House Rules: Week 10, 1 Timothy 3:6-13

Welcome to Celebration Baptist Church Podcast, where we help people connect with God and others.

Each week you'll find biblical teaching, practical encouragement, and conversations designed to help you follow Jesus in everyday life.

To learn more about Celebration Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, visit iCelebration.org.

Now let's get started.

So let me ask you a question as we get started this morning.

Let me explain a little bit before you answer.

How many of y'all have ever had really, truly bad leadership in front of you?

Now I'm not just talking about ineffective leadership.

That's a separate category from what I'm thinking of.

I'm thinking of leadership that's outright immoral, outright, frankly, evil.

Have you ever had that in front of you?

Years ago, we had a person in our church, they were in sales, and their leadership told them regularly, if you have to lie to make a sale, you lie.

The numbers are what matters.

Wow.

They were trying to navigate that work environment as a believer in Jesus Christ.

How many of y'all have had truly evil leadership in front of you?

Don't raise your hand.

The leader might be in the room.

Ever had that kind of leadership?

Maybe it's in your workplace.

Maybe it's in your home?

Ouch.

I'm sure it's never been in your church, right?

Never.

Never not in the church, right?

Do you know?

Do you realize how destructive that kind of leadership can be?

And can we agree that nothing would bring a church down faster than that kind of leadership?

I mean, that kind of leadership in a church, it would devastate a church, wouldn't it?

And that's exactly what Paul is dealing with here in the book of 1 Timothy.

Paul has sent his young apprentice, Timothy, to the city of Ephesus, where there is a church that has effectively been taken over by false teachers.

And these false teachers are wrecking the church.

So Paul says, Timothy, you're going to go there, you're going to fix it up.

And then he sends him this letter, the letter that we call 1 Timothy, and in it are instructions.

Here, Timothy, here is what you need to do.

And in chapter one, he kicks out the bad leadership.

In chapter two, he kind of reorganizes the worship life of the congregation.

And in chapter three, he says, okay, here's what healthy, good, godly leadership ought to look like.

And that's what we find in 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And he gives Timothy 16 qualifications for an overseer.

Different churches use that word in different ways.

Some say elder, some say pastor, some say bishop.

I've joked with you all multiple times.

Please don't start calling me Bishop Dave.

That just would feel all wrong.

Okay, I just don't know that I can handle that.

But you know, we use the term pastor here.

So you're going to hear me refer to overseer as pastor throughout the message.

That's the reason why.

So let's just review these 16 qualifications for good godly leadership, not evil leadership, good godly leadership that you should be seeking in the church.

Let me read it to you.

1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 1.

1 Timothy 3:1

This saying is trustworthy.

If anyone aspires to be an overseer or pastor, elder, that's where that goes, he desires a noble work.

It's a good thing to aspire to leading in the church.

It's a good thing.

It's a good thing.

And then here comes the qualifications.

An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy.

He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity.

If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God's church?

He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil.

Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders so that he does not fall into disgrace and the devil's trap.

Wow.

That's a long list, 16 qualifications for a pastor given here in 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And if you put it all together, Paul is saying, Timothy, choose men whose lives demonstrate spiritual maturity.

Choose men of integrity.

Choose men who love their wives, who love their families, choose men with self-control and sound judgment, and who have a good reputation both inside and outside the church.

And then in verse 6 and 7, they just kind of remind us that the stakes in all of this are absolutely sky high.

If you put an immature person into leadership, it could make them conceited.

And boy, Satan has a field day when we begin to think too much of ourselves, right?

You know, we elevate ourselves.

You say, man, that's a disaster.

Satan will have a field day with him.

Put a man not well thought of by the community into leadership.

You know what you're gonna do then?

You're gonna destroy the testimony of the church.

In short, if you pick somebody who isn't up to it, everybody's gonna lose.

The person that you select is gonna lose, the whole church is gonna lose.

So do you see how important it is to select the right kind of church leaders?

Do you see how important it is?

Now you might be thinking as I say this that, well, David, it's really not that big a deal to me.

