Transcript

1 Timothy 3. We will conclude our dealing with the servant office of deacon in the church today as we’re going through 1 Timothy. We’re calling this exposition of 1 Timothy “Beautifying the Bride,” because that’s exactly what Paul is doing. He’s writing to Timothy as Timothy has been left in Ephesus to oversee the continuation of the structuring and initiating the proper functions of the local church. Now everything the local church needs is not in 1 and 2 Timothy but much of what we need to fashion the church, structure it, and to function as the church is there.

Now look, remind yourselves this isn’t about just having an efficient machine. This isn’t just about structuring so that we’re effective and accomplish certain goals like a business. We may use some business ideas but that’s not what we’re about. We’re about the glory of God, that God’s wisdom and God’s power and God’s beauty is seen in his church. So we want to be very intentional and very thorough about being biblical in fashioning the church and functioning as a church.

So 1 Timothy 3 and we begin reading there in verse 8. 1 Timothy 3:8,

8 Deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued, or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, 9 but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 These men must also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. 11 Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. 12 Deacons must be husbands of only one wife, and good managers of their children and their own households. 13 For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

Now in our first installment of unpacking this section of Scripture, I told you a good analogy was to view deacons as the white blood cells of the local church body. Your white blood cells are within your system so that should there be a virus or a bacteria come in to weaken the body, to hinder the effectiveness of the physical body, the white blood cells go and attack, they en masse swarm to the issue and try to remove it so the body can go on. And you know what’s interesting, we don’t think much about white blood cells, we don’t see them except in an infected sore, that white pus is actually white blood cells who gave their lives to protect the body, and that’s a good picture of what deacons are. Ah, as the scientists, biological scientists tell us white blood cells are the first- responders in your body if there’s an issue, so deacons are the first-responders in the church if there’s an issue that might weaken or hinder or cause the church not to function therefore hindering God’s beauty and God’s glory being cast forth from the church. So deacons have a very important role.

I said last week that if there were a schism in the church or if there was two brothers having a squabble together, or two sisters having a fight, or anything going on that begins to hinder our witness or the health of the church, the first question the pastor should ask is, “Where are my deacons? They should be on that. They should be fixing that. They should be calling those people into account and resolving that so the church can go forward.” And I might say to you and it’s not true in many places, but I have wonderful deacons in this church. Wonderful deacons. You say, “I’m not even sure who they are.” Well, that doesn’t matter. You haven’t never named all your white blood cells in your body, have you? But you just know they’re working and they’re taking care of stuff and that’s the way our men are, that’s just, they don’t care about the notoriety or the glory, they want to do what God’s commissioned them to do, and I appreciate them greatly.

Um, we know that Satan’s chief ploy is to undermine, attack, weaken, ah, ah, discredit, hinder the preaching of the word and the elder leadership of the church, and so Paul dealt with that quite thoroughly first, the qualifications for God-called elders or pastors. Now he deals with deacons because a great great strength, I, I think an essential pillar of a successful preaching ministry or successful church in general is that it must have men in the office of deacon who do the servant work of being those first-responders of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We talked at length about how, ah, the concept of deacons has become warped and perverted in so many Baptist or evangelical churches today, in so many churches the deacons become a board of authority and the pastor is the guy they hire, he answers to them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Completely unbiblical. Um, and, and, and one of the great weaknesses there is we haven’t ever developed the office of elder to understand how the office of deacon works in harmony with that office. And so to help the church and I think very often with sincere motives, men in the office of deacon have taken authority because nobody else would take care of things, and I understand that but, ah, in a biblical concept that’s not where we should have landed.

Now we talked about the qualifications for deacon and we began going through these and now we’ve come down to the one there, let’s see, it’s in verse 10, he must be beyond reproach. Let me just glean through the others real quickly. In verse 8, he has to be a man of dignity. He cannot be double-tongued. He cannot be addicted to much wine. He cannot be fond of sordid gain. And he must know doctrine quite well, that is, verse 9, he holds to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And then he says these men must, must first be tested, verse 10, and now here’s where we are today, and they must be above reproach. Now we’ve dealt with this again dealing with elders and that literally means nothing sticks. There is no pattern of willful or wanton sin in his life that if he’s accused of that, it just doesn’t stick. It doesn’t mean he’s perfect. That’s why I use the word “pattern” because if you go to watching a man’s life for 30 or 40 years, you’re gonna find things where he’s blown it a time or two, or if he’s a sinner like me, he has. But it should be noted that these men cannot have a clear pattern so than an accusation that this is the way he is, has no credibility, it just doesn’t stick. He’s above reproach.

