Understanding the Role of Deacons: A Biblical Perspective

Of our deacons.

And it's been a while since we've touched on the subject of what

a deacon is.

And there are only two offices found in the New Testament in a church.

That's the office of a pastor.

The Bible refers to the office of a pastor as pastor or bishop or

elder, all the same office, just different aspects or different

dimensions of the pastoral ministry.

And then the office of a deacon.

And in 1 Timothy chapter 3, and we'll begin reading there, maybe

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

verse 7.

Let's begin.

In verse 8 we see the requirements of a deacon.

So we're going to be in two places tonight.

We're going to be here in 1 Timothy 3.

And then we'll turn over to Acts chapter 76 and cover that.

Look there with me.

1 Timothy 3 8.

Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double tongued, not given

to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery

of faith and pure conscience.

And let these also first be proved.

Then let them use the office of a deacon.

Being found blameless, even so must their wives be grave, not slanderous,

sober.

Not sober as in drunk, just to kind of let you guys know, faithful

in all things.

Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their

children in their own house as well.

For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase

to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which

is in the Lord Jesus or in Christ Jesus, these things write

I unto you, hoping to come unto thee shortly.

All right, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, as we look tonight to make some nominations

for deacons and for trustees, I pray God that you would give wisdom

and Lord, we would see once again the importance of this office.

And Lord, I pray God it would never be taken for granted.

Lord, we thank you and we love you.

In Jesus name, amen.

As you think about the office of a deacon, we think about the qualifications.

The term deacon means servant.

It means servant.

As you look throughout this particular list of requirements,

you see that he must be grave, he must be honorable or honest.

It says not double tongued.

It means not telling a different story, always being honest

and telling the truth or not telling the same story to the audience

in one place one way and then going to another audience and telling

the story a different way.

Because I've never seen anybody ever do that before.

Politicians.

I'm referring to politicians.

Y'all didn't get that?

I wasn't referring to our deacons.

Brother James doesn't do that.

So not double tongued.

We see politicians do it all the time.

Greedy of filthy lucre.

And again, not given to greed.

Blameless.

That means above reproach, not slanderous.

Again, not false accusers.

And devilish.

They are to be faithful.

And that's a pretty easy word.

Trustworthy.

True.

Talks about them ruling their own house.

Ruling their own house.

Standing before presiding, to practice, to maintain their own home.

It really, again, has to do with maintaining and ruling their

house and providing a good home for their wife and kids and

that they are able to have their children, you know, halfway

decent.

Never seen that before either, have we.

I'm going to tell one story because it also says this of a pastor.

And I think a pastor or deacon ought to be able to rule their own

house.

Well, that would be an example of a dad.

Hello.

Example of a dad.

Example of a godly Christian dad.

A godly Christian husband.

I'll never forget I met a pastor years ago.

This was a long, long time ago.

None of y'all would ever know who this guy is.

And he took a church, small church in the country, and right

away they had a little boy who was probably three or four.

Right away, this little boy, when dad was preaching, they're talking

about an auditorium that wasn't, you know, the size of the

coffee shop, you know, 30 by 50.

He just let that little boy run around during the service.

Just run around like a heathen.

And I'm telling you, over a period of just a few months, it was

very evident that this man and his wife had no handle on their child.

And the kid was pretty small, but, you know, three or four, that's

just so wrong.

And it wasn't just him running around.

There's so much more.

I could tell.

But it lend itself towards negative from church members and

visitors, and just it became a huge issue as they just let this

kid do whatever he wanted to do, not just at the church building,

but everywhere else.

So I say all that to say a deacon should be a good example.

Should be somebody you go to and get advice about raising kids.

And like Brother James, I'm just going to use an example.

Two small children.

What a good example.

We have a good example.

I don't know about my dad.

I don't know if you could ask him anything.

But, you know, Brother Barker, before they left, to me, just kind

of stood out tonight of being sure of those things.

I think it's.

This has always been pointed out that when it gives the requirements

of a pastor, it never talks about the pastor's wife, except to

say that the pastor should Be the husband of one wife.

By the way, it says the deacon should be the husband of one wife.