I mean, I I participate in church, I'm in a group, I come to worship, but I'm not really involved in the leadership of the church.

So this really doesn't matter that much to me.

And I would say, oh boy, it should matter a lot to you.

Okay?

Because the people that we have involved in the leadership of the church are the people who are gonna teach your family the Bible.

They're gonna lead your family through tough times and tough decisions, they're gonna model what it looks like to live for Jesus in front of you and your family.

They're gonna preach to your lost friends and family.

Don't you want the people who do all of that ministry to be spiritually mature?

I would hope your answer is absolutely yes.

Now, as we press on into 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul's gonna kind of change gears just a little bit.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

He's gonna remind us that pastors aren't the only leaders in the church.

So after he's talked about the qualifications of a pastor, which is what we've just looked at, he introduces another kind of leader.

That's the deacon.

Think about that word deacon for just a moment.

It's been said that a pastor serves by leading, and a deacon leads by serving.

And that's a really good way to describe it.

While deacons are different than pastors, though, their their call for spiritual maturity is the same.

We're gonna see that in just a moment.

So I want us to look at this next section with kind of two questions in mind, okay?

One, I want us to come away from this understanding what a deacon is.

What do they do?

Okay, what is a deacon?

And then, second of all, what kind of person should a deacon be?

All right, let's dig into it.

Deacons come on to the scene uh early in the life of the church.

Acts chapter six is where we really find the entry where we're introduced to deacons.

And here's what was going on.

The early church, by the time you come to Acts chapter six, the first Baptist Church of Jerusalem was absolutely just exploding.

Okay?

It was booming.

All right.

And all of this growth, it was it was not only a large congregation, it was a very diverse congregation.

You had people who are speaking all different kinds of languages from all over the Roman Empire represented in this church.

And there was a large group of widows who spoke Greek.

They didn't speak Hebrew like most everyone else.

And they were reliant on the church for food, okay?

And they began to grumble.

They began to say, hey, we're not getting our allotment of food.

We're, you know, other people are getting more than we're getting.

And we think it's because we we don't speak Hebrew very well.

We think it's because we're the Greek speakers.

Now, do you see how destructive this could be in a church?

Do you see how divisive this could be in a church?

And so the apostles who are leading the church, they don't delay.

Okay?

They swing into action and they come up with a plan.

Here's the plan in Acts chapter 6, verse 3.

Acts 6:3

It says, Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty.

So we're gonna find a group of men, seven men, who can spearhead the distribution of food to the widows to make sure this gets done correctly.

Sound like you get the plan?

And so that's exactly what happens.

The church selects seven men, the apostles pray over them, lay hands on them, and these men take on the responsibility of meeting this very practical need.

They're doing a menial task.

They are literally waiting tables to make sure that the Greek-speaking widows are properly taken care of.

Why are they doing it?

Because they need to protect the unity of the church so that the church doesn't get off course, it can stay on mission.

You got it?

You see what's going on here?

Now, there's a life principle here that has nothing to do with church that I think we need to just take a moment and get.

Okay?

How many of y'all watch YouTube?

Anybody watch YouTube?

And if you're watching YouTube and there's a video you're watching, it's it's maybe 10, 15 minutes, you know, and you're watching that video, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's like, and the murderer is, and then suddenly there's a commercial for skincare products, right?

Have you seen this?

Okay, well, we're gonna do that right now.

We're gonna interrupt this sermon about deacons in the church for a commercial, okay?

And here's what the little commercial is about, okay?

Here it is.

Serving shortens the path to peace.

I want you to look at that again.

Serving shortens the path to peace.

And I'm gonna take this liberty here, I'm gonna talk to married couples for just a moment, okay?

Because what worked in the church will also work in your marriage.

So here's what I'm talking about.

If in your marriage, if things are strained, if you're getting testy with one another, if you're getting short with one another, if you're finding fault with one another, and you're tired of it, and you want it to stop, here's what you do.

You just start serving your spouse.

You go completely selfless on them.