Then he says here in verse 11 wives, and he says, wives must be dignified. Ah, this is the same thing he said about the men earlier when he says they have to be, have dignity or men who are worthy of respect.

Then wives must not be malicious gossips. It’s kind of interesting, for the men he said not double-tongued, but for the ladies he says they must not be gossipers or you could say slanderers.

Then he says the ladies must be temperate which is the idea of being well-balanced. They have matured to the place where they don’t get, um, out of balance with the things that matter versus the things that really don’t matter. My goodness, what a, what a pilgrimage God had to take me on as a young man in the ministry to repent often and learn, “No, this is a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. This is a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.” And so he says when a, when a, when a lady is serving with her husband who’s a deacon, she must be a wife who has matured somewhat to know, can I just say it, ladies, straightforward? Not get caught up in this silly drama that happens so often in some fellowships. They know, they’re just above that kind of thing and being drawn into those kind of things.

And then faithful in all things, the Bible says in verse 11. Um, the idea, of course, is when it comes to her home, when it comes to taking care of her husband, when it comes to her children, when it comes to her church, there is a pattern not perfect but in these ladies there’s a pattern of faithfulness.

Now you might ask yourself why in the middle of this, ah, character qualifications for men in the office of deacon they just start talking about wives. Well, some churches hold this literally means that women can be deacons or they’re called deaconesses. Matter of fact, we see that in the Bible. Ah, Dr. John MacArthur’s church has deaconesses and, ah, Baptists have historically just said, “Whoa! Wait a minute, that’s not right! We can’t do that.” Well, we don’t think that’s the proper interpretation but when you understand what some good brothers teach here, it begins to make sense. For example, the deaconesses in their churches primarily take care of shut-ins and widows. They’re just a non-seen, non- authoritative body to serve needs in the body that are very special needs and needs that need special attention. So in that sense, are you listening to me this morning? All of our ladies small group leaders are deaconesses. They serve and care and minister to the body and in one sense all of our men small group leaders are deacons because when you pull this out of, um, maybe what has evolved over the ages in church life, you understand the New Testament is just simply talking about brothers and sisters who don’t mind serving and don’t mind if they don’t get any credit for it. In that sense, we’ve got lots of deaconesses. But however I do believe the Scriptures are pointing out here there is a distinct office of deacons who take care of special needs in the body and, um, that’s the way we approach it here at Grace Life Church. Um, typically primarily our small groups get those jobs done but sometimes there’s a special need that requires extra energy, extra time etc. and our deacons will step in as a team or as a body and help address that and help get that fixed.

Now here’s the thought that I think is most important as to why right in the middle of these qualifications he start talking, he starts talking about wives, and I think that’s likely because as deacons minister in the body of Christ, very often, I don’t know if you’d say the majority of time but probably, possibly the majority of time when they minister, they’re ministering to ladies because very often it’s a, it’s a widow lady or a lady who has a special need and she doesn’t have the kind of men in her life to take care of that so these deacons are men who go in, especially in the case of a lady being an elderly person, and they make sure things are taken care of. We’ve had our deacons and other men of the church help all kinds of needs with our widow ladies, and when they do that, it’s proper, I might even say essential, that their wives work alongside them. And very often in those cases, the wives of the deacons do as much service or moreso than the men because, quite honestly, ladies need to be ministering to ladies and it’s certainly not right for a man in any way, shape or fashion to be in any private setting ministering to a lady. The wife should be there.

So that’s why I think he brings the wives out because so often these wives, and thank God for the wives of our church leaders and the way they minister and the way they serve. They go side by side with their husbands, especially getting involved when single ladies, orphans and widows have special needs in the church.

Alright, so like overseers, deacons must also be men of quality but we remind ourselves that the deacon’s function is significantly different from the elder’s function in the local church. Literally again, they are considered servants, diakonos is the word in the Greek, it simple means table server or a servant.

Now go to verse 12 as we continue to unfold these qualifications. He says deacons must be the husbands of only one wife. Now again in this culture, polygamy was known and promiscuity was radically embraced and practiced. The pagans or the secularists of this day, are, were much like the secularists of our day where, ah, actually just living in open promiscuity is just a sign of the times, it’s just consistent with the culture. Matter of fact, in the ancient world to be Corinthian literally meant to fornicate. That city had become so synonymous with sexual immoralities that became a nickname for sexual impurity, to be Corinthian. So he’s saying here once a man gets saved and he comes into the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that no longer marks his life. He is known to be faithful to one woman. He is a one-woman man. That’s literally what that phrase, husbands of one wife, translates out as, a one-woman man.

