The Bible says, likewise must the deacons be grave and not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved, then let them use the office of deacon being found blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderous, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own house well. For they that have used the office of a deacon will purchase to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Father, we bow in your presence this morning. We thank you for the Word of God. And as we consider the subject at hand, these verses which we've read, I ask that, Lord, you'd be pleased to give us understanding, make clear the simple truth of your Word. But God, also apply to our hearts these truths. And Lord, I pray that we might all find how this is applicable to each and every one of us today. Lord, help me as I preach. Lord, I stand in need of your touch. Lord, I can't do the task that is before me. It is not in me to do it. Lord God, I need your grace. I need your strength. I need your power. We pray, Lord, for the fresh anointing of the Spirit of God to help us today. Speak through us and speak to us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. I want to preach this morning on Do you want to be a deacon? Do you want to be a deacon? And when we come to this portion of scripture, just by way of introduction, we've been now in this first pastoral epistle, and the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul has been outlining what the structure, the function, and the operation of a church is to be. How is it to be structured? What is it to do? And what is it to carry out after we've met together? And, of course, we've seen in chapter 2 how the church must first of all be a church, a body of prayer, a house where we lift up our voices unto the Lord. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 21, 13, My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer. We ought to be a praying people, not just at home and not just in the prayer closet, but when we come together we ought to pray. There must be God-called men that are pastors and teachers. He said in chapter 2 verse 7 that he was ordained a preacher, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. And so a church must have men qualified to preach and teach, and they ought to have as their main subject the gospel. We teach the Word of God, but we should always weave the Gospel message into every sermon, into every time we stand and declare the Word of God. Christ must be central in every theme or every message. He ought to be the central theme. Also, He speaks about the role of men. They ought to be holy men, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting. He speaks how they ought to be leaders. He speaks of the role of women in the church and how they are to worship the Lord and their modesty as well as their preoccupation in taking care of the home and raising their children and instructing their families. And then he speaks of the biblical qualifications of the pastor as we've already worked our way through those seven verses. Spent, I think, five messages dealing with the preacher. Well, here we come to the qualifications of the deacon. And I don't plan to spend as long here, but as we come to this passage, we only have two texts that teach us about the office of a deacon. One I read this morning in our scripture reading from Acts chapter 6. And now this is the second one here in our text this morning, 1 Timothy 3, verse 8-13. In fact, it's the only two places where you find any kind of instruction concerning who a deacon is to be and what a deacon is to do. There isn't a lot said about it. In fact, the word deacon is only used in two different portions of Scripture. Acts chapter 6, you don't find the word deacon there. You find it here in our text several times as he refers to deacons and the deacon. And then the only other place that you find it in the New Testament is in Philippians chapter 1 verse 1, and I'll read it to you here. Paul, as he writes to the Philippian believers, says, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, and the bishops and deacons. That's the only two places you find it. In fact, the word deacon, deaconos, it literally means to run an errand. It was originally used in the days in which the New Testament was being written to refer to a table waiter. A waiter. And so, it's most commonly translated in our Bible as a servant. A servant. In fact, almost every time the Bible speaks of you and I as Christians in general, of being servants, it's the same word for deacon. We're all to be deacons. Alright, now get what I'm saying. We're all to be servants. That's the ministry of every believer. God's called every one of us to serve. We serve. We minister. We give of ourselves. We give of our time. We give of our talents and our ability. We give it first unto the Lord and then we give it in the areas where it's needed. God has called every single believer today to a ministry and a lifestyle of serving others. I am to serve you. You're to serve me. We're to serve this world, this community around us by being kind, by being gracious, by meeting needs, and by preaching the gospel. We serve one another. And then you have some people that are especially gifted to serve. Now listen, I'm going somewhere. We're all to be servants this morning. But then some have gifts of service. Some have the gift of