1 Timothy 3:8-13; Acts 6:1-7
You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s word to Acts chapter six. We’ll read
verses one through seven, and then we’ll also look at first
Timothy chapter three, verses eight to 13. For a couple of
weeks now, I think this is our fourth week. We’ve looked at
Acts six, one through seven, and we’ve taken the implications
of the establishment of the deacons to look at those who must minister
the word, those who must govern the church, And also those who
will serve the church, that is the office of deacon we’ll look
at today. Next week, we’ll end with verse seven and look at
the membership of the church. It says, as the word of God was
preached, it increased the number of disciples. So we’ll look at
what it means to be a part of a church. So before we read Acts
chapter six and then first Timothy three, let’s say a prayer and
ask for God’s help. Pray with me. Lord, your word is a two edged
sword. It is sharp and it gets right
to the joints and the marrows of our lives. And we pray that
it would get to the joints and marrows of our church. Even as
we think of the life and the ministry of the church through
deacons, we need your help. We need your blessing so that
we can see and hear and understand and believe. So we ask that you
would now grant that for Jesus sake. Amen. From Acts chapter
six, one through seven, we read this. Now in these days, when
the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the
Hellenist 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, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas,
and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before
the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
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. Then flip over,
if you will, to 1 Timothy chapter three. We looked last week at
one through seven, the office of the elder. Today, we’ll look
at the qualifications for deacons, and we’ll read verses eight through
13. Deacons likewise must be dignified,
not double-tongued, not addicted to too much wine, not greedy
for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of
the faith with a clear conscience and let them also be tested first
and 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 be each the
husband of one wife, managing their own children and 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. The word of the living God for
us. Over these last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at the office
of the minister, the one who is set apart vocationally and
supported to preach the word of God, to be a minister of the
word of God. We’ve also looked at the office of the ruling elder
or the governors of the church. Today, we want to think about
the deacon. Next week, we’ll look at church members, and then
we’re going to move on to chapter seven, to the life of Stephen,
one of the first deacons. Think a couple weeks ago when
we thought about the office of the minister, it was impressed
upon you that the office of the minister is a rather important
office in the life of the church. It would be like a restaurant
without a chef. It would be like a home without
a parent. It would be a pretty significant
loss. for a church not to have a minister. Some of you have
been through interim times. It’s, it’s no fun, right? The
church is in a little disorder. You get a different flavor of
the week preacher and all that. It’s, it’s a bit unsettling.
Well, last week we talked about how important the office of the
elder is. The church needs to be governed
spiritually. The church needs to be governed according to the
standards of the church. But I want to suggest you to
you today that the office of the deacon, is a very crucial
and important office of Jesus Christ in the life of the church.
Now, just as soon as I say that, some of you are wondering, but
we, we don’t have a diaconate here. And that’s true. Our denomination
and other Presbyterian denominations allow for a time when a church
is small and maybe doesn’t have the strength and numbers to fill
positions, there are certain things that are allowed. For
example, in the life of the Presbyterian church, if a minister is sent
into a new field to begin a new work and to build up a church,
he has what are called evangelistic powers. He can go into that place
by himself and really serve as a minister, as a deacon and as
an elder. Now, most brothers I know in
ministry really don’t like that evangelistic power. That means
they’re paying the bills. It means they’ve got the checkbook.
It means they’re taking up the offering. And you can begin to
see how that would be difficult, not just in the number of tasks,
but in the temptations or the accusations. But nevertheless,
in a certain time in the life of the church, it may not be
ideal for long, but it may get a church off the ground and on
its feet. Now, in our situation, we are allowed in our denomination
to act in a bicameral, sort of way. That’s a funny word. It
means the elders take up the function of the deacons in the
life of the church. And so for a time we found it
necessary to do that. It’s been helpful and beneficial
to us. It’s not ideal forever. But as you’re going to see today
in our passage, you don’t just say, well, we need somebody to
turn the lights on. So let’s just ordain whoever, whatever,
however, whenever, and make some deacons so that we don’t have
to turn on the lights. That would be more counterproductive than
you can ever imagine. And so we want to think as we
have been over the last couple of weeks about what is a well-ordered
church need. A well-ordered church needs a
minister to feed. It needs elders to govern, but it needs deacons
to serve. And I want us to think about
the life of the deacon from a couple of different standpoints from
the book of Acts, but also from first Timothy chapter three.