And for a hundred millennial years, that particular verse has

always been interpreted that a man could not be a deacon or a man

cannot be a pastor if he's divorced and remarried.

That's the way it's been interpreted forever up until the

last 50 years.

And then I believe, again, I believe like so many other things,

it's one of those areas where people began to compromise and gave

into it and doesn't make it right.

So here at Heritage Baptist Church, you may nominate somebody

and you may not even know they've been married and divorced,

but they will not be able to serve as a deacon if they've been

married and divorced.

And I don't believe a pastor should be able to as well.

I do thankful.

I'm so glad God forgives and able to go on and serve in many other

capacities.

And I'm thankful.

In our church, we've set up trustees, and that's a legal matter

with the state of Texas.

If you are incorporated, then you have to have trustees.

Some churches choose to make their deacons trustees.

We chose to make them a separate.

A separate thing.

Now, again, it's not a biblical office.

The trustee's not a biblical office.

And nowhere in the Bible does it make the deacon responsible for

the finances.

You can't find it anywhere in there.

It never says the deacons are responsible for the finances.

And that has been something that churches and evangelical churches

and even Baptist churches have done over the years.

And so what we decided was, and I believe it's worked really

well, is we have trustees that are separate from the office of deacon,

but they serve on the finance team.

They don't come to our deacons prayer meeting every Sunday morning.

They're not part of the benevolence committee.

They're not part of making spiritual decisions per se.

When it comes to the church, the deacons are.

That's what the deacons are there for.

Amen.

But it doesn't mean that we can't elect men to help and give

wisdom and direction.

The era of finances who may have been married and divorced, you

say, well, you just compromised.

No, I'm saying again, very clearly that the deacons handle the

spiritual matters.

The deacons meet with me every Sunday.

We talk about not just people who are sick and whatever, but we

also talk about the buildings and what's going on.

And I keep them updated, and I'm so thankful for them.

We pray together.

It's a blessing We've been doing that now since the church started

having our deacons prayer meeting every Sunday.

So deacon, what is a deacon?

A servant.

That's what the word deacon means.

That is the definition, a servant.

And there's a.

When we first started Heritage, we made it clear that.

That deacons were going to deke.

If they were going to be a deacon, they were going to deke.

They just weren't going to serve on the finance team and make

some kind of financial decisions for the church, but they

were going to deacon.

I'm so thankful for deacons over the years who have been that.

And I have some of you sitting out here.

What a blessing to see men serve.

To serve, to be servants.

If you turn over to Acts chapter six, do that with you.

Acts chapter six.

And look at verse one.

So we see.

I believe, I believe this is the choosing of deacons.

There are a couple of pastors who believe contrary.

Acts chapter six and verse one.

So we see the deacons are to serve and perform such tasks as would

free the pastor for the study of the word of God and for prayer.

And that is found here in Acts chapter six very clearly, verse one.

And in those days when the number of the disciples were multiplied,

there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because

their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them

and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of

God and serve tables.

Wherefore, brethren, look out among you seven men of honest report,

full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over

this business.

But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the

ministry of the Word.

And the saying pleased the whole multitude.

And they chose Stephen, a man full of the whole of faith, of the

Holy Ghost, and Philip of Procurus, and Nicanor and Timon,

and Good Job, with all these names, Parmenius and Nicholas, a

proselyte of Antioch.

My Bible has the little, you know, stashes and loopity loopies

whom I didn't.

I didn't go to a school.

So verse 6.

Whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed,

they laid their hands on them.

So we see here the choosing of the, I believe the first deacons.

And I want you to understand the distinguishing distinguish between

a pastor's calling and a deacon's calling.

A pastor is called by God, a deacon is called by the congregation.

And there is a difference.

And a lot of times we come across men who may have been ordained.

I Don't believe in the ordination of deacons.

But that's my personal opinion, and I believe there are

biblical reasons for that.

But every once in a while I come across somebody who say, well,

I was ordained a deacon at this church.

So if I come and join your church, I'm automatically a deacon

because I was ordained over here.

I said, no, that congregation chose you.

It's different than the calling a pastor has where God calls

a pastor.

Does anybody see that Kind of.

There is a distinguishing, distinct difference between the two

callings.