teaching the Word of God. We've got men and women in our church that teach classes. That is a form of service. God has gifted you in that area. And so you've got service in general. We should all be servants. But then you've got the service of those who are specially gifted to serve. And you find that in the Word of God. And how we are to minister using our spiritual gifts. I've preached on that in the past. And how those that have spiritual gifts should minister, should serve in that capacity. And then you have the deacon. Again, the same word for servant or service. And they are to serve. I guess I'm saying all this because I want us to understand everything I'm about to say about a deacon applies to every one of us today. The only difference is the deacon is a role model of those things. The deacon in a church, whether it's one or two or several men that have this office, that hold this office of a deacon, they have this office of deacon and they are to perform the function of service and they stand forth before the whole congregation as a model of that service. And so they are to have the qualifications because as a model, if you're going to model after something, then that needs to be a good model. You don't want to have a bad model that you're modeling after. Women in our church should be able to look to other women that use their service in ministry that they're gifted with of God, and look up to those. Women ought to be able to look up to the women teachers and other women that do different tasks in the church, and look up to them in their character and their manner of living and their spiritual walk with God and their knowledge of the Word of God. All of these things should be true. But then even going a step further, those who have spiritual gifts and exercise those gifts in the service of the local church, as well as every other member of the church, ought to be able to look up to the deacon and the deacon's wife as the model of that ministry and say, man, I can see how they exercise their ministering unto the Lord and unto His people. Their service is above par. They are the standard. And I want to strive to be like my deacon and like my deacon's wife, and that's why there's a qualification placed here. Now deacons are men who serve the body, really in any and every capacity needed to help the body of the church be healthy. In fact, the Bible's gonna speak here just in a little bit, and we won't get to it obviously this morning, but how the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. If a church is going to be a healthy church, it should be a pillar and a ground of the truth, and it needs deacons that are serving in this capacity. And there is no specific job description given to the deacon, because they are to do any and every service that is needed. Whatever needs to be done, they must be willing to do it. This is the heart and the spirit of a true deacon. He fills in the gaps, if you will, in service between the pastor and between the congregation, so that nothing is left undone. And this is the understanding of what a deacon is. He's a servant. And he was to care after the physical needs of the church while the pastor, the elder, the bishops are to care for the spiritual needs of the church. That was the New Testament standard and the example that was set for us in Acts chapter 6. They said, it's not neat, it's not needful, it's not good for us to leave from the study of the Word of God and prayer and the ministry of the Word of God spiritually to go and serve tables. Which was the main reason for the deacons being needed in the early church, at least to begin with. Hebrews and Grecians together in one church in Jerusalem, a very heavily centered Jewish community, the Grecian widows were being neglected. And so he says, seek ye out seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit, faithful, that can take on this task, this physical need of taking care of these widows and serving their tables. And so, you have this idea. It doesn't negate anyone else from doing the same, but it simply means that was the deacon's responsibility, and that's what comes with the office, and that's why with the office comes qualifications. I say all that to say our first word in the text this morning is likewise, or in like manner. I mean, that's the idea here of what it means. It means even so, the pastor has all of these qualifications if he is to be able to stand and spiritually minister under the flock of God. Even so, deacons have these qualifications because they must minister to the physical well-being of the church. And they stand as an example. As much as the pastor stands as an example to the congregation and the spiritual life of the church, the deacon stands as an example to the congregation in the physical life, the temporal life of the church. And that's why it's so important. Deacons must in every way be the exact same caliber of men as the pastor of a church. Listen, deacon isn't a second class office. It's a very important office. And the standard is to be a deacon is just as high as the standard of being a pastor. So it's a very, very important thing. And too many churches across this country, unqualified men in the office of deacon have done much harm in a lot of churches. Unscriptural deacon boards, if you will, that run churches and a lot of them keep many churches from being the pillar and the