You set your own needs aside, you elevate their needs, and you make it your mission to meet their needs.

You serve your spouse, and you do so joyfully and willingly and without expecting anything in return, including the little menial tasks.

You got it?

It worked in the church, it's gonna work in your marriage.

Serving one another has been kind of the cornerstone of Pam and I's marriage, I don't know, for about the last 25 years or so.

And y'all, I've got to tell you, it's been absolutely life-giving.

You know why?

Because it's really hard to stay mad at somebody who's serving you selflessly all the time.

What are you gonna do with that, right?

I'm mad at you because you always meet my needs, right?

There's nowhere for that to go.

You want to pull the fangs out of the tension in your relationship?

Just serve one another.

Want to go up a notch?

Make a commitment to one another that you're going to serve one another, and then do it faithfully.

You got it?

Anybody get it?

Okay.

So serving shortens the pathway to peace.

There's your commercial.

The commercial is now over, and we're gonna go back to the church, okay?

Can y'all make that mental shift?

Because that's what we're gonna do.

Okay?

And that helps us understand the heart of the deacon, this whole idea of serving.

The word deacon actually means servant.

The Bible uses, translates the word sometimes servant, sometimes deacon, depending on the context.

It's the same word.

So a deacon is somebody who loves the ministry of the church and they love it enough to put on a towel around their waist and do the menial work that nobody else wants to do so that the gospel can go forth and the mission of the church can stay game on.

You got it?

That's the whole idea behind the deacon and it served the early church well.

So if a deacon brings unity by serving, then you have to ask yourself, well, what kind of person do we want this deacon to be, right?

Who's gonna, who are we gonna tap to go in and perform that kind of ministry in the church?

And that's what Paul answers in 1 Timothy chapter 3, beginning in verse 8.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

Here it is.

Deacons likewise should be worthy of respect, not hypocritical, not drinking a lot of wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of faith with a clear conscience.

They must also be tested first.

If they prove blameless, then they can serve as deacons.

Now you look there in the beginning of that verse, you see the second word there, likewise?

What's that word there for?

What's its purpose?

Well, it's linking us back to all the 16 qualifications for an elder that we just spent reading just a moment ago, right?

And so he's saying, Hey, you know how, you know how the pastor is supposed to be a person with all these qualities of integrity?

You remember that?

Deacons, likewise, they need to be people of integrity just like that.

So he's pointing backward and saying, that's who they're supposed to be, right?

Their roles are different, but the expectation of spiritual maturity is the same.

In fact, if you look at verse 10, a deacon should be blameless.

I'll just be honest with you.

Any man who reads that ought to just stop deadness tracks.

Right?

Ought to just stop deadness tracks.

Remember, we've said all along that all of these qualifications, they're not just the qualifications of a leader.

They're expectations that God has for every single one of us as believers, right?

Right?

And so when we see that, okay, the expectation is that they are blameless, it should, it should, it should kind of freeze us a little bit, right?

How do you know somebody's blameless?

Well, here it says in verse 10 we should do what test them.

Okay?

Before you put the load of ministry on them, you test them.

A few years ago down in Miami, Florida International University was building a pedestrian bridge.

It was going to go over one of the busiest roads in Miami and connect their campus so that students could easily walk from one part of the campus to the other without having to cross traffic.

And so this was a big pedestrian uh causeway, a big pedestrian bridge.

But before the bridge ever even even opened to the public while it was still under construction, engineers who were inspecting it began to notice cracks.

And I'm not talking about little cracks that are, you know, cosmetic.

These were cracks, okay?

There were real problems with this bridge, okay?

Significant parts and critical pieces of the structure.

So the warning signs were there.

People saw them, meetings were held.

What do we do about this?

But the seriousness of those cracks wasn't recognized in time.

Some of y'all may remember this.

March 15, 2018, the bridge collapsed onto the traffic below it.

Killed six people.

And one of the haunting lessons of this tragedy is simply this when something is going to carry significant weight, you pay attention to what the structure is telling you.

