The Requirement of Deacons

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Paul's letter to the
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Romans and find your place in chapter 12 of that important letter.
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As has already been mentioned this morning, today's service is quite different from our normal time of worship in that we have set this aside as an opportunity to recognize one among us who has been called by the church to serve in the office of deacon.
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And so I am foregoing our normal verse by verse exposition as is our normal practice of the church is to simply preach through books of the
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Bible and we have been going through the Gospel of John this morning. I'm taking a break from that to talk about the subject of deacons and specifically to address what it means to have the gift of service and what the qualifications are for someone who is gifted to serve and specifically serve in that office of deacon.
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In the twelfth chapter of Romans as well as in the twelfth chapter of 1
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Corinthians we are given by the Lord a listing of spiritual gifts and these spiritual gifts some can be somewhat confusing.
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In 1 Corinthians Paul speaks more about the gifts like the gift of tongues which there is a great deal of confusion about that in the church.
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Gifts of prophecy and that can be somewhat confusing as well even though I think that one is often misunderstood but when we get to Romans chapter 12 and we look at the giftings that are listed there,
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I think that provides us a more normative list that we will find in every church.
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And the reason why I say that is when we look at the seven gifts that are listed in the book of Romans, I think that any church that is a church that is preaching
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God's word filled with the spirit, the people there are doing what God has called them to do, you're going to find those seven things in those churches.
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That's my understanding and as we look at those seven things you'll see what I'm talking about because all of those things are necessary for the building up of the body and God provides those things, those people for the building up of the body.
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And one of the gifts in particular that we find in Romans chapter 12 is this gift called the gift of service.
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And my, the beginning of my lesson today is to make this point.
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Any man who is called to be a deacon must have the gift of service.
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And that's a prerequisite for the office of deacon.
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For it is the very definition of a deacon that he be a servant.
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That's what it means. And so we're going to begin in Romans 12 and then we're going to make our way to 1
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Corinthians, I'm sorry, 1 Timothy chapter 3 where we see the gifting in Romans 12 and the requirements in 1
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Timothy chapter 3. So we're going to stand and we're going to read the Romans passage together as our primary text for today.
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In Romans chapter 12 beginning at verse 3 it says, For by the grace given to me
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I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.
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Let us use them. If we do not have prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes in generosity, the one who leads with zeal, the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.
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Let's pray together. Father in heaven, I pray that as we seek to understand this text, that as we seek to learn today even more than maybe we already know about what the office of deacon entails, what the requirements are, and why this office even exists,
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I pray oh God first and foremost as I pray every week that you would keep me from error.
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Lord that you would protect me not only for my sake, though I do pray for my sake, but also for the sake of your people to protect me from guiding them in a wrong direction or teaching them incorrectly from your word.
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Lord, the greatest fear of my life is to teach wrongly about you and to be wrong about you.
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So God I pray for clarity, I pray for accuracy, and I pray for the filling of the spirit as your word is preached.
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And as your word is preached Lord I pray that it would go into the ears of the people, but that it would not stop in their ears
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Lord, or even in their minds, but that it would go down to the depth of their soul and that through the word you would build up your body by edifying your people and by bringing in those who are not yet your people.
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That they would hear the word of God and be changed, be converted. Lord may the gospel ring out today, even as we look very closely at these requirements and these giftings,
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Lord may it be that the gospel be front and center in all that we do. In Jesus name, amen.
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Today we have the unique opportunity to participate as a body in the ordination and installation of a new deacon.
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This is very rare. In fact, in the time that I have been here as pastor since 2006 this has been something that we have participated in less than a dozen times.
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It's going in my mind through the names. Just last night thinking through how many times we have done this and I can't think of more than a dozen that we have done that have served through those 18 or some odd years.
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So this is a very unique and occasional event.
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It is not something that we do all the time. And one of the things that often arises when we do this is in the minds of people is the question of what is this and why?
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What is this that we are doing and why are we doing it? Many of you come from various church traditions and depending on the tradition that you have come out of, your experiences with deacons may be quite different.
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In some churches the deacons are the ones who manage and run the church program.
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They are basically the leaders of the church. In other churches deacons are more of a title.
