Thank you, Mark. I invite you to open your Bible with me to 1 Timothy chapter 3 for our study today in the Word of God. We conclude this chapter that tells us something about the qualifications for those who serve in the offices of the church, the office of elder and deacon. Paul is reminding Timothy here and all of us as well that we must maintain standards for those who are in leadership.
The concern about character is one that is not only present in the church, but it is present in our world as well. Because of the declining moral standards, the loss of our Judeo-Christian cultural base in America, there is a tremendous decline in the character of our population. This is recognized not only by spiritual leaders, but by many in civic organizations. The Roosevelt Rotary Club, for example, is spearheading an effort to establish in our community a movement called Character Counts.
The idea is to come to a conclusion together as a community as to what standards of character are important to us. Character seems to fly in the face of the relativism that is at the root of our decline. And now people are beginning to say we need some standards. We need to define what character is. This movement defines a person of character as one who is trustworthy, one who treats people with respect, one who is responsible, one who is fair, one who is caring, and one who is a good citizen.
These are further broken down in their information. I commend them for their efforts. I wish that they would acknowledge that there is an objective standard of right and wrong and of character that is found in the Word of God. They're not willing to do that. But at least they're pointing out that character counts and they're defining at this point some of the important aspects of what character is. Character is what you are when no one is watching. It's easier kept than it is recovered.
Character is the one thing that we build in this world that we will carry with us into the next. When we die we leave behind all we have and we carry forward with us all that we are. And that's what character is. Effective leadership in any organization, be it the church or the Rotary Club, depends upon character. It is the integrity of leaders that authenticates their work. Lee Iacocca, the guru behind the Chrysler revival, acknowledges this in his autobiography.
He says, leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move. So you have to be careful about everything you say and everything you do. Now if that is true at Chrysler, it is all the more true in the Lord's church. Servant leaders must be principled people committed to the integrity of character. A character is rooted in the inward invisible part of us, but inevitably it is exposed in the way that we choose to live.
It shows in our conduct, it shows in our treatment of others. What the apostle is saying here in 1 Timothy 3 is that those who serve as elders and as deacons in the church must be people of character. The elder is the one responsible for the oversight and the management of God's church. One who is an elder must have a heart desire for it. There has to be an aspiration for the work of an elder, of leadership.
And he must have character, character qualities that provide leadership's example to the flock. Now in today's text, as we begin in verse 8, he is talking to deacons. The word deacon means servant. It comes from a verb that means to wait on tables. It means to work with the elders as assistants in the work of management in the church. Elders manage and oversee and assign tasks to deacons to carry out. Now what kind of people ought to be deacons?
Well he tells us, deacons likewise must be men of dignity, not double-tongued or addicted to much wine or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let these also first be tested. Then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be husbands of only one wife and good managers of their children and their own households.
For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. We have in Acts chapter 6 what I think is the appointment of the first deacons, although that word is not used of them. I invite you to go back there and look at the context of the appointment of the first deacons. Acts chapter 6. This of course is very early after the church had come to be.
And it says in the first verse of chapter 6, now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose. Now can you imagine that? A church where there is a complaint. It's hard to believe isn't it? A complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food.
And the twelve summoned the congregation of the disciples and said, it is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. But select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the spirit and of wisdom whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Now the apostles were not saying that they were above the menial work that was necessary here.
But what they are recognizing is that in their office they had certain responsibility. And they had to keep the priorities that God had given to them. And so instead of getting involved in the management of the church here, they appointed seven men, it says, to oversee that. These are the deacons, the first deacons of the church. And it says the statement found approval with the whole congregation. Here's another miracle.
And it says they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenes, and Nicholas, a proselyte from Antioch. And these they brought before the apostles and after praying they laid their hands on them. And it was a way of setting them apart for their work of deacons. And the word of God kept on spreading. Why? Well, because here the apostles were given wisdom by God to keep their priorities and to broaden the base of leadership.
I am crashing. Oh, here we go. Okay. We'll use this one. Is this where we are? We're at one or the other. We'll keep going. And so the apostles kept the priorities. And because they did, the word of God kept on spreading. I believe that had they lost their priorities at this point, something would have happened in evangelism. That the word of God would not have spread as quickly.
