Deacons

Teaching from 1 Timothy chapter 3 starting at verse 8, if you don't have a Bible that's fine, you should find today's text on the back of your order of worship. So with all of that said, I say to you, hear the word of God. Deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not double tongue, or addicted to much wine, or fine of fond of sort of gain, but holding the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. These men must also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful, and all things. Deacons must be the husbands of only one wife and good managers of their children and their own households. 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. Let's pray. Jesus, I pray that you would come by your spirit and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In your name, we pray all of these things. Amen. Amen. You know, in 1996, Judy and I were living in Atlanta and at that time, in our denomination, there's a sort of pecking order for people who plant churches. There's almost like a draft, you know, that you're assessed and then after an assessment center, you sort of, they come out with a draft picks and Judy and I did pretty well on the draft and so people ask us to plant churches in different places around the country. And since we were living in Atlanta, it only made sense that they would ask us to look at planting a church in Atlanta and they did ask us to look at Midtown at Atlanta, which is similar to Capitol Hill in Seattle. And, you know, before anyone showed it to me, I wanted to go down there sort of covertly and see what it was like before I got there, before they brought me and sort of wind me and dined me and what that kind of thing. So my best friend and I, Paul Warren, got on a bus and we took it down to Midtown and we got off the bus. The first person I met when I got off the bus was a young black man named Anthony. Very handsome, very articulate and I said, you know, excuse me, sir, can you tell me where we could get a sandwich? And he said, I'll show you where you can get a sandwich. And so we started walking and talking and eventually I just said, well, would you like to have lunch with us? And I asked him when we sat down, I said, what, what, so what do you do? And I know this is crass, but he looked at me without blanking and he said, man, and I thought to myself, what do you mean? Like what's your occupation? And he said, I'm a male prostitute. It's a really. He said, what do you do? I said, it's just as shocking as yours. I can bet. And he said, what is it? And I said, I'm a pastor. And he said, oh, really? And as we were talking, you know, I told him about Jesus and I told him, the gospel, if you will, I talked about sin and I talked about Jesus being able to deliver anybody. And it was very amicable. And he said, you know, that's great. I've heard all of that stuff before, but thanks, but no thanks. And he left. And if he was leaving, I gave him my business card today, if you ever need anything, give me a call. Well, a couple months later, if you remember, in the Olympic Village, your bomb went off during the Olympics. And when the bomb went off that morning at seven o'clock, we got a phone call. And I knew it was troubled because when I picked up the phone, they asked for Reverend Allen. Whenever anyone asks for Reverend Allen, it means that something is wrong terribly. And they said, there's Reverend Allen there. And I said, sure. And he said, Reverend Allen, this is Anthony. They have a going. And he said, well, I have a problem. And I said, what? And he said, well, when this bomb went off, the police decided to clean up Midtown. And so they're sweeping the city to arrest all the known prostitutes and homeless people. And if I don't have a place to stay within an hour, I'm going to have to go to jail. And I said, well, how can I help you? And he said, can I stay with you? I said, well, let me check with Judy, which I didn't. And so I hung up the phone and I went and got him and brought him to our house. And it was great. He came to our house and he ate. I think he ate a whole turkey that day. He took a shower and he slept and I gave him my clothes. And it was interesting. Many of you who have been over to our house, especially when our girls were young, is that they really, they're no respecter of persons. And they're constantly looking for someone to read to them and play with them. And so as soon as he walked into the house, every time he would sit down, have your plan to jump on to his lap with their complete works of curious George, which they called Monkey the George. And they would say, read us Monkey the George. And it was interesting because he was a smart guy. But you could tell when these two girls run his lap, he wasn't sure what to do. And I would say, read Monkey the George to them. That's all they want. And then they would play games with them. And later that night, the girls were in bed and I was looking for him and I found him out on our porch and he was crying. In fact, he's weeping and I walked out and I said, what's going on? Is there something wrong? And he said, I don't get it. I said, what don't you get? And he said, well, you know, when we had lunch that day, I understand you telling me about Jesus. He said, your pastor, that's your job. He said, you know, I can understand you, you letting me stay in your house. Most Christians wouldn't do that, frankly, but they're supposed to. So I can understand that. I can understand you feeding me and I can understand you giving me your clothing and I can understand all this. But what I can't understand is why you would let your children touch me. He said, do you know how dirty I am? Do you know how bad I am? And I said, you know, Jesus can change anybody. And he said, he can't change me. And at that point, of course, I lost it. I just started weeping. He said, what are you crying about? And I said, if he can't change you, we can't change me. And if my daughter, if you're too dirty for my daughters and so am I, I said, if the gospel's not true, then neither one of us stand a chance. And we both just sat there crying and eventually, we went to bed. And he left during the night, actually. And I've never seen him again. But there's an important lesson for the church there. And the lesson is this. There are two ministries in the church. One is the ministry of truth and the other is the ministry of tears. You see, Anthony was broken, not because of the ministry of truth. I told him about Jesus, right? That's all it takes. What broke him was the ministry of tears or the ministry of touch or with a new testament would call the ministry of the Akano. That's what the Akano means. It means to serve the unfortunate, the needy, the afflicted, the widow, the orphan. There are two ministries in the church. There's the ministry of truth. You tell people the gospel, but there's also the ministry of tears. You empathize with them and you serve them and you are Jesus's hands and feet to them.

