Deacons

Timothy chapter three verses eight through thirteen. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning you can find the text in the back of your order of worship. So I say to you here the word of God

deacons likewise must be dignified not double-toned not addicted to much wine not greedy for dishonest gain they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first and then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless their wives likewise must be dignified not slanderers but sober-minded faithful in all things let deacons each be the husband of one wife managing their children in their own households well 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 let us pray. Father I pray this morning that as we consider the office of deacon that we would see most clearly how this office is is lived out and borne out in the person work of Jesus I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking in Christ's name we pray these things amen amen well if you were here last week you know that I'm doing a short series only two sermons on offices in the church and I was in collotions and I'm going to go back to collotions after this week but one of the reasons I stopped to preach on both elders and deacons is because we're in the middle of the nominating process actually we're coming toward the end of our officer nominating process and many people are asking questions about the process or what it means to be an elder or deacon and I thought you know since I've been here preaching for a few years I don't know that I've ever preached through the qualifications of elder or deacon and I don't remember hearing sermons like that when I was a member either and so I thought you know maybe it's a good time to just spend at least one Sunday on elders and one Sunday on deacons and last week as you know we looked at elders and just to give you a little context in the book of first Timothy where we're looking at elders and deacons it's just this the the question is why we're was why did Paul have to write Timothy about the office of elder and about the office of deacon and our church by the way for nominations we also have a position of trustees and they managed the physical plant which is just as important but why did Paul address the elders and deacons and the answer is if you read the book of first Timothy you find out pretty quickly that it's really sort of a baseline book of church order that Paul tells Timothy basically he writes this book in order to show him how the church ought to be ordered and why did Timothy need that because Timothy was a young pastor and the church apparently was disorderedly the first thing Paul told him to do is he said there are certain people in your church teaching strange doctrine and they're causing conflict and causing endless controversies he said tell those people to stop period so Timothy your first job is to tell people who would cause a dissension to stop doing that pretty simple second thing is he talks to him about worship people apparently were causing problems in worship there were questions people disagreed about worship I know that's a surprise to this church but they did and so Paul wrote Timothy and said here's some issues you need to be careful of when you're dealing with the issue of worship and then in chapter 3 he talks about elders and deacons and if you remember last week we talked about the office of elder and the office of elder on one hand the office of elder it can be sort of summed up in the word shepherd because the elder leads and the elder of monishes and the elder rebukes but for today I want to take a different spin on that office in order to contrast it with the office of deacon if you remember the one among the elders qualifications there's at least one qualification that is not found in the qualifications for deacons in other words there's a lot of character qualifications for both elders and deacons but there's one that elders have that deacons don't and that among them is the ability to teach it said elders ought to be apt to teach and if you remember the primary job of elders Paul says in Titus he says is to encourage sound doctrine and to admonish or rebuked false doctrine in our own book of order in the evangelical press carry in church says that the elder's job primarily is to represent the mind of Christ in the courts of the church and the courts of the church are the the local meetings and the national meetings so the elder's job in a sense is to guard orthodoxy and to teach orthodoxy and from here on from this point out in this sermon we're going to call that the ministry of truth elders jobs among other things but primarily is to to to be about the truth whether it's teaching people the truth whether it's correcting untruth whether it's representing the truth to people elders are responsible for for guarding the truth and for for propagating the truth now here's the problem if your church is only defined by the truth only your church is probably cold and lifeless and hasn't reached anybody for a long time in other words if you're if you're only defined by the truth you can be heartless I know many people who are heartless and because all they care about they think is the truth you see truth without tears is really as bad as not having the truth at all at some level and what do I mean tears you see if you save my life for my ministry or my church we we're all about the truth and there are no tears you're basically ignoring one of the primary characteristics of the human condition and that is suffering and misery and empathy and you cannot reach people unless you have both truth and tears unless you have both the ability to tell people the truth and you have the ability to to care for people and to enter into their world I mean some some of you haven't been to church for a long time because every time you go to church you feel like all I hear is the truth in other words these people they they stand up and tell me solid doctor and I guess but they have no idea what my life is like they have no idea what it's like to lose a spouse what it's like to to be divorced what it's like to have to raise kids what it all they have no idea in this place now we know that's not true but that's what people often think because of the way we present ourselves all these people care about is the truth they don't have a clue about what goes on in the real world you're missing something if that's what you think if you haven't trusted Jesus because of that some of you maybe aren't Christians