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They don't do a lot but a few men in the church are given a title and those men get to hold that title but they don't have much responsibility to go along with that title.
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So there tends to be somewhat of a spectrum that you find in churches as to those who maybe put too much emphasis on the position of deacon and those who put too little emphasis on the position of deacon.
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And you find yourself wondering well if there is so much variation in various churches as to how deacons function and what they do and who they are then is the
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Bible clear? Well I think the Bible is clear. I think that this is something that every church should study.
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As many of you know one of the things that I have taken as part of my ministry is the writing on the subject of ecclesiology and I have written extensively on the role of elders and deacons in the first century church and how
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I believe that role is to be established even to this day. And so as part of today's lesson
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I just want to remind you what the structure of the church is according to God's word.
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God's word provides us a relatively simple structure for the church.
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The church has one head and it ain't me.
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And it ain't you either. And it's not any one of us.
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It's us elders. There is one head and who is it? Jesus Christ.
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The Bible tells us Christ is the head of the church. Very important that we understand that structure begins with Him.
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Christ is the head of the church. And often times the question of governance is brought up when it comes to how is the church governed?
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Is it governed congregationally? Is it governed through the presbyters or the elders?
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Or is it governed through some outside organization like a presbytery or an episcopate?
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You know some structure that governs or denominational authority? You know how the Bible says the church is governed?
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By the word. God's word is the standard.
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Christ governs the church through His word. That's it.
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That's the governing document of the church. Careful now. It's the constitution of the church and guess what?
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It's better than any other constitution because it's infallible and inerrant. It is the word of the living
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God. It is God's word to us. And so we have the church structure.
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Christ is the head of the church and He governs the church through the document called the scriptures.
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The church has two offices. Only two. Search the
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Bible. High, low, front, back. As Mike says, shake it. No other office is going to fall out of it.
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And how do we know there are only two offices in the church? There's only two offices that are given requirements and qualifications.
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The first office in the church is the office of the elder. Now that word elder comes from the word presbyter and it means one who is mature.
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Typically refers to one who is older. That's why it's attached to the idea of elder. But more than age it's referring to maturity.
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One who is able to accept the position of responsibility of leading. The other word that is often used there is the word bishop in the
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King James. But that is a translation of the word episkopos or episkopos.
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It's the word for overseer. Same idea. The presbyter and the overseer, the elder, the bishop, it's the same office.
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The pastor is an elder. The elders are pastors.
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Right? Different giftings, different responsibilities in one sense, but all pastors in the church.
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All on the same equal footing as leading the church.
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We call this a plurality of elders. And I believe the
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Bible teaches that. I don't believe the Bible teaches that one man should have all authority in any local church.
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There is no protestant pope or shouldn't be where one man reigns supreme.
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But every man, including the man who does the preaching of the word, must and should have accountability.
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And he must be accountable to men who can actually come alongside him and call him to account.
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So accountability is. So we have the office of elder.
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What is the responsibility of the elder? The responsibility of the elder is to take this word and teach it.
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That's the one unique qualification for an elder. He must be, three words, he must be apt to teach.
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And therefore, the role of the elder, the role of the pastor, the role of that office is teaching.
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So Christ is the head, he governs through his word, and his word is taught and therefore applied through that office of the elder.
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Making sense so far? But there is a second office in the church and that is the office of the deacon.
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The office of the deacon the deacon's office is not an office of teaching, it is an office of serving.
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Now you might say well don't the elders serve? Yes, and we serve gladly and gratefully.
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It's not that the elders don't serve, but the method and manner of their service is primarily in teaching, shepherding, loving
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God's people, guiding God's people, entering into the lives of God's people, dealing with the drama of life.
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All those things are part of the elder's life. A young man asked me this week, he said I'm going into seminary, what is your advice to me?
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I'm just starting seminary. I said no, this seminary will not prepare you to be a pastor.
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I said seminary will teach you many good things, will teach you how to study the word, teach you how to manage your time, teach you how to govern things like budgets and things like that.
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It will teach you how to counsel and do those things, but the only thing that teaches you how to be a pastor is being a pastor. Actually being with people in the darkest moments of their life, in the hardest moments of their life, holding their hand, praying with them, counseling them, loving them.
