Qualifications for Deacons

Amen.

Amen.

Well, this morning we're going to be in the book of First Timothy.

So if you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to First Timothy.

It's a New Testament epistle.

So epistle is kind of like a fancy word for a letter, right?

So it's in the New Testament, which is the second half of your Bible, past those four Gospels you probably are familiar with, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and find it there.

If you don't have a Bible, we'd love to give you one.

We have free Bibles in the back that you can take home.

We believe everyone should have a good copy of God's Word to study at their homes and in their daily lives.

And so if you don't have one, take one.

But you can also download a Bible on your app.

We're going to have it up on the screens here as well for you to follow along with.

So first Timothy.

We've been in this sermon series for a little while now.

We're about close to halfway through the book here.

And so we're going to actually be talking about the resolve of one of the first sections of this letter as Paul's addressing the church's message and the church's members.

And so that's what we're going to be kind of seeing, the conclusion of that first section this morning.

But before we dive in, a couple things I want to talk about.

I said I'd talk beforehand.

I usually don't do all the announcements and everything else, but we just had people getting sick and so forth.

So I'm just that guy, like when you uh what's the guy who like has the bass drum on his back and a bugle and a guitar and a harmonica?

And he's that's me, right?

Just in the square, the one-man band.

No.

But uh I was said I was gonna talk about redeeming marriage.

We're really excited about this uh ministry.

Pastor Jordan and his wife Holly are gonna be leading this uh ministry where we're kind of looking through um what does it mean to have a healthy, gospel-centered marriage?

And so we're gonna try and create uh at least four times a year these really fun and engaging date nights in.

Now, it's not just for married people, uh, but it is gonna be heavily focused on marriage and married couples.

Uh, but if you're single or unmarried or whatever and you want to learn more about gospel-centered marriage, you're more than welcome to attend the event.

This is also open to our central campus down in Walnut Hills as well.

But we're gonna be having some fun things like uh some games, some giveaways, uh, we're gonna be uh having some live music.

We're gonna be talking about uh what it means to have a gospel centered marriage, but not only just talking about it.

What's really cool about these nights and that I think is unique is that on the night you're gonna be able to actually start uh implementing some of the things that you learn.

And so we're gonna have some questions for you that you can kind of sneak away into one of these dark, mysterious corners of this church and talk, talk to one another.

Uh, and uh you're gonna be engaging in some questions, praying with one another, enjoying some great dessert and coffee, and then coming back and having some social time.

It's just gonna be a fun night.

So you have to register now.

We are only accepting 25 married couple registrations, 50 people total.

We've got child care lined up for you.

So if you have kids, date night in, no excuses, you can register through our app.

If you bust open your smartphone, download our app.

Right now, you'll see there Redeeming Marriage, you can register this moment.

We've already got six couples filled up, so it's gonna fill up fast over the next couple weeks.

So I highly encourage you.

Get on the app, register now.

You won't want to miss it.

Uh, we're gonna transition now into a time of pastoral prayer.

So we've been talking about leading the congregation in prayer on a more global and diverse perspective on who we should pray for.

And so we've been talking about what that would look like Sunday to Sunday.

This Sunday we're gonna have a global perspective on prayer, and we're gonna be focusing on the church in Africa.

There's been two major things happening in the church in Africa over just the last couple of weeks.

Number one is that there in the country of Nigeria, there are many Christians that are being slaughtered because of their faith.

And so, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who because they proclaim the gospel that we have so much liberty and freedom to participate here in this country, they are being wiped out and annihilated.

And so we want to be praying for the church.

There's a statement that says that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

And it is them who will wear a crown in glory that none of us will be worthy to wear because they actually gave their full physical life for the sake of the gospel.

And so, in this time of turmoil, in this time of persecution, we're gonna pray for the church to flourish.

Because it's under the persecution of the church historically that we see the church go forth even stronger.

And so we're gonna pray for those families, we're gonna pray for those women and children who no longer have daddy, we're gonna pray for the families who lost loved ones, and we're gonna pray for the church to grow in numbers and in strength, even in the midst of this persecution that's happening in Nigeria.

And then also, there's been some, if you've been watching the news, there's been severe flooding in southern Africa.

It's affecting all people, including the church.

And so, what we're gonna pray for is their safety, but also their ability to come around those who are being uh damaged by flooding, and that they can be the hands and feet of Jesus and serve them well with the gospel in their mouth, ready to proclaim the faithfulness of Jesus.

And so, church, let's pray for the church in Africa.

Father, we thank you for your church that it's way beyond us.

It's way beyond America, it's way beyond our can our ability to conceive how vast and broad your church is and how diverse it is.

And specifically this morning, Lord, we're gonna pray for the church in Africa.

They are our brothers and sisters, they hold tightly to the message of the gospel, the same gospel we preach, they preach.

And so this morning, Lord, we pray for their safety.

For our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who are facing persecution because of their faith, who are not, who whose lives are being taken from them, Lord, because they believe in Jesus.

