I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Acts 6, but also to 1 Timothy 3. We'll start with Acts 6, but I want to read both passages before I make comments. As I've already mentioned, I want to deal with the subject of the qualifications for deacons. And my goal had been in preparation was to bring one message, but found it to be impossible. And so it's going to be included. It's going to take two messages to really just deal with the qualifications. Not that many years ago, I dealt with the whole origin of the of the deacons and other things that the scriptures address on this subject. But on this occasion, we'll just look at the qualifications themselves and try to bring to light what each of the qualifications means and make application as carefully as I can to benefit us. And so in Acts chapter six, beginning in verse three, it says, Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business." And then if you just hold your place here and go over to 1 Timothy 3, I want to read verses 8 through 13. where it says, likewise deacons must be reverent, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience, But let those also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless. Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus." And so these two passages of scripture are the only ones that we have on the qualifications of deacons. And I want to emphasize to you that these are not intended either passage in being obviously exhaustive lists. I think there are a couple of reasons for us to note why these are not exhaustive. I think, I think one reason is Paul does not even mention, um, at least several of the key qualifications that Peter presented to the church in Jerusalem here in Acts chapter six. Also, uh, all of the qualifications in every place in both passages is required in other passages of scripture for all Christians. Okay? So these qualifications are not for a super race of Christians, but are to be found more fully manifested in those who would take the office of deacon. And a third reason that I would give why we don't view these as exhaustive is that many virtues, that have been given specifically for officers in the church. And we might note here at this point, the pastoral epistles in which the qualifications are given in more detail there in first Timothy are of equal value to these qualifications that are not mentioned with the qualifications. For instance, reading the Bible, Reading the Bible personally, reading the Bible publicly, prayer and the need for prayer and daily prayer in the life of a Christian. And there are many other similar qualifications for Christian leaders. pastors and deacons that are not part of these particular qualifications. All of that says to me that these are not an exhaustive list, but they're a representative list that allows the church to say, okay, is person A or B or C qualified to serve as a deacon? And this is a starting place for us to consider with regard to that. Now, there's a fairly long list of qualifications. Instead of just going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 down that list, I've decided in this message and the one to follow that I'm going to divide the qualifications up into four categories. And I think this might be easier for you to think through these qualifications and to sort of put them in categories yourself. The first category that we will consider today is the spiritual life of the potential deacon. What is the spiritual life of the deacon like? And there are three specific qualifications that fit under this category of spiritual life. They're found here, two of them are found in Acts 6 and verse 3. The first qualification would be that the deacon should be full of the Holy Spirit. Now, for most of us, we're familiar with the language of being filled with the Spirit. We see it repeatedly in the book of Acts. We see it mentioned in a couple of other places in the epistles. We probably feel more the need for the filling of the Spirit than we have a full understanding, maybe, of it, even though it's familiar to us. Now, let me describe what I think is the best brief description. I think that to be full of the Holy Spirit, or just to be full, means, it refers to something that is fill like a glass is full to the top, or some surface is covered over completely. If we think about filling as it relates to this subject, the filling of the Holy Spirit in the heart and soul of a person, we would say that a person or their very innermost being is permeated with the Spirit. So anything that would be full of something, the thing that was being filled would be permeated, would be full of that particular thing. And in this case, it's a reference to the Holy Spirit, which is the third person of the Trinity. would be full of God, that God would be in us, that God would be taking hold of our emotions and our affections and our thoughts and our actions and the Spirit of God would be making Him, His presence known in very distinct and recognizable ways. So to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to have the Holy Spirit as the dominant force of our lives. So, another way to put it might be to say that a Spirit-filled person is a person who is characterized by the work of the Spirit in his heart or life rather than the flesh. As the qualifications are being given out here by Peter in Acts chapter 6, he's not teaching on this subject, but where we find teaching on this, especially in Ephesians and in Galatians, there is this clear contrast being given. The Spirit-filled person is different from the fleshly-driven person. The person who's just living for self, or living for money or living for whatever they can have of this world's goods, as opposed to the spirit-filled person is living for God and for God's glory and is ready and willing to