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You can't get that in a book. That comes from the power of the spirit and the experience of the time with people.
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That's the role of the elder, the pastors. But the deacon's job is to come alongside those elders and to provide the necessary service to the body that the elders couldn't possibly provide by themselves.
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In the sixth chapter of the book of Acts, we have what
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I call the proto -diaconate. Those men are not called deacons and we don't see the structure of the deacons in that chapter.
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But what we see is we see the apostles being overwhelmed by the work of ministry and it's taking them away from the preaching and teaching of the word and prayer.
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And so they say to the church, choose from among yourselves men of good reputation that will come and will be our hands.
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Think of it that way. We need more hands on deck. So go choose some men and bring them to us.
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We will lay hands on them and we will commission them to be the hands on deck.
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And so that begins that structure to form. I don't think the order and structure of the church came overnight.
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I think it developed that way when we see in 1 Timothy, which is obviously written much later than Acts 6, historically, we see that structure had made its way into the church and Paul writes the structure out as okay, we have this office of elder, they're going to teach, they're going to preach, they're going to be apt to do these things and then there's going to be this second office, not one that is less important but important in a different way because they're not responsible to teach but they're responsible to take what is taught and apply it.
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They're responsible to be the hands, to be the servants.
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And so the question that arises, and by the way I did put this on a screen just in case, this is the structure.
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Christ is the head, he governs by his word, the elders teach the word and the deacons serve the body.
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That's the simple structure of the New Testament church. And so the man who is called to this office, what must he be?
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What must he be? Well when we go back to Romans 12, we find ourselves with a listing of spiritual gifts and I just want for a moment to walk through this text to point out a few things to you.
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Number one, if you notice back in verse 3, Paul says, for by the grace given to me
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I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
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Now if I had a whole sermon, I could just preach that verse. There's so much here. Paul is calling the church to humility and the recognition of their giftedness.
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He's also saying that a man ought not think of himself more highly, but I would also, not to add to God's word, but think of it this way, also not more lowly, but we ought to think with right judgment.
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Some people think very highly of themselves, but some people think they don't have anything to contribute.
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Neither one of those is good. Paul wants us to think with sober judgment. I think he's actually tying this back to chapter 11 where we see there is a problem in the church where you had the
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Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians who saw each other somewhat differently. You'll remember where Paul says to the one, he says don't look at the one and think yourself higher than them.
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Don't think yourself to understand they're the root and you're the branch. Remember that?
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He said don't think yourself higher than them, so this could still be tied to that idea. And Paul is saying here we ought to understand who we are in Christ.
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We ought to look at ourselves with a sober judgment and understand that each of us is exercising a measure of faith that God has given us.
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Do you understand your faith is a gift? Do we even think of it that way?
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Often I think we consider our faith our contribution. God gave us
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Jesus, we gave him our belief. But in reality the
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Bible says that I was dead in my trespasses and sins. The Bible says that I would not have come unless God drew me.
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The Bible says that it is God who actually opened my heart to believe because my heart had no desire for him.
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You remember when Paul met Lydia and it said that God opened her heart to believe what
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Paul was teaching. Beloved I've seen that in the lives of people when they come to Christ.
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That's God's work. God opens the heart. God changes the heart. The Old Testament asks the question can the
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Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? No, neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
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We have a nature. God changes our nature. And by the way in a moment
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I'm going to talk about the qualifications for a deacon. And I just want to say this right now.
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Qualifications are very important. And a man this week asked me,
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I was talking about this text and I was talking about the qualifications and I was teaching it set free.
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And he said well if those are the qualifications none of us qualify. I said well you're right. Right now.
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I said but who's to say God's not going to change your life? I didn't qualify when
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I was younger. There was a time you didn't qualify. Amen? There was a time you didn't qualify
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Andy. You weren't a believer. Did you qualify when you weren't a believer? Absolutely not. Right?
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So God is the one who gives us the faith. He's the one who qualifies us for salvation and then qualifies us for service.
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It's him who's doing this in us. And so it goes on and says for as in one body we have many members and the members do not all have the same function so we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
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This is the same illustration Paul uses more clearly in 1 Corinthians 12 when he says the eye can't say to the ear
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I have no need of you. The ear can't say to the eye I have no need of you because if you're just an ear where would be the sense of sight?