Lord, we pray for them.

We pray for their families.

Spirit, be the comforter you've promised to be.

Be peace, Jesus, beyond understanding.

As the world looks around and sees what persecution and suffering and trials and tribulations that they are going through, let them not miss out on seeing the joy that is still indwelt within them.

Father, I pray that the church would thrive in the midst of this persecution.

I pray that uh that you you would call others uh to put their faith in the gospel of Jesus, that you would grow them in number.

And Lord, that you would continue to be present with them.

Father, I pray for the church in South Africa as they are facing these damaging floods.

I pray, Lord, uh, that their churches would be kept from harm, that they would be able to still use their churches as like little hospitals and places of refuge for those who have been uh damaged and destroyed by the flooding.

I pray, Lord, that they would also be uh uh uh equipped to go out and help, help rebuild, help rebuild their cities, help rebuild homes, help rebuild families, uh not in just works of compassion, but be let it be coupled with the hope of the gospel of Jesus.

So, Lord, be with our brothers and sisters, be with the church in Africa.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So 1 Timothy chapter 3, we're gonna be looking through verses 8 through 16.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

So, what happened was who all has had the stomach bug run through your household this season?

Any?

I know a lot, there's a lot more of you.

I know this because you either canceling for now, I'm just joking.

But that we like three weeks ago, our family got hit.

We have six people in our family, five of us within three hours got hit.

It was brutal.

So I said, I called up Pastor Casey and I said, Hey, Pastor Casey, can you preach for me?

Uh and he had preached on the qualifications of elders.

So he preached a couple of weeks ago on the previous passage of 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7.

1 Timothy 3:1–7

That's the qualifications of elders.

We skipped over what I preached last week on women in the church.

If you weren't here and you weren't able to be able to uh uh listen to that sermon, it's on our app, it's uh through podcasts, so you can listen to it, encourage you to.

But what we're doing this morning is we're picking back up where we should be in the book of 1 Timothy, and we're talking about the qualifications for deacons.

And so, 1 Timothy 3, 8 through 16, let us read what it says.

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.

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 and their 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.

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the Living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness.

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

This is the word of the Lord.

May God bless the reading and the proclamation of his promises.

So we're looking at this passage called the qualifications of deacons.

And I like what Paul says here.

He's kind of talking to us about how we should behave within the household of God.

And he's setting up for us these two offices, right?

He's talked about elders, which we believe is an office within the church, and then he talked to us about deacons.

This is another office, and one of their primary functions is so that the church might be healthy.

That not only her conduct and behavior healthy, but her message and that which she proclaims be healthy as well.

And so we're gonna dive into what it means to be a deacon.

Now, many of you, depending on what kind of church history you have or how you grew up, if you grew up in the church or not, when you when you think of a deacon, you might think of uh a plethora of different things, right?

Like just any old guy in the church was a deacon, right?

Old Deacon Gary, nobody knew what he did, but he was a deacon.

And when he spoke, you should listen to old Deacon Gary, right?

Or maybe Deacon Dan.

Deacon Dan did all the finances.

That's what you knew he did.

He was the number cruncher, he made sure that the books were clean.

That was Deacon Dan.

We really kind of it's almost kind of been held in a mystery of for some of us, according to what tradition of church we grew up in.

Like, what does a deacon even do?

How do you get such a sweet title, like deacon, right?

What does this mean and how does it come about?

For some people, deacon is also synonymous or I would say um uh misrepresented as what elders should be.

And so there's all kinds of different perspectives.

We're gonna try and understand it through a biblical lens, not through a historic or tradition lens, but through what the Bible declares for us.

How many of us, though, when we think about the office of deacon, think about an office within the church who works toward the overall health of her?

That's what I think is the heart of the office of deacon, working for the health of the church.

Now, like I said before, Missio Day, we hold a two-office view of the local church.

So some of you might come from traditions where there's like 1,300 different offices, right?

If you come from the Catholic Church, there's like cardinals and then uh bluebirds and then Jay, there's like all these different bird names.

No, I don't know exactly.

There's bishops, holy bishops, cardinals, all these different things, right?

Some of you might even come from other Baptist-style churches where there's uh bishop, apostle, all these different kinds of offices.

People got titles, no one really knows what they mean.

But if your title sounds really nice, you probably have a little bit more authority and power.

What we hold at Mystio is a two-office view.

This is what we see revealed in the scriptures, and this is what we see as practice throughout most of church history.

That is the office of elder or pastor.

You might use uh uh pastor, shepherd, overseer, uh, elder, all synonymously.

We think that we see throughout the scriptures that they're all pretty much talking about the same thing but using different names.

And then we have the office of deacon.

Now, what some people might think is that this two-office view is limiting to a gifting view.

Uh, we don't believe that at all.

We actually think that there's gifting that is very broad and that is not exhaustive through the scriptures.

So we have different places throughout the Bible where we see this list of spiritual gifts, right?