because you've been to church before and all you've all you've seen is tears in other words you you meet people you meet Christians who all they do is empathize with you and they sympathize with you but they never tell you the truth they know they don't really love you enough to enter in and tell you the truth about Jesus and tell you the truth about your sin and you see the answer to both the person who's seeking truth and the person who's seeking empathy and tears is found only in one place it's the cross of Jesus if you want it'll say yourself righteous person and you want the truth when you look at the cross what you get is the truth you see it the cross that you're not as good as you think you are that no matter how good you are no matter how good you think you are the cross is still necessary because you miss the mark on the other hand if you're a person if you feel a need for someone to sympathize you someone who has empathy someone who knows what it's like to be you again you look at the cross because at the cross what you see is the utmost of empathy you see Jesus saying they're saying basically I am here because not only do I know what it feels like to be in your sin and misery but in fact I am so empathizing with you that I am becoming your sin and misery so that you can become the righteousness of God in me and if the church wants to reach people it needs to have both truth and it needs to have tears because that's what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about it's about truth and it's about tears and now what do you know that Jesus would give us two offices in the church if it's if it's important to have both of truth and tears it what do you know that Jesus would give us offices in the church that represent both of these things with elders you have basically more or less the ministry of truth and with deacons on the other hand what you have is a ministry of tears a ministry of empathy we have three points this morning when we consider the office of deacon the first point is just this is it's if you're a note-taker it's called the I'm going to call it the deacons test point number one is the deacons test and the second point because I love receiving anonymous notes of complaint so much I decided to call the second the second point the deacons gender

just to be non-controversial so the second thing we're going to look at is the deacons gender and the third thing we're going to look at is the deacons reward deacons test deacons gender and the deacons reward and just as a side note by the way at some point here I will also probably have to to preach about the importance of church membership because one of the things I mean besides when you look in the Bible the and it talks about elders and things it's always supposing that if you're Christian you're accountable to somebody you're accountable to elders and that kind of thing but the other thing is when you think about these ministries of truth and the ministry of tears if you're out there by yourself is a Christian you're responsible for both of them and most people do not have both of them in spades most of us tend either toward being the truth side or we tend toward the empathy tears side and you need the other people in the body to balance you out so in other words if you're heavy on truth and you just know that's your personality you need to be in a place where there are also people who are heavy on tears who can who can check you in that so let's look first at the deacons test we're going to look at the qualifications as we build up to the deacons test notice in verse 8 Paul says deacons likewise must be dignified not double tongue not addicted to much wine not greedy for this honest gain they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first so first of all Paul just opens up by saying deacons likewise and when he says likewise he that's a signal that he's starting another category in order just like we did before like deacons likewise and deacon in the New Testament is one of the most ambiguous words that you'll find because on one hand the church is argued for centuries as to what it means what exactly is a deacon on the other hand the word deacon is one of the most common words in the New Testament because it simply means to serve and so what you're going to get this morning frankly is what I think is most important about being a deacon and how that sort of bears itself out here and you notice when Paul gives a qualifications of deacons here it's assumed that a lot of the qualifications of elders but there are three things that he lists for deacons that apparently are the most important and what are the three things he says that are most important for deacons the first one is well first he says the deacons should be dignified and that were dignified beings basically something like sincere or serious and the three characteristics that come after it define what he means by dignified and the first one is not double-tongued what is why is it important that a deacon not be double-tongued why is it important that a deacon watch his or her tongue and the answer is pretty simple is because deacons as they deal with people's lives as they deal with the suffering in people's lives and the misery in people's lives they need to be able to keep things in confidence they need to not only be able to keep things in confidence but they may need to be able to to mean what they say and say what they mean they also need to not say one thing and mean another because if someone's imagined someone who's a deacon and they're sitting across from someone who's got a myriad of problems a woman maybe with several children and she does it can't pay her rent in her husband's abusive and the deacon's trying to help and she says please don't tell any if you told everyone I could never come back here the deacon has to be able to honor confidence and add it to that there are a lot there's some of you in here especially in an economy like this who are very proud and you're afraid to go ask the deacons for help the deacons gave out 50 or 60 thousand dollars last year I think I don't know who they gave it to because they keep it in confidence but some of you need to know that if you do go to speak to the deacons that is kept in confidence so even if you are proud they're not going to tell anybody but the other thing is a deacon can't give false encouragement and false confidence can they in other words you know I hate to pick on the south but you know but you know when I was in the south you often