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If you were just an eye where would be the sense of hearing? No one is called to be the exact same thing as the person next to them.
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We are a unique combination of the gifts that God has made in each of us.
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Typically one gift will rise out and show itself and so he gives a list of gifts and this list is not intended to be in any way comprehensive.
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It's not intended to be in any way absolute. These are not the only spiritual gifts as I said Romans or 1
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Corinthians 12 gives some other gifts but these particular gifts as I said I believe are demonstrated in almost every church and here are the gifts.
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He says having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. By the way that's an interesting sentence in the Greek because the word gift and the word grace are basically the same word.
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The word charis so we get the word charismatic which means to be gifted. So he basically says for by the gifts given to us or excuse me having grace or having gifts that's the word grace.
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Having grace gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. It's just interesting the way that it's structured. It's all grace.
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It's all gifts. It's all from God. Let us use them. Whatever your gift is use it
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Paul says. And then he lists prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, generosity, leading and mercy.
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Seven gifts. And then he gives the time we could walk through the room and we could show how those gifts are here in this church functioning in the body.
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It's a beautiful thing when you see how the gifts exercise in the body.
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But the one gift here that I'm wanting to focus on is this gift of service and notice
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I have it in yellow on the screen. It says if service in our serving.
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The word for service here.
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The word in the original language is what I want to point out to you because the word here for service when it says it is the word diakoneon.
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What do you think? What word do we get from that word? Deacon. Diakoneon.
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You may have heard the phrase diaconate. That's the fancy church word for the group of deacons.
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We call them the diaconate and it comes from diakoneon which means service.
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So how do you define a deacon? You define him by this. Service. That's what it is.
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And this is the gift that lacks the gift of service.
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He lacks the primary qualification for the diaconate. Now just because you have the gift of service does not mean that you're called to be a deacon.
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But if you are called to be a deacon you must have this gift. Is that making sense?
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It's like not all who have the gift of service are deacons but everyone who is a deacon must have the gift of service.
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Now I'm going to talk about Dave for a minute. Why have we asked
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Dave? Why did several months ago we go to Dave and ask him to do this?
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Because Dave demonstrated this gift. Everything we asked him to do he did not only without complaint but he did so in joy.
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He was thankful to have the opportunity to serve and he expressed that not only in words but in his actions.
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It says in the qualifications which we're going to look at in a moment, it says in those qualifications he must be tested.
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Testing doesn't mean he has to sit down and fill out an exam. Testing happens over time as you see a man over and over and over demonstrating the qualifications and qualities of a deacon you say that's the guy.
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That's how we know. The gift of service is not one that's hard to see.
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And somebody might be thinking but wait a minute aren't we all called to serve? Yes. We're also all called to be generous yet Paul says there are those who are gifted with an extra measure of generosity.
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It's a spiritual gift of generosity. We're all called to give but there are those who just happen to have an extra measure of that and in that we see that gifting express itself.
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All husbands are leaders in their houses but that doesn't mean they're all gifted with leadership to lead
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God's people in the church. So these are particular areas where this gifting demonstrates itself in a way that says that's the guy.
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That's the guy. And so a deacon must be gifted to serve.
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But you can't stop there. You can't stop just by looking at that because Paul when he wrote to Timothy he said when you are assigning this office to men, when you are qualifying, ordaining, installing and commissioning someone to this office you must look at their life to see if that's the man you want in that position.
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And here's why. The deacon is not a teacher by his words.
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Necessarily. Not saying a deacon can't teach, just to clarify that. But a deacon is not required to be a teacher by his words.
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But he is going to be a leader by example in his life and service.
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You understand? He doesn't necessarily have to stand here and do this.
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But in the body he should be a man that the rest of the body looks to and says there's one of our servant leaders exemplifying service in the body.
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And so Paul says here are the requirements for that task.
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Here are the requirements for that man. And there are two types of requirements that we see.
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If you want to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy you may. We're going to go and walk through these requirements. And by the way the requirements for the deacon are almost the same as the requirements for an elder.
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The biggest difference being the apt to teach. Deacon doesn't have to have that ability.