And the church that does not have both of those is a church that's sort of jumping around on one leg. Right? It's like a tricycle missing a wheel. And of course the only place you find, both truth and tears, is in the person of Jesus, particularly on the cross. You see on the cross, when you look at Jesus on the cross, you see the truth and the truth is you see all of the ugliness of humanity. You see all of the brokenness. You see sin, alienation from God and justice that we deserve. You see that at the cross. That's the truth and it's the hard truth. It's ugly. But you also see the tears. You see the cross and you see all of our ugliness and sin and brokenness being born not upon us but upon Jesus. And he's doing it out of his empathy and his compassion and his love. And even in the midst of the cross, even in the midst of his suffering, he screams out in Christ's father, forgive them, my accusers, for they know not what they do. Tears. You see the self-righteous person or the religious person looks at the cross and they see the truth and you know what the truth is and the truth is this is you're not as good as you think you are. You're not. And all of your good works are aren't worth a dime because if they were, I wouldn't have had to go to the cross. The cross is worthless. Either your good works are worthless or the cross is worthless. But the broken and the simple person looks at the cross and they see tears. They see Jesus saying you are more loved than you could ever imagine. I understand your brokenness and your sin and everything why because I bear it upon myself. Those are the tears. You see many of you are here. I know and you're not Christians at all and you're not Christians because you're only experienced with the church has been truth, right? In general speaking if we can be honest that's conservative churches, right? They give you the truth, capital T and you got to deal with the truth and the truth hurts, right? You're not Christian because you've never seen any tears. You said well that's great abstract truth. I know how wicked I am and that's a great mathematical system of religion you have come up with but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with my heart and my life. And so you haven't even really considered Christianity. On the other hand some of you are not Christians because you've gone to church, frankly, more liberal churches and all you've seen is tears, right? They empathize with you, they seem to empathize with the poor, they seem to empathize with everything that's going around them but there's no truth, right? There's no one who can step in and say I can not only empathize with you but I know the answer to your problems. Shalom has been violated. Jesus fixes it. And the church that's defined by the gospel, surprise, surprise, will have both truth and tears. That's why God has given us two offices in the church, the office of elder, the ministry of truth. Remember the job, the exhortation to elders that they are to be able to teach, they're to exhort and good doctrine and to refute bad doctrine. But we also have this whole office that is decaneo, mercy, tears. Because that's the job of the deacon. Every Christian is supposed to be defined by both of these, more or less. However, none of us have it all as much as we need. Some of us are more inclined to the truth. Some of us are more inclined to tears. That's why it's so important to be a member of a church because when you join the church, the church goes out together and brings both truth and tears to bear in its community. It should. So today we're basically going to look at deacons. I'm going to do it a little differently than elders because all the qualifications morally overlap. I pick three things out that are important to notice and it'll be probably shorter than the elder sermon because my wife rebuked me on last week's length. You've got an advocate, trust me. Basically the three things. We're going to look at three questions here. What does it mean for a deacon to be tested? The Bible says the deacons are to be tested. It doesn't say that about the elders. What is the role of women in the deaconer, deaconal mercy ministries? We have to ask that question. The third question is what is the deacon's authority or standing or reward? The first question we'll look at is what does it mean to be tested? Look at verse 10 here. It says these men, the deacons must also first be tested. Then let them serve if they are found, if they're beyond reproach. What does it mean to be tested for the deacons? In your typical Presbyterian