1 Timothy chapter 3, beginning there in verse 8. It
says, Likewise must the deacons be grave, 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, and let them use the office of a deacon, being
found blameless. So must their wives be grave,
not slanderer, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons
be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their
own houses well. For they that have used the office
of a deacon well purchased to themselves a good degree, great
boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. These things
write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if
I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave
thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living
God, the pillar and ground of the truth, and without controversy. The great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Now, when we look at these different offices, as they are called here
in the scripture, And we realize that much of the scripture, all
of the scriptures written for our benefit, that we may be instructed
in godliness, but we must understand that not every scripture has
specific application to every situation that may be in the
earth. And what I mean by that, well
I mean this. Often times men look at these
things, such as the office of bishop and the office of deacon,
and they say, oh, well, in order to have a proper church, you've
got to have somebody in the office of a bishop, and you've got to
have somebody in the office of a deacon. Now certainly, you
know, we would be hard pressed to set forth any argument to
try to overturn the fact that the Apostle Paul does mention
these offices. But the office of bishop and
the office of deacon are specific offices that Paul is writing
to Timothy about. I don't think that The things
that we learn in the scripture concerning those things that
Paul instructed the various churches about, I think of some of the
things in the book of 1 Corinthians. I don't think that he's necessarily
giving an outline and saying this is how you've got to do
it. Now what we have in, men like
to design things. They like things to be a certain
way. And we're creatures of habit.
And we like things to be a certain way. We like things to be done
in a certain way. When the scripture says things,
that the spirit of God would have all things to be done decently
and in order, we say, huh, there it is, see right there. And we
come up with an order and we say, this is the order and this
is what we should do. And certainly, we're not talking
about anarchy, we're not talking about chaos, but we're talking
about the fact that the Lord calls his people out of this
world and brings them together in local assemblies. And every
assembly, I believe this to be true, has a life of its own. It has a time of coming into
fruition, coming into having a birth, as you say, it has a
maturing and then it has a dying. Now that might sound, you know,
not like we'd like for it to be because you see men have designed
great churches in the world. I mean denominations. You've
got the Baptists, you've got the Presbyterians, you've got
all of them. They've all got it. And they
know how it's supposed to be. And they've got their structure.
And they say, this is happy, it's gonna be done decently and
in order according to scripture, this is the way it is. Now, if
all these things were so clearly set forth, would it not make
sense that everybody would be looking at them the same way?
Why would there be differences? Well, there's differences because
the Lord, I don't believe, ever set forth in the scripture any
particular set of rules and order in the sense that men think of
them as being this is the way that a church has to be. Though
there's one thing that a church, in order for a church to be a
church, is what the Lord said where two or more of you are
gathered in my name there I am in the midst of you now he didn't
say because you came together I'm in the midst of you he never
said that he said where you are gathered in my name that is in
my authority you've come together for one purpose which is to magnify
the name of Jesus Christ now when that is the case There's
great blessing to those who are given the privilege to gather
together in those situations. When that's not the case, when
there's some ulterior motive, and what oftentimes is that ulterior
motive is to perpetuate the brand. You know what I mean? You know,
we got this going here, and we gotta keep it going, so we gotta
raise up this one to do this, and this one to do that, and
we got this one over here, and he's gonna take care of that,
and we're gonna just move right along, and this thing will be
going for centuries. We've got it going. Well, the
only problem with that is that that structure can continue to
go on, but if the Lord is not in the midst of it, If they're
not gathering together in His name, according to His authority,
for one purpose, and that is to magnify His name, then all
of these things are superfluous. They're of no use to us, ultimately. And that's not to say that there's
not some benefit derived from these structures that have gone
on. What I'm saying is, this is not what the scripture describes.
And so when we look at these offices, and of course, Paul
wrote to the Corinthians concerning spiritual gifts. And there again,
men take what they want to out of that, and they often have,
well, you know, we got this gift, and now you got that gift, and
buddy, we're gonna do this, and you know, if the Spirit's present,
this gift is gonna be there. and all of these things. Now,
the Lord does give gifts unto men, but what does he give gifts
unto men for? For the profit of the body. See,
the Lord doesn't give men spiritual gifts for their own sake. Now,
they might benefit from them, but that's not the purpose. The
purpose that the Lord gives men gifts is so they might minister
to the church, that they might give unto the church those things
that the Lord has given unto them. And so it is that the Lord
gives men gifts. And he also calls men to offices. Now, again, I don't want to make more
of this than the scripture does. I don't want to make less of
it than the scripture does. I believe that if you look, of
course, if we're looking specifically at the office of a deacon, and
so as he said, likewise must the deacons be grave. One would
think that if this office of deacon was such a particular standing or some place of rank,
that they would have used a particular word in the scripture for it,
wouldn't you? The word diakonos, which is the word used here,
appears 30 times in the scripture. It's translated as deacon two
times. And both of them are right here.