And then good managers of their children and their own households and again like we talked about when dealing with elders, we said that, um, the demonstration of a man’s ability to manage and take care of things is first seen and ought to be witnessed in the way he manages and oversees his own household. Not perfectly, matter of fact, some of our best leaders and you learn things when you’ve been at a place almost 40 years, but some of our best leaders are men who went through some tough things in raising children but they responded right. They were humble and they addressed those things the best way they knew how and we’ve seen some sweet victories through all of that.

Now that is the qualifications for the deacon, let’s go to II and let’s talk about the job description and we’re gonna go to a new text, you might have guessed this, let’s go to Acts 6. Would you do that? Turn over to the book of Acts 6 and let’s talk about the job description. Now it’s interesting when you’re dealing with Timothy, you’re further along in progressive revelation. Here’s what I mean by that: chronologically some time has passed by the time Paul writes the letter to Timothy and the structure and the order of church and church life is further developed. When we go to Acts 6, the church is just starting and we see some of the first structures of the local church being developed as the church has been through this incredible, once for all event called Pentecost, this miraculous once for all event of pouring out the Holy Spirit, miraculous signs, wonders and miracles, thousands upon thousands upon thousands are being converted, they’re being baptized and they’re brought into the church and they start having troubles. You ever seen that before? And so immediately God leads through his church leaders to pin this to give us the first, I would, ah well, I will say it that way, the first structures to help the church go along in order and, um, in effectiveness so that the ministry of the church and the witness of Christ is not diminished.

So let’s look at it together. Acts 6, let’s go to verses 1 through 7.

1 Now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews [that’s the Greek or Roman Jews] against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

Now I just can’t resist this temptation. Here you have racism in the early church. Are you listening? Racism. Now in today’s evangelical culture, there are some who wants to take this concept of racism and developed a six month seminary or graduate school course on it, and God just deals with it in three or four verses and goes on. And that’s the thing we run into, people want to intellectualize and philosophize. Brothers and sisters, where there’s hate, where there’s a lack of love in whatever form it takes, call it racism, discrimination, whatever. Some people hate somebody else because they got a position they wanted in the church. Somebody hates somebody else because their skin color is not right. I don’t know what it is. Any time it’s hate, it’s wrong. Any time it’s hate or unloving, it’s sin. You know what we do? We call them out on it, we call them to repentance and if they repent, they ask forgiveness and we go on and serve God. Man, you should amen right there. We don’t need elaborate, secular, atheistic, godless systems of defining racism to help us. We just don’t need it. The Bible is either sufficient or it is not and here’s what happens, when they get you tangled up in all of that, here’s the, now listen to me, church, here’s what happens, they call it critical race theory, they call it intersectionality, and what they’re saying is we need this to help us understand and apply the Bible. No, we do not. This is not elaborate, sophisticated, unique thing. Men have hated since they fell in the garden of Eden. Men have sinned against one another since they fell in the garden of Eden. Man have had prejudice one to another since they fell in the garden of Eden. Men have had ought with one another since they fell in the garden of Eden and you can’t have more of a racist, ah, hate system, at least I don’t think you can, than the Greeks and Hebrews had of the ancient world. And here they are in the same church and they’re trying to deal with it.

So what’s gonna happen here? Now that’s kind of a side note. Matter of fact, the emphasis of the text is not on the racism, the emphasis on the text is get through it, get over it and be a church again. Brothers and sisters, we don’t need this whole system of victimization, making all of these, ah, charges of these systemic problems. The church and the world has a great, deep, abiding, systemic problem, it’s sin. It’s sin. But we seem to let the godless secularist intimidate the church into saying if we don’t start talking their language and defining sin, i.e. racism, bigotry, whatever it is, misogyny, all of these fancy, sexist, all these fancy words. Look, if somebody’s being done wrong, it’s sin. Period. If a woman’s done wrong, it’s sin. It needs to be dealt with. Period. Let’s don’t make special victim groups unless they’re really there. Now if they’re really there, let’s deal with it. But this creation of all this stuff to help us understand how to administer justice when the people who came up with these concepts do not know the God of justice. Well, I’m chasing a rabbit but I planned on stomping him to death when I get to him too.