Paul would make one in uh 1 Corinthians, we see one in Ephesians, we see here and there throughout the New Testament this list of spiritual gifts.

We would not believe that Paul's effort in writing those spiritual gifts out was an effort in an exhaustive list, right?

This is a full, encompassing, exhaustive list.

We think that his point he was trying to make was not what are all the spiritual gifts, but how diverse are those spiritual gifts within the body.

And so we think that the body of Christ is equipped with uh uh very diverse, um, beautiful, representative gifts within it.

So, here's where some confusion kind of happens.

With this office, as Pastor Casey talked about a couple weeks ago, in the office of elder, we believe that only men, according to the scriptures, are able to hold the office of elder.

Now we're gonna discover that that's not the case with deacon, and we're gonna try and prove why that is.

But for elder, we see through the scriptures that the office of elder can only be held by men.

What that does not mean is that women don't have the gift of preaching, or that women don't have the gift of shepherding, or that women don't have the gift of prophesying, or that women don't have the gift.

That's not what we mean.

We mean that there's a distinction between gifting and office.

Uh, and so what we want to say is this that while we hold a two-office view, we hold a view of a vast, diverse gifting within the body of Christ.

And we want to be a place that we try to work to cultivate that, to see it demonstrated and celebrated within the body.

And we're working through what that could look like for us in the future.

So, this two-office view, it's often confused for a limited view of gifting, but we believe that gifting within the body is radically diverse and radically numerous.

Now, as we look through these two passages of scripture, right?

So we have the qualifications of elder that precede this passage and qualifications for deacons, there's gonna be some things that we see a lot of similarities about.

If you go back through that list, you're gonna see a lot of places where, like, yeah, they kind of hold the same standard and qualifications for both offices, yet there are distinctives within them as well.

And so as we review this text, I want to look not just at the qualifications of the office, but the distinctions that it holds from the office of elders to both qualifications and functions within the church.

Because I think that's what is the key point as we start to investigate this.

We can walk through all the qualifications of a deacon, but we can still leave here not really knowing what in the world they're supposed to be doing, right?

And so we want to actually dive into their functions, not simply their qualifications.

So let's just kind of unpack it verse by verse, like I like to do.

Uh, verse 8 says, Deacons likewise, right?

Must be dignified, not double-tongued, 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.

Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless.

Now, I think that this list kind of talks about maturity.

We need mature people in the office of deacon, people who know how to kind of handle themselves, how to walk in proper conduct, people that are kind of obviously already amongst the congregation, standing out because of the way that they live their lives.

And so they're known in the public congregation already as what we would probably say good people, right?

They're people who hold themselves well, who function well within the body.

Now, a unique part of this qualification, or I would say two unique parts of this, where it's distinct, it does say that deacons should hold tightly to the mystery.

And we're gonna talk about what does that mean?

What is this mystery message that Paul's referring to here?

But it shows that they should hold it with a clear conscience.

Where this is different from the office of elder, is that the office of elder has the qualification to be able to actually teach this mystery.

So deacons don't have to meet a standard of teaching.

That's not that's so when we're trying to understand function within the office of deacon, we can see one thing clearly here that deacons aren't required or called to be able to teach that mystery, but they are required and held to a standard of holding to it with a clear conscience.

Another unique aspect is this thing to be tested first, right?

So Paul's saying if you have a deacon that you're gonna install into this office, you gotta make sure that they're tested first and found, what does it say?

Blameless, proving themselves blameless.

Now, what this can speak to or could speak to is some of the, again, the functions that they would hold.

A lot of times, historically, deacons would hold positions within the church where they're handling material assets, whether it be finances, food rationing, uh, different resources and supplies for people within the church.

And so with that can come a lot of temptation.

Somebody who's gonna mess with the money, somebody who's gonna maybe handle uh resources unfairly or unjust, uh, distributing to some people and not distributing to others.

There can be temptations to walk in a way that's not blameless, not full of integrity, not just and good for the church of the whole.

And so Paul's saying, because they're probably gonna be handling some resources and physical assets, we want to make sure that they're proven to be blameless first.

So let's let them be tested.

So kind of have a trial run at their functioning in this office before we put them into place.

Verse 11.

Now, this is a very unique one because it says, their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things.

Now, here's where the distinction comes in between elders and deacons.

In the office of elder and its qualifications, nowhere does it address their wives.

It addresses the men that they should be husbands of one wife, but it never addresses the conduct of the wife uniquely or distinctly.

Now, I think that's interesting because the office of elder has a higher level of responsibility, a higher level of authority.

And so for someone who has higher standards to meet, to be able to actually reach that office, it's interesting that there would be an omission of the conduct and character of their wives in the qualifications of elder, but yet add it to the qualifications of deacon, one that has a um, for for lack of better language, lower standard, lower responsibility.

If we really start to work through this text, uh what we're gonna see is that this would be better interpreted as women likewise must be dignified.