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But the requirements of personal integrity and spiritual discipline are almost exactly the same.
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Some of the words are slightly different but they're synonymous words as we will see.
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So if you have your Bible let's look at, and I don't have this one on the screen, but this is 1
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Timothy chapter 3. It says deacons likewise and the reason why it says likewise is because it literally just gave the requirements for elders so the word likewise there is in one sense saying in almost the same way because the elders must qualify in the same way the deacon must qualify.
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Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain.
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They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.
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Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober minded, faithful in all things.
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Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their households well.
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For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
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Alright, so as I said I believe there are two primary categories of qualification here.
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The first qualification is personal qualifications and the second is spiritual.
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Now you might say there is somewhat of a bleeding over of those two or you might differ in how I categorize each one but I see one as a practical outworking and one more as an internal inworking.
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So let's look at them briefly. The first word we see here is the deacon must be dignified.
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The word dignified here can also be translated as reverend. You ever called somebody reverend?
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It's so interesting how words get used. Reverend means to be revered, right?
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Well, that's the idea here. This speaks of his character.
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He is to have an honorable character worthy of both honor and respect in the assembly.
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He must be serious about the things that are important and he must be held in high esteem by the body.
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This is very close to the statement in Acts chapter 6 where the people are told to find men who had what?
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A good reputation. And what we are seeing here is that this person who is chosen for this office of servant must be a person whose manner and conduct has been such that the congregation affirms him in that role.
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Just a few weeks ago, we asked the congregation in a congregational meeting, do you affirm
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Dave? And everyone without exception raised their hands in affirmation.
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Several weeks before that we said, if you don't affirm him, come and talk to us. Tell us.
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Make sure we know. We need to know, does he not have in this body this qualification?
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Any person whose action or character would not be worthy of admiration and respect would not qualify for this position.
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He must be dignified. He must not be double -tongued.
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That's the ESV rendering. The word here in the Greek is dialogos. Literally means two -worded.
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It has within it the idea of saying one thing to one person and something else to someone else. It is the
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Greek equivalent of the English expression he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He is a politician.
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He's not trustworthy. He panders and deceives with his speech.
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He does not allow his yes to be yes and his no to be no as Jesus commanded.
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Ultimately a deacon must be a man known for the truth. Duplicity, double -dealing and deliberate deceptiveness would disqualify a person from being a deacon.
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This forbids gossip. We talk about people who are two -faced.
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He cannot speak nicely to a person's face and then evil about them behind their back. This is the idea of being double -tongued.
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The third qualification, and I maybe ought to ramp up a little quickly because we've got a lot, but I think each of these are worthy of consideration, amen?
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And important to think about what these mean. Not addicted to much wine. Not given or devoted to much wine is how some translations read it.
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Some people believe it means he cannot have a touch of alcohol touch his lips. Well, that's not what the text says.
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It's more clearly a person who is not given to drunkenness. A person who is not enslaved to his drinking.
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Someone might say, well isn't that a standard for all believers? Well, yes, all believers are called to be not drunkards.
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But this is particularly important in the life of the elder and the deacon because his life must not be governed by addiction.
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A deacon must have self -control and not intoxicated by strong drink. Number four, he must not be greedy for dishonest gain.
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The deacon must not be a greedy person set on personal shameful gain. There's a right way to attain what is needful for life and it is not by duplicity and it is certainly not by greed.
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It's one thing to work hard and to be thankful for what God provides for you and there's no shame in having an abundance because you've worked hard for it.
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But a man whose life is lived in pursuit of that and not the glory of God is a problem.
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Particularly, I would say this is similar to the admonishment to the elders that he not be a lover of money.
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He is to be the husband of one wife. This speaks of his faithfulness as a husband.
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Mion Gunakos Andre, he is a one woman man. He is a faithful husband, not promiscuous and certainly not polygamous.
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His commitment to his marriage is an indicator of his commitment to Christ. Thus, the requirements of faithfulness in his marriage.
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He must be a good household manager. A good rendering of this is that he be an excellent manager of his home and children.
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A person who cannot properly manage his home ought not be given responsibilities to manage God's church and that's simply prudent.