Just because you were deacon at one church doesn't make you a

deacon of the other.

This congregation would have to choose you.

And that's what we're nominating tonight.

The church is going to decide, or at least nominations are going

to decide.

And then it says whom we may appoint.

And so those nominations are taken up.

We take those nominations.

Myself and the deacons go over those nominations and make sure they're

qualified.

And then we approach them if they want to serve.

And I have some every year that say, well, I really don't think

it's good timing for me or whatever the case is.

We had a couple of men in the church over the years who had married

and divorced early, early, early.

I'm talking about when they were 18 or 19.

And nobody in the congregation knew about it, but I did, and they

were very honest with me about it.

So though they were nominated, they couldn't serve as a deacon.

And so I had people come up to me and go, preacher, I nominated

this guy, and he's such a vital part of the church.

I said, well, you know, sometimes there are just things that

they may not have accepted the nomination.

Of course, I never said, would not reveal.

It's not my job to do that.

So keep that in mind too, as you make your nominations tonight.

You, the man you nominate may not make it onto the actual ballot.

As we think again about the word deacon, the Greek word is used

several other times in the New Testament.

It's used in John chapter 2, in verse 9 when the Bible says, talks

John 2 · chapter mention

about Mary says, and his mother saith unto the servants, whatsoever

he saith unto, you do it.

That word servant there is the same Greek word that is, that is

interpreted deacon.

There are many other places in the Bible where it does that.

In the New testament.

In Romans 15, verse 8 says, Now I say that Jesus Christ was a

Romans 15:8

minister of the circumcision for the truth of God.

In other words, he was laboring for the salvation of the

Jews.

That same word minister.

There is the same Greek word used for deacon, and I got several

here listed over and over again.

It refers to the same Greek word as servant.

In fact, most of the time it's servant or minister.

And it has again, to do with one who serves and ministers to others.

And that is the primary responsibility of a deacon, is again

a servant.

We see here From Acts chapter 6 that the Deacon is there to help

Acts 6 · chapter mention

and to do.

And so in Acts chapter six, we see the Grecian widows were not receiving

equal treatment in the daily distribution of feud.

In other words, there was some, you know, partiality on some

people's parts.

And so that was causing a problem.

And so this office of the deacons was instituted in order to

make sure that the widows were taken care of.

We have a widow's list, and we give those to the deacons.

And we need to do a better job in some of these areas.

We have a shepherd's list that we give the deacons.

And again, on my part, doing a better job of keeping getting these

lists to the deacons and making sure that we all keep track

of our widows.

It says also there was a conflict in the fellowship, and so

deacons are in the congregation to help with those conflicts,

to help keep him at bay.

In other words, the deacons ought to be part of solving the conflicts

and not the problem.

Nobody.

Okay.

I'm thankful we've had such wonderful deacons over the years.

The apostles could not take time for their ministry, for praying

and teaching if they were distributing food.

And so again, these men were put in charge of that.

We have.

We do have.

And it's been a long time since I've explained about our benevolence

fund, how that works.

Benevolence fund basically works this way because of our size

of our congregation.

For the most part, we help those only talking about with help

with bills or with maybe even cash sometimes, that are in members

of the congregation, those who are outside the congregation.

We support the community storehouse in Keller, and we send

them there, and we get lots of that.

We send them.

We support that ministry in Keller for that specific purpose

so that we can send them somewhere where they can actually

get help.

Not just everybody, understand.

The community storehouse does a wonderful job of keeping track

of those individuals.

They have a list, man.

They have all sorts of resources to help them.

Not again, I'm going to use the cliche, not just to give them

a handout, but a hand up.

And they do a phenomenal job of that.

And so our support of them helps with that.

But Inside the church is helping congregates who need the

help.

So the first time somebody needs help, for the most part, I

handle that, or one of our staff members handles it.

If somebody needs more help than that and they come back again

for more help, I would generally say to them, if you want

help this time, you will need to talk to the deacons.

They are the benevolence.

And there's actually an application.

I will tell you, no one's ever filled out an application because

for the most part, those who do that are just looking.

They don't want to be accountable.

Because in the application, that's going to make you, yes.

Meet and then put in.