Here’s what I’m saying, brothers, and I believe good brothers and sisters deal with some of this. I, I believe that. Any time the church begins to entertain worldly philosophies to help us be better Christians, we’re in trouble. Just think about that notion. We need the wisdom of the unregenerate to help us know how to be kind, loving, forgiving and deal with sin? Are you serious? But that’s the kind of stuff that’s floating around out there. If you don’t view it the way they tell you to view it, if you don’t, if you don’t show compassion the way they say to show compassion, if you’re not calling this out the way they say you ought to call it out, then you’re not a good Christian. I don’t need the unregenerate world to tell me how to be a good Christian, I need the word of God to tell me how to be a good Christian.

Don’t be intimidated by this intellectualizing and, oh my gosh, I’ve read some of the statements evangelicals are putting out wrestling with the social justice movement and all this stuff, and by the time they get through, I need about four hours just to dissect what they’re saying, and secondly, by the time they get through, they sort of thrown a bone to everybody trying to keep all groups happy.

Well, the Greek Jews were complaining because the Hebrew Jews were receiving favoritism in the distribution of the daily food. So verse 2,

2 So the twelve summoned the congregation [that’s the 12 apostles] of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. 4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” 5 The statement found approval with the whole congregation; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch. 6 And these they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them. 7 The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

Now I, I, I want, now as another side note, look at verse 7, that first phrase, “and the word of God kept on spreading.” Now that’s what Satan’s trying to stop. He’ll use every sophisticated well-meaning concept, idea, theory, new viewpoint, new, new approach to understanding things. He’ll use everything in the world to get our attention to do certain things instead of advancing the word of God.

So we have a problem in this church and God does something here to remedy it. Before I unpack it a little bit, just looking back through church history, Leo Garrett, Jr., who was a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, outlined some things from church history about what the early church said about deacon service. Calvin, for example, taught that deacons were to be engaged in the care of the poor. In the European Confession of 1632, they identified the duties of the deacons as the care of the poor, support of the minister, and to exhort the church. John Smith, very early Baptist, 1609, identified the task of the deacons as the care of the poor and the sick. The Propositions and Conclusions, 1612-1614, declared that deacons are to serve tables and wash the saints’ feet. The Standard Confession of 1660 among the general Baptists said deacons were to be engaged in the care of the poor. The First London Confession of 1644 said the fourfold ministry of deacons was feeding, governing, serving and building up the church. And then the Baptist Summary of Discipline of 1773 in the Charleston Baptist Association said that elders or pastors were one office and the highest office of the church, and deacons who were inferior in the service of the church are relative, or rather to relieve the minister from the secular concerns of the church, and they expanded on that to say they are responsible for the table of the Lord, to help in the Lord’s Supper, the minster’s table to make sure their pastors were paid well, and thirdly, to serve the table of the poor. So this gives you an idea through church history how various groups of particularly Baptists have viewed the office of deacon.

Now the job description. I’ll begin, A in our outline, with that he, his job or a deacon’s job is to stop murmuring and to meet needs. And that’s what we have here, we have a case where evidently, well, it’s, the text bears out it was happening. A certain ethnic group was not being cared for because of their ethnicity as they ought to have been cared for, and so the preaching, now this is interesting. Now right now in, in, in our culture and in, in some evangelical circles, if you’d say there’s an evidence of some people being, um, discriminated against because of their ethnicity in the church, they’d stop and have a five year conference on it and study it, and God just says get it fixed and go on. Deal with it, yes. Call the guilty parties to repentance and they must show genuine repentance, then forgive each other and hug each other’s neck and go on to serve the Lord. Isn’t it amazing how wise the Bible is? But we want to let everybody know how intellectual we are, how thorough we can be, how we deeply care for these afflicted groups. Not what the Bible does. Those who are sinned against ought to be taken care of and looked after and it ought to be fixed.

So there was a murmuring about it and these guys were to get it nipped in the bud. So these first deacons, I believe they are, were set aside to fix this particular problem, make sure all the folks in our church are ministered to and there’s no discrimination because one comes from one ethnic background and one comes from another. Now there’s no doubt the local church is to be ruled by elders. The local church is not a pure democracy, biblically speaking. It is ruled by Spirit-appointed pastors or elders. At the same time, it’s definitely not a dictatorship. So here we have in the word of God the first hint of the happy and divine blending of pastoral and in this case, apostolic authority and congregational activity working in unison to fix a problem in the affairs of the church. So these men, there was a murmuring and a complaining because an ethnic group was being discriminated against and the Bible says get the deacons on it to stop this murmuring, to fix this dissension in the church.