ground of the truth. I believe it's a travesty in a lot of churches to see how a lot of deacons have been lifted up to some position of power. The deacon's office is not a position of power. It's not even a position of authority. It is a position of being a role model. And of leading out, taking the lead in service within the church. and understanding that they are viewed at in a higher standard. And we're going to see that later. But I want to say that because we have held in this church, I believe, to the biblical qualifications for deacon, I feel comfortable in saying this. I could go to Brother Jerry or Brother Larry and I could ask their advice. I could seek their wisdom for the direction of the church and believe that I would get good Advice and scriptural advice from these men. I'm not lifting them up. I'm just simply saying that I believe the caliber of men they are because that's what the Bible says they are to be. Listen, this is foundational. This is key to a church being a biblical church. We serve together in unity and it's a joy to do that. It's a wonderful thing. It's so healthy for a church. So as I preach on the thought, do you want to be a deacon? I want us to look at this. And I'm not saying that because anybody's asked me if they can be a deacon. But it's just a catchy title. It's better than the qualifications of a deacon. So there you go. But maybe you'll give it some thought as we look at this. And I don't know that I'm going to get through all of this this morning. If we don't, we'll come back and we'll finish it tonight. But I want us to look, first of all, as we think. I believe there's five truths here concerning the qualifications of this man. Number one, I want us to see his duty to character. He has a duty to his character, to integrity. Just like the pastor did. We looked at the biblical pastoral qualification of character. It's the same for the deacon and even his wife. We see it in verse 8 and verse 11. Look at it. Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre. Now look at verse 11, even so must their wives be grave, not slanderous, sober, faithful in all things. Now let me say this as a side note, and I doubt this is really a struggle with anybody in here, but just so you know, because it is a little more common in some places. You'll have people argue that there should be men deacon and women deacon. They call them deacons and deaconesses. And this is why, because in this text, there is no word in the Greek for wife. There is no Greek word for wives. And so where it says wives here, that's actually the Greek word for woman or women. However, when the context dictates a relationship with a man and woman, it's always translated wives. So whenever it said, husband, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, it's actually husbands, love your women, as Christ loved the church, or love your woman. But we understand he's talking about marriage relationships, so we know it's wife. That's why our Bible translators for the King James Bible translated it wife. Well, there's a lot of debate here, and they say, well, this is really not talking about wives. It's talking about the women deacons, and they've got this set of qualifications. But if you look at the next verse, what's the context of verse 12? Let the deacons be husbands of what? One woman. One wife. So it's translated wife. So in the context, he's talking about the wives. I just wanted to cover that, so I wanted to clear it up, because one day you might have somebody say to you, well, You know, the Bible, really, they didn't translate that right. It should have been woman, and that's why we believe in deaconesses. Well, that's not the context. The context is wives. So I just wanted to point that out. So, here the qualification is for a deacon, but then God also adds a qualification for the deacon's wife. So let's look at the duty they have to character. The duty they have to character. And as we look at this, We find that, number one in verse 8, the deacon is to be grave. Now we saw that about the pastor, didn't we? He was to be grave, or he was to be with all gravity, was the word. Grave. Deacon is to be grave. The word here means serious. It could even be translated to be dignified. Or even further, it could mean stately. has the idea of being serious in mind as well as serious in character. And it comes from the root verb which means to venerate or even to worship. That's kind of how much meaning is packed into this little word. It carries the idea of a person that has a stateliness about them that demands respect. Now, I'm not going to say it, but when you think of our deacons, does that come to mind? Serious-minded? Somebody that is stately and in their character, it demands respect? I'm not going to answer the question. I'll let you answer the question. It's the idea that they have a sort of I don't know, I don't want to stretch the point or the word here, but they have a sort of majestic quality of character that makes people stand in awe of them. It's a pretty high standard, isn't it, to be grave? Another word that's often used as a synonym to this word is a word that means to act like a sacred person. Now, Larry wasn't acting too sacred this morning. He ate too many mushrooms last night. We're going to have to examine him a little further, brethren. He came in, he's a little loopy, and then we got to the bottom of the