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Why would the church assign a deacon to ensure responsibilities be performed in the church when he doesn't perform those responsibilities at home?
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This would not only be a potential problem in the church but could cause a problem at home. If he's already not managing well and you give him responsibilities outside of his home, all you're doing is decreasing his ability to do what he needs to do at home.
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If a man only has time to administer in one area he should administer at home first. Now, I said there were personal requirements and spiritual requirements.
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Again, if you want to argue with how I list these, talk to Mike. He might not agree with me either.
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I like to put things in categories and I see the first listing as personal character qualities.
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But now we're going to look at the spiritual side. It says he must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.
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Now, what does that mean? What is the mystery of the faith? Well, at the end of this chapter,
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Paul refers to the mystery of godliness when he writes in verse 16, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
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God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
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In that verse, Paul uses the term mystery of godliness to refer to the Christian faith. Therefore, I think the context of what he means by the mystery of the faith is that very thing.
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He must hold the Christian faith with a clear conscience. He should know what he believes and why he believes it.
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He doesn't have to teach, but by goodness, he's got to know what he believes. I remember one time we were doing the fishing hole, which is our booth that we set up.
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We go out and do evangelism, hand out gospel tracts, talk to people. We set it up over here next to the
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Chick -fil -A. They had a vendor fair, and we were over there handing out gospel tracts, talking to people.
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Above our booth is a sign, and the sign asked this question, do you understand the gospel?
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By the way, one of the best ways to enter into a gospel conversation is to simply ask somebody, do you understand the gospel? Because if they do, great, talk about it.
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If they don't, can I explain it to you? It's a two way of getting into a conversation.
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We have this sign, do you understand the gospel? Guy walks up, he looked at the sign, he looked at me, and he said, well that's a hard question.
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I said, oh really, what do you do? I'm a preacher. Dude, that's in your job description.
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You a preacher, a pastor, and you think, do you understand the gospel is a hard question? A deacon ought to be able to explain the gospel to someone.
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An elder better be able to explain the gospel to somebody. They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.
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Ultimately, what this is saying is that a deacon must hold to the faith in Christ as the only forgiveness of sins, the very object of the
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Christian message, and know that he has received that forgiveness. Not only does he know the gospel, he has been the recipient of the blessing of that gospel.
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His faith must be sincere. And, you might think this next one should have gone under personal, and again, not arguing categories with you today.
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He must be found blameless. He must prove himself blameless.
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The word for blameless here literally means unrebukable.
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It's the same idea for an elder who is commanded to be above reproach. It does not mean perfect.
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It couldn't, because then no man would qualify. But what it does mean is that he is in a position where no one is able to lay hold of him or assail him because of his lifestyle.
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I've given this illustration dozens of times. You've probably heard it before, but one more ain't going to hurt you.
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The difference really here is between a flagpole and a coat rack. A coat rack is designed with all of these things that stick out of it that are intended to hang things on.
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A flagpole is smooth. You can't go up and hang something on a, you can't hang your jacket on a flagpole to fall off because there's nothing sticking out.
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To be blameless means his life before the congregation, before his family, before him, he understands
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I'm not perfect, but there's nothing obvious in my life that's sticking out. John Calvin, in his commentary on this verse, said this.
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Deacons ought not to be marked by any disgrace that would detract from his authority. There will certainly not be found a man who is free from every fault, but it is one thing to be burdened with the ordinary faults that do not hurt a man's reputation because the most excellent men share them, but quite another to have a name that is held in infamy and besmirched by some scandalous disgrace.
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Thus, in order that the bishops may not lack authority, he gives charge that those who are chosen should be of good and honorable reputation and free of any extraordinary fault.
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Also, he is not merely directing Timothy as to the sort of men he should choose, but he is reminding all who aspire to the office that they should carefully examine their own life.
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See, the examination should happen in the life of the person before it happens from the church or the elders.
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There is a test, and we test the men. We have conversations with them.
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We call them into meetings. We ask them questions. We sit down with their wives.
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Is he qualified? By the way, ain't nobody know you better than her, and ain't nobody know if you ain't better than her.
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And also, do you understand that when this man takes this role, it's going to affect your house because he's going to have responsibilities that go beyond your home now.
