the First Timothy, the book of First Timothy, and we're going to look at something specific in regards to the office of deacon. In the book of Acts, chapter number six, we find a particular need. The need is that we have apostles who are also the first elders of the church. They are being, if I could use the word burden, but only for lack of a better term. They are being redirected towards serving tables. It's the Greek word deacon for the verb form deacon is deaconing, and we've made up the word, frankly. It's an English version of a Greek word. The Greek word is diakonos, and we transliterate it to a word deacon. And so the word is pretty common in the New Testament. And in Acts chapter number 6, we have the apostles who are busy deaconing tables, and they said, we need to stop doing this. Only a few people can do what we're doing. We want to deacon tables, but we can't both deacon tables and deacon the Word of God. So in Acts 6, they say to the church in Jerusalem, look out among you and find seven men filled with the Holy Ghost and wisdom. And they did. And they're named in Acts chapter number 6. And then they lay hands on them. Now, that can mean that you choke the life out of someone, but that's not what it means in this context. It means that you're placing your symbol of blessing on them and you're setting them apart and you are symbolizing that God is blessing them for a work. So here in just about, oh, Mm-hmm. 37 minutes. We're going to do that. We're going to place hands. And over here in just a little bit, Brother Phil and Katie, you're going to be right here on this seat. You probably haven't sat this close for a little while. I'm just kidding. But we want you to be right here on this seat. And then Darren and Kelly, we're going to ask you to come on over here. Deacons, when you join us, and Pastor Randy and Pastor John, if he makes it in here, We're going to ask you deacons to put a mask on and like it, don't like it. I'm not concerned about that. I'm asking you to do it. Put the mask on and then put some of this on your hands. Now, it's just water, but if it makes you feel... No, it's not just water. And there is... We paid a lot of money for this. We bought this back in April when it was gold. Now it's just alcohol, a high alcohol mix. But I'm going to ask you brothers, and then we're going to alternate praying for our new deacons. In just a moment, I'm going to tell you how we got to this point, but I want to take you to 1 Timothy chapter number 3. Now, in 1 Timothy chapter number 3, you're going to see that this is a church manual. You're going to see the book of 1 Timothy is a church manual. It tells you how to operate a local church. Tonight's lesson will not be terribly deep. It is intended on being very direct and very helpful and very informative. This will make, I guess, I think, the third or fourth sermon that I've done regarding just the deacon ordination. In August of 2017, we did a Sunday night sermon on what Baptists believe about deacons. And then in December of 2017, we had the first deacon ordination since my arrival and I spoke on Acts chapter 6 and in a much deeper way. We ended that message with a description of all the things that Sainty Ridge Baptist Church has stipulated and defined as waiting tables. And in our constitution and bylaws, it's very, very descriptive as to what deacons do. And then later on, we also did a message that is very Deacon specific a year ago when we talked about, believe it or not, the Deacon's wife. How many of you remember that little gem from 14, 15 months ago? Thank you very much. And so an entire sermon on the Deacon's wife. How do you like that? So as you'll notice in chapter three, verse number 15, Well, verse 14, here's what Paul says to Timothy. This is the word of the Lord, hear it. These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly, but if I'm delayed, I write to you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. By what truth? Verse 16, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Now, you may have a version of the Bible that has he was manifest in the flesh, but if it's not God being manifest in the flesh, there's no great mystery about a man being manifest in the flesh. That happens every time there's a birth. So if you have a King James, New King James, I think even a NASB, you should have God was manifest in the flesh. If you have anything else, it's probably just he was manifest in the flesh. And again, even if it's just he, you're at least saying Jesus existed before he took on a body. So no matter your translation, it's good truth. Jesus didn't begin in a virgin's womb. He ended up in a virgin's womb. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory. So we have an entire letter of six chapters here written from an apostle to a pastor. What is he doing? He's trying to get people to behave right in church. How do I know that? That's what verse 15 chapter 3 says. Look at it again. I write to you that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of truth. You may notice right before this passage, the entire chapter is about how to find and qualify and select bishops and deacons. Chapter 3, verse 1 says, if a man desires the position of a bishop, I have argued in a number of places that a bishop is interchangeable with pastor, it's interchangeable with elder. And again, I will just use this argument. If you're dealing with some kind of denominational understanding of a bishop being a regional overseer of several churches, think about the conundrum of what you're producing. You have a chapter of scripture telling you how to qualify a regional shepherd and a local church deacon, but no qualifications for a local church pastor? Probably not. And that is one of the arguments for why we would say that bishop, which comes from their Greek word episkopos, is also interchangeable with elder, which has the Greek word presbyteros. That should sound like Episcopalian and Presbyterian. And we would say that both of those are synonymous, or interchangeable at least, with the word pastor, which means one who feeds. Think about that, one who feeds. So we go through seven verses of this, and then we get to verse eight. 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. In other words, they're not just good theologians, they have a clean conscience from their good conduct in verse 15. Why do they have a good conscience? Because they know how to behave. So they have a good conscience springing from their behavior, and that means that they can hold this mystery of the faith with good strong hands, verse 10. Let them also first be tested, Let them serve as deacons, being found blameless. Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things." Let me stop there a minute. You may find it interesting, and we talked about it a year ago, I think September of 2019, that the reason that the pastor's wife is not mentioned is because the pastor has, in theory, a much more private life than a deacon. And if the wife is given to the husband as a helper in ministry, that means that the deacon's wife has potentially a much more public eye on her. And that is why we bring the deacon and his wife up here to pray over them. In normal circumstances, back before the flood, that's how I revert to COVID now. Back before the flood, we used to have the deacons and we used to, and when we brought Pastor Randy, you might remember when we had you come up here and we, I think it was February or March of 2018. 19, it was 19, and we had you come up here and my wife and I think Zach's wife, Pastor Zach's wife came up and prayed over Jerry while Pastor Zach and myself and was it Paul Foster and David Gant were here and we prayed over you. And the reason is because we readily admit that a wife, according to Genesis 2, is aiding her husband in the work, and the work of a deacon is no exception. But since we've preached an entire sermon on that, I can send you the recording if you care. Verse number 12, let deacons be the husbands of one wife. ruling their children and their own house as 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. Now you might notice the close proximity of the offices of pastor and deacon to a verse that says this entire letter is so that you have a proper appreciation of how one ought to behave in church. Isn't that something? And that is why in chapter 2, it talks about how your worship services should be ran. And in chapter 5, it talks about how you should be taking care of your aged parents. And in chapters 1 and 6, they're great bookmarks. Anyways, this is an operations manual for a local church. Now, I would like to do a time check because I'm really, yup, man, this is great. I'm only 120 seconds behind so far. All right, so here we are in verse number 15. I would like to agree with someone who might say, the church is more than a building. That happens often. And it's used for a number of reasons. People say the church is more than a building, and they do so usually to wage an argument that we need to get outside the walls of our church and do ministry. Totally agree. The first year or two I was here, we really had an inward focus because, frankly, we needed one. We needed to be a healthy body. And Brother Walter, in just about every deacons meeting, would say, it's almost time for us to be thinking about people outside of our flock now. And little by little, we have ministries and outreaches. I can tell you personally that there are at least three times a week when we knock on the doors within a mile of this church trying to win people to Jesus. We have a missions program that is ever expanding with the help of our missions pastor and a missions committee. We are doing our best to make sure that we are thinking outside the walls. But that is not always what is intended when someone says a church is more than a building, particularly in the season in which we now are, where people are having grand debates week after week about whether or not it counts. as church for a church to meet online. So I would like to say when we have this description of a church is more than a building, I agree only in a sense. I agree that a church is more than a building. But I would