Most scholars are going to argue that the there in front of wives is inserted or inferred.

It's not actually there in the original language.

And if we start to work through original language stuff, and I don't want to nerd out on you about the original Greek means, uh, what we understand is that historically and more conservatively, this would be interpreted women likewise.

Now, we're not just pulling this from uh word study or the uh or the scriptures.

Well, we have to understand as far as like trying to understand the original Greek, the context, and so forth.

We have to understand as we approach the scriptures, there's two factors that we always take in place to seek and understand truth.

Number one is what's called prescriptive commands or prescriptive text.

The easiest way to understand this is through the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are prescriptive text or prescriptive commands.

Thou shalt, thou shalt not.

Very direct, distinct commands from God to his people.

So the Bible's full of prescriptive commands.

Uh some might be uh, like I said, the Ten Commandments.

Uh, we see some in the New Testament about being baptized, taking communion, submitting to one another.

We see all these prescriptive commands.

But the if we understand the second letter written to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3.16, it says that all scripture is actually profitable for teaching, correcting, rebuking, training in godliness and righteousness.

Now, what that means is that even the descriptive text is authoritative and beneficial for understanding who God is.

Now, so we have prescriptive text and we have descriptive text.

Descriptive text would be narrative anytime where it's telling a story.

But one thing that we have to understand and be cautious of is that the descriptive text always is submitted to the prescriptive text.

Here's an example: David in Bathsheba, right?

Anybody know this story?

King David sees this fine-looking woman from his balcony taking a bath.

I don't know if she on the bath taking a balcony?

Or was she on the balcony taking a bath?

Maybe she was on the bath taking a balcony.

But uh, you know, where was she?

He was able to see her pretty easily.

So he comes out and he says, I want her.

So what does he do?

This married king who has a family goes and sleeps with this woman, impregnates her, and then has her husband murdered on the battlefield to cover it all up.

That's descriptive text.

Now, while all of the scripture is beneficial for rebuke, correction, God, we can't look at that and say, Well, maybe God wants me to have a mistress or some side hustle, right?

No, that's not what God is saying because the prescriptive text is authoritative and the descriptive text falls in submission to it.

So, prescriptive, we see that men should be the husbands of one wife, that God created marriage between one man and one woman, and that's this monogamous uh covenant of marriage uh between two distinct genders of male and female, that that is how marriage is supposed to be demonstrated and lived out.

So that's prescriptive that helps us discern and understand descriptive, where we can't go to the descriptive and say, Well, the Bible, look at this.

Can't do that all the time.

Now, where am I getting at?

It's this.

In the prescriptive text for elders, we see that the qualifications are held distinctly toward men.

And the beauty of the Bible is that we actually have the supporting nature of that with the descriptive text.

Nowhere in scripture is any woman referred to as an elder, pastor, overseer, shepherd, or so forth.

They're not seen in the office.

In fact, any anywhere we see in the New Testament narrative or the descriptive text, what we see is men who hold the office of elder and they hold it in plurality.

There's always more than one overseeing a church.

But when we get to this office of deacons, we actually have in the descriptive text throughout the scriptures women referred to as deacons.

The most famous one that you're gonna find as you study this on your own is in Romans 16, this woman named Phoebe.

She's referred to as a deacon in the church.

Paul directly calls her out and encourages and exhorts her before the church in Rome as someone to kind of live their life by because she serves the church so faithfully.

So when we kind of start to dive into the language, when we start to see the comparison between the two, and when we see the descriptive text affirming what we're coming to conclusions to, Missiode would hold a position where we would submit that women can and should hold the office of deacon.

So that's where we stand.

Now I want to say though, we stand in great company with other churches who would not agree with that.

They would say that only men can hold the office of deacon and the office of elder.

We would disagree, but we wouldn't have to break fellowship over that.

We think that they're strong churches that preach the gospel, and at the end of the day, both of us are trying our best to submit to God's word rather than culture or rather than uh personal gain or rather than uh our own motives or whatever it might be.

We're trying our best to submit to God's word.

And so we would say that women can and should hold the office of deacon.

Number 12, let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children, 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.

Here, I think what's really great about this pastor of scripture, and it's not absent from the qualifications of elders, is that there seems to be a primary of serving your house first.

We believe at Mystio that our home is our first ministry.

We say that every man is called to be a pastor, minimally to be a pastor in their own home.

You're called to shepherd your wife, you're called to shepherd your children.

We bear the responsibility of discipling our children, of discipling our wives, and some of us will hold the responsibility of discipling and shepherding the church.

But even as in the qualifications of elder, here in the qualifications of deacons, we see that the home is held as a primary.

We see how a person couldn't even be considered for the office without first being known for serving their house well first.

Now, we need to strike a balance here.

Many of us can become off balance in our lives in, I think, one or two ways.

And we see this play out a lot of time as leaders here in the church.

Some of us, we might actually over-exalt working in the church without working in our homes.