reason why he's eating mushrooms last night. I don't know if they were psychedelic or... I told you I was going to put that in a sermon this morning, brother Larry. It's a person who by virtue of their life character spiritually has a certain, and again I won't stress the word, but a certain mystic about themselves. There's a little mystery. There's a lot of mystery to that one. But really it's a really beautiful word and it has a very important designation as it is being designated to the office of a deacon, their grave. Let me just say, as we look at this first qualification, the deacon is to be grave. We begin with one who serves as a deacon is to be one who could be held in awe as having a majesty of dignity. A life that comes to one who understands the seriousness of the spiritual issue that is at hand of serving in the Lord's church. This particular person would not be a flippant person. They would not just be silly all the time. Not a frivolous person. Not a person who makes light of very serious things. Not a person engaged in trivia as a way of life, always asking meaningless questions. Not a person who is trite, but a person with dignity. A person who understands the seriousness of their service to God and His church. confess to you as I've said before. The older you get, the more serious life gets. And a deacon has to be a man who sees the seriousness of life. He's a grave man. And then after that, There's a very positive affirmation of the personal character of this man in three negatives. So he says he must be grave, and then he says he must not do this, this, and this. Three negatives. And so the second of these four personal characteristics, qualifications, he says he must not be double-tongued. This is the only place in the Bible, in the Scriptures, where this word appears. It's simply what it says, it means to be double-tongued or two-tongued. Now, what's a two-tongued person? They're a snake, that's what they are. Two-tongued, what does it mean? Well, it might say that this is a gossipy person. Right? Somebody who doesn't just have one tongue going, but two tongues going. It might speak of someone that has rapid-fire discussion and things that perhaps ought not be said or often spoken of. That's the idea. He can't be that kind of man. But I think the best way to explain this word is really just keep it in its simplest meaning and it refers to a person who isn't saying one thing to one person and the same thing to the next. In other words, he says one thing to this person and turns around and he says something else to this person. He's double-tongued. He's two-faced. And so, a double-tongued person is telling me something, telling someone else something quite the opposite, And it's all for the purpose to gain personal favor or to obtain their own personal goal. They've got some hidden agenda. The idea here is he must be a man that has integrity in his speech. Because those who serve in the church are often privileged. They're privy to private matters, aren't they? If there's church discipline going on, typically deacons are going to be involved in that. They are privy to personal matters that are going on, private matters. They know what's going on in the lives of some of the membership of the church. And because they know well, they are to be grave, decent, dignified, serious about it. Because they're dealing with things that people would like to keep private and therefore they can't be double-tongued. They have to have integrity whenever they speak. Deal with both parties fairly and biblically. Not take sides in a matter, but be on the side of right. Be on the side of truth. On the side of God's Word. There's always a very high premium on verbal honesty, isn't there? Integrity among spiritual leaders. Not to speak hypocritically, but to speak consistently and righteously and uprightly. And if we had time this morning, we could go through the New Testament and cover passage after passage after passage that deals with the tongue. But the deacon is to have great integrity in his speech. Nothing is more devastating to the cause of Christ and the Lord's Church than to tell one person one thing and someone else the very opposite so that you can have your own personal gain or protect yourself. The third qualification of a deacon is not giving too much wine. Now, I want to look at this and maybe spend more time than I ought to spend on it because There's something here I think stands out. And when we see this in the qualification of a pastor, chapter 3 verse 3, what does it say? It just says, not given to wine. But here with the deacon it says, not given to much wine. Does that mean Jerry and Brother Larry can go out here and have them a beer from time to time? No, that ain't what it means. If it is, you need to read your Bible a little more. That's what you think, you need to read your Bible. So I want to get into this. The idea of not giving to much wine is really in the Greek it carries the idea of not holding near much wine. So why doesn't it just say, like it did for the pastor, not holding wine at all, not giving to wine? Well, wine was a common drink in the day in which the Word of God was written. You realize that? They didn't have Coca-Cola and Pepsi or Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper. Boy, my kids would be in trouble. I love Dr. Pepper. They didn't have that stuff. And you know what