people would come up and say how are you today as if there's anything I can do for you pastor you just let me know now they didn't mean that and I think it's cultural so I'm not criticizing them but typically in the south people often say things like that and you don't even you don't even register because you don't you know they don't mean it I you know people learn their lesson when I was a pastor down there because I'd say if you need anything tell me I did got a washer and dryer once that way but nonetheless when a deacon tells someone that he or she's that they're going to help them or do something and then they don't do it well that's that's horrible the deacon has to be able to be a person of his or word so that's important not to be double tongue not be addicted to much wine I hope that's self-explanatory the next one is important as well though he says not a lover of greedy gain I believe let me read that he says not greedy for dishonest gain the language here is actually stronger than it is for elders remember it says that elder shouldn't be a lover of money but it says here a deacon should not be a lover of greedy gain or greedy for dishonest gain why is that so important the reason that that's so important is because a lot of money passes through the hands of the deacons as I said a minute ago tens of thousands of dollars each year goes through the hands of the deacons and if a person is only in it because they know that you know for ever you know one for you and two for me one for you and two they can't be that way Paul says because if that's who they are they're just not the right person in fact that I was thinking about it the first person who was greedy for dishonest gain was Judas himself remember Judas was constantly complaining he was the keeper of the money that that why are you doing that when we could give this money to the poor I have to believe that Judas didn't care about the poor he cared about skimming off the top for himself and Paul says that's not the kind of person you need it said you need someone who actually embraces the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience what does he mean by that what is the mystery of the faith well the mystery of the faith in Paul's language is actually a technical term for something that's not a mystery at all it's something the mystery that has been revealed and that is the gospel of Jesus and he says it in chapter 1 that Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst that is the gospel are you a sinner let me reveal a mystery to you Jesus came into the world to save you from your sins have you embraced that to be a deacon you need to have embraced it but more than that you have to have embraced it Paul says with a clear conscience now how can someone not embrace the gospel without a clear conscience what is he getting at here and I think the answer is in the next line he says let them be tested in other words the the only way you can know that a deacon or a deacon candidate in our case embraces the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience is to to have them to have had them be tested you can actually test someone to see if they embrace the mystery of faith with a clear conscience so that's surprised you it shouldn't because every one of you are going to have to do it at one point or another if you haven't already what is the test Paul is talking about here that's going to reveal a clear conscience or not some people say a test is simply it has to do with theology right I actually before I came to the EPC I was in a denomination that was more conservative than this one theologically and for them what that meant generally speaking was if someone's going to be a deacon you have to train for about a year in Bible study and the Westminster confession in faith larger and shorter catechisms in the book of order and at the end you'll have a test and if you pass the test I forget you know if you get an 80 year above I want a deacon with a little higher score but nonetheless if you get a decent score I guess you pass and you're you're now you've been tested and you're good to go as a deacon I don't think that's what Paul's talking about here I think the test that he's talking about here has to do something bigger than that and something more basic than that for one thing Paul can't be talking about a theological test because they didn't they didn't have their theology systematized yet he can't be talking about a Bible test because they didn't have the Bible they at least a new testament they have the Old Testament he must be talking about something else and is there another way that you see the word test used in the Bible and the answers of course you use generally see this word testing used when someone has passed through the fires of affliction and the fires of affliction are the best place and maybe the only place to see whether or not you really embrace the gospel with a clear conscience in other words when you're sitting in your pew and you're thinking about who is there anyone I should nominate for the office of deacon is there anyone who has been tested are there people who come to your mind and you say yes that person right there they said they were Christians they said they believe the gospel and then the most horrible things that I've ever seen happen to anyone happened to them and at the back side of all that they came through saying God is faithful I still believe the gospel that Jesus was as faithful to in and through the suffering as he was before my suffering in other words has a person been tested have they been able to to bear through the fires of affliction and come through the other side saying I still trust Jesus and the other reason that that's important is because the primary role and this is my opinion but I think the new testament bears it out the primary job of a deacon is empathy the primary job of a deacon is to be able to empathize with people in need and who are hurting and everything else and the only way you can truly empathize with somebody I mean you could sympathize with people but to really enter into their suffering is to to to to have been through things and you can can you tell people with a clear conscience who are sitting across from you who are experiencing what they think is hell and can you tell them with a clear conscience I know this is bad but it will get better I know this is bad but God is faithful trust me I know I have been there we're gonna help you pay your rent but there are bigger issues than that we need to talk