise is why, why are we preaching on deacons?

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Well let me say very clearly what the reason is not. The reason is not because of any problems with our deacons, this isn't some passive aggressive pastor tactic, no rather the reason that we're preaching on deacons is because we have deacon nominations coming up this summer, but before we get there

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I think this is a chance also to honor our current deacons and express gratitude toward them for their service to the church and so I want to say specifically to Bill Walker and Derek May and Charles Tate and Gary Batson, I want to say thank you,

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I want to say thank you for your service and your leadership in our church. We are blessed and grateful to have you men leading and serving in this way, your gifts to the body of Christ, your blessings to me personally, so thank you.

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In our last deacons meeting, we talked about how it would be good for me to preach a sermon on deacons in light of deacon nominations coming up this summer and so we have good deacons, we need more deacons.

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Leadership development is one area in our church that for the long -term health of our church, that's the area we need to give attention to and so that's why we're looking at 1

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Timothy 3 verses 8 through 13 today. So we are a congregational church and as such our congregation appoints men to the office of deacon.

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So as we do that, coming up here in short order over the next few months, as we do that I want us to look to the

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Bible for instructions on the office of deacon and qualifications for that office because if we ever assume a doctrine, if we ever assume anything from the

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Bible, that means we're in danger of losing it. The moment we assume it, we're in danger of losing it.

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When you lose something, something else inevitably takes its place and then inertia for that thing then develops forming new habits and assumptions that may or may not align with the

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Bible and so it's a good practice for us to go back to the Bible even on basic things to remind ourselves of what

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God has said. And so today we remind ourselves of what God has said on the subject of deacons.

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We'll ask these questions. What is a deacon? And how do they fit within Baptist polity, Baptist life?

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Who is a deacon? In other words, what are, you know, what's his character? What are qualifications for that office?

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What do deacons do? And then we'll make a few applications from there. Let's begin in 1

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Timothy 3 verse 8. We're going to make it a whole two words in this passage before we stop and dig in just a little bit.

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But let me read those two words. 1 Timothy 3 verse 8, God's word says, likewise deacons, we're going to finish that sentence and finish that passage here in just a minute.

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But I want us to stop with those two words, likewise deacons, he uses the word likewise there because he's referring to what just came before it.

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He's relating the qualifications of deacons that he's getting ready to lay out that are to follow with the qualifications for overseers or pastors, elders that are listed in verses 1 through 7 of chapter 3.

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And so when we ask the question, what is a deacon? The first answer is that a deacon is one of two

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God -ordained offices for the church. Deacon is an office of the church. Those two offices being pastor, also referred in the

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New Testament as overseer or elder. Those are three words that all mean the same thing. And then the second office being that of deacon.

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That is when Jesus Christ through the apostles established the church, what we just went through in the book of Acts, when

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Jesus Christ through the apostles established the church, he established it in such a way as to have two formal offices of leadership, one of those being the office of deacon.

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Now, to really answer our question, we need to know what is entailed in that office.

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That is, what is a deacon? Then we can answer the questions of who is a deacon, who ought a deacon to be, and what he is to do.

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And so we get our first clue in answering that question about what's entailed in the office by just looking at the word that is used in scripture for this office.

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That word is the Greek word diakonos. Diakonos is the word that literally means, if you just translate it, it just means servant.

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Now that same word, diakonos, is used in other places in the New Testament, not referring to the office of deacon, but just a general servant sense in the church.

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Christians in a general sense being servants. And so we can think of it like this, all Christians ought to be lowercase s servants, right?

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We're servants of Christ, we serve one another, we serve in the body of Christ, we serve in the community.

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We ought to be those who in humility serve others, we're lowercase s servants in a general sense.

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A wonderful example of this in our church was week before last when our hostess and bereavement teams put a lot of time and energy into serving our church by serving the

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Tate family and the King family. And so I want to thank you ladies who jumped in and helped out and served those families so well.

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You did an incredible job. That's a great example of lowercase s servants in the church, and we're grateful for that.

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All of us ought to find our place of service in the church. But then we have what you might call capital

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S servants in the church, those who hold an office through which they serve the church in a leadership capacity, and I think that's what we find in the office of deacon.