Now does that minimize what a deacon is? No, but the scripture often
speaks of a deacon as a minister or a servant. One who goes about
helping others. That's what a deacon is. Now,
why is there, why does Paul write this to Timothy? Well now, you
know, all things as we look at the unfolding of the Word of
God, it is always set in the context of the culture in which
it's given, is it not? I mean, when Paul writes to the
Corinthians, he's mindful of the culture in which these people
were in. And so it is that in this day
and time, there were things that needed to be taken care of that
are perhaps not quite the same in our day. Now in those days,
there was a great need, and Paul writes about this, speaks about
it, concerning the help of those who were less fortunate than
others, most specifically widows. Because in those days, when a
woman's husband died, if she had nobody to really take care
of her, she was more or less in a destitute situation. And so Paul writes, and of course
we see this first taking place in the book of Acts, when They
appointed the seven men. Now I believe these seven men,
though the scripture does not speak of them there specifically
as deacons, I believe that that is at least the picture of the
office of what the deacon was. He was someone who had the task. of ministering those financial
distributions to those that were in need of it, most specifically
women, those who were not able to help themselves. Now we know
this, that the scripture does say that those who are able should
support themselves. While it is true that in the
early days of the early church, they had all things common, Yet
we find no evidence throughout the scripture that that is a
thing that should continue on, do we? And why is that? Because
of the natural tendency of men. You see, if I know that you're
gonna Help me out and you're going to see that I've got everything
I need. I'm going to get to thinking,
well, you know, this is a pretty good deal here. I'll just sleep in a little
later than I normally would. And that's just human nature.
I mean, you don't have to be anything wrong with you to think
like that. That's just how you're going
to be. I mean, when men have to take care of themselves, they
will take a lot more pain with it than they will, you know,
if somebody else is taking care of them. And so it is that There
was a need in these early churches for that. And specifically, as
Paul writes to Timothy, I believe there was a need in this gathering
of God's people for men to take care of this office. That is, they were particularly
set apart as those who, this was a task that was assigned
to them. Now all of God's people are to
be servants, are we not? The Lord said, if man be great
among you, let him be the servant of all. I mean, that's how you
know if a man is a servant of Christ, if he is a servant of,
well, no, he said, love the brethren. By this shall all men know that
you are my children because of the love that you have one for
the other. And so he gives these He specifically
states, just like he did with the bishop, he specifically states
what these men who were set apart to take care of this situation. He said they're to be grave,
that is serious. They're not to be frivolous.
Not double tongue, not to go around talking behind other people's
backs, specifically about in the ministry that they've been
given. You know, it's not anybody's business if the Lord lays it
upon your heart to give somebody something, you don't need to
tell anybody about that. You don't need to bring it up. It's not letting the right hand
not know what the left hand's doing. That's where to do things
as unto the Lord without any seeking of any kind of recognition
because we desire that Christ alone would be glorified. And
so it is. He's not to be double-tongued,
not given to much wine. Now that's a good trait for anybody,
is it not? I mean, is it okay as long as
you're not a deacon to be given to much wine? I don't think anybody
ought to be given to much wine. But specifically, somebody that
is of this office, he cannot be someone whom you might not
be able to have confidence that he's gonna be in a state to take
care of a problem if it arises. Not given to much wine. Not greedy
of filthy lucre. That is, he's not skimming a
little off the top. It's unfortunate that we live in a
day when that has been totally disregarded by many who claim
to be preachers of the gospel. That their primary concern in
doing so is how it's gonna benefit them. and they're quick to get
you to understand that they need you to help them out. The Lord never sent those whom
he sent to preach the gospel into the earth to be beggars
in the earth or to go about seeking to solicit funds from somebody. That is what filthy lucre is. Paul was not such a man that
did that. He said, I've given you an example
when he spoke to the Ephesian elders. He says, I've given you
an example, how that so laboring with my hands to provide for
myself and others so ought ye to do. And yet we have many that
go around and they will make it as though it is a badge of
honor to lay upon the children of God that you ought to Support
us now the scripture does say let them that preach the gospel
live of the gospel And so let it be But that's not for the
those that are given to declare it to lay that burden upon those
whom they minister to You know, that's not their calling. And
so that's what I believe filthy lucre is, any lucre or any gain
that is not on the up and up. See, we're not concerned with
that. The money of this world doesn't
have any bearing whatsoever on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
I know a lot of people think that, well, if you don't give
your money, I mean, how's the people gonna go and preach to
all the natives in Africa? Well, the natives in Africa probably
have more preachers over there preaching than there is over
here. I mean, there's no place in the earth, realistically,
where the gospel has not gone. Now, some would say, well, see
there? We told you it was by, no, it wasn't by the money. I
mean, the Lord may use money. He doesn't need money because
he can raise up men out of the dust. He can send men according
as he sees fit. I mean, when the Lord lays a
burden upon a man's heart to go somewhere, he doesn't have
to spend a bunch of time raising money to go. He's just going
to go. And then whenever, if he goes
over there and he's starving to death and he can't find any
work, he's going to come back. But if the Lord sends him to
do something, he's gonna provide for them, I believe, without
any excess effort on his part to see that that part of that
is carried out. The Lord never sent us to be fundraisers, but
he sent us to be declarers of his truth. And so it is. And he speaks about that here,
holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. That is,
he believes what he is standing for. In other words, he's not
saying one thing to you and something to somebody else. He's holding
the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. He believes what
he's set out to do. And let them also first be proved,
just like he said about the bishops. He said, don't let it be a novice.