die to self and to yield himself more and more in terms of the will and purpose of God. The flesh, as you know, is concerned with the things of the world. It's concerned with the things of itself. While the spirit and being filled with the spirit is concerned with the spiritual life. Hence the category spiritual life. So the first qualification is spirit filled. The second qualification is fill or full of wisdom. Now these two go together as Peter gives these to the church at Jerusalem there at this moment. He says full of the spirit and wisdom. And you can't really have wisdom without the spirit. And if you have the Spirit, you'll definitely be gaining wisdom. Let me try to explain to you wisdom because our cultural context thinks more of wisdom as knowledge or information. And that's not necessarily the Hebrew understanding of wisdom. The Greek understanding of wisdom has to do with intelligence and with learning facts and information. It doesn't mean that the Bible is opposed to that. But the concept of wisdom has to do with something more than the acquisition of information. Wisdom is literally, as one man wrote, the ability to live life both in the physical and in the spiritual realm skillfully. Now obviously we're most concerned when we talk about wisdom, if we're studying Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, or other wisdom literature. We're concerned about living the spiritual life skillfully. But let me say that this is important that Peter has mentioned this here in regard to deacons because deacons are people who are going to be dealing more with the physical circumstances of the church, the congregation, the building grounds, finances, and things of that nature. And they need to be people who can live not only the spiritual life skillfully, but physical life skillfully also. Now, we understand that this cannot be done apart from the word of God. It's not like there is a certain person because of their IQ that is automatically more qualified than somebody who maybe didn't graduate from high school. Because a person may have great wisdom who doesn't necessarily have a lot of educational advantages or opportunities. Wisdom is a way of thinking and it's a way of living. It's a way of doing things and doing and living life. Wisdom includes the ability, if I think about the office of a deacon, wisdom includes the ability to work with people, to solve problems, to manage, to manage ministries, to manage even people and other things. And it also includes the ability to serve in a context of delegated authority. Nobody in this world, I know there's a lot of people that think that they are an authority under themselves. We might think of the presidency or prime minister of some country as not having anybody over them. But I beg to differ. First of all, all of us are under God's authority. Every human being is under his authority. But all other authorities, there's no individual who is not under authority also. And so I'm under authority, deacons are under authority, and God exercises accountability among us as a church in relationship to this. So a person that is filled with wisdom is going to be a person who is characterized by wisdom rather than foolishness or, and they're also gonna be characterized as being godly as opposed to maybe self-centered or sinful. So that a deacon who is fulfilling or is qualified by wisdom is a person who is under authority and serves the Lord in that role and who carries out things, seeing himself as the representative of God and answerable to God. So to be characterized by wisdom, there's a requirement. Because true wisdom comes from the Bible, it requires the one who is going to serve as a deacon to be a Bible student and one who studies the Bible. But not only studies it, but meditates upon it, makes application of it to himself and seeks to really internalize it. So this first category, spiritual life, includes full of the Spirit, full of wisdom. And then there is a third qualification that fits also under this category of spiritual life. And it's found in 1 Timothy, not in Acts 6. And so if you just flip over, verse 9 maybe is the most important qualification in a certain manner of speaking. It has to do with the spiritual life, but it also influences a person's life in a powerful way that is going to assist them in all the other qualifications as well. Verse 9 says, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. So the third qualification that I'll mention under the spiritual life is holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. Now this is not as readily understood by us as maybe other qualifications are. So let me begin first of all with just a detailed explanation of this particular phrase in this verse. So we have this word holding and this word holding means to to act by laying hold of something and laying hold of something tightly, you know, not loosely so that it's going to slip away, but laying hold of something, tightly, volitionally, purposefully, and it refers also, it means to keep the thing that you've taken hold of, to possess it, to own it, and to cling to it, and to closely be joined to it. So this word hold here in the original language is a bit more graphic than our word to hold because sometimes we just take hold of something for a second and we release it and so forth. But this word has to do with holding and maintaining that hold and drawing it to oneself. And then we have the puzzling word mystery. holding the mystery. This word mystery does not mean something that is incomprehensible to the human mind, but it refers to something which is a secret or has been a secret that is beyond the reach of the natural human mind, and here's the key, unaided by God. If you look at all the usages, not that many, I forget how many, a dozen, maybe 15 uses of this