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Now I want to pause here for just one second and briefly talk about a concept that's fairly popular, the concept of servant leadership.

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Now you've likely heard of servant leadership, it's normally spoken of in this way, that the person who is leading, they lead by serving.

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And this is true as far as it goes, a leader ought never to be above doing the small things in service to those he leads.

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He ought to serve those that he leads. But the concept of servant leadership is often twisted just a little bit.

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It's twisted by twisting the nature of leadership just a bit to make it only about doing those small things in service to others while neglecting the truth that leadership itself is a service.

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That is the act of leading something, of taking responsibility for it, of exercising authority, assigning tasks, ensuring quality, and so forth.

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Doing all of that, which your deacons do, or you can think about maybe your boss at work, or you can think about a father in a family, whatever it is, leadership itself is an act of service.

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Because it's a lot of work, it's a lot of responsibility, there's often a lot of people to consider, and people to kind of marshal into the same direction, and to care for.

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And so, against a lot of current writing on the subject of deacons,

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I would hold and believe that the office of deacon is a leadership office. Many want to turn the office of deacon solely into kind of a serving tables type of office, but I believe there is an aspect of leadership because leadership is a service in and of itself.

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It is an office that serves the church by giving leadership, and serves the church by giving leadership in a particular realm of the church.

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And the way I like to explain that realm of the church is that deacons have the responsibility to serve the church by giving leadership in the earthly affairs of the church.

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Others might call it the temporal affairs of the church. And so you can think of it like this, there are heavenly affairs and earthly affairs.

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Pastors lead in the heavenly affairs of the church, and so pastors teach doctrine, preach.

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Pastors give themselves to the ministry of the word and of prayer, praying and caring for souls.

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They apply the word in pastoral counseling. They oversee and lead the worship of the church.

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They guard the teaching ministry of the church. They administer baptism in the Lord's Supper. One of the synonyms for pastor in the

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New Testament is overseer. That's what's used in the beginning of 1 Timothy 3. So pastors oversee the kind of overall direction of the church as each of us sets our eyes on heaven and makes our pilgrimage there.

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The heavenly affairs of the church are the things that pertain to eternal life.

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The earthly affairs of the church then are the things that pertain to temporal life. So these are things like meeting the physical needs of church members, mercy ministry, care for widows, shut -ins, orphans, church finances, properties, personnel, administration.

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These are the earthly or temporal affairs of the church. I believe this fits the pattern of creation.

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If you've been coming on Wednesday nights, you have likely heard Bea at one point or another refer to the creation pattern of how

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God made the world and designed the world. We saw this pattern that emerges in Genesis 1 where God creates things above and things below.

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Things above and things below. This is just a way of organizing or seeing a pattern in creation.

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So you have God creates the heavens and the earth. Then in the earth, it's the same shape all the way through.

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In the earth, he creates waters above the firmament and then waters below on the earth.

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In the firmament, he puts the sun and the moon. In the waters below, there are dry lands and there are waters.

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In the waters, there's birds above in the clouds and there's fish below in the seas.

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On dry land, there's living creatures and there's plants. Among the living creatures, there are man and there are animals.

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Among the animals, there are livestock and there are beasts. Among man, there's man and there's woman.

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We don't have time to go into all of what that means and all the associated symbolism and connections of meaning that clues us in there.

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But I would point out that when God did that, when he created in Genesis 1, what did he call it?

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He called it good. That all of that is good. Now, there are differences.

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The moon orbits around the sun. The sun doesn't orbit around the moon. And we treat animals different than we treat plants.

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And we treat livestock different than we treat beasts. And we recognize the differences between male and female and their male and female nature and duties.

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And again, we would say all of this is God's design and all of God's design is good.

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And it will be for our good if we operate according to God's design. Now, I chased that rabbit trail of creation pattern in order to say then that I believe it makes sense that when

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God, the same God who created in Genesis 1, who created and designed the world in a particular way, that when he created and designed the church, that he would do so in accordance with that same pattern that we see throughout.