also like to say that the church, while being more than a building, is not less than a gathering. A church may be more than a building. I agree, we could exist without owning this property. But a church is not less than an ecclesia. The Greek word behind church means gathering. There is no way to virtually satisfy that. We gather because we're a gathering people. We gather because, as we learned Wednesday night, the children of Israel gathered in the wilderness and were therefore, according to Acts 7.38, called the church with Moses. This is not intended on picking more fights, but I do want you to know the pickle that the pastor of this church is in every week. I have the opportunity to be an equal opportunity, how do we say, offender. I am usually offending people on opposite sides of the same topic in the same church without any trouble, both in person and online. I'm becoming very fluent at it. I never intended on being this bad at it. But it turns out that we actually have to redefine what the word church means. Now, it is not less than a gathering. I've dealt with this before in my five-part series on the church on the evenings of Sunday, March of 2017. They're available on Sermon Audio. We argued against the notion of some kind of universal church, otherwise called the Big C Church. And I would like to just take a moment here and pet the cat the wrong way, the right way, so that the fur actually lays down. I want you to see that saying I'm a part of the big C church so I don't need to assemble with my local church doesn't make any sense in the corporate understanding. Let me give you what I'm talking about. We're coming up on one of the best seasons of the year. You think I'm thinking Christmas. I think I'm thinking Shamrock Shakes and McRibs. Now, I know that there's room for debate, but not now. And I just want you to know that me saying I don't have a particular McDonald's that I go to because I'm part of the Big M McDonald's. You say, but McDonald's is so much bigger than any one restaurant. Yeah, but eventually you got to go to one if you like McDonald's. A corporate understanding of church does not reduce the necessity of every Christian belonging to a local franchise. Now, my wife doesn't care much for it, but I'm a Waffle House kind of guy, too. Can I get an amen there? About once every four and a half years, my wife gets brave enough to go with me to Waffle House. I convince her that the sanitation scores of 63 and a half are not that big of a deal. And just when we're there having good conversation, and I'm about to order the All-Star, can I get an amen? We'll look over and see a roach carrying a termite. You know what I'm saying? Pastor Randy, did we see any roaches or termites when we went Wednesday morning? It was a blessed time. I think the Lord was in that place. But how about I say to you, I enjoy Waffle House, I just never go to it. I feel like I'm really one with the waiters and waitresses and the cooks, the very clean and careful cooks at Waffle House. Really, which one do you go to? Do you go on a Fair Grove Church Road? No. Do you go the one on 70 East? No. I mean, in Fayetteville, they were, I mean, everywhere. How many of you know McPherson Church Road and Skybow Road? There is one on both sides of the corner, baby. I mean, if the traffic was bad, I could go to either one, either one, friend, and get a table right away and get the next seven plays on the jukebox. Know what I'm saying? Order my flat sausage patties. I'm talking about hog heaven on several levels. And I say to you, I love Waffle House. I'm a big believer in a Waffle House. And you say, really? When's the last time you went? I say, I don't go. I'm a part of the Big W Waffle House. Y'all know what I'm saying? This letter wasn't written to the people that are part of Big C Church. This letter is written to people that have enough common sense to know you've got to belong to an ecclesia as a Christian. You meet on the Lord's Day with God's people, at least. And if you want to go crazy like full-on Monty X style, you meet daily in the temple and in every house. We ain't even begun to meet so much the more as we see the day approaching. Every now and then I get kind of a cute comment from someone that says, I wish we had revival meetings like they used to. And I want to say, sister, I can't get you to come on Wednesday night. Hello. So here we are in 1 Timothy 3, and we're talking about behaving in the house of God, which yes, is more than a building, but is not less than an assembly. You know what I'm saying? And if it does exist, this big C church, it exists in a heavenly reality where all of us are gathered in Christ around the throne. So friends, we're talking about a real assembly that Timothy is pastoring. And so here we come to a verse, I wanna just say one more thing. In effect, the church is actually not more than a building. What am I doing right now? I'm attacking a cliche. The church is more than a building, I agree in a sense. What sense? It's more than the timbers and the drywall and the beams and the roof and the ceiling and the