You pay attention to the cracks, right?

And that's Paul's point here in verse 10.

Before you place the weight of spiritual responsibility on somebody, look carefully at his life.

Test him.

Watch him.

Pay attention to his character.

Pay attention to what his character is telling you about who he is.

That's the kind of person that needs to step into that role of deacon before they serve, right?

And if you get the right person, they're going to be respected.

Not because they're impressive, right?

You know, good looking or athletic or a capable speaker.

No, not because of anything like that, but because he's he's genuine.

He's not a double talker, somebody's gonna say one thing to your face and something else when your back is turned.

He should be self-controlled rather than out of control, right?

He shouldn't be driven by alcohol or money or appetite.

He should know what he believes, he should hold tightly to the faith and live with a clear conscience.

And how do you know that a man has those kinds of convictions?

How do you know?

You test him, you make sure that the spiritual maturity is already in place because deacons aren't simply chosen because they're willing, they're chosen because they're ready to serve.

You got it?

Now, after this little discussion, Paul takes us to verse 11.

And I gotta just just we're gonna have to slow down a little bit in verse 11 because verse 11 uh has got some some tricky stuff to it.

So we're gonna I I worked on this and worked on this and worked on this and worked on this.

I'm just gonna tell you, the next five minutes are gonna get kind of technical, okay?

They're gonna get kind of nitpicky, all right?

So I just want to ask you before we get into the next, say, five minutes, are you guys up to it?

You ready for a little technical nitpicky?

Can you do it?

Can you do it?

Okay, good.

Okay, so we're all game on, so we're gonna get technical here for the next couple of minutes because the text just demands that from us, okay?

So here we go.

First Timothy chapter 3, verse 11 says, wives likewise should be worthy of respect, not slanderous, self-controlled, faithful in everything.

1 Timothy 3:11

Now, why is it that I've told you that we need to pump the brakes right here for this moment?

Okay?

Well, it's because this verse is a little tricky to translate from the Greek language, which is the language in which it was written, into English, which is the language that I am attempting my best to speak right now.

I've been told that I don't speak English, I speak redneck.

If you feel that way, I apologize.

I'm doing my best, okay?

But when you bring this text from Greek into English, it represents a few problems.

And so we're just gonna have an honest conversation about what those challenges are and how over the years the the church has sought to deal with it, okay, and respond to it.

So here's the challenge.

You see the very first word there?

Wives?

You see it?

Okay.

If you if you're looking, if you got a paper Bible with you, it's got a little footnote probably right by that word.

And then if you follow the footnote going over here, down to there, you notice it will say or women.

Some of your translations may even say women right there, not wives.

And if you look at the word women, there'll be a little footnote and you'll follow the footnote and it'll say or wives.

Are you with me?

Okay, so here's the challenge.

The word that is used here can mean either women or wife, can mean either one.

And you rely on the context to tell you.

So if you said the woman had a husband, you would know immediately that the word there should be translated as wife, right?

Because the context tells you.

If it was the women went to the store, or the woman went to the store, you could translate that as simply woman.

She may or may not be married, she may or may not have a husband, right?

We don't, you know.

So the context is what tells you.

Here's the challenge.

The context of this sentence allows it to be either way.

And so it's it creates a just an interpretive challenge, okay?

And so let's just talk about the way that people have handled this because this is important stuff.

Some believe that Paul is describing women as deacons.

So they would read verse 11 as women likewise, right?

You see that?

Which is the same translation that Paul uses, or transition rather, that Paul uses back in verse 8 when he's talking about deacons.

Remember, he says, deacons likewise.

Deacons should you know have the same qualities and characteristics as the pastor, right?

You remember that?

So here it says, women likewise.

And so some would say, well, see, this verse is saying that women likewise, they should have the same character, quality character, and so forth of a man deacon.

So that's what that's what it means here.

Then they'll also point to Romans chapter 16, verse 1.

Romans 16:1

Here's what it says there.

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church.

Do you see that word servant?

Remember, we said what does the word deacon mean?

What's the word deacon mean?