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And so pastors lead in the heavenly affairs with oversight of the whole church. And deacons lead in the earthly affairs in service to the whole church.

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All, pastors, deacons, and congregation, all serving under the authority of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church.

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And so in many ways, I see a similarity between how God orders the household of the family and the household of God, the church.

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And so in the family, the husband is oriented outward toward the world, exercising authority and oversight over the whole family, setting the direction for the family, the tenor for the family, while the wife is oriented inward toward the home, managing the domestic affairs as a help to her husband, disciplining the children and raising them and doing all of this in service to the whole family.

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In the church, pastors are oriented toward the heavenly affairs of the church, exercising authority and oversight for and setting the direction for the church, setting the tenor, while deacons are oriented toward the earthly affairs of the church, managing the physical and temporal needs of the congregation as a help to the pastors and in service to the whole church.

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So I see a similarity between, not a one -to -one correspondence, but it fits the pattern of how

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God has set up things, and it makes sense that he would. We see the interplay of responsibilities between pastors and deacons when we take the

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Lord's Supper. And so when we take the Lord's Supper, as pastor and minister of Christ, I'll preside over that supper,

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I'll explain what the supper is, I'll say who ought to take it, who ought not to take it. I'll invite you to the table in the name of Jesus, I'll fence the table in the name of Jesus, I'll pray,

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I'll give thanks, I'll tell you when it's time to eat the bread and drink the cup. In other words, as pastor,

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I'm responsible for everything that's spiritual or heavenly related to the supper. Yet our deacons, they're responsible for, they come, they prepare the table, they distribute the physical elements, the bread and the cup, the earthly things related.

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And so what I hope you see here, and we'll return to this point in just a minute, is the complementary nature and how

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God fits all of this together. If you remember Acts chapter 6, we're going through Acts, so last fall we were in Acts 6, you'll remember that the seven were chosen for the food distribution in Jerusalem so that the

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Greek speaking widows would not be left out. And we said that these seven were, they were like prototype deacons, they didn't use the word deacons there, but they were kind of the proto deacons.

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And what did they do? They took responsibility for the food distribution so that certain class of widows would not be left out, therefore they were attending physical needs while also protecting and promoting the unity of the church.

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In addition to that, it then freed up the apostles to do what? To give themselves to the ministry of the word and to prayer.

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And so we see what the office of deacon is for then, serving the church, promoting and protecting the unity of the church through that service, and assisting pastors by freeing them up to focus on the ministry of word and prayer.

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And so what we see is the complementary nature of how

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God has set up church leadership for the good of the church. Let's keep going. Um, that we've made it two words so far.

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Let's see if we can make it through the rest of the passage. First Timothy 3, 8 through 13 says,

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Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double tongued, not given too much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

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But let these also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons being found blameless.

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Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their household and their houses well.

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For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

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So these verses answer the second question, which is who is a deacon?

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What should he be? What's his character? What's his qualifications? I want you to notice that all of these qualifications here, with maybe the exception of one, all of them have to do with character, not competence.

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They all have to do with character, not competence. I'll mention one that has an element of competence here in just a little bit.

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But this means that when our church comes together this summer to nominate deacons, when a church selects deacons, they're not just looking for men who have been successful in life or successful in business.

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That's not the main criteria. We're looking for men who exemplify godly character.

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That's what the Bible tells us to look for. God, the Holy Spirit, through the apostle

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Paul, gave us a checklist of character qualifications for deacons. If you go back and read verses one through seven, he gave a character checklist for the office of pastor as well.

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And they're very similar in what is required. The main difference being there is a requirement, a qualification for pastors must be able to teach.

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That's the one thing that's left out from the office of deacon. What I want us to do is look at these character qualifications one at a time and make a few comments on each.

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The first one, verse eight, they must be reverent. Deacons must be reverent. That is dignified.

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Other translations will say dignified, worthy of respect. In other words, deacon must be one who possesses a certain bit of gravitas to his person, someone that people will respect, someone who is honorable.

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That's the first thing. Second thing, deacons must not be double -tongued. Those who are double -tongued, they say one thing to certain people, they say something else to other people, or they say one thing, but they actually mean something else.