But because the leadership was organized, there was a broad base of leadership, a broader base of leadership now, therefore God was blessing the preaching of His word. Now being a deacon means doing good for others. That's the work of a deacon. And while it is demanding, it is also a work that pays and pays well as we will see in our study today. We need to think first about the prerequisites for serving as a deacon. First he tells us in verse 10 that those holding this office must be tested.
We're going back now to 1 Timothy 3. He says, and let these also first be tested. The word test here means to examine so as to approve. It is a word that was used of the saying of metals in that day. He is saying that we need to tell the worth of people before they are appointed to leadership. To establish their reliability by testing. Now this is not the kind of a test you kids have in school. This is the kind of test that we all have every day in the kind of people we are.
The reactions that we have to circumstances and to others. The way that we conduct ourselves, the way that we treat others. That is a test. And so he says that those who are to be deacons are to be tested. Now what should be found in a person who is thought to be reliable and worthy of this kind of service? Well he gives us again as he did with the elders a list of qualifications. He says first they must be dignified. Not petrified notice, dignified. There's a difference.
To be dignified means to be worthy of respect. One who inspires reverence and awe is one who is dignified. It is a person on whom the hand of God has come. It is a man or a woman of God. And when you are around them you sense that God is in them. That God is at work in their lives dignified. Worthy of respect. Secondly they must not be double-tongued. That is they must be consistent in speech.
The thought seems to be that they should not be guilty of saying one thing to one person and something else to another person. Or it may also mean that they should say what is truly on their minds. They shouldn't say one thing but be thinking something else. The point is consistency in speech, not double-tongued. Third not addicted to wine. Similar thought to what was said about elders. They must be temperate and controlled. Number four not fond of sordid gain.
The idea is that they must mark as the aim of their lives the glory of God and not the gaining of material things. Their motives have to be right. They must hold the mystery of faith, he says, in a pure conscience. In other words there must be a consistency between what they profess to believe and how they live it out. Then he says blameless. The idea here is irreproachable, unchargeable, free from any legal accusation.
A deacon must be a one-woman man, we talked about that last week, and similar to elders, be good managers of their household for similar reasons. Now you will notice in verse 11 the word women is used. This brings us to one of the disputed points of this text. Who are these women? There are some who believe the women are the wives of deacons. That he broadens the qualifications to say that a deacon's wife must also be known by these things.
Now if that's the case it seems a little strange to me that he doesn't do the same thing for elders and say that their wives too have to have certain qualifications. So the word women here probably is taken not in the sense of the wives of the deacons but in the sense of deaconesses, women who serve as deacons. And we have examples of that in the New Testament of women who were called deaconesses like Phoebe in Romans chapter 16. They were servants of the church.
Of these women he gives additional qualifications to supplement. He says they must not be malicious gossips. Now this isn't because women are the only ones who gossip. Any of us can gossip but he says here regarding women they must not be malicious gossips. The word here really is diabolos. How many of you took Spanish in high school? The word diabolos, what does that mean? The devil. The devil. It comes from this Greek word diabolos. So what he's saying is that they must not be she-devils.
The word devil means slanderer. The devil is a slanderer. He slanders God. He slanders God's people. And he says that we ought to have nothing to do with the devil's work. Then temperate is another word. It means sober, clear-headed. And finally faithful in all things, trustworthy. And so those who have proven themselves to be of this kind of character may be appointed to the office of deacon.
Now it doesn't mean that only those interested in that office should be concerned about these qualities as in the earlier list these are marvelous motivations for all of us. It tells us how God measures character. And that's really my point this morning. God is here telling us what Christian character is like. He says it's essential that leaders be people of character. But is it not the goal of all of us? To be men and women of character. God has neat ways of giving character tests, doesn't he?
For all of us. Putting us in situations where we are proven. David Augsburger tells the true story of Lieutenant John Blanchard, a young soldier in basic training in Florida in World War II. One evening he wandered into the Army Library and found a book to read. As he worked his way through the book he became quite impressed, not with the content of the book so much, as with the notes penciled in the margins.
The feminine handwriting showed insight and understanding as well as a touch of tenderness. He flipped to the front of the book and found the name of the previous owner, a Miss Molly Maynall. John Blanchard was a young bachelor and did some research and found out her address was up in New York State. And so he wrote a letter to her and the day after that was shipped overseas. For 13 months the two of them corresponded and during that time they began to open their hearts to each other.