to you about the gospel that's what a deacon needs to do that's what a deacon does do you know people who are empathetic who who who can identify with suffering you see the whole gospel itself Jesus whole mission and ministry was basically defined and driven by his empathy how is it that we trust Jesus we trust Jesus the book of Hebrew says because we understand that he empathizes with where we are let me read to you Hebrews chapter 2 the author of Hebrew says therefore he had to be made that is Jesus like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people for because he himself has suffered when tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted the way that you can know that Jesus empathizes with you is you look and see that he has gone through the very same thing sin misery Jesus knows what it feels like in fact the that God before the incarnation before Jesus became a man God had an objective knowledge of our sin and misery Jesus looks down and he said yep they're sinful and miserable is it bad looks bad but when Jesus became a man he had a subjective knowledge of our sin and misery he was he wasn't like a sort of a doctor that never did an internship he went to school and then he actually did his residency with us and here he experienced sin and misery and betrayal you name it and he experienced it and he his empathy is what drives him and drove him to the cross and that leads to the next point the deacon's gender why does empathy lead in my opinion to the deacon's gender I'm gonna let you guys in on a big secret men and women are different I'm serious I'm amazed at how much fighting you see in the news and how much fighting you see in the church to make the case that men women are not different but at the end of the day they are if they weren't God would not have needed to create two different things he could have just created one asexual self-reproducing being and it would have been all over but he didn't and let me ask you this question about your household or let me let me tell you ask you what you think about my household for the past 15 or 16 years when a kid scrapes their knee very badly and comes running in the house who do you think they go looking for empathy when put it this way they go looking to one parent they go looking for empathy to one parent they go looking for crazy glue and bleach I bet you thought Judy was the crazy glue and she's not she's the empathetic one

that God has seems to have wired women to be more empathetic why am I bringing this up here when I could it just as easily avoided it it's because it's important because you need women deacons if you look through the the whole new testament it is women who have done the grunt work and the empathy work and the dirty work of empathy and caregiving throughout the new testament and I'm not saying it's only the the women's job because the new testament obviously teaches male deacons but when you look at the ministry of Jesus who is there with him every day and through thick and thin who is with him till the very bitter end it's not the men it's the women when you look at the ministry of Paul who cares for him who who takes care it's women and that's important because as you're thinking about who I should nominate it's not just men and it's not just husbands and wives you see the interesting thing is the the verse 11 here let me read it to you at least in this translation Paul says their wives likewise should be must be dignified not slanders but sober mind if faithful and all things first of all Paul uses likewise again he says likewise must just like he did deacons likewise must so it seems that he's starting a different category and the translation there's notoriously hard in some ways because in some if you looked at three different Bibles you could get three different translations for that phrase their wives what the Greek literally says is the women or the wives so we're gynecose it means either the women or the wives but it didn't make sense right if you're translating or sending it thinking well Paul Paul couldn't just mean here's qualifications for elders here's qualifications for deacons and here's qualifications for every single wife in the whole congregation so he must have meant their wives that's a valid translation so we're gonna he says here's what deacons should be like and here's what their wives should be like that's one way to translate this text and it's a valid way to translate this text and so what he could be meaning there is generally speaking the husbands who are doing a lot of deaconal work a lot of caregiving if they're if they are married their wife is generally involved with them and so their wife needs to have the same qualities that's one way to translate this another way to translate this is to to talk and say the women but instead of the women who are deacons it could just be the women who are helpers of the deacons the female helpers in other words some denominations some the churches often said okay you have male deacons and you have female deaconesses who who help the male deacons that's a valid translation the third way that you can look at this it's the way that I tend to look at it's the way that at least our church has always looked at it is the women period who are deacons in other words the women who are deacons need to have these qualities just like the male deacons do and what are the qualities are very similar he says that she must be dignified and by that not slanderers but sober mind it faithful in all things and just as a side note the word slanderers there when you see that in the New Testament it's the word deoblos it's the same word for the devil and when it's singular it means devil and when it is plural it means slanderers and he says the female deacon should not be a slanderer she should not talk poorly I don't know why he singles them out for one thing in the males for not being double tongue but either way the emphasis here I think is that female deacons are utterly important and crucial to the ministry and so when you're thinking about and thinking through your nominations think through is there someone here who's a male or a female married or unmarried you see churches tend to do the same thing over the years and you get in a rut frankly and I remember when I first started coming here in 2002 as a member I somehow thought because of what I saw that you had to be a married couple in order to be deacon you don't and so if someone comes up to me after instance can I can I nominate a single woman or a widow in fact