church, what that means is they go through a course with me, the pastor, and I teach them the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger and shorter Catechisms, Directory of Worship, Book of Church Order, Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, the Council of Calcedon and anything else, I think it's necessary for them to know. Then at the end, I give them an examination and I see how they came out with their orthodoxy. If they pass the test, they get to be deacons or elders. That's typically how it's done, but that's the wrong way. The deacons are breed taking a sigh of relief. Don't sigh with relief too quickly, however, because you see that's the easy way to be tested. You see, that's just testing someone's theology. That's testing whether or not they know the math and the testing that I've talked about here, I think, is testing the application of that math. We tend to test them to see if they understand the gospel and what the testing here implies is to see if they understand how to apply the gospel. The place where the gospel is applied most often in the church and in the world in our lives is in the furnace of affliction. Look at these guys. Their ministers of mercy have they been tested. You see in the Bible in the New Testament, when Jesus gets tested, it's not theological exam. It's a test of whether or not he is going to believe his theology. Remember Jesus is baptized in the Jordan and it says in Mark's gospel immediately, the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness to do what? To be tested. And he's tested how? He's tested first by, he doesn't, he has nothing to eat or drink for 40 days and then Satan comes to him and tests him with the desire of your and my every one of our hearts in this room. What are those desires? Power, security and satisfaction, right? He takes him up on the top of the temple mountain, he says, all the places in the world and he says, if you'll just bow down and worship me, what does Jesus do? He replies and he replies with a promise of God. He believes the theology that he actually would eventually preach that God promised he would take care of him through thick and thin and so in the midst even of his temptation and affliction, he will believe it. Remember, imagine if you've ever been without food for even a few days, be going 40 days and having the power to turn rocks into bread and then Satan coming and saying, you're the son of God, why don't you make these rocks, these stones turn to bread? And what does Jesus say? Did I put the Lord your God to the test? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. You see Jesus was tested and his testing was not to see whether he could gut things out. His testing was to see whether or not in the worst hardest part of his life he would trust the promises God had made to them. And that's the test that the deacons have to make it through. You look at the deacons and say, have these guys been through suffering and trials and tribulation and nonetheless have trusted Jesus through them? Is that how they got through them? We tend to pick deacons on account of the fact that they get a lot of stuff done, right? Deacons, we tend to say, wow, the guys are going to cut the grass and make sure the building sticks and all this kind of stuff. First of all, that's not what they should be doing at all. However, we pick them for that and we say they can get things done. And what the gospel says is we're not trying to pick people who can get things done. We're picking people who know how to apply the gospel because they have had to apply it to themselves. Why? That brings us to the next point. Why was Jesus tempted? Just to see if he was going to make it. Jesus was tempted because the primary job of the mercy minister, which Jesus was the grand mercy minister, was empathy. It's empathy. And it's not only empathy. It's empathy. It bears itself out and does something about the situation you're empathetic with. Listen to what Hebrews says about why Jesus had to go through what he went through. It says he had to be made like his brethren in all things so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the things pertaining to God. It's to make perpetuation for the sins of the people. For since he himself was tempted in that which he was suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. You see, Jesus is the great empathizer. Many of us look at Jesus and he's just out there. Maybe he were religious so he's useful to us. But what the gospel says is that Jesus is the great empathizer. Have you ever felt lonely and abandoned to the point of despair? Look to Jesus. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane? He asked the father three times. Father, if there's any way that this cup might pass from my hands, going to the cross, and what was the response the father gave to him? Silence. It was nothing. Jesus knows what it's like to feel abandoned. You know what it's like for your friends to betray you? Judas, would you betray me with a kiss? Jesus knows what it is like to be betrayed. You want to know it's like when people don't understand you? Pilot, if you only knew I could bring a legion of angels down here, but it's not in your authority. You don't understand Jesus understands. The ministry of the deacons is to understand. You don't have to have gone through tremendous affliction to be able to empathize with somebody, but guess what? It helps. It really does. What we're saying of the deacons is that the gospel says they should be tested, but they should be tested to see if they are empathetic and not only are they empathetic, but can they therefore do something with that empathy? They're the hands and feet of Jesus, if you will. And is that saying that you and I as just fellow Christians shouldn't do that? No, that's not saying that at all, but what we're saying is that the deacons are the ones who lead in that area. The elders lead in truth if you will. The deacons lead in tears. That's why we have them. Now, the next question is, what about who should be a deacon? What about women? It's a very interesting passage here. Listen to what he says in verse 11. He says, women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate and faithful in all things. This is going to be a very short point. I can tell you why. You know, this verse is one of the most frustrating verses in the Bible, to people who comment on the Bible. And it's one of those things that I just sort of love to see, because you know, any given week when I'm reading and researching for a sermon, I might read 10 or 12 different commentaries. And I read conservatives and liberals. And whoever it is, I can get my hands on, I read. And conservatives are very frustrated with this verse. Why? Because it's just in there. Because Paul made it very clear with the elder thing. But with the deacons, he's talking about male deacons. And then he just throws in their women to be dignified. And then he goes back to men. And so you just can't say they shouldn't be deacons, because it's just sort of in there. And it's not clear. So it's very muddy. And conservatives don't like things to be muddy. They like things to be black and white. But it's also frustrating to liberal commentators. And the reason it's frustrating to liberal commentators is because it's unclear. In other words, he just says women. He doesn't say female deacons, which he should have said if that's what he meant. In other words, there's a female version of the word deacon. And he should have said male deacons, boom, female deacons, boom. And he doesn't. Instead he just says women. So it's not clear, because that's why if you look at like the King James version of your Bible and conservative translations, it doesn't say women. It says wives, because it's the same word. So what do you do? Is it unabashed female deacons? Or is it nothing? Here's the answer that I have. I don't know. I don't know. I wish I could tell you. What I do know is that when we see a verse like this here, we have to go by what's clear. And what is clear, both in the New Testament and in church history, is that the ministry of women, particularly in the area of mercy, is invaluable. Right? Jesus' ministry, he had 12 apostles who were buffoons, and he had all these women who seemed to know what they were doing around him. Same thing with Paul. Paul had sharp disagreements with Barnabas, but he had all these women who were taking care of him. And I don't mean in a sort of cheap, sexist way where he just went in. I mean, he called them co-workers in the gospel. So what does that mean for grace? That means whatever we do with regard to mercy ministry and hands and feet, that women are not allowed to do it, but they're in fact expected to do it. Right? The every ministry here that women or should be at the forefront, in fact, they are. So the question is now, what do they do? Right? Deacons are to be tested. Women are somehow supposed to be involved. We're not quite sure. But what do they do? And that's the third point what they do, is they obtain a high standing for themselves. That sounds very ostentatious, doesn't it?