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They're double -tongued, they're two -faced, they're insincere. Those men ought not to be deacons.

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They cannot be trusted and they lack credibility. That's not good in church leadership. Third thing, deacons must not be given too much wine.

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A deacon is disqualified or a man is disqualified from the office if he is addicted to strong drink or any other intoxicating substances.

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He ought not to be addicted or controlled by anything else. Rather, fruit spirit is self -control.

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He must be one who exemplifies self -control and discipline, and one who is addicted would lack self -control and be undisciplined.

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Fourth, deacons must not be greedy for money or for, another way, another translation says for dishonest gain.

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If a person is a lover of money, if he's a lover of dishonest gain, he's not qualified for office, especially because deacons may handle or discuss financial matters for the church.

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This qualification also speaks to one's stewardship and commitment to regularly give to the ministries of the church, to the tithes and offerings.

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He must not be greedy for money. Fifth, deacons must hold to the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.

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That is, deacons must affirm the true gospel and must affirm the teaching and doctrinal statements of the church.

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They must not waver in their commitment to sound doctrine and to the true gospel. Further, we see that it says in a particular way he's to hold to the mystery of the faith.

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That is, with a pure conscience. That is, means two things at least.

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One, he can't just affirm it on paper but kind of have his fingers crossed behind his back and not really mean it. No, he's to hold it in good conscience.

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I believe these things. And then two, his behavior in life should be consistent with what he says he believes. Our lives should match our professions.

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Sixth thing, deacons must be tested and blameless. This corresponds to the pastoral requirement to not be a recent convert.

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That is, the man's character, reputation, theological beliefs should be evaluated before he is put into office.

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He must be tested in that way, evaluated in that way. You know, observe his life for a time.

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That's why our constitution bylaws state that a man, before he can serve in the office of deacon, needs to be a church member for a year.

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So he can be tested. We can see. Blameless doesn't mean perfect. Only Jesus is perfect. But it does mean that the man's character is such that if he was charged with ungodliness, then nothing would stick.

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No charges of ungodliness would stick to him. Blameless in that way. Seventh, he must be the husband of one wife.

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This literally means one woman man. This particular qualification, as well, when you put it together, especially with other texts, demonstrates that the office of deacon is reserved for qualified men.

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And then the requirement to be a one woman man, I would say it doesn't automatically preclude a divorced man from serving as deacon.

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It does mean that the circumstances of the divorce probably should be evaluated before he's put into office. And there might need to be an evaluation period to establish him as a one woman man.

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But the requirement is that if the deacon is married, that he is faithful to his wife. And he is categorized as a one woman man.

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And then related, as we think about the deacon's household, he must rule his household well.

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It's the eighth qualification. This is the one qualification where there's at least an element of competence.

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He needs to show some skill in managing his house before he's put into office because how he manages his house will show and demonstrate how he will manage the household of God.

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And so when we're, as a church, we're evaluating a man's fitness for office, we're not just looking at the man.

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We're also looking at his whole family. For a man's wife and children are a reflection of the man's leadership.

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And so if a man's children are unruly, if you put him in office, you can expect some unruliness in the church.

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If a man's wife or his children are ungodly, then you can expect ungodliness to emerge in the church.

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Now this is a neglected qualification because people are terrified of making judgments, especially when it comes to families.

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But I would remind you that you are baptized, that you are a communicant member of Christ's assembly, and as such, that is exactly what you are called to do.

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To evaluate according to God's word and make judgments between what is right and wrong, good and evil.

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We do that, and particularly when we're setting someone into church office, we are to evaluate and make judgments upon his life.

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The home is the proving ground for church office. Further, there are instructions here in this passage for the deacon's wife, again because she's going to be instrumental in his ministry in the same way that deacons are coming along and assisting in the ministry of the church and serving in that way.

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She, as her husband's helpmate, is going to do the same. She's going to be instrumental in this service, assisting him in that ministry.

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Therefore, she too must be reverent, not a slanderer, temperate, faithful in all things.

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And so respectable, self -controlled, content, Bible -believing, morally upstanding men who rule their homes well, that's who a deacon ought to be.