It soon became apparent that they were falling in love. One time he asked her to send him a picture but she refused saying that if he really loved her it didn't matter what she looked like. Finally the day came when they were to meet. They arranged to meet each other in Grand Central Station in New York City at 7 p.m. on a particular night. She told him, you'll recognize me by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel.
After one minute till seven the soldier straightened his uniform as people walked toward him off the train. His heart pumping with anxiety and anticipation for this long awaited moment. Now the story continues in Blanchard's own words. A young woman was coming toward me. Her figure was tall and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears. Her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness. In her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive.
I started toward her entirely failing to notice that she was not wearing a rose. And as I moved in her direction a small provocation smile curved her lips and she murmured, going my way soldier? Most uncontrollably I took another step closer to her and then I saw Hollis Maynall. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past forty, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump. Her thick ankle feet were thrust into low heel shoes.
So she wore a red rose on the rumpled brown lapel of her coat. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was being split in two. So keen was my desire to follow her and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld me during the long months overseas. And there she stood. Her pale plump face was gentle and sensible. Her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate.
My fingers gripped a small worn blue leather copy of the book which was to identify me to her. This would not be love but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard and you must be Miss Maynall.
I'm so glad you could meet me here. May I take you to dinner? The woman's face broadened in a tolerant smile. I don't know what this is all about son, she answered, but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner I should tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of a test. Isn't that great? What a story. And you know something?
God is just that clever at putting all of us in situations that test what we really are. He really does. God gives us character tests. Those who serve Him need to be people of character. And all of us serve the Lord somewhere and all of us are leaders in some context and so we need to be concerned about being people of character because Iacocca is right. When we have leadership there are people, some people, somebody somewhere is watching everything we do and everything we say.
Well God promises something very special for those who serve as deacons in verse 13. He says those who serve well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence. A high standing refers to a place of reputation and influence in the congregation. We need to honor those who serve well, especially those who are not noted out in front. We need to say thank you to those who behind the scenes are faithful in their deaconing even though they may not have the office.
High standing and great confidence belongs to those who serve God well. This word confidence is the same word used elsewhere in the New Testament of the freedom of speech that is ours when we come into the presence of God. It's the boldness, the assurance that we have that we are accepted by God. And what he seems to suggest here is that when one serves the Lord well there is assurance about his own faith relationship to God. It builds us up spiritually when we are faithful in our service.
There are a couple of questions that we need to ask ourselves. The first is must I have the office of deacon before doing a deacon's work? And the answer obviously is no. We don't have to have that title or that position. All of us can do the work of deaconing because doing the work of a deacon is doing good for others. It's serving them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that brings me to the second question. What is there in my character that commends me for doing this work?
You see that brings our focus inward where it's good for us to look occasionally. Some of us tend to believe too much of our own press releases. We appreciate it when people say kind things about us, but we've got to be careful not to put too much faith in those things. You see the most important thing about us is not what people say, it's what God knows. And so it's good for us to look inside and say what is there in my character that commends me to the work of serving as a deacon to the Lord?
You can change your character, you know, but to change your character you have to begin at control center. You have to go inside to the deepest part of you and say I turn over the controls here to Jesus Christ. Because you see our character is formed by him. When an iron worker beats on a piece of hot iron, he puts it into a mold or on an anvil that shapes it in a certain way. Jesus Christ is like that mold or that anvil. And we are that hot steel.
And the circumstances of life God allows to pound against us. The purpose is not to hurt us but to form us in the shape of Jesus Christ. Because you see these character qualities are what he's like. It's him that we're looking at here and it's him that we want to see in our own characters. To say it a different way, I remember as a child watching my mother iron clothes.
She had an old fashioned washing machine, the kind that churned, and when you were finished you picked the clothes out and you put them through the wringer. You've probably seen those in museums, right? And they came through the wringer on the other side and you sort of guided them out with your hands and they went into a basket or a tub perhaps. They were pressed wet and wrinkled.
Then she would take them out to the line and shake them out and with some clothespins hang them up on the line to dry in the hot Kansas sun. Then she would come back out and gather the clothes and before she could iron them she had to prepare them. So she would again sprinkle them with water. She had a little pop bottle with a sprinkler head in it and she would sprinkle the clothes and get them damp and then she would roll them up and put them in a basket.
Then one by one she would bring out those wet clothes and begin to iron them. You know that's what God is doing in your life and mine. We feel that water hissing. What are you doing Lord? We feel the pressure of the hot iron of circumstances in our lives and we say God that doesn't feel too good. But what's He doing? He's simply ironing out the wrinkles. And oh we've all got lots of wrinkles don't we? I do at least.