else they didn't have? They didn't have good quality drinking water. That was rare. They didn't go turn the faucet on and have good, clean, filtered water come out of the faucet. They didn't have tap water on demand. And so we know very clearly from the teaching of Scripture that what they did in the days in which the Word of God was being written is they would mix water with wine. In fact, usually it was one part wine and nine parts water. So the ratio was nine to one. It was 90% water, 10% wine. And they did that because the wine had the ability of killing any bacteria in the water. It made water safe to drink and it also gave it a little bit of flavor. Now listen, if you're drinking that kind of wine, One part wine, nine parts water. How much that you gotta drink to get drunk? I mean, wine's already not real intoxicating as far as when you compare it to strong drink like liquor and beer. You'll have to drink a bunch of wine if you're gonna get drunk when it's nine parts water and one part wine. And this is the point he's making. With a pastor, spiritual leader, he can't be giving the wine. He can't be a guy that's looking for that wine, looking for that cup. And probably the pastors in that day, they did drink a little bit of wine mingled with the water to make it safe to drink. But they couldn't be a guy that had a taste for it. He couldn't go home after preaching and say, man, I need me a strong one, honey. Whew, it was rough at the house of God today. No. He's a man that better be depending on God. Finding God to be his source of strength. But the deacon here, he's not so much, but even him, he couldn't be a man that held on to it. Because why? He's dealing with the physical, the temporal affairs of the church. Now, let me bring that into the 21st century and apply that. We don't have to do this anymore. You've got clean water. You've got Coca-Cola. You've got Dr. Pepper. You've got root beer. So you don't have to drink alcohol. You don't have to do that. That's why they had to do it and why the qualifications were a little bit looser because even Paul understood they're going to be very limited even in their source of water if they can't add a little wine to make it clean. But we live in a day and age where there's a stigma that's attached to alcohol, isn't there? The Bible tells us that we're to be above reproach, that we're to be abstaining from all appearance of evil. What do you think of a preacher when you see him walk in and buy beer and walk out? I'll tell you what I think, that man's a joke. And so there's a stigma attached with that, correct? Am I wrong? Sometimes, Me or my wife have run into Christians who are buying beer down at the Dollar General. I'll tell you what I think. They need to get born again. Or they need to get right with God. Something's not right. Something's off. Especially whenever you know what they used to say and now they're not saying that no more. I'm just simply saying this is the purpose here. Of why it's worded the way it's worded. He's not giving us Christian liberty to go out there and drink whatever we want to drink. As long as we just don't drink too much of it. There was a reason. That's why when you study your Bible, you need to study it in context. Right? You've got to know the context in which it was written. If they'd had Coca-Cola back in that day, they'd all had diabetes like we do today, but at least they wouldn't have been drinking no wine. That's just the understanding. And so, He was not to be occupied with much wine. The deacon, of necessity to drink some, yes. But that diluted with water. And not to be indulgent in it. Not to tarry long with it. He was not to be a habitual wine drinker. And so you need to understand the context. Because some might say, well, couldn't the Lord have just made this so much easier? Made it a lot simpler for all of us if He had just finished the debate and said no one can drink, period, ever. Well, these people would have died of thirst if that's how God had revealed it in the day in which the Word of God was being written. So you've got to understand context. And so we find here it is. So, so necessary that the deacon not be given to much wine. And that he understand that's danger. And how that it can become a pattern that one falls into. A life of drunkenness. And cause others as well to stumble and to fall. Because what is the deacon again as a servant? He is the model to all the other servants in the church. Well, the deacon did it. So can I. And then fourthly, one who is not greedy of filthy lucre. In other words, who is not greedy for gain. For money. Now why is that important when you talk about deacons? Well because in those days, in Bible days, those who served in the church in an official capacity would be handling the funds. They were to serve widows' tables. That means they had to take from the treasury. They had to go buy, purchase food. They had to go serve widows. They had to take care of orphans. They were handling money. A man greedy, a filthy lucre, would be tempted to put a little of that coin in his own purse instead of using it for the cause for which it was given. And that was for the poor and the needy. They'd be passing out money, maybe, to widows. to needy people. They'd be making collections. We have deacons still that collect the offering. Here in our Sunday morning, typically Sunday night service, we let our kids