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So that's who you're looking for when we come to nominate in the summer. That's who you're looking for.

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What then, third question, what then does a deacon do? In many ways, this is kind of a restatement of the first question, so I'm going to be brief here.

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But I would remind you again, deacons serve the earthly affairs of the church, and the Bible gives a lot of flexibility as to how that might manifest itself and work out in any given local church.

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So our deacons, they meet monthly, the first Monday of every month, to discuss these earthly affairs of our church and take action where appropriate.

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They serve on, often, chairing committees like finance or properties. They help oversee the administration of our church.

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They assist me in congregational care. They serve in kind of an advice and consent role for me as pastor.

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They promote and they protect the unity of our church. And they are often the point people for people in our congregation to go to about various things that would pertain to the earthly affairs of the church.

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So maybe something church property -wise that you see needs to be done, you go tell one of the deacons.

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And they'll kind of see to it that it gets to the right committee and appropriate action gets taken, whatever that is.

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So in all of this, again, what I hope you see is the complementary design relationship between the office of pastor and deacon in a church.

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But in a similar way that God gives husbands and wives to the family to work together in complementary yet differentiated ways according to his design for the good of the household, he also gives pastors and deacons to the congregation to work together in complementary yet differentiated ways according to his design for the good of the church.

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This means that deacons do not exist in competition to pastors or pastors in competition to deacons.

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Deacons only exist as kind of a second house of the legislature check on pastors. Rather, they exist to further the ministry of the church by serving the church through leading in these earthly affairs so that pastors can focus on the heavenly ones.

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The ministry of the word and prayer while giving general oversight to the church. So that's what deacons do.

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Now, where do we go from here? Make a few points of application. And the first one

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I would say is I would encourage you to express gratitude to these men who are serving and have served our church so well over these last several years.

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Our deacons model what I've gone through in 1 Timothy here. They model that really well for us and they serve our church so well.

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And so men, again, thank you. And I would encourage our congregation to express that gratitude to them. You see there in verse 13, it says,

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For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

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And men, you have a good standing in our church. I think we need to let them know that. That'd be the first application.

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Second is beginning next month after our May deacons meeting, you'll find deacon candidate packets in the foyer.

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In this packet, you'll find notes about the deacon nomination process, biblical guidelines for deacon ministry, and a deacon nomination form.

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On this form, you can either nominate a fellow church member to the office of deacon, someone that you know, that you've seen in their lives, that they have these qualifications.

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Or if you are a man who is sentencing God's leading toward deacon ministry, you can self -identify and indicate such on that form about yourself.

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And then included there, there'll be a questionnaire where you'll answer about the candidate you're nominating or about yourself if you're kind of sentencing

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God's leadership there. But you'll have an opportunity to answer some questions specifically related to the qualifications that are there in 1

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Timothy chapter 3. I would encourage you that this is something to be done seriously and prayerfully, thinking about what does

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God say? And then what is this man's life or what is my life?

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And then the third point of application is a little bit more broadly than deacon ministry, but just thinking about leadership development in our church.

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Toward that end, I would like to begin hosting a periodic men's leadership forum.

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This will be a time for men, open to any man in the church, who wishes to grow in his ability to lead.

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This isn't specifically geared towards pastoral leadership or deacon leadership, but it is those who want to grow in their ability to lead their homes, lead in the church, lead in society.

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And we will come together. We'll have one man present on a certain topic, and then we'll talk about those things.

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But it'll be a time for men to sharpen one another, specifically in the area of growing in our leadership.

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And we'll have some more information about that, but I would like to get the first one kicked off on May 19th.

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That's a Sunday evening at 5 o 'clock. That'll be our first men's leadership forum, May 19th at 5 o 'clock, open to any man who would like to grow in his ability to lead, and sharpen one another in that.

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Now, getting towards the end here. One thing you might be thinking is, well, that was a little bit more of a lecture than a sermon,

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Pastor. And it's true. This is one of those topics where we just needed a little bit, you know, we needed some teaching on the topic.

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But I'm going to end with a little bit of preaching, because I'm a preacher. That's what I do. I want to exhort you in two areas, as we conclude, in mission and in godliness.