There's a long history of men who worked hard in the church and didn't work hard in their homes.

And what I see from this qualification that they shouldn't have even been considered.

There should have been an already established health and there should have been an already established discipline of that man cultivating the gospel within his own home.

But I think that throughout church history and throughout our own kind of anecdotal experience, we can see where there's many men who served well in the church, but really neglected their responsibilities of shepherding and discipling their family.

I know I have a propensity toward that.

I am an achiever, accomplisher, a go-getter.

That's kind of my mindset.

And so I have a propensity to work hard in the church.

And then I convince myself so deceivingly and wickedly that I'm actually doing this for my family.

But I'm not.

At the end of the day, my children want Daddy to come home and play with them.

They don't want Daddy to be stuck here fixing things or working on things or making things better or whatever it might be.

My propensity is to over-exalt the work in the church and neglect my work at home.

I need to work hard and I need the Spirit of God to empower me to find balance.

Balance where my home is still held as primary, but the church isn't neglected in my efforts.

Some of us, though, over-exalt working in our homes without working in the church.

And we get this all the time, right?

It seems like this pattern where Mystio preaches hard, like, you should be a great father, you should be a great husband, you should pastor, you should disciple.

And then we're like, hey, we need somebody to come paint.

And people are like, I'm out, gotta be with my kids.

Remember you preached that?

I'm like, well, I did preach that.

Why don't you bring your kids and help them paint the church too?

That'd be great, right?

Uh but we can kind of do that.

We kind of over-exalt one of the other, where the church is neglected because we're so focused on our families.

We're so focused on being with our children, we're so focused on being with our spouses.

The beauty of this is that neither is dismissed and neither is unimportant.

The church is important.

We must work for her and work in her.

And our families are important.

We must work for them and in them.

And I will submit that the scripture declares that our homes do hold a primary.

They hold a primary, but it is not neglected of the church.

So we're called to do both really well and in balance while holding our households in a primary position.

Verse 14, I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Paul begins to summarize this portion of the letter with his intention of writing it.

What's his intention?

What's his purpose?

To bring clarity to our conduct within the church.

Now, why is this important?

Why is it important for Paul to belabor bringing clarity on our conduct of how we should behave and live our lives within the church?

Well, he says, Because this church, this house of the living God, is a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Our conduct will determine our message.

Our conduct will determine our message.

If we live a life that is false or in contradiction to the message that we declare, we will never be taken seriously.

The world around us will not be able to interpret truth in our message from the false truth we proclaim in living our lives.

You see, we have to fight to uphold the integrity of the church in both our message and in our ministry because the church upholds the truth for the world.

We are receivers of this great mystery that Paul talks about.

The absolute universal truth that brings salvation to God's people.

You see, we believe in absolute truth.

We believe in one universal truth for all people, that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, who is the Messiah for us because he lived the perfect life that we never could have, in perfect obedience to the will and law of the Father.

But then he died the death in our place in condemnation and under God's wrath for our sin.

He was buried, and then victoriously on the third day, he rose to conquer and defeat death, hell, and the grave forever.

We believe in that one universal absolute truth.

I love when I get a chance to talk to people who uh try to be super philosophical.

And I have some that I won't share because they're kind of crass in some ways.

But one is I was speaking at a UC class and they wanted to kind of ask me some questions.

I was invited in, and uh, this one young man started going after me on absolute truth, and I said, Here's absolute truth.

Are you ready?

You're gonna die.

You're gonna die.

That's absolutely true.

You can't dismiss that, you can't fight against that, you cannot try to overcome that.

You will die.

Now what?

What are you gonna do with that?

Are you going to embrace Christ and his promises of eternal life, or are you gonna reject Christ and suffer the consequences or run into the darkness of your death?

You see, we are receivers of this great mystery, and we have to uphold this truth to the world.

But in that upholding, our lives have to be upheld within our conduct of obedience to the Word of God.

Number six, our verse 16, he says, Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness.

He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

Christ is the mystery, Christ is the truth, Christ is our salvation, the person and work of Jesus is the greatest mystery and the greatest treasure, and we are called to steward and protect it.

That's our responsibility, church.

And so we have to fight to live righteous lives, empowered by the Spirit, be overcomers and conquerors in this world.

We should be ones who begin to shape the culture to the image of the kingdom so that the church can look on in righteous jealousy to say, I want what they have, and we can boldly declare it's the mystery of Christ the Messiah.

You see, church, we should be upholders of this truth.

We should be protectors of this truth.

So as we walk through this kind of surmising passage of scripture, let's look at another passage where we start to understand how did this office of deacon ever even come about within the church?

Let's look at Acts chapter six.

Acts chapter six, one through seven says this.

Now, in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip and Prochorus, I think that's how you pronounce that, and Niconor, and Tymon, and Parmenus and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.

These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.

Now, and the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

So here what we have in the book of Acts is this narrative, this descriptive text of how the office of deacon came into the church.