rafters and the chandeliers and the A.V. and the piano and the guitar. It's more than that, but it's not less than a gathering. And you'll notice that this gathering, biblically defined, has biblically defined pastors and deacons. Not only that, it has biblically defined truth. For example, in verse 16, you see the truth as it's biblically defined. And then you see in verse number six, if you instruct the brethren in these things, you'll be a good minister of Jesus Christ. Now, in other words, there are people that Timothy is supposed to be busy teaching, busy teaching. Not only that, you see in verse number 11, he says, Paul to Timothy, these things command and teach. And then he says in verse 13, till I come, give attention, we're in chapter four, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Forgive me if I didn't tell you that, I'm sorry. So let's review there. Four, six, instruct the brethren in these things. 411, these things command and teach. 413, till I come give attention to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. We come together to hear truth and hear it both read and preached and expounded. Now, friends, this church existed for a long time before me. And if Jesus tarries for an extended period of time, it will exist a long time after me. This is not about how does Bill Sturm get better known. This is how does the truth become better exalted at Sandy Ridge Baptist Church. That's really what we're after. And so in my second sense, in the way that I would like to disagree with the church is more than a building, I would like to say, in fact, the church, in a sense, spiritually speaking, is a building. Let me read a scripture to you, Ephesians 2. Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, church at Ephesus, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building is built. Being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom also you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. I hope you can see it, friends. It's so beautiful. He says that when you assemble, you're a building that houses the glory of God. You say, well, we're the church when we're not together. That's true, but not in the same sense. Well, God is with us no matter what. We can meet on a fishing boat, and as long as we're talking about him, he's with us. That's true, but only in the sense that he's an omnipresent God with you on your fishing boat. Not in the sense where two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst of them. Check out that context. It's terribly abused. And I wonder, if anyone would quote that to me, I hope that you're able to tell me at least what testament it's in. But that's the day we're in. We know a few verses, and I wanna make sure that we're focusing back in. We do not have to define the truth for Paul. He defines it for us. It is clearly defined, and it is without controversy, verse 16 says. The church that is gathered has a defined truth. In other words, it's well-attested to by so many that a actual song was composed, and that is why it's in that strange paragraphing in the version of your Bible if you have kind of a newer publisher. It's set off in a paragraph because it was a song. It was a creed. Philippians 2 is an old early early Christian song. First Corinthians 15 where Jesus was seen of Paul and of Cephas and of 500 brothers more than 500 brothers at once. That's an early song. Friends, the believers like you and I who who met early after Jesus' ascension. They had creeds and songs. They had recitations. They had an amazing body of truth that deacons are required to hold with a clean conscience according to verse number nine of chapter three. a very, very well-defined body of truth. So when verse 15 says that the church is the ground and pillar of truth, we are saying, in fact, that the church, the assembly, holds the truth up and provides a place for it to rest. In other words, the church, according to the word of God, is about preaching and teaching truth. So I have four textual connections, and here's number one. The Church of the Living God is focused on truth concerning Jesus Christ. That means that every lesson, every sermon, every application of everything you ever hear in here, the three times officially in the Constitution, I didn't make that up, when I got here it was in the Constitution, the three times a week that we meet, that means that everything should be preached from a Christian perspective. You should never leave here thinking that we're here to make you better people, just better people, just moral do-gooders, just try harder, be better, do gooder. No, no, in fact, There's supposed to be truth concerning Jesus. Everything listed in verse 16 and how it affects you, how it affects me. Number two, the church of the living God is a chosen vessel by which truth is upheld, the ground of truth, verse 15, and it is put on display, the pillar of truth, verse 15. So it has a way of upholding and putting truth on display. That means that other, oh, come on, friends, I need you to get me on this. I don't want to spend another sermon talking about this. That