do it on Wednesday night. It's the youth offering, but that's typically how it goes. That was just one of the activities, one of the responsibilities of being a deacon. They didn't have bank accounts, they didn't have audit forms, they didn't have all of these things, so men had to handle it and it needed to be men who were not greedy or filthy lucre. They had to be the kind of people that were not motivated by money. They were free from the love of it. Now these are all things about the man's character that are important. Nate doesn't love money, he's not one that is given to much wine, he doesn't speak dishonestly, he's not double-tongued, and he's a very serious-minded fella, both in his understanding and in his conduct. Well, I didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to go this morning. I ain't even got to the deacon's wife's yet. We're talking about their duty to character. A deacon has a duty to this kind of character. But not just the deacon, every one of us. Every one of us ought to live the same way. Every one of us ought to be serious about the things of God when it comes to the things of God. Every one of us ought to be true in our speech, not double-tongued. Every one of us shouldn't be giving to wine. And we shouldn't be looking for alcohol, we ought to be looking unto Jesus. And every one of us shouldn't be greedy of filthy lucre, because the love of money is what? The root of all evil. And it'll lead us away from God and our walk with Him, and it'll cause a lot of heartache in the life of that individual and in the ones they love and hold dear. And then he sets in on the deacon's wife. But for time's sake, I'm going to stop there this morning. And as we look at the men that God's put in this church, I believe they meet these qualifications. I believe they stand as a role model for all of us as servants to look to and to look up to. And I trust that we would follow in that model. But again, be careful. We ought to look at models and examples in our life that God has set forth, but we cannot worship those models and those examples, because men fall. And when men do fall, if we are too occupied with the individual himself, we'll be prone to fall as well. And so though we look at the example, we must also follow the standard of Scripture, and we must ever keep our eyes on Jesus Christ. Amen. He's the author and finisher of our faith. Not the preacher, not the deacon, not the Sunday school teacher, not mom and dad. Jesus. Jesus has got to be where our eyes are this morning. Is that where your eyes are? If you'll keep your eyes on Jesus, and you'll walk honestly before Him and the Word of God, and you'll submit yourself to the Spirit of God as He teaches you from this book, I promise you, you'll be made more and more like Christ, and you'll begin to fit the mold of Scripture and everything it tells us we ought to be and we ought to do when it comes to service. You want to be a good servant? Look at the greatest servant that there ever was. That's Jesus. And keep your eyes on Him. And that's my advice to every one of us. No matter what you're standing, what's your status, what's your office, what's your gift? Keep your eyes on Jesus. And if you're lost today, you got to fix your eyes on Jesus. Stop looking at men, stop looking to religion, and stop looking at the world. Turn your back on all of it and look to Jesus and trust Jesus as your Savior. And He'll save you by His grace. Let's bow our heads this morning. Do you want to be a deacon? And I guess this applies to all of us, doesn't it? Both men and women. And we could rephrase the question this way. Do you want to be a servant? Do you want to be a servant? May God help us to be a servant today. Father, we bow in your presence this morning. We thank you for the Word of God. I would pray that you'd take what's been said and apply it to all of our hearts and lives and help us, Lord, as we've tried to spend a little time just looking at the meaning of what a deacon is, a servant, and then even the qualifications, Lord, spending some time on that. I just pray that you'd make it clear in our thinking to understand What you have said in your word, not the opinion of men, but the word of God. That's what matters. It doesn't matter what my opinion is at the end of the day or anyone else's. It matters what you've said. And we know what you've said. We have it here in front of us. And we're thankful, Lord, you've given it to us. And I pray that we would with a serious, a sincere heart Look at it honestly, Lord, and may the Spirit of God help us to apply this to our life. And may our walk with You reflect what we've heard here today. Again, Lord, for those that may be in our midst that are lost today, I pray that, Lord, You'd help them to stop looking, chasing after, lusting and loving the things of this world. Lord, they'd turn from their sin, and they would look to Jesus Christ today and trust Him as their Savior. And they'd learn to love and chase after Jesus even more so than they have the world. Lord, do a work in their hearts today and do a work in all of our hearts to be better servants. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may stand and we'll be dismissed in a word of prayer. Thank you for being here today. If you need counsel, I'm always available. Remember the announcements of next Sunday I will be gone. Brother Vincent will be filling in.