Put a budget together.

It's going to make you do the Dave Ramsey thing.

And there's just people who don't want to be accountable for

their monies.

Why should we give you money if, you know, you're spending it,

you know, on cigarette.

I'm just kidding.

If you're spending on something that you don't absolutely

need.

Right.

And so we want to be a good steward of God's money, which is

which you.

Which you have contributed.

And so I can tell you it's been amazing over the years.

In 2007 and 8 are when the crash happened in 2008, and nobody

knows this, there's members here tonight whom our church stepped

up and helped.

I'm not talking about just with a few bucks.

I'm talking about really helped.

And that has come back to us thousand times over.

Helping people who genuinely need the help.

And then those who don't usually filter out because they don't

want to fill out the application.

They don't want to be accountable for a budget and so forth.

Does everybody see that?

Hope everybody's good with that, man.

I believe we should help people.

My wife has to.

And we set the deacon thing up, the Benevolence Fund, because

guess who's a soft touch.

It's me.

It's me, it's me.

And so it helped me be able to tell somebody, hey, I don't.

I can help you the first time, but you're going to have to go to

these men to help the second time.

I haven't told y'all that in forever.

So that's kind of how benevolence is handled.

I pray someday we don't have to have a women's clinic anymore.

They got one down the street, but I pray someday here on our campus,

we can have place to help, like community storehouse.

There is nothing in Haslett.

There's nothing in Justin that I know of.

There's nothing.

There's.

I'm telling you, there's nothing here in this big circle.

If we had it going right now, that ministry going right now, it

would be another great, wonderful hook in the water.

We could help a lot of people and see a lot of people saved.

And that's my hope.

Someday.

But until then, we'll help those who are doing a good job of

it.

So again, choosing out these seven men from the congregation to

do the work.

Seven men who were qualified men of honest report, full of the

Holy Ghost, full of wisdom.

So you want to nominate somebody whom you would see as a

good Christian man, somebody you would look up to, somebody you

would go to for advice.

Amen.

So that kind of excludes maybe somebody who might be, you know,

18 and a half.

Seven men were chosen by the way.

They were chosen by the church, they were chosen by the congregation.

Everybody saw that, right?

Appointed by the apostles.

It says again that they prayed for them and again their plan blessed

the congregation and blessed the Lord.

Every church and its ministries within the congregation

needs again deacons to help the pastor.

I'm telling you, there's been times I can remember Brother Juan

Rodriguez, when he was here, you know, running down to downtown

All Saints, that's what it used to be called, and making hospital

visits for me when I couldn't do it, when we didn't have a staff.

And so either I did it or one of the deacons did it, or, you know,

it sometimes didn't get done.

And I appreciate men in the past who stepped up and made many

of these calls and many of these hospital visits.

And I don't want to sidetrack.

Brother Cox, Brother Cox, you're amazing.

And I appreciate the ministry Brother Cox has here.

He does most of those visits and does such a wonderful job.

His wife doesn't think he's amazing, but he is amazing.

That is not true at all.

I'm picking on Ms.

Cox.

I want to remind you, too, that a staff run church is a staff

ruined church.

And yes, I borrowed that from Paul Chappell, but it is true.

It's important that every staff member understand and realize,

and I try to repeat this to our staff, that your goal, your job,

your purpose as a staff member is to get more people involved.

You should be able to look back as a staff member, go, what

all volunteers do, I have behind me, because a staff run church

is a staff run church.

We can't accomplish the task.

We need deacons and we need trustees and we need Sunday school

teachers and we need everybody jumping in, helping as many hooks

in the water as possible to reach people for the gospel of Jesus

Christ.

Amen.

That's it.

We want to keep people out of hell.

People are dying and going to hell.

We'll do everything we can to reach people for Christ.

So as you pray tonight and make your selections, choose mental

of good report, proven men, capable men that they may work, serve

in the church, ministering and meeting the needs of the congregation,

men who are, who don't mind working as a team.

And I've never had a problem with that over the years working

together.

I tell our staff, especially our pastoral staff, hey, we're working

together on this.

This is us working together.

Be part of a team.

All right, let's all stand.

We're going to have verse invitation tonight and pray about

this and.