if you look at the end of first Timothy Paul says that's a caring ministries are great jobs for widows or widowers besides the fact that they have time they're generally pretty empathetic to loss so the question is can I do that the other question and this is just a side note people if someone is a deacon now some people said can I nominate them for elder or if they're an elder now can I nominate them for trustee you can nominate whoever you want and nominating committee will sort through and maybe someone who is a deacon needs to become an elder and vice versa but that's the job of your nominating committee the last thing I want to look at here before we close is the deacons reward when you look verse 13 he says 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 you remember last week I talked about two qualifications two of the qualifications for elders and then the last point was how to survive as an elder and in many ways that's what this point is as well the deacons reward and it's interesting because people argue about these passages whenever someone argues about a passage in the Bible I found as a pastor I mean when people are writing dissertations about one Bible verse and someone writes a counter dissertation about the same Bible verse generally speaking if you step back and look it's usually common sense and I think that's what's going on here if you remember what it means to be a deacon is to serve and Paul says those who he says those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves the phrase good standing literally means something like a promotion or a step up or an elevated position and so Paul says those who serve well receive an elevated position and lots of commentators say well what that means is you have to be a deacon before you can be an elder or you have to be a deacon before you can do something else or you have to prove yourself as a deacon before you can teach something or all these kinds of things and if you look back at the gospels the the Matthew Mark look and John I think it's just much simpler than that have you ever heard Jesus say anything remotely like those who serve will be elevated may put a different way those who are last or what first those who want to be the master of all must do what they must be the slave of all you see the deacon is by very definition a servant and the the better you are at your job the more elevated you are in the eyes of the gospel let me read to you real quickly remember James and John their their little mistake mark chapter 10 verse 35 it says in James and John since as everybody came up to him and said teacher what do you want us to we want you to do whatever you ask of us and he said to them what do you want me to do for you and they said to him grant us to sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory okay and I'm going to skip some it says and when the 10 heard it the other disciples they began to be indignant at James and John and Jesus called them to him and said to them you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their great ones exercise authority over them but it shall not be so among you whoever would be great among you must be your deacon that's what the word is they're the word servant is the word deacon whoever what would be great among you must be your deacon and whoever would be first among you must be your slave that's the word do also must be slave of all for even the son of man came not to be deacon but to deacon and give his life as a ransom for all in other words the the ministry of deacons I've clicked with me even between services right that's how do I am sometimes not until between services did it click with me you know I've said to you a number of times every month the deacons stand up in front of you and say I have the greatest job in the church and I sit over there thinking that person is crazy they are dealing day in and day out with people who have physical needs mental needs they're just constantly just being barraged with requests and I think that is just crazy and yet when I look at what Jesus says it seems that deacons have the best job in the church those who are called to deacon the deaconal ministry are called to serve and the more they serve the actual the higher up they go which means I'm way down here somewhere they have the greatest job in the church you need to remember that if you're nominated because if you're like me you think boy I don't know and the more I thought about it this week I said you know if I was Jesus which would be more enjoyable to me my ministry of truth sitting around arguing with the Pharisees who are plotting to kill me or my ministry of tears healing people and caring for their needs every day of the week I would take the caring ministry and the last thing Paul says in Timothy I think is important he said the game for them so good standing and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus the other thing I think that makes the deacons job one of the greatest jobs in the church is because deacons more than any of the rest of us get to see the gospel work in people's lives if you don't if you're not a member and you don't do anything you get you get as much as you put in I guess but deacons who get to sit across from people day in and day out they get to see that Jesus is faithful not only to them but to these people and as Jesus is faithful to them they are built up in their faith that is a great job to have think about that I just remind you finally about the nomination forms I'm not sure how to get this across to you as a congregation other than to keep repeating it is when you make a nomination not only put the person's name and not only put why you think they ought to be nominated for deacon or elder or trustee but you need to sign it whether it's a positive or negative you need to sign it and put a number so that we can follow up as a nominee committee and find out what you meant by this or that get some clarification but you can also nominate more than one person and I remind you that the forms if you need more than one or out on the the welcome center so why don't I pray and close that way father I pray that as we we consider the office of deacon that more than anything it drives us to look at Jesus fulfilling that office Jesus serving Jesus bearing our sin and I pray that you would continue to open our eyes to that and we would rejoice not only in his service toward us but in our service toward everyone else in Christ name we pray amen amen as the ushers come forward and we prepare