We first want to think about the deacon’s calling. The occasion
for deacons in the book of Acts was, well, the apostles were
not distributing the daily division to the Hebrew
widows. The Hellenists were getting served,
but the Hebrews weren’t. And so it caused a little strife
in the church. So we might say, excuse me, the
first deacons came out of a controversy. It came out of a growing pain. The church was 5,000 men by this
point. plus women and children. This
was, this was a mega church in Jerusalem. And so you understand
through the growing pains they needed to stop neglecting a certain
portion of the church and a mercy team was needed to free up the
elders, to free up the apostles, to do the ministry of the word
and prayer. And so when God, uh, put it on
the hearts of the apostles. Uh, he said, choose the congregation. You choose from among yourselves,
uh, those who are, we’ll look at the, we’ll look at their qualifications
in a moment, but you choose certain men of certain repute and we’ll
lay hands on them and serve them. And so a calling for a deacon
and for that matter, the calling for an elder or a minister is
one of the rights of the congregation. The congregation calls their
pastor. That’s why you have a congregational
vote after a pulpit committee works. The congregation elects
their elders, elects their deacons. You see it in the book of Acts
here, this wonderful principle, choose from among yourselves.
Now you can’t just choose whoever, it’s not a popularity contest. We don’t pick a contractor in
the church to be a deacon, because he’d be really good at taking
care of the building. While it’s nice that he’s a contractor,
he may not have character. or knowledge or ability. And
he may not even be called by God. And so we have to, we have
to choose or call those who have indeed been called by God. And
that’s one of the most important things we see in this passage
is something we could zip by and overlook, but God blesses
the choice of the people when it is spiritually and prayerfully
made. And so when a, when a pulpit
committee elects a pastor and the congregation approves that
choice, When the session nominates to you deacons and elders and
you elect them by vote at our annual congregational meeting,
it is God’s final way of saying my blessing is on these people
if it’s done so biblically. And so the calling of the deacon
is a very high calling. It is to an office of Jesus Christ
church. And just as when Jesus went up
to heaven and left apostles for the early church and then gave
pastors and teachers and elders, he also gave deacons. Deacons
get a little bit of a bad rap. Oh, deacon’s the lowly office.
You know, it’s a word that simply means servant. And so they wait
on tables. You know, they got to wait until
all you talkative people leave before they can turn off the
lights and go home to their lunch. They’re the ones that clean up
a dead rat in the gym. And they, you know, they have
to pick up the beer cans from Friday night out of the front
yard. And that’s what we think of deacons in the American church.
Oh no. A deacon is an immediate representative
of Christ. And because Christ is a merciful
God and a deacon is a merciful person, when you are served in
this life by a deacon, it is as if Christ himself has served
you. That’s how we ought to think of deacons. But we have such
a low view, but their calling is a high one. Their character. Let’s think for a moment of their
character. You can glean from Acts chapter six and first Timothy
chapter three. There are things they should
be and things they should not be. We’re told in these two passages,
they should be men of good repute. They should be full of the Holy
Spirit. They should be full of wisdom.
They should be full of faith. They should be dignified. They
should be a one woman man who manages his household if he has
one well. It’s okay for a single man to
be a minister, an elder and a deacon, but if they are married, they
should be a one woman man. It’s a polygamy thing. We’re
not Mormons, so we don’t kind of get into that mess too much
ever in these parts. But back in the Roman culture,
you could have a couple of wives and no, you’ve got to be a one
woman man. And you’ve got to, if you have
children, manage them well. These are the things that a deacon
ought to be. But there are things he ought
not to be. He should not be double tongued. He should not be addicted
to too much wine or greedy for dishonest gain. And so a man
who takes up the calling to the office of deacon ought to have
character. He ought to be godly. He ought
to have good sense. He ought to have the heart of
a servant. He ought to have administrative skills, maybe financial skills. He ought to be able, he ought
to know how to serve those who are in need. It says something
else about him as well. It says, if he’s a one woman,
man, if he’s a married man, married to one woman, his wife, his helper
also ought to be dignified. She ought to not be a slanderer
or sober minded, faithful in all things. Now, two things pop
up with this little cause from first Timothy chapter three,
number one, uh, people run with it and say, Oh, it’s, means that
the office is open to women. This is where we get women deacons
from. Some of you know our denomination back in the 70s when it teetered
on liberalism. There were some pushing to ordain
women to the office of minister. Thankfully, that did not pass.