Servant.

Remember, we said that you could translate the word either way, right?

So you could read this as Phoebe, who is a deacon of the church.

And so some people conclude, they look at this and they say, Well, Phoebe held the office of deacon, and that's what Paul is talking about here.

He's got women in mind when he comes to verse 11.

So that's one view.

Do you get it?

But there's another view, okay?

And let's talk about that one.

Others believe that Paul is describing deacons' wives here, and they point to the immediate context, what's right around this verse.

Okay?

So look at verses 8 through 10.

And they say, well, Paul is clearly talking about men who are serving as deacon in those verses.

And then they look at verse 12.

Let's take a look at verse 12.

It says, Deacons are to be husbands of one wife, children, and their own households competently.

Now, can we agree?

That's clearly aimed at men.

So some people say, listen, the verses right before it are addressing men, the verse right after it addresses men.

So it would make sense the most natural translation is here is to use the word as wives.

And it's a reference to their wives.

Not only is the deacon supposed to be a man of great character, his wife.

Is supposed to be a woman of great character because when someone is serving as a deacon, their wife is right along there with them, and she must have the same integrity as the husband.

Okay?

Do you get the two sides?

You see the two different ideas here.

And you can see why faithful Bible-loving teachers can come down on one side or the other.

Do you see how that's possible?

So over the year over the centuries, the church has been a bit divided on this issue.

All right.

Now, I know the question that you're all asking.

You're all asking yourself right now, what about celebration?

Okay?

What do we do here?

So let's talk a little bit about that.

Okay.

Historically, meaning all the way since celebration was established, historically, celebration has understood these passages and really the overall pattern of the New Testament to reserve the two ordained offices, pastor and deacons, for qualified men.

And we've just looked at all those qualifications.

Now I want to be real clear here because if you look at the structure of our church, what you're going to find is you look at us, if you were to look at our org chart, for example, you're going to find an awful lot of women serving in very high capacity roles.

And I just don't want any confusion here.

We absolutely believe that women are gifted and valuable and capable and can carry on high degrees of leadership in the church.

And that's what you see when you look here at celebration.

We've got women, we've got uh seven committees in our church, six committees in our church.

We have women on those committees.

They lead very well.

They chair some of those committees, they lead very well.

So we've had women serving on our board of trustees.

We've got women who hold significant positions in our staff.

And honestly, you all, I believe that when God gave the great commission to the church, he gave it to men and women alike.

I don't see anywhere that it says, because of your gender, you should sit this one out and not be a part of taking the gospel to the nations.

I just don't see that in Scripture anywhere.

So I can't emphasize that enough.

But with that in mind, we do believe that the Bible has placed a boundary around these two offices, and we just want to honor that boundary as faithfully as we know how.

Okay?

So that's that's where we get to where we are.

But regardless of how you see the role of women in verse 11 here, one thing is abundantly clear.

No matter which view you take, their character matters greatly, right?

They are to be worthy of respect.

They are not to be slanderous, self-controlled, and faithful in everything, right?

Then Paul ends this whole section in verse 13.

He says, For those who have served well as deacons acquire a good standing for themselves and great boldness in the faith that is in Jesus Christ.

All right, now, remember what a deacon is supposed to do?

What are they supposed to do?

They're supposed to do what?

Serve.

That's what they're supposed to do, right?

Do you remember why the first deacons were called upon in the early church back in Acts chapter 6?

Acts 6 · chapter mention

They were called to bring what?

To bring unity to the church.

And to do that, a deacon has to be a person of the greatest integrity.

And that kind of service.

And they have to be willing to, in spite of all that integrity and all that who they are, that good persona that they have, they take on the most menial tasks you can imagine.

And sometimes, in fact, most of the time, that hard work goes completely unnoticed.

And I just want you to know that your deacons here at celebration step into those unnoticed places.

They really do.

Today we celebrated the Lord's Supper, and we got to celebrate baptism.

What you may not know is that it's the deacon's job to prepare all of those elements for both services for all the people that are coming through here.