There's some things to take notice of in this passage.

The first is this there were needs presented.

There were these widows who were not being taken care of.

The Jewish leaders were not handing out the rations and the portions to them who were in need.

And so there was a need presented to the elders.

This is what I love about this.

The elders did not dismiss the need.

You might read this and say, Well, look at those elders.

They said, Oh, well, we should be praying and we should be focused on the ministry of the word.

We we can't and did they say this?

Yes, but it wasn't in a posture of dismissing that that was a real need.

They actually embraced the truth that this is wrong, this is unjust, this isn't how the church should conduct themselves with one another, and so therefore we need to right the wrong.

But what was happening was that it wasn't a dismissal of need, it was a clarity of responsibility.

It wasn't a dismissal of need, it was a clarity of responsibility.

Because here's how the elders responded.

Look, we believe that this needs to be taken care of, but this is not something we should be distracted by.

Why?

Because the office of elders' two primary functions is to be in prayer and to function in the ministry of the word.

These are our responsibilities.

If we have to be distracted or if we have to pursue doing these other things, we won't be able to be faithful unto our responsibilities.

So we acknowledge a need, but we want to clarify responsibility and we want to find men among you who can take care of this.

You see, the men appointed were known among the congregation for their character and conduct.

The elders said, Find find these men and bring them to us.

And it's interesting that among all these disciples, and we and we see like thousands being added to the church.

On the day of Pentecost, we have thousands.

Then another sermon is preached in thousands, and we have this.

There's thousands of people, and seven men were identified and brought before the elders because of their conduct and because of their character.

And so we think that these men can handle the responsibility.

When you're placed in an office within the church, it should bring joy to the people.

You see, it should bring joy to the people.

They were glad with the results, they were happy with what was established.

And when we function in our right places, when we function under our right responsibilities, the church should be filled with joy because of that.

It should be to her good and to her health that it is working properly as God had intended it to be.

And one thing that we see too is at the end of this, the beauty of it is that the mission of the church continued to advance.

It was able to.

Many disciples were still made.

The priests were even becoming obedient to the faith.

Why?

Because I would hold that primarily the reason is that the elders were not distracted from their responsibility of prayer and ministry of the word, and men stepped up within the church to handle where the church had its needs, to serve, to minister, to act justly and compassionately to them.

And the church grew.

The mission of the church was able to continue moving forward because the elders were able to focus on their responsibilities, health and growth continued to be seen.

So ultimately, how could we seek to understand the specific functions of the office of deacon?

Like other issues, I think it's a lot healthier to understand their function or uh yeah, to help understand their function, not through the lens of tasks or practice, but through the lens of purpose.

Why does that office exist?

If we start to establish practice here, like some churches might try to do, I think we're gonna stifle a lot of what actually the role of deacons served in the church.

Because here's what happens today, right?

You become a deacon of what?

Facilities, you become a deacon of hospitality.

Somehow you become a deacon of helping the Sunday morning happen.

That's kind of what we've evolved into, into the local church.

But that is because we have de-evolved from what the church was called to be in the first place in a lot of ways.

You see, the church was this place where because we were so abandoned and rejected by the world around us because of the message of Christ, that mystery of which we believed in, we had nowhere else to go but to each other.

We needed one another, we needed one another's resources.

That's why in the book of Acts says that they had all things in common.

No matter what you needed, I've got it, I'm gonna give it to you because we are family.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ.

You need food, I've got a pantry full.

You need shelter, I've got a spare bedroom.

Do you need anything?

I'll give you the cloak off of my back so that you can be sure and confident that you belong to this family called the church.

And so what happened was there are these widows who were being neglected.

They weren't getting their food, they were being mistreated in unjust ways, and men stepped up to take care of it and handle business.

You see, the office of deacon should be so more, so much more robust than someone who orders new creamer and coffee cups when we're out of them.

I'm not saying it's absent of that, but we have diminished the role and office of deacon to that in the church.

What about our widows?

What about our orphans?

What about those who are struggling?

What about those who can't pay their bills?

What not not because of reckless spending and absence of discipline, but just because they can't get by right now.

What happened to those who are hungry and needed food?

You see, we live in such an abundantly prosperous country that we've lost sight of a lot of these things, a lot of these beautiful demonstrations of one anothering.

And so I don't want to look through practice of what a deacon should be.

I want to look at the purpose of why they exist as an office in the first place.

And this is what I would say that they are.

Deacons support the elders by relieving them to carry out their primary ministry of prayer in the ministry of the word.

Deacons support the elders by relieving them to carry out their primary ministry of prayer in the ministry of the word.

And I think that this kind of purpose of deacon, this posture of deacon, is one that we should really all seek to embody.

While we aren't all going to be able to hold the office, I believe we should all seek to embody that posture of serving the church and serving needs.

Just like I would say, all men should embody the posture of a pastor while only some will actually hold the office within the church.

If we strive for these things, we can be confident that we are striving for what is good and righteous within the church.