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The person must demonstrate over a period of time that these things are the true condition of his life.
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We are not to install a deacon and then see if he is blameless. We are to install a deacon after we have tested him to see if he is blameless.
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That's what the text says. Now, why is this list so comprehensive?
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Because this isn't a small thing. As I said earlier, in some churches, the deacons are over given to authority.
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The deacons are in charge of everything. But in some churches, they only are titles, and they do nothing.
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But in a well -balanced body, they are the servant examples to the church. Not given too much, but not given too little.
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But a balanced position of servant leadership to demonstrate to the body what we all should aspire to, and that is to serve
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Christ well. Because when a deacon serves, he is emulating
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Christ himself. Christ is the ultimate example of service. As he said to us in Matthew 20, where he said to his disciples, it says in Matthew 20, 25,
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Jesus called them and said, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones exercised authority over them.
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It shall not be among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your what? Servant.
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And whoever would be first among you must be your? Slave. Even as the
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Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. Christ is the ultimate example of service.
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And so the man who serves in that office is to represent Christ to the church.
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And Christ served in his humility as one who loved his people and was willing to lay down his life for them.
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Now, I want to draw to a conclusion by giving a practical application.
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Not all of you are called to be deacons, but we're all in this together. We're all part of this body.
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We're Sovereign Grace Family Church, this local body. How should we pray for this man who is about to go into this position?
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How should we pray for him and his family? And what is expected, the
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Orthodox Presbyterian Church established a manual for elders and deacons.
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And when they hand out this list, they say this is what a deacon should do.
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So when we're praying today for Dave and we're saying, what is he getting into? Don't be afraid.
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Don't you run away. What should the deacon do?
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Deacons should know the members of the congregation. They should know the needs of the body.
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This is the list. Literally, I just read you the list. The deacon should know someone is a member of the congregation.
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They should know someone is elderly and may have needs. They should know someone is housebound and may need to have extra attention.
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They should know if someone is hospitalized or institutionalized and may need to be visited or cared for.
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They should know if a mother in a home is ill who may need help providing the necessary things for her children and her husband.
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They should know someone in the church with a handicap who might need some aid during worship.
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They need to know someone who is a widow or a widower who may need love and affection and even more care than an average church member.
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They need to know if a family is suffering a financial hardship or even a bankruptcy so that they can provide to the elders the information so that those needs can be met.
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They should know if someone was out of work or hurting. Now here's the thing.
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Deacons aren't clairvoyant. How are they going to know those things? You have to tell them.
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You've got to have a relationship with them. That's their job. To care.
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Your job is to trust them to care. To go to them in need and trust that they will be the men the scripture calls them to be when you are in need.
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And you might be thinking, that seems like a lot to expect.
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It is a lot to expect and that's why this role is so serious.
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And there's nothing in that list I just gave that you wouldn't expect of your pastors. And these men are to be the hands of the church.
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Beloved, we're about to ordain this man. Let us even in this moment begin to pray for him.
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That God would give him an extra measure of the spirit to do those things that are needful. And may we as a body encourage him in his service.
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Edify him when he fails. Encourage him when he needs. And entrust to him our needs when they arise.
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Beloved, when the church functions like it's supposed to, it is a mirror of that gospel
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I mentioned earlier. Christ is the head. His word is the governing document.
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The elders teach the word and the deacons minister in the body.
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And all of that together is a picture of this wonderful truth that we have. That God in his mercy has through his gospel provided us all that we need for life and godliness.
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And so, if you're here today and you don't know the gospel,
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I want to tell you briefly that the Bible says that every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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That God sent his only son to die on behalf of all who would believe. And if you place your trust in him alone, recognizing your sin deserves
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God's punishment, but Christ's righteousness can cover your sin. He will not only give you forgiveness, but he will give you eternal life.
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And if that's you and you don't have that today, please find one of us and talk to us as we come to a close of our service.
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Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to be reminded of this important reality of what we are about to do.
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We're going to take the table and then we're going to ordain a deacon. Lord, as we take the table, may it be that we are reminded of the body and blood of Christ, the one who died and lives forevermore as our intercessor.
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And Lord, be with us as we ordain Brother Dave. In Jesus' name.