Then there was a push to ordain women to the office of elder.
That also did not pass, but there was what we call the deacon compromise. And the deacon compromise in
the late 70s was this, every session can decide if women should
or not be elected and ordained to the office of deacon. There’s
a movement afoot in our denomination. Last summer, it was pushed a
year to remove that clause that we should go back to being more
faithful to the scriptures. If we’re a denomination that
believes in the inerrancy of scripture, we should stick to
what God has taught us and provided. So that’s one of the issues that
pops up. The other issue that pops up
is, well, can a divorced person, is this an issue of he’s only
had one wife? Well, what if he’s divorced and
remarried and has a different wife? No, it’s a polygamy thing. And so there’s a little confusion
that pops up in these areas of the office of deacon. Notice
also it says they should be tested first. They should prove themselves. And then once they are proved
blameless, then the congregation may give their blessing and the
apostles may lay hands and pray on them and ordain them to the
high office. And so the calling of the deacon
is a high one. The standard of character is
a great one. There’s another little thing
in this passage though that I think is rather significant. It’s in
the Timothy passage and it speaks to the man’s convictions. Last
week, we said a lot about the convictions of the elder. He
needs to be biblically and theologically astute. And we said two weeks
ago about the minister. Boy, he really better be. He’s
got to go to seminary. He’s got to pass his ordination
exams and all the rest. The same ought to be true of
a deacon. Don’t you think that a deacon with convictions of
our confession of faith and our catechisms and our holy scriptures
would deacon better out of those strengths. I’ll give you a couple
of examples. I have a deacon’s training manual
and it goes through our confession of faith and it lists significant
theological convictions. And it tells how the deacons
could use those as a position of strength, a point of strength
from which to minister. For example, a deacon who knows
his Bible and his confession of faith will understand that
in the world there are Christians and then non-Christians. And
he’ll understand the difference between the two, the curtain
between the two. And he’ll realize from Galatians and other places,
the calling a deacon has to first serve the church. The calling
a deacon has to take care of the shepherd and shepherd the
flock of God immaterial and mercy needs. And so we get this from
this place in first Timothy chapter three. It says a deacon must
hold the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. Now, again,
sadly, we don’t think much of deacons in the American church.
Well, actually, we think too much of them. If you go into
some congregational settings, a deacon is actually an elder.
And I guess they don’t have deacons who deac. They just have deacons
who eld. That’s a little strange to me, because the Bible, I think,
is rather clear. But we think of deacons as a
junior training ground. Now, I’ve heard it said, and
I think it’s probably true from enough of the stories I heard
in this church, the tradition was, if you came of age and were
a good boy, you could become a deacon. And if you were a good
enough deacon, then you could become an elder. Oh, and it gets
better. If you did a good job as an elder,
you could be a trustee and sign the checks. That’s kind of the
word on the street that I heard from the life of this church
over many years. Brothers, you may be a deacon
and never an elder. And that is a high office of
Jesus Christ. You may be an elder and a good
one and have never been as a deacon. This is not Cub Scouts and Boy
Scouts. No, these are high offices. Do
you know I’ve never been a deacon, but I’m a minister. I’ve never
been a ruling elder in a church, yet I’m a minister. And so we
don’t need to see these gradations of offices. No, these are all
high offices of the church of Jesus Christ. I think we should
give more dignity to the calling of elder, more look at the character
of an elder, but also to look and see. He ought to have the
same convictions in his mind and heart that Jesus is Lord.
And that the most excellent faith, the mystery of faith with a clear
conscience, is something he ought to hold dearly in his life. The deacon’s concern. We’ve looked
at his calling, his character, his convictions, now his concern. Our book of order simply says
a deacon is called to an office of sympathy and service. Those are two wonderful words
that make it simple. What does a deacon do? Well,
he serves. How does he serve? He serves with sympathy. But
I want you to think a little more broadly than that. If you
think about the context of Acts chapter six, yes, a dispute arose
where some of the widows were getting fed and others were not.