Secondly, their duty is to free the pastor to study and to preach. Look at verse 2 of our text, ” So the twelve,” that’s the apostles or the men functioning as pastors, “the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, ‘It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables.'” Now, now again, in today’s social progressive climate that’s crept into the church, these guys would have been blasted as bigots, not caring and racist and all kinds of terrible words, because they basically said, “We’re not gonna fool with this. We’ve got more important things to do.” Basically they’re saying, “Do you not see that while this needs to be fixed and these dear ladies do not need to be neglected any longer, nevertheless this is a ploy of Satan to get us away from our primary task, preaching the word and preaching the Gospel.”

Church, are you listening to me? Every five or eight or ten years at the most, the world’s gonna float another deep concerning thing that the church ought to embrace so it swallows up our energies to get us away from the ministry of the word. Church, are you listening to your pastor this morning? This is important. You be very aware of the latest fad and trend that the culture tries to press on the church and they’ll use all this guilt motivation, “Well, you don’t really care if you don’t do this. You’re not really Christian if you don’t do… You’re not really loving if you don’t do this. You’re actually being a bigot. You’re actually racist yourself. You’re actually a misogynist, you hate women, if you don’t do this the way we say to do it.” And what the pastors ought to say, “Well, we’re against everything that’s sin but we’re not gonna neglect our primary calling and duty, the preaching of the word of God to build up God’s church, to follow your fanciful latest fad.” I had no idea when I decided to preach through 1 Timothy that I’d be dealing with this text at this time in our ministry in our time together, but isn’t God providential in these things?

So their job was to take care of this discriminative neglect issue against the Greek Jewish ladies so that they could free the pastors to do what God had called them to do, in this case they say very clearly, to, um, to, ah, well, not to neglect the word of God. Later they elaborate on what they’re talking about as far as studying and preaching. So the point is since the pastors could not be everywhere and do everything, the pastors would concentrate on what they had been called to do and that’s minister the word of God.

Alright, thirdly, C in their job description, they have to be a churn, rather affirmed by the church body. Now I love this truth and this a, a cardinal element, if you will, of Baptist life. Though Baptist people in Baptist history have held to the biblical truth of pastoral or elder authority, we have always had a congregational element which means there’s a balance there. Your elders must lead and oversee but important decisions should be brought to the body and so and that’s exactly what we do here at Grace Life. When it’s time to install men in the office of deacon, we allow you to nominate and we take your nominations and then the elders review those and then we present those men as men in the office of deacon. Same process in the office of elder. So it does not negate the biblical mandate of pastoral or elder authority but it includes the pastoral, the biblical rather principle of congregational influence. I love the balance. That’s why I love the word of God. This wisdom is better than all of man’s wisdom of all of the ages put together. We do not need the world’s wisdom to do God’s work, we need the word of God.

So these men were selected by the church. Look at verse 3, the pastors says, “Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task.” So the congregation did that and they selected good men, men who were respected by their proven integrity and unblemished character. They were godly men. They were to be full of the Holy Spirit. They were gifted men, full of wisdom. They have the kind of wisdom that they could probably handle this so that we don’t have to leave our studies to come back and fix it, and that’s one of the most, ah, devastating things. I, I, I mentor pastors all week long every week and as I talk to these guys, over and over and over again pastors have to address and fix things in the church they shouldn’t have to fool with, but it’s because their men are too weak and too immature and lack the wisdom to handle it.

I have right the opposite of the problem. I have more men than I could probably use who I think are capable men of fixing stuff, and not all of them are deacons, by the way, just our men in our church. Just good men who have wisdom and see something and say, “That needs to be fixed this way. Dah, dah, dah.” So many things just get fixed and I never have to fool with it anymore. Well, what I do tell these guys it hasn’t always been this way. There was a good 20-25 years before these things begin to function like we enjoy today in our church, and my hat’s off to you and my commendation to you, brothers and sisters, for being the men and women of God you are and blessing me in my role as your preaching pastor.

Well, fourthly, not only are they to stop murmuring and meet needs, not only are they to free the pastor to study and preach, thirdly, they must be affirmed by the church, and then fourthly, they are to honor the pastor’s authority. So notice how these pastors here though the congregation is involved in selecting them, these men are still under the authority of their church pastors.