word mystery, Paul uses it in very clear, unmistakable passages to communicate a very important concept. The mystery of the faith is not something that is intellectually unattainable, it's something that requires the Spirit of God. We need God to illuminate it to us, okay? We can understand creation. We can understand the lesson that we heard on Psalm 77 this morning and all the ways in which we're to remember God as we have trials or other circumstances in our lives. We can intellectually understand that, but true reception of God's Word in that way requires the Spirit of God. to communicate it to us. Paul is using this word mystery to refer to things that have been hidden from us, but are now revealed to us because we've received the Spirit of God. The Spirit lives within us. The Spirit is the one who illuminates the scripture, causes us to see and understand the teaching that is contained in the scripture. Now here in this passage, it says, holding the mystery of the faith. And we have a tendency whenever we see the word faith to think of the subjective experience of receiving Christ and believing the gospel and having faith in God to live for Him every day, all of which is important and is taught in multiple passages of Scripture, but that's not the meaning here. Here we have clear reference to what we call the objective truth. that is found in Holy Scripture. Or we could say the Word of God. So when Paul uses a phrase like the mystery of the faith, he's talking about the content of Holy Scripture. He's talking about the Word of God. God's Word needs to be illuminated. We need to hold on to it with all of our hearts and minds. But then the last phrase is equally important. holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. Now, what does Paul mean when he speaks of holding to the Scriptures in terms of our conscience? Well, the word conscience is our ability, in practical terms, not philosophical terms, but in very practical terms, conscience is our ability to sense our own guilt, for one thing, but it's also the ability to contemplate our own actions and evaluate our actions as to whether they're right or wrong. Now, a lot of people think, people talk today a lot about follow your heart and follow your conscience, that sometimes people will use the word conscience not as frequently anymore as just to follow your own heart. But what does the Bible tell us? It's that our hearts are desperately wicked and who can know it? We can't know our own hearts. And I would say that our consciences also are just seared by the fact that we're born sinners and we're part of the rebellious race of Adam. We need a conscience that's what? Informed by the Word of God in order to adequately evaluate whether a particular action or thought or any other thing going on in our lives is the right action or the wrong action. So our conscience is a very, very important If we read the Bible and we sin against our own consciences, I mean, the Bible tells us that if we go against our own consciences, as it's communicating what is right to us, we are sinning against God. So our conscience, it appeals to us to do what we believe to be right, and it restrains us from doing what we believe to be wrong. Now, if we add to our understanding then, and my just reminding you of what our consciences are, if we add the word pure to it, that word pure, the Greek word that's translated by the English word pure, comes from the word from which we get our word catheter. pointing to the fact that this word pure means to be clean or to be purified. So, we will have a pure conscience when we have done what we believe is right and when we refrain from doing what we believe is wrong according to the Word of God. That's really, so we hold on to the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. We don't wanna give in. Now, all of us in this room can testify to occasions when we have gone against our own consciences. Maybe even before we were Christians. Even after we were Christians, we have often sinned against our own consciences because we knew that we should do a certain thing or that we should not do a certain thing. And what happens is pressures are brought to bear upon us. circumstances or such, or we're trying to save face, or we're trying to help somebody else save face, or whatever it might be, and we sin, we go against our own consciences, knowing what is right and doing what is wrong. Now, we would want a deacon to be a person who has grabbed a hold to Scripture and is holding tenaciously to it, and wants then to obey it with a pure conscience, not with a seared conscience, but with a conscience that is yielded to the word of God and that is conscientiously attempting to do what is right and is not gonna show favoritism. Let me be honest, not to show favoritism even to the pastor or to a group of people within the church, but it's gonna be faithful to the word of God. So that's the explanation of this particular qualification. Let me go a little further with application. In this sense, and I think this is important, deacons are not required to teach. So if you compared the qualifications for bishops and pastors and elders, you would see that one of their qualifications has the ability to teach, but that's not included in the list for deacons. They're not required to be able to teach. But the fact that we see examples in Stephen and Philip that they did preach and teach is we don't have to say, okay, you can't teach or preach. Deacons don't have to teach or preach, but they can. Whether they teach or preach, this particular qualification is saying they need to know the basic teaching of the Word of God. They need to have a grasp on the things of God. And our confession is a good summary. of biblical content, theologically, and we work hard here at Providence Baptist Church. We