And here's the main idea for this text is this that the needs of the church should be met through the people of the church who leverage their position and resources for the good of others.

What do I mean by position and resources?

Position, position, how you live your life.

Are you righteous?

Do you live in holy conduct before the church?

And I'm not talking genuinely, I'm not talking about this true, evident, real, supernatural, perfect righteousness that we are imputed to us in faith through Christ?

I'm not talking about do you walk in that righteousness?

You all walk in that righteousness, even if you don't act like it on a day-to-day basis.

But the truth is, do you does the righteousness that Christ has given to you, is it reflected in the way of which you live your life?

In conquering sin and living uprightly in obedience to his word?

Can someone point you out from a crowd and say, That brother's righteous?

That brother's righteous, that sister walks in the righteousness of which she has been called.

So is our position leveraged within the church, of the way that we operate within the church for the good of others, and then is our resources leveraged for the good of the church?

Right?

We've got money, we've got cars.

My family has four children and seven bikes.

Don't know how that happened.

Found that out yesterday when we said, Hey, uh uh, can we can we can you bring the bikes over?

Kids want to kind of ride around the cul-de-sac.

They said, Yep, they unloaded, there were seven of them.

I said, We have four children, now we have seven bikes.

Doesn't even make sense.

Me and Katie's been trying to figure out our shoe system, right?

I'm like, Katie, we got like 24 pairs of shoes.

Two people, 24.

That doesn't even make sense to me.

We are so prosperous.

We are so abundant.

How could our resources serve and bless others?

If I'm honest, I've got money that I could give because I spend it on stupid and frivolous things.

I don't need a Netflix account.

I don't need a monster white energy drink from the gas station every morning.

I don't need craft coffee that costs like$20 for 12 ounces.

I don't need these things.

If I made better choices that had the church's health in mind, maybe I'd have more that I would feel liberated to give away.

So how do we leverage our position and our resources for the good of others?

Because here's the truth, church, that there are people within our own body who are suffering, who have need.

They can't do it on their own.

They need us to watch out for them and protect them.

And 99% of them will stay hidden even in the midst of you.

And this is kind of how we function within the church, right?

Here's two ways I think that most of us approach a church and our operation within it.

Number one is this many of us in the church look to have our needs met.

We come here looking to have our needs met.

Look, I'm not a great physician.

I'm not someone who can come and meet every need that you have.

No pastor or elder is here.

We are flawed, infallible men, prone to not be obedient and righteous to the word of God.

But like the song we sang, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it.

We feel that.

Now we push toward Jesus and we push toward the cross, but we still are flawed and fallible men.

We can't meet your needs in every way.

What we can do is make a meal, lay it before you, and hope that you eat.

You see, many of us come here and we want our needs met.

Does it have the right music?

Does it have the right vibe?

Does it have the right demographic of people?

Does it have this and this and this and this?

And we want to have our needs met.

And then look, here's a shocking statistic.

In less than six minutes from pulling into a church parking lot, the average person will make a subconscious decision on if they'll ever even come back again.

In less than six minutes from pulling in the parking lot, now I've seen half of you try to get out of your minivans.

It takes 24 minutes just to get out of those minivans and into this church.

So you've made the decision four times over again.

I ain't ever doing this again.

I ain't waking up next Sunday and trying to get this fool out the car like I did today.

And less than a decade ago, you know the number two reason people left the church?

Because of the bathrooms.

Because of the bathrooms.

We come to church, many of us, to have our needs met.

And seldom do we ask the question how can I leverage my position and resources for the good of this body?

For the good of this body.

Some of us, though, which I would say is many of us, many of us in the church look to meet the needs of the world and neglect the needs of the church.

We look to meet the needs of the world and we neglect the needs of the church.

A lot of the commandments in the scriptures, prescriptive commandments, in the New Testament is about our conduct to one another, not our conduct to the world.

How do we love one another?

How do we care for one another?

How do we act for one another?

Jesus clearly said, Do you want to know how they you know you want to know how the world will know you're my disciples?

Not because you travel to Africa to dig wells, not because you travel to China to hand out Bibles underground, not because you go and work in some type of sex trafficking thing in India, not because you are generous and compassionate to the world.

Jesus said, they will know you are mine by your love for one another.

You see, we try to meet the needs of the world and we neglect the needs of the church.

We'll spend$5,000 for some tourist mission trip where we take pictures of people in oppressed, uh, poverty-filled situations, and we'll come back, and Sister Susie still can't get something fixed.

Still can't get help, still can't make it week to week.

And I'm preaching to myself.

I was talking to somebody the other day, man.

I read this quote by John Calvin.

It said, it's a better for a pastor to fall on the steps of his altar and break his neck and die than to not preach a sermon to himself.

I'm convicted.

I'm troubled by my posture and pattern of neglecting the needs of the church.

But the beauty of the gospel is this Jesus, the true servant, fulfills our deepest need.