The deacons and their wives do all of that work.

It's unnoticed, right?

But it's important.

They're responsible for the ordinances.

It's one of the things that our deacons here do.

And then we had baptism today.

We had two in the first service as well.

Doug Bedgood did those baptisms.

And he, one of the candidates was a really, you know, just well-built, athletic, muscular adult man.

He was much taller than Doug.

Doug went to baptize him, and I guess in his old age, he began to falter.

And I was afraid he was going to drop that guy just ugly, just right there in the baptistry.

But he he made it through.

He powered on, okay?

We may have to get Doug Doug's baptism assist, you know, a little mechanical arm.

I'm having a little fun at Doug's expense.

Y'all, you know, Doug is so sweet, you think David could never make fun of Doug.

Well, there you go.

I just made fun of Doug.

Okay.

And he is really, really sweet.

He really is that guy.

But anyway, after the baptism, the candidates, the pastor, everybody leaves, right?

They tromp down some stairs, they go into their changing rooms.

And as they go, they're trailing water, right?

Makes sense, right?

They're wet and they're trailing water all down the stairs.

Who do you think cleans all that water up?

Deacons.

I had a deacon years ago.

He told me, he said, David, one of my favorite things to do as a deacon is to clean up after the baptism.

I said, Why is that?

He said, Because I'm back there on my knees with a towel, wiping off the stairs.

And while I'm doing that, people out in the church are worshiping.

And he says, I get to worship too, but I'm worshiping on my knees with a towel doing this.

And he said, Every time I do it, I just say, I say, thank you, God.

Thank you that I get to do that.

And you know what?

Totally unnoticed.

Nobody knows.

And he goes way beyond that, too.

Years ago, we had an elderly gentleman who was in our church.

He was in very, very poor health.

And he was estranged from his family.

And so he was all alone.

And as his health continued to just deteriorate, deteriorate, deteriorate, it was evident that he was not far from death.

And so one of our deacons, and it was he was going to die alone, y'all.

So one of our deacons sees all this happening.

And he was like, no, not on my watch, man.

I'm not letting that happen.

And this guy began to go to this guy's house and take care of him, take him to the doctor.

The guy had two just kind of ready-looking dogs, and he made sure they were taken care of.

And he became this man's family.

And when he died, he made sure that the guy got a decent burial on top of that.

Who knew?

Pretty much nobody.

You know, what was he doing?

He was serving because that's what he's supposed to do.

And nobody was applauding.

But Paul says God sees it.

And he does something inside of them as they serve.

They develop a greater boldness and confidence and their faith in Jesus Christ.

And so you and I we should appreciate our deacons who serve well and who deserve good standing.

Right?

Now, let's just take a quick step backward for a moment.

I want to just summarize real quickly where we've been through 1 Timothy for just a second.

1 Timothy chapter 1.

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

Paul says, hey, those false teachers, they gotta go.

And he throws them out of the church.

1 Timothy chapter 2.

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

He says, hey, we're gonna restore order to the worship of the church.

And in 1 Timothy chapter 3, he says, these are the kinds of leaders that you need to keep the church healthy and moving in the right direction.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And y'all, we've spent weeks moving through these qualifications.

And the reason is simple.

Healthy churches need healthy leaders.

It's that simple.

It's that simple.

And you give a church with a leader with that kind of character, men who are spiritually mature and who lead their families well, who serve with great humility, and who take the mission of the church seriously.

And you've got a church with a depth of leadership that can stand firm when things go wrong.

And y'all, this is where you come in.

This is where I need you all to get engaged.

All right.

Because today we begin receiving nominations for deacons here at Celebration.

Okay, so if you go to your church app and you open up your church app, right at the very top, there's one of the tiles there in big print.

It says Deacon Nomination.

Okay?

You're gonna see it.

Right there it is.

And I don't want you right now during the sermon to say, well, let me just pencil whip this bad boy.

You know, here I go, you know.

Don't do that.

Here's what I want you to do.