But there’s a broader reason for the diaconate that the apostles
give. We need to serve the word and
to pray. And so we need deacons to take
up this issue of feeding the widows among us to the daily
distribution. But I think we ought to think
very broadly of the office of deacon. They ought to be, under
their purview, under their ministry, ought to be everything practical. everything material, everything
temporal in order that the word of God may be preached with much
prayer behind it. And so as we look at our little
church, you know, we’re growing, we’ve come through some pains
and hardships, we’ve reorganized in some little ways. Wouldn’t
it be ideal for us to have a minister and elders and deacons and a
healthy church membership and to be firing on all eight cylinders
And to be humming along and doing the work of the ministry. We’re
going to see next week with Acts chapter six, verse seven, the
church exploding in growth. That can’t happen if your elders
and pastor aren’t praying. That cannot happen if we don’t
have deacons deaking, right? That’s a new verb. That cannot
happen if we don’t have a committed membership, committed to the
apostolic teaching of the word, to life together in covenant.
It cannot happen if we’re just a loose confederation of people
who happen to all show up in one place on Sunday. No, we’ve
got to be organized and intentional and prayerful and serious about
this thing. Why does so many churches in
America just limp along? Well, they just limp along because
we’re not committed to the way Jesus runs his church. Do we
want to have a well-ordered church with ministers, elders, deacons,
and members with gifts? Of course we do, but that’s something
that takes years to build and God will have to shape us by
his word and by his spirit to get there. And so the concern
of the deacons, yes, is ministry to the poor, Yes, it’s a ministry
to the widow and to the fatherless. Yes, it’s a ministry to those
who have need. It’s keys and locks and lights
and bulbs. It’s who’s going to fertilize
the lawn and who’s going to cut the grass and who’s going to
trim the shrubs, who’s going to pay the bills. It’s all that,
yes, but it’s so that the word of God may be served for that
is what grows a church. There’s one last thing that this
passage teaches us. First Timothy chapter three.
And of course, it’s a it’s a C. We’ve looked at the deacon’s
calling, his character, his convictions and his concern, his work. Now
we want to think of the very last thing. Verse 13, his commendation. For those who serve well as deacons
gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in
the faith that is in Jesus Christ. Sometimes in the life of a church,
we say it takes, what, 80% of the people show up, 20% do the
work. Is that how it works? Probably for us, the 20% is not
accurate. It’s probably lower than that. It takes a lot of people to make
sure there’s not flies on the floor. You know, when they die
from up in the ceiling, it takes a lot to put on a meal. It takes
a lot to make the coffee. It takes a lot to study and prepare.
It takes a lot for all the inner workings, outer workings of the
church to take place. But when you’re exhausted, it’s
a good tired. And if you want to serve the
Lord and receive this wonderful commendation, those who serve
well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and great confidence
of the faith that is in Jesus Christ. If you want to, oh, how
was it put when the Scottish fellow ran in the Olympics, Eric
Little, he said, when I run, I feel God’s pleasure. When you serve the church, oh,
it takes time. Maybe you have to get up a little
early, come a little later, stay a little later. Maybe you have
to do something menial like sweep a floor or whatever, but do you
feel God’s pleasure? These are the things that we
ought to think of in the life of the church. When a deacon
serves you, you think of Jesus going out among the poor. going
out among the sick, going out among the lame and the blind.
And he touched them. He healed them. He met every
material need. A deacon ought to be Christ to
the people of God. And may it be so by God’s grace.
Pray with me. Our Lord, we thank you for furnishing
your church. We thank you, Jesus Christ, that
when you ascended up into heaven, you did not receive gifts in
victory, but you gave gifts in triumph so that your church on
earth could prosper. You’ve given us your word. You’ve
given us your ordinances, our sacraments. We worship, we disciple,
we baptize. You’ve given us ministers, elders,
deacons, and members, and may, as we commune together in holy
community, may our gifts and our graces and the benefits of
Christ flow richly down from the heavenly places into our
hearts and minds so that this place is filled with joy, it
is a bright light, a pleasing aroma, a wonder to the world,
and so that the name of Christ may be lifted up. and more men
and women and boys and girls may come to faith. Help us. May
this vision for your church that is yours be ours as well through
our labors and your blessings. In the name of Christ, we pray.
Amen.