Deacons obtain a high standing for themselves. If they've served well, that's the third point that Deacons obtain a high standing for themselves or Deacons have some kind of reward. And what is Paul getting at here? And the answer is pretty simple, if you think about it. For one, he's talking about authority. Deacons don't have an office of authority. They have no authority whatsoever. In a sense, on the other hand, somehow they gain authority by what they do. Now, how does that work? Well, the answer is in the principle that you see all throughout the Bible, and it's this. The first will be last, and the last shall be first. Whoever wants to be the master must be the servant of all. What are the Deacons called to do? They are called to serve. And so if a Deacon is served well, that means not he's grappled his way to the top, but he has somehow pushed his way to the very bottom of the pile. What does Jesus say? If you make it to the bottom, that's how you get to the top. That's why I came, he said. I came all the way to the bottom. I can bring you all the way up. Remember in Mark's Gospel in chapter 11, there's a great scene where James and John come to Jesus on the slide. And they say to them, teacher, grant it to us that one of us may sit on your right, and one of us sit on your left when we come into your kingdom. And Jesus asks them a question. He says, you know, do you guys think you can drink the cup that I cop and bear the baptism that I bear? And they say, oh, we can drink the cup you drink and we can bear your baptism. And Jesus says, it's laughable because Jesus trusts me. You know what you're going to. You're going to drink the same cup I drink and you're going to you're going to bear the same baptism that I bear. But for to decide who is going to be at my right hand and left hand, that's up to the father. And then it says, and the other ten became indignant. They should have. Here's James and John grappling their way to the top. And Jesus says, he pulls them aside and says, let me tell you, he's got something to tell you boy, something. You men. He says, the Gentiles lowered it over each other. It's not this way among you. He says, whoever wants to be the master must become the servant of all. Whoever wants to be first must be last. He says, I came not to be served, but to serve and to seek and save that which was lost. Right? If you're looking for Jesus, he's not at the top. I remember a good friend of mine. He's one, I think he's one of the best preachers I've ever heard. And he's certainly the most humble man I've ever met in my life. It's sickening his humility. And he went to India several years ago. And the whole time he was in India, the most humble man I've ever met, he came back and I saw it was alike. The Indian pastor he was with spent the whole three weeks rebuking him first pride. Right? Notes to self, don't visit India. And they went apparently to this place and there were people who were standing in a long line and people were sort of grappling to get a place in the line. And he said, Joe, this is that line reminds me of a medical Christianity. And he said, how so? He said, everyone is looking to go to the front of the line. But if you're looking for Jesus, he will be at the end. So you never forgot that. I certainly didn't. If you're looking for Jesus, he's at the end of the line. And you know, it's beautiful as we, we will train in ordained deacons and what the deacons do or the deacons are the ones who are going to the end of the line ahead of the rest of us. The deacons are telling the rest of the church. Church Jesus is at the end of the line. He's not at the beginning of the line. Come back here with us. You see, until the church as a whole starts doing that, no one's going to listen. It's pretty interesting that the whole church, the church corporately in the United States wonders why everyone doesn't like her, why no one listens to the church. And the answer is very simple as you don't serve. That's the second principle. The first will be last, but also service authority is derived from service. You know, the most powerful human being maybe this century was Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa was the most powerful individual to have lived and died in the 20th century. And the reason is simple, because she set her face like flint to an orphanage and she stayed there and she washed lepers and took care of orphans for 50 years even before anyone noticed. She went to Calcutta in 1929, I think at the age of 19, and spent 20 years teaching orphans and known who she was. And then in 1949, I think it was, she actually started the missionaries of charity to take care of orphans and lepers. No one heard of her till 1969. Malcolm Mugridge wrote about her and then all of a sudden the world was looking. And he asked her, how do you like all this media attention? And she said it's harder for me than bathing a leper. Because it pulls me off of my mission. What is that to serve the poor? Because that's what Jesus does. That's what Jesus has done for me. And as a result of her taking care of the lepers, she gets what? She gets a doctorate from Harvard. She spends the life taking care of lepers and she wins the Nobel Peace Prize. She spends the does a lifetime taking care of lepers and telling people to leave her alone so she can take care of more orphans. And she ends up in front of the president of the United States, revoking him about his position on abortion. Now whatever your position on abortion is, is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that here this 85 year old woman would be standing in front of the most powerful man in the world telling him he's wrong in him taking it. Why? Because she had tremendous authority. But the authority was derived from her service. The deacons are the ones who lead us and that kind of service. And let me tell you something. In the Church of Jesus in the United States, we are completely and utterly lacking in this area. Completely. And the world won't listen. The world will be like Anthony and say, yeah, I can understand all that stuff. The world won't listen and the world won't be broken. The church will have no authority until the church gives up all of her authority and starts to serve. The church won't the world won't listen until the church starts to show some tears. And so I beg you to pray for our deacons that we would have a ministry of tears in this church that would not only witness to our city, but to the world. Think about that. Let me pray. Jesus, I thank you that you have come bearing both truth and tears that you have come not only to die on the cross, but to be raised from the dead and to give us the same ministry, this ministry of tears touching people, this ministry of mercy. I pray for our deacons in this church, the deacons in ultimately even the deacons as that you would give them great power in your spirit to seek the lowest position and take the rest of us down there with them. And so we thank you and praise you for all of these things. Amen and amen.