means that other organizations that are not ekklesias, that are not churches, they are not houses of God, verse 15 says. Isn't that what it says? You may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, the church of living God, the ground and pillar of truth. Isn't that what it says? All right, thank you. All right, so we have here then that if you don't have a local church, you are actually not a part of the house of God. And if you are not a part of that, and I know there's lots of cans of worms I'm opening up there, like, does that mean you have to be a part of a church to go to heaven? No, but what I want you to take in tonight is that there is no Christian in the New Testament described as one who does not find themselves at home and in Ecclesia. I love Jesus, I just don't go to church. No, no, no, you don't love Jesus. The scripture says you do not love Jesus. Imagine telling someone, I totally dig you, man, but your wife, she makes me ill. Well, isn't the church the bride of Christ? Isn't it made up of believers? And people all over popular Christianity that know all the nifty songs and read all the good books, I mean, it's interesting to me that in a day and age, I saw it on Twitter today, in a day and age where we read books like Radical and Crazy Love, people are not wanting to go to church. And so here's what we're talking about. It's not an issue anymore of saying, well, I think that you can go to church and not go to church and still go to heaven. I'm not arguing that. The thief on the cross never got a chance to go to church and singing the sweet by and by. But what we're supposed to believe from biblical Christianity is that if he had been given a chance, he would have gotten baptized and would have become a part of the local body. And so, I would just say that means that the discipleship ministry that you love and I love, a radio ministry that you love and I love, a helps ministry of some kind, a convention, an association, a seminary, or anyone else that does good things that help the church, never replace the church. In other words, it's really a good idea to get every parachurch organization as a part of a church because only the church, according to this verse, 1 Timothy 3.15, has been given the mission of the ground and pillar of truth. Number three, the church of the living God going forward there is from the expectation of Timothy to behave in church. This is supposed to instruct us. I already said that, and I already gave you number four. We're almost done. Implications from the text. It is impossible to assign any responsibility to people who are not defined. Let me say that again, and then I'll get to my point. It is impossible to assign any responsibility to a people who is not defined. Or let me say it this way, it is impossible to assign any responsibility to a person for a people that is not defined. One of the responsibilities of deacon in our church constitution is that they care for a particular group of families that make up our membership. One of the greatest things that a non-member can do for a pastor is to join the church. Why? Because then the pastors have help caring for you. You have a deacon assigned to you. Some people say, well, I don't believe church membership is biblical. Well, I'm afraid that you're in an assembly that believes different. We believe that church membership is biblical. We believe it's the right way to define who's a part of the flock. How is it that a pastor, I want you to think about the pickle that Pastor Randy and Pastor John and myself are in. I want you to think through this with me. I want you to see the conundrum that we're in. If I were to walk you through my email account, I would show you an absentee list of people that have not been to church since October the 1st for a number of reasons. Some of them watching online right now for health issues, and I'm not angry about it, but I need you to hear the pickle that we're in. We have 373 church members. It's on the back of the bulletin. And Pastor Randy and I and Pastor John, we have nearly 100 members that haven't been here since October the 1st. You say, well, that's, I mean, that's okay. I mean, that's like 25%. Right, but they don't reach out necessarily, not all of them. Some of them don't reach out. Some of them don't make it like, hey, listen, we're still a part of you. This is, I know this is awkward. We want to be a part of the body still. We'll be there when this thing clears up. See how helpful it is for Pastor Randy and Pastor John and the deacons to know how to best help people. You know, when you get a call from Pastor Bill and you feel like every time you get one, it's, where have you been? That's not helpful for my relationship with you. I need another person in the chain. I need a deacon that will reach out to you if you're not feeling close to the body. I need you to be a part of a small group so that there is more than one person wondering where you're at, how to care for you. You see how we need a defined membership so that we can assign you to a deacon so that we can biblically care for