have three services on the Lord's Day. We have a prayer meeting and study on Wednesdays, and we have cell groups, and we encourage the teaching. that we learn and grow in the Word of God. Because the Christian life is transformed into Christ-likeness through the regular receiving of the Word of God. God works mysteriously and powerfully through His Word. It's not like, you know, I remember when I was a teenager, churches had discipleship programs and you graduated from them. And it was, you know, some of them with 13 weeks and some of them with the really spiritual churches were 26 weeks. You take that course, you finish and you're now a disciple. Now, that's unbiblical. The biblical truth is the instant that you have believed the message of the gospel, you are a disciple and that discipleship goes on until you die. And God works all through our lives by His Word, transforming us more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. It's interesting that when Peter writes his first epistle, he comes to a critical moment in the arguments that he's giving there. And basically what he says is every single Christian, not just the deacons or pastors, but every single Christian must be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you and to do so with meekness and fear. The little word that's used there, translated reason, is apologia. And that word refers to a defense of the gospel, a defense of the Christian life and the Christian religion. Every one of us should be able to answer questions for people in this world who have questions about Christ and salvation. and other matters in addition to the gospel. And this is also why we've taken a couple of cell group meetings to just refresh our memories, refresh our minds on the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We cannot emphasize the gospel too much. We cannot overthink it or over, you know, use it or consider it. We need to have it in our hearts and lives all the time. So those are the three qualifications that fit into the category of spiritual life. Full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, and holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. Now I want to begin to discuss some of the personal characteristics that are to be seen. I've got a few more minutes and the first personal in that category, the first qualification I'd like to mention, I'm gonna call possessing an excellent testimony. And actually it's drawn from a word that is used in Acts 6, 3, as well as in 1 Timothy, yeah, Acts 6, 3 and 1 Timothy 3 and verse 8. So in Acts 6 and verse 3, Peter says you should choose out seven men who have a good reputation. Now let's think about reputation for just a minute. The Greek word that's translated reputation is surprising. If you're reading in the original language and see this, it's a bit surprising. It's the word martyria. from which we get our English word, martyr. And a martyr, as you know, is a person who gives their life for Christ. Now, the word martyria, of course, it later becomes, it's used by the church fathers, pastors in the early years of the church to describe the person who gives his life. But every Christian is supposed to be a martyria. He's supposed to be a good testimony. That's really what this word means. It means to have a good reputation is to have a good testimony. So to have a good reputation means you have this excellent testimony. You're living before the world. You're living before the church. The seven men that were chosen in Jerusalem to be the first deacons were men who had a great reputation, a wonderful testimony, both within the church and without the church. So for a man to be qualified to serve as a deacon, he must be well thought of in all the realms of life. But the second word that informs this qualification of possessing an excellent testimony in 1 Timothy 3 and verse 8 is the word reverent. So a man who is reverent as the Greek word means, is dignified. He's a person who's venerated for his character. He would be a very honorable person. He is to be a person whose attitudes and whose conduct win the admiration of others. And this would, I think, also include both people inside and outside of the church. What kind of a testimony does this person have in the congregation, but also in his workplace and in his neighborhood? It includes being respectable and well thought of and an individual that's worthy of respect. Now, we could go to extremes and we could expect that a person who would be a deacon would never have had an altercation with a neighbor or never, you know, had any questions in terms of his professional life or anything like that, but I think we would be unrealistic to do so because we live in a world that is increasingly antagonistic against Christianity. People take offense at us for a variety of reasons, so we're not going to say, and I want to make this very clear, that a person who is going to be a deacon, it's as though they're perfectly in agreement with all of the world, and all of the world is in perfect agreement with them, as well as within the church. I think that that's unrealistic, and not only is it unrealistic, but I don't think that's what is really meant by this qualification, because the first And the most significant of the seven deacons in the church at Jerusalem became the first martyr of the faith. He was stoned to death for testifying about the teaching of the Old Testament that the audience rejected and they killed him for it. So all of that helps us and informs us in understanding this qualification here that the deacons are to possess an excellent testimony. And I think the reason why that both the word reputation and reverent are words that were used to refer to both inside and outside of the church as we find them in the New Testament is because the qualification