Look at chapter 3, chapter 6, verse 3, the last phrase. Let me just read all of it to get the flow of the context. “Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” notice, “whom we,” not you, church, “whom we,” the pastors, “will put in charge of this task.” They will be under us. They will be accountable to us. You have selected them but they will work under our authority. We may put them in charge of this task.

Now look at verse 6, “And they brought before the apostles,” and these, rather, “they brought before the apostles; and after praying, they laid their hands on them.” So these are the church elders or pastors laying their hands on these deacons. Now what did this mean in the cultural context? Well, laying on the hands was very common in Jewish culture, in the Jewish religious system. What did the priest do as a pattern of conviction when the people brought their sacrifices to the temple to be sacrificed? He would lay his hands on it and when he laid his hands on that sacrifice, what he was saying was is that he identified with it. He’s saying, “Now God, this animal now represents us before You. We’re sacrificing this animal but they’re an extension of us.” So it formally identifies these new deacons with their apostles or men who at this point are functioning in the office of pastor of this local church. So this was a public accreditation for these men to function in the church on behalf of the church elders.

Now through the years there’s been an understanding that I think is a little out of balance, matter of fact, I think it might be much out of, I don’t think it’s evil, I just think it’s not healthy and best, and that is that the notion that the deacons maintain or oversee the material or financial realm of the church and the elders just oversee the spiritual or ministerial parts of the church. Kinda, sorta, but not really because the Bible doesn’t bear that out. For example, on at least two occasions in the New Testament when they raised offerings and presented them to other churches who had need, the Bible very explicitly says they came and laid the offerings not at the deacons’ feet but at the elders’ feet or at, I should say, at the apostles’ feet. And so instead of saying, well, they have this role and that role, the Bible doesn’t show that picture. It shows elders overseeing the totality of the church and then it shows deacons functioning under that oversight to take care of needs. That’s exactly the way Acts 6 unfolds duties of deacons.

Now III, the reward of faithful deacons. Now you need to go back to, keep your finger in Acts 6 or your Bible ribbon, but go back to our original text, 1 Timothy 3, and this is just a, a, a very, ah, encouraging, precious and important statement that the Bible says here about deacons. Look at verse 13 of 1 Timothy 3, “For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing,” you could say a good standing. So the first, first reward is they’ve earned a high regard. They have earned a high regard. As the church watches their genuine, as the church watches their humility, as the church watches their wisdom and effectiveness in fixing things so that we might go on in harmony without distractions and troubles in the church, the church begins to say that is a very very important ministry in the church. A deacon who deacons properly, will begin to obtain a high regard among those who are serving alongside them in the church.

And I think one of the things, and this is, this is I think part of the wisdom God gives you if you pastor a long time in one place, as the years roll by and the preaching of the word impacts your life under the power of the Spirit and it begins to change you as a husband, it begins to change you as a wife, it begins to mature your home, it begins to give you new joys in who God is, it begins to give you new treasures and pleasures in the wonders of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ, and you begin to appreciate, that doesn’t just happen, that takes much much much study and labor and prayer so that my pastor can give me these rich truths. And then you say to yourself how is he able to do that? There’s only one way he’s able to do that, good men around him take care of stuff so he can give us what we have to have. So you begin not only as the Bible requires to hold your pastor in high esteem, you begin to have a high regard for the men who enable him to do what he does, and I can guarantee you going into the end of my fourth decade of ministry here, there’s no way I could do what I do if I didn’t have an army of good men. It’s amazing how biblically effective you men take care of things for the glory of God, and now we would not be exaggerating to say, there are thousands of church leaders around the world to one measure or another follow our example. That could never, that’s not Jeff Noblit, that’s us. That could never happen if you men didn’t do what you do in the body of Christ. Isn’t God’s wisdom good? Isn’t it good when you see, now by the way, I’ve bragged on you guys a lot but you’re not perfect yet, neither is your pastor, so let’s just keep repenting and keep growing, amen? You might be tested in the next few weeks. Might be something pop up in the next few weeks and you’ve gotta be men like these men of Acts 6, take, get it taken care of.