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And this is more broadly than the subject of deacons. This is, but still within the context of us thinking of that.

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But this is for our church as a whole. So first, let me exhort you in mission. The reason we have deacons is because we have a church.

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And because we have a church, we have earthly temporal needs. We have a building. We gotta care for it.

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We take up tithes and offerings. We've got to manage that and steward that well.

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So we have a church. If we're going to be about winning the world for Jesus, if we're going to be about winning glory for King Jesus, if we're going to be about advancing and extending the kingdom of Jesus, caring for souls on their way toward heaven, if we're going to do these things, then we're going to have these earthly affairs to attend to along the way.

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But the earthly affairs are never the point. The building is never the point. The budget is never the point.

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The point is always the mission of God. The point is always the

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Great Commission. The point is always what is Christ taking the world for himself.

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The point is always the gospel message that Jesus cleanses us from sins and extending that offer of forgiveness so that others could repent of their sins and believe it and trust in him that they too could have eternal life in fellowship with God the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The point is the mission. Again, compare it to the family.

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Mom and dad, they do the hard work of leading and serving their families, not because it's just so fun to get up and go to work every day or stay up all night with a sick kid or to do the house maintenance and fix the leaky roof.

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No, they do it for the kids. They do it so that their family name extends for generations. They do it for love.

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Deacons serve, not because church finances and properties are just exhilarating and inspiring things to do, but because people coming to know

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Jesus, people being forgiven of their sins, people being cared for in times of hardship and suffering, people inheriting eternal life, that is exhilarating.

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They serve in these ways that may not be the most fun.

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I mean, maybe some people love church budgets, and I just, I don't like numbers. That's possible. But people serve in these ways, but not just for themselves, not just for that, not just for the budget's sake.

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They serve so that people might know Christ. They serve so that people will spend eternity with Christ.

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So let's be a church, then, about that mission. Let's not let our deacons serve in vain.

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Let us let them serve the kingdom and their service to us by us being on that mission.

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Let's give ourselves to it. And then second, I would say, I want to exhort us in godliness. The qualifications listed in 1

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Timothy chapter 3 for pastors and deacons are meant to be exemplary. That is, they are to set an example for the church at large.

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In other words, what we read about in 1 Timothy chapter 3 is what we are all aiming at.

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Whether you'll ever be a deacon or not, be reverent. Be dignified. Be respectable.

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Be self -controlled. Be content. Believe the Bible. Believe and hold fast to the gospel.

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Hold it with a pure conscience. Be morally upstanding. Be blameless. Be godly.

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And as I pray, I want to invite you to examine yourself. Are you godly in these specific ways?

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Let's pray. Father in heaven,

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I pray right now that you would help us to examine our own lives. Are we reverent?

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Do we carry ourselves in ways that are respectable? Are we double -tongued?

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Do we say one thing to one person and something else to another? Are we addicted to anything? Do we lack self -control?

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Do we love money and dishonest gain? Does money have a hold on us or do we use it as a tool to live a faithful life?

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Are we slanders or are we temperate? Are we faithful in all things or are we not a good steward of the time and resources you've given to us?

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What's the relationship with our spouse? Are our children godly?

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Lord, I pray that you'll make our church godly in these ways. And if there's anywhere where any of us need to repent and turn from sin,

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I pray that we would do it now. If there's any way, any area where we need this to tighten up,

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Lord, we give us the grace to do it. If there's any area where we need to make some changes, Lord, give us the grace and the strength and the discipline to do it.

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Lord, I pray that we'll be godly. I pray that we'll be on mission. I pray that we will make the name of Christ known. I pray that we'll live obedient lives and we'll give ourselves being zealous for good works.

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And as we do that as a church, I'm thankful that we have men who serve, caring for the finances of the church and the properties of the church, the earthly affairs of the church.

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Thank you for these men who serve so well, who've been such an encouragement to me personally, and I know to the church at large.

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Lord, I pray that you'd raise up other men to come alongside them and lighten the load a little bit, because they've been carrying a heavy load these last several years.

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We provide everything that we need as a church. We thank you, and I pray all of this in the name of Jesus.