here of possessing an excellent testimony is very important because the deacon is going to be an officer of the church along with the pastors and they are, as an officer, representing the church. So their testimony is very important. I want to consider a second qualification under the category of personal characteristics. And it's also found in verse 8. The next phrase is, not double-tongued. So I'll put this qualification this way. The deacon should be a person who maintains guarded and truthful speech. And I've framed this qualification this way, guarded and truthful speech. Sometimes it's best, in some circumstances, not to say anything. And that would be guarded. And then there's other times in which we never want to be dishonest. We never want to speak anything that is untrue. As a general rule, I know that there's a correct place for untruth, but we're not discussing that. We're discussing qualifications. for elders and their service within the church. They are going to be men who maintain a guarded and truthful speech in their lives. This phrase, not double-tongued, has a clear meaning. It refers to saying one thing to one person and a different thing to another person. And the fact of the matter is, our world is filled full of double-tongued people. who say one thing to one person and a different thing to somebody else about the same matter. Happens all day long in the workplace, it happens in sales, it happens everywhere. And it's like our sinful nature has been tuned, like an instrument, tuned in such a way as to try to figure out how to say something to somebody without hurting their feelings or without, you know, ruffling their feathers or whatever the motivation might be. Now, I don't think that we need to go out of our way to ruffle feathers and to offend people. That's not what I'm saying, nor do I think that's what Paul has in mind here at this point. But what he's talking about is an officer who would receive a question from somebody and answer it differently with one person as opposed to another. Basically what we're seeing here is the deacon must be a truth speaker. He must speak truth and he must not be guilty of duplicity. And that's what this really is, duplicity. Any man who becomes known for not being truthful will lose the confidence of the congregation and will not be trusted. And for these seven deacons that we see in the book of Acts in Jerusalem, for them to successfully carry out the work that they were appointed to do required them to be truthful with two different opposing groups. the Hellenists and the Hebrews. And so if they started trying to, you know, previous to their being ordained for that position, the Hebrews had been sort of given preference over the Hellenists. And if they all came in, all seven of them have Greek names, which means that the congregation and the apostles chose the seven who were associated with the Hellenists. to bring equity to the situation that they were faced with. And what's wonderful about the Acts 6 is, passage is, after they were established and went to work taking care of that thing, all of the problems dissipated. And what we're told there in the seventh verse is that the Word of God spread and grew and even priests, that is, Judaistic priests, priests associated with the temple in Jerusalem, which was contrary to the church of Jesus Christ, were brought to faith in Christ. What that means is this. These deacons handling that problem brought such a spirit of unity and togetherness to the church that the whole community recognized it. If they had been duplicitous in their speech, it would have not resulted in that end. It would have ended in division. And as we see driving down the road sometimes, on one end of town we're driving, it says the First Baptist Church and we go a little bit further and it's the Second Baptist Church. There would have been two churches in Jerusalem. But that didn't happen through the grace and mercy of God. And so we need to think about these. Now, we have been blessed in this congregation to this point. We have two qualified, committed, dedicated men serving as leaders. as deacons, and one of our deacons turned 78 years old yesterday. So we're thinking that he may need to be replaced. We may need to retire him. We will still tap his wisdom greatly, because Steve has served God for 50 years by now, more than 50 years in this congregation. But we want qualified men, so think about these qualifications and as you think about who you would believe to be, who should be made a deacon to serve in this capacity. But now before we close completely, We can also make application of all of this to ourselves, can we not? Each of us needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit and the Bible teaches that if we ask for the Spirit, God will give the Spirit to us and so seek to be filled with the Spirit and to meditate and read and take in the Word of God and be full of wisdom. And also, all of us should be holding to the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience, and we should also possess an excellent testimony inside of the congregation and outside of the congregation, and we should also all maintain the truth, guard our lips and not speak anything that is untrue. And may the Lord bless his word to our hearts and lives. Let us pray. Dear Father, we're thankful for your word and for the opportunity that you have given to us today to be together in this place and to take in the word and to consider the teaching of your holy word. And so I pray that we would all receive it with meekness, that it would transform us and change us, that we would love it. Help us, dear Father, not to be resistant. to any gospel, biblical, Christ-honoring truth. Help us to receive it and internalize it and live according to it. We pray all of this in Jesus' name.