Now brothers, when the Bible says you take care of this, you don’t go in with a sledgehammer and a sword. You’re wiser than that. Your humility goes before you. Your meekness goes with you. Are you listening to your pastor? The Bible says you consider yourself lest you too be tempted. You’re aware that whatever I’m trying to fix here, I could be the next one needing fixing. So we’re gonna fix it but we’re gonna be aware I could be the next guy so I want to do this with gentleness but with clarity. But thank you for being those kind of men. You, you earn a high regard in the church family.

Secondly, you gain a confidence of assurance in your faith. Here’s what I mean by that, the flesh can mimic this for a season. Oh, about 40 years ago, 35 years ago, there began a, a, a healthy movement in evangelical churches that began to say deacons need to be serving the body, they don’t need to be serving as a ruling board over the body. That’s unbiblical, so there was a movement in evangelical and Baptist life to get deacons back to deaconing again, back to serving the body, and a lot of guys took off and they did some good things but it didn’t last very long. You know why? It takes the enablement of the Spirit of God to serve long-term with sweet humility for the good of the church and the glory of God. The flesh can’t do it long-term. Flesh can mimic it for a while but then he gets mad about it. “Why do I have to do all this? I shouldn’t have to. Why aren’t they doing it? What about that and there?” Flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh. Hey, and by the way, we all got some of it, amen? But we don’t have to live in it either. When we catch it, we repent of it and say it’s my glory and it’s my honor to serve the body of Christ whether anybody else does.

What do I mean by that? When you walk in that kind of Gospel humility and serve the body of Christ and you don’t become bitter or envious, it affirms to you the Spirit of God must be in this because I’d never do it. The Spirit of God must be enabling me because I’d be in the flesh by now. You ever been married before and you determine as the years go by you’re gonna love and you’re gonna honor and you’re gonna be sweet and you’re gonna respect, and you realize one day I’d a never done this if God hadn’t helped me? I woulda, it just wouldn’t have happened if God’s strength hadn’t helped me get here. Same thing. That kind of humble deacon service long term affirms you that you are one the work of the Holy Spirit is, has made and is continuing to work in.

3. The church goes forward in true success. The church goes forward in true success. Now this is back in Acts 6:7, would you turn back over there real quick? Acts 6:7, verse 7. Now here we have a text where according to the way the world would define it, there was racism in the church. It was dealt with. Now, now men of God were dealing with this and that’s what they said, these were men of wisdom full of the Holy Spirit, then they called the people to repentance who were wrong here but, brothers, when there’s repentance, you forgive and you go on and work together, and then what happens? When you get things like that dealt with and you don’t belabor them, you don’t write papers over them, you don’t fly banners about them, you just deal with it, you just deal with it, and then what happens? Verse 7 of Acts 6, “The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.” The church went forward in true success.

Now notice that verse does not say and they became a model of combating racism in the world. No, racism’s a secondary, racism is another sin and it’s to be confronted and dealt with and we go on. We don’t make it this big idol that we constantly bring up all the time. It is a problem and we address it, and if it’s a problem in this church, let me know because I don’t see it anywhere. But I can tell you this much: being unloving from time to time is a problem. Being unthoughtful to a brother or sister from time to time is a problem. Not caring for someone because they don’t fit your niche. I’m a little more, I’m not gonna say that. Because they don’t fit your niche, you may not love them like you do a brother or sister who fits your little niche in life. We all do that from time to time but we can repent of it and go on. Don’t have to make it this big thing. And then what happens? The church doesn’t get distracted by worldly definitions of what she’s to be about and she gets back to the word of God, building God’s ministry God’s way for God’s glory.

So Grace Life Church of the Shoals, it is a side note, we’re taking about deacons but this is a red hot issue in Baptist and evangelical circles right now, we are not chasing the fads, we are not gonna listen to what the world defines for us as good Christian ministry, we’re gonna stay with the book. And anytime somebody says to you, “Well, Grace Life, y’all don’t care about the bigotry problem. Y’all don’t care about the misogynist problem.” Loo, say, “You show us where the sin is and we’ve got a 30 year track record that we’ll deal with it.” Amen. Whole lot of these people talking about dealing with stuff and they’ve never deal with anything, they just talk about it. You show me the hate, you show me the unloving and we’ll deal with it, starting with me. But I’m not gonna let the world define for us what Christian ministry looks like. This book defines it for us and it always will.

Well, that’s the qualifications for men in the office of deacon and that’s the job description for men in the office of deacon. Thank you, men, not only the men in the office but so many of our men who are living out this reality, and let’s keep going and let’s do even better for the glory of God.