I want you today to go to go home and just sit down and jot down a list of three or four men that come to mind that you think, in light of all that we've seen over the last several weeks, all these qualifications that we've read, all that we've gone through, okay?

And I want you to ask yourself, okay, do these three, four, whatever it is, whatever number you come up with, do these men from celebration, do they meet these biblical standards?

And I want you to take that little note that you jotted down, put it on your refrigerator, okay?

And for the next week or so, week or 10 days, I want you to look at that list.

Grab your Bible and go back to 1 Timothy chapter what?

Three.

Very good, because we've been in this for weeks now.

You should know.

Go back to 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And as you're looking at that list, just go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Okay?

And just prayerfully discern, okay, God, who of these men, all of them, one of them, half of them?

Who of these men should I nominate?

And after you've prayed it down, take out your phone, go to your app, tap on the link, and fill out the deacon nomination form and submit it.

Okay.

Now, you might be wondering, yeah, but what about all the testing and all that kind of stuff?

Here's what happens when you when you do that.

We we collect all of the nominations, and the deacons, y'all, we're we're doing this in September.

Okay.

Deacon ordination is not until next June.

We've got the whole school year, the deacons, to interview these candidates, talk with them seriously about the expectations, the qualifications, all of that.

Invite them in, interview them, prayerfully discern who they are, and test them, right?

So that by the time that we submit them to the church in May at our church annual business meeting, say, here are the men that we've spent the last nine months evaluating.

Here are the men that we believe are qualified to serve as deacons in our church.

You all as a church body, when you vote on those men, you have the confidence of knowing that they've been tested.

Okay?

So you want to make sure that they're up to it.

Why are we doing all this?

Because healthy churches need healthy leaders.

And I want you to take this seriously because when you nominate somebody, you know what you're doing?

You're reaching back into the pages of scripture to Acts chapter six, and you're doing exactly what the early church did in those days.

When they put forth seven men to serve and bring unity to the church, you get to do that very thing.

You got it?

You understand what we we need you to do, take it seriously.

Because the body of the church needs it needs those kinds of leaders, right?

Pastors help lead the mission, deacons help serve the mission.

But every single one of us is called to live the mission.

And one of the ways that all of us help move the mission forward is by selecting the right kind of leaders.

You got it?

Let's take a moment right now and let's just pray for the men and women who serve our church through our deacon ministry.

There are deacons and their wives.

Can we do that right now as we conclude our time together today?

Lord, we're so grateful for our deacons, for these men who have stepped up and who said, I'm willing to serve, and I'm willing for you to test me.

I'm willing for you to examine my life.

And Lord, I just thank you for these men because I know that for many of them, their journey from being nominated to being elected to serve was a real time of spiritual growth for them.

They carefully confronted themselves.

They they carefully confronted their sin.

And they said, Yeah, examine me.

And so, Father, we thank you for these men and we thank you for their wives because the Bible says they both have to be people of great integrity and great character and have a great love for the church if they're going to serve well.

And Father, we just praise you and we thank you for the challenge that you've laid before them.

And now for us as a church, we have the opportunity to say, we believe these men meet the qualifications of 1 Timothy chapter 3.

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

It is no small thing.

And Father, with that in mind, I pray for all of the men and women of this church because we've learned over the last several weeks that the qualifications that we've been studying aren't just for leaders.

They're for every single one of us.

Every single one of us is supposed to rise up and be a person of integrity.

Not all of us are called to serve as pastors or even as deacons, but all of us, every single one of us should purpose to be qualified so that should the Holy Spirit move in our life and call us, we can simply declare, Here am I, send me.

So, Father, use the word today to challenge all of us to take a step in our maturity in Christ.

We love you, Father.

We pray this in the great and powerful name of Jesus Christ.

And everyone agreed and said, Amen.

Thanks for joining us on the Celebration Baptist Church podcast.

We hope today's conversation helped you take another step in your faith journey.

For more resources, upcoming events, and to join us live, visit iCelebration.org.

Until next time, keep connecting with God, connecting with others, and living on mission.