So God just has to keep working at those wrinkles, ironing them out that we might be like His Son. There was a man who lived by the name of James Lewis Pettigrew. He was a man whose character was exemplary as the community knew him and so the citizens of the town got together and put up a tombstone and this is what they chose to put on there as his epitaph. Unawed by opinion, unseduced by flattery, undismayed by disaster, he confronted life with courage and death with Christian hope.
Wow. That's quite a statement to make about anybody. It's the kind of a statement that all of us would desire on our tombstones. And yet we tend to try to take shortcuts don't we? We want to skimp along the way. A poor building contractor was good friends with a wealthy businessman and one day the businessman came to the contractor and said I want you to build a house. And so they sat down together, they planned it out, settled on the costs and the contractor went to work.
He thought this was a good opportunity to make some extra money. And so he began to skimp on both the quality of the materials as well as the workmanship he was putting into the house. It wasn't too obvious. But he knew that he was skimping along the way. After several months the house was finished and it was turned over to the wealthy friend.
At that point the executive turned to his contractor friend and said John I've always wanted to do something for you and I figured this was a good as way as any to do it. You've built this house especially for me but now I know you've poured yourself into it and I'm giving it back to you free and clear. What did he get back? The house he had skimped on? We can't skimp on this matter of character building. We have to give ourselves fully to it.
To open our hearts completely to the Lordship of Christ, let him have his way. Be willing to give up what he wants us to give up. To change where we need to change. To add to ourselves what we need to add. I close with the story of a young boy in a balloon cellar as told by a South African preacher. The boy was intrigued as he watched the balloons float up into the sky as the balloon man occasionally would release one.
Excuse me, he said to the balloon man, how come when you let go of the balloons, the green ones, the white ones, the red ones, and even the black balloons, they always seem to float up into the sky? The man replied to the boy, son, you see it's not the color of the balloon that matters, it's what's on the inside. Let's pray. Doesn't make any difference what color you are, how others view you, what they see externally. The most important thing is what's on the inside. What does God see?
Young man, young woman in high school and junior high, college student, mom, dad, grandparent, what does God see? What does God know? What are the secret things? I know they're there, we all have them. Those are the things that the Lord Jesus wants us to give to him so that he can work on them and change us, to make us the people that he wants us to be. Will you open your heart to him right now, declaring him to be the Lord of control center?
Let him make you, a man, a woman of character, Christ-like character. Will you let him pound on you? Will you let him sprinkle you, bring the pressures on in order to change you without complaining and disputing with him? Tell him so right now that that's your choice. And don't skimp. You only cheat yourself in the end. And if you've never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, my friend, you can't change your character on your own.
You can change your reputation, but you can't change your character. That's spiritually based. What you need first is Jesus Christ in your heart as the Savior of your life. He died for you and rose again and knocks on the door of your heart. Will you invite him to come in as an act of faith? Will you say, Lord Jesus Christ, come into my life, come into my heart? Forgive me of my sins. Take control of me and make me the kind of person and character that you want me to be.
When you do that, it changes everything. It changes everything. I hope you'll do it this morning. Father may there not be one of us who would try to skimp, one of us who would say no to you but all of us yield and confess with our hearts and with our mouths that Jesus Christ is my Lord and my Savior and is on the throne of my life at control central today. In Jesus' name, amen. We're going to sing together a little chorus in your hymnal. I think it's 473. No, it's not.
In his time, in his time, 465. I almost had it. God makes all things beautiful in his time. Then the prayer, Lord, please show me every day as you're teaching me your way that you do just what you say in your time. Don't be impatient with God. And don't be slow either to yield to him, to let him have his way. Let's stand together and sing these two verses of 465. In his time, in his time, he makes all things beautiful in his time. In his time, in his time, 465. I almost had it.
God makes all things beautiful in your time. Lord, my life to you I bring. May each song I have to sing be to you a lovely thing in your time. Aren't you glad that God allows U-turns in life? He allows us to make U-turns at major intersections, and if you're at one today, make that turn. Let him have control. Somebody has said your reputation can be damaged by others, but only you can damage your character and only you can build it.
By the grace that Jesus Christ gives us this week, let's be at work building our character that we may serve him well. God bless you. God bless you, too.