Jesus the true servant fulfills our deeper need.

So this word deacon means server, one who serves.

Christ is the true and better deacon.

He's the one who saw us in our need, in our complete inability to provide for ourselves.

And he came and he laid his life down for us.

You see, our need was being restored and reconciled back to God.

Our need was to come out from underneath his wrath because of our sin and our rebellion.

Our need was to be adopted into an eternal family, an eternal household, because we were found on the streets of our cursed state, orphaned.

And Christ came and he brought us in.

Christ came and he poured out every resource that was obtainable to him to win us.

In our deepest need.

Christ serves us.

And so how do we practice this out, church?

Here's three ways that I have for us to practice out.

I'm sorry I've gone a little bit long, but I hope that you can see these three points to try and put in practice this week.

Number one, have your eyes and ears open to the needs of the church.

Man, do are you building community to even know if there's a need within this church?

Do you know the brothers and sisters sitting around you enough to know if they're hurting, if they're struggling, if they have needs?

And I want to celebrate a lot of ways in which I see needs being made.

I see families watching other married couples' children so that they can have a date night that they haven't had in a long time.

I see people come and help people move into new homes.

I see people help remodel new homes.

I see people buying groceries from one another.

I'm not saying I don't see this at all.

I just wish we saw it on such a larger scale.

Do we have our eyes and ears open to the needs of the church?

Look, if this church is here to serve you, you will come in, you will consume and eat all that we played up.

Halfway okay music, even worse preaching, a really weird building you could get physically harmed in.

And then you'll leave.

And you'll leave, and then you'll say, eh, that was okay.

Maybe I'll come back next week.

But when you work to do life together, to stay and get to know one another, to be in a mistime community where you can be vulnerable and honest, when you are committed not to the church as a service or program, but when you are committed to the church as a people, image bearers of God, then you will be able to see their need.

Number two, rule out your own ability, inability to serve before seeking out to meet, uh, seeking out others to meet the need.

So rule out our own inability to serve before seeking out others to meet the need.

Ask yourself first, can I do this?

Here's a great example, and I want you to know I love you and I love your children.

I want you to know that.

In the first couple weeks of Missio, this place was straight crazy.

There were kids running around everywhere.

And they were running upstairs, running into hallways, running to rooms.

There was kids getting locked into like dark rooms with knives and things, all kinds of things happening.

And here's here's here for weeks on end, I heard complaint.

Something should be done.

Here's what was behind that phrase.

Justin, you should do something.

That's what was behind that phrase.

And I'm not mad about it, but that's what it was.

Justin, you should do something.

Where any one of you could have helped and pitched in to make sure our kids were safe.

I love you and I love your kids, and I want them to be safe, radically safe within this building.

That's why it unfortunately took me four weeks to put up these barriers, right?

There is almost zero point of exit or entry for these kids now.

They are locked in, and I'm super excited about that.

But I just wonder who exhausted their own inability to come up with that solution before they came to me to present it as something I have to do.

And this isn't a woe is me story, I'm not saying that, but there is an issue within the church called the clergification of the church.

And we expect the people that we pay to be professional Christians to fix everything wrong.

And what's happening is this if I can be vulnerable and honest with you as a small church congregation, do you know how many times I've taken away from family on Friday and Saturday nights to write my sermon because I can't get the stuff done here?

Like doing painting, doing traps for your children, I mean children traps, uh uh cleaning up water leaks, getting things done around the church.

Last night is uh it was not the only night for the last month or more.

And this is there's discipline issues on me, there's time management issues on me.

I'm not saying this, this isn't a woe to me, but I just want you to know where I've been and what my family has been going through is that I spend on average four to six hours every Saturday night trying to finish my sermon.

And that's taken away from my children, that's taken away from my wife, that's taken away from me.

I can't serve you well in doing that.

And so this is what I'm asking, not to feel sorry for me.

If anybody wants to come paint our offices, though, I'm just gonna throw that out, please.

It looks like a Nickelodeon studio up there.

Uh, but this is what I'm saying.

When we see needs in the church, both here physically in this building and in the people of our congregation who have genuine needs, do we at least exhaust our inability to meet it before we go and ask someone else to help out?

Do we at least do that?

Third, maintain a posture of humility, not assuming we are above anything.

Look, even in the case of Acts, the elders weren't acting like they were above that, but they had to protect what their responsibility was, something that God had called them to.

Even here, I have a commitment to you.

I will never be above cleaning the toilets, I will never be above painting the walls, I will never be above doing what I would ask you to do.

All of us should have that posture of humility that ultimately we see in Christ, as it explains the Philippians, that he, though he was God, counted himself not equal, but laid himself down, emptying himself to being a servant.

And so for us, man, we're not above anything.

We're not above anything, but we serve a God who is ultimately above all creation.

And so as we understand our relationship with him, it should help us to understand our relationship with one another.

And so be humble, be filled with humility, and seek to serve the church with dirty hands and pure hearts.

Amen.