you with the office of deacon. The chairman of the deacons, Brother David and myself, we have a goal to get enough deacons so that there are 25 members per deacon. And I guess that means we're looking for, is that, we're trying to land it at, is it, help me out here. Is it 15, 16? Anyways, we're trying to make sure that there are no more than 25 members per deacon. So there is an implication here that if you have the office of bishop and the office of deacon, that that means that there are people that are easily defined that they care for. So this is not about me trying to hook you into some kind of formal commitment so that now you can expect to tithe. I assume that everyone tithes. I do. It helps me love you the same. Right? The only time that I don't know whether or not someone gives is when that year comes around that they haven't attended because our Constitution says that after a year of not attending and not giving, you're released from membership. So when we come up on a year of no attendance, I say, Tammy, have they given in the last year? If the answer is no, I send out a letter. I'm sorry we couldn't make it work. I wish I could be your pastor. I'm really sorry to tell you that your membership has expired. That's the process. So it's not about hooking you into some kind of commitment. This is me trying to help you understand that one of the benefits of formal membership is you get one more person in your life that's looking out for you. And then lastly, implication from the text, it is reasonable to expect, oh man, I am ahead of time now, friends, ahead of time. I don't know who said that, but anyway, it's reasonable to expect, was that you, Nikki? It's reasonable to expect a two-way obligation from these regularly involved, formally committed volunteers called members. It's reasonable. It's reasonable that if a man is willing to serve as deacon, that the people who are assigned to him love him as someone who's looking after them. So why are we here? Why are we here? Well, I just told you that Brother David and I are trying to get enough deacons to get to 25. In our Constitution, I have no control over that. The Constitution says that the deacons as a body decide how many deacons they need. I'm not even in the process. And then it says that they take nominations from any church member. So if I do nominate someone, it is only as Bill Sturm, the church member, not as Bill Sturm, the pastor. That's the way our Constitution is set up. Anyone in here can nominate, any church member in here can nominate another church member to deacon. And here, so here's six things you need to know about deacons in our church constitution. They have to be male. There's no need to debate that right now. It's a house rule, even if you don't think it's in the Bible. It's in the Constitution. Must be male. Must be 21 years old. If you don't think the male-female thing's in the Bible, how about that 21-year-old thing, huh? I've always kind of, I mean, I'm not a drinker, but I've always thought it was a little strange. You can go to Iraq and die for your country, but you're not allowed anyway. You all know what I'm smelling? You smell what I'm stepping in there? Yeah, okay, so almost messed that one up. All right, so you have to be male, you have to be 21, and you have to, it says, be qualified according to 1 Timothy 3. Then after the deacons receive a nominee for the office of deacon, you remember the passage says in 1 Timothy 3, let them be proven or let them be tested. So the person, the nominee, is brought in before the deacon body and they ask him questions. So you're going to know that because Darren is sitting up here, he has already passed the board, if you will. The reason Philip will be up here is because he answered questions satisfactorily to the deacons. The Constitution then requires that the deacons bring their nominees to you, the church body, at a business meeting. And then you vote, and by simple majority, a deacon is admitted and elected into the office of deacon. That's the process. And so why are we laying on hands tonight? Again, we talked about that, that out of Acts chapter 6, it's a formal show of placing the hand of blessing of God on a person as they're going into the office of deacon. So let's review. Why are we here tonight? Frankly, it's because you voted these two men in to be deacons. That's why. Simple. The highest authority in the land is not the pastor. It's not even the governor. The highest authority in the land is the vote of the local church. We do not meet because we have permission. We meet because we're commanded to. We do not meet at the behest of any earthly ruler. We meet because the Lord has told us to. The reason that we ordain deacons is because God's word says that a true church has two offices, pastor and deacon. So, that's why we're here. And that's what we're gonna do. May God help us to be a biblical, truth-telling church. Everything that a deacon does then. is to support the mission of the church, which is to be a pillar and ground of truth. Every ministry that we have ought to support that mission.