He said, let a man prove himself. and be saying that is not just
lay hands suddenly on a man because he looks good or he comes into
the assembly and he's wearing a nice suit of clothes or whatever,
whatever you might think of him, let him first be proved. And
let them also first be proved, then let them use the office
of a deacon being found blameless. That is, use it for the proper
reason. They are given a calling. They
are given, they are set apart by the brethren. Now again, A
lot of times men like to make ceremony and pomp and circumstance
about these things. I don't believe there has to
be any kind of pomp and circumstance surrounding the setting apart
of a man unto a deacon if there was a specific need that arose
and the church felt like they needed someone to tend to this
particular thing. There doesn't have to be a ceremony
to it. the brethren would first of all
recognize their calling, would they not? Would they not? I mean,
you can't, you can't, the Lord's not gonna put forth a need among the brethren
that he's not gonna provide for. I mean, he's going to raise up
those that are there to do those things, and what the brethren
do is recognize that. I mean it's the same way when
the Lord gives men the gift of teaching. It's not up to the
brethren to say, oh well you can or you can't. But they say,
they recognize that. And so we're not sent, we're
not, we must never make the ministering of the word among god's people
to be a thing that has to be approved by somebody now i know
a lot of churches you go in you can't say anything if the so-called
pastor is not approving of it and everybody's kind of on pins
and needles wanting to know if he approves of it well brethren
i don't want you to be concerned about whether or not i approve
of it you need to be concerned about whether god approves of
it And if God approves of it, I hope I do approve of it. And it's not up to me to be approval. If the Lord lays a burden on
a man's heart to declare the truth of God, I want to hear
what he's got to say. Now that doesn't mean I may not
disagree with him. It doesn't mean that I might
not be led to call out an error if he spoke an error. But it
doesn't mean that I'm gonna prevent him from doing that which he
feels burdened to do. And so, that's how we need to
approach these offices. You know, if a need arises and
a brother believes that he should occupy, you know, this place
of taking care of that thing, let him do it. Let him do it. Even so must their wives be grave,
not slanderer, sober, faithful in all things. Because that would
be, you know, a man and his wife, if a man, as faithful as he may
be, if his wife in the midst of the church is sowing the seeds
of discord and whatnot, how's that going to affect the brethren?
It's going to call his ministry into question, is it not? I mean,
it's gonna cast an aspersion upon it. Let the deacons be the
husbands of one wife, ruling their children in their own house
as well. As it spoke about the bishops
in the same way. That have used the office of
a deacon, purchased to themselves a good degree and great boldness
in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. Now, can a man purchase? Can he buy the favor of God? Is that what this is saying?
No, he's simply saying that a man that goes about this work faithfully
has gained the blessing of doing that. Now is not the blessing
of performing any ministry unto the brethren the doing of it? I mean, you know, sometimes people
want to do something and then they're waiting for somebody
to pat them on the back for doing it. So, you know, everybody appreciates
me. No, brother, the blessing of
doing anything is unto the Lord, is doing it as unto the Lord.
It's not, you're not waiting. When I was growing up, of course,
they always used to teach us, you know, the thing was that
you need to really serve the Lord, because you're laying up
treasures in heaven, and you're gonna have a great reward. And
there's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna get up to heaven,
and they're not gonna get much. But those that's really faithful,
they're just gonna really have it. And then they'll really be
happy that they served the Lord. Brethren, that's waiting too
long. The happiness in serving the Lord is not what we see what
we're gonna get in heaven, but it's in the present time. Knowing
that the Lord has blessed us as he has. And the scripture
says, the Lord loveth a cheerful giver. Now we often think of
that in terms of money. Well, you know, when you think
of the widow that cast in two mites, she didn't have much to
give, did she, monetarily? It wasn't about giving a bunch
of money or whatever, but the Lord said she's more blessed
than all the rest of them. See, that's the place wherein
the Lord has called His people to be, to be true servants one
of the other. for reward, not for gain, not
so that they'll be our friend. Now we want to be friends with
the children of God for sure, but we're not trying to purchase
their friendship. We're not trying to purchase
their influence, or we're not trying to influence them. But
we're simply going about doing what it is that the Lord called
us to do. And I believe that those who
are called to the office of deacon, if there is the need that arises,
they will be going about doing what they need to do. And God's
people will see that as it is. And if the need arise that we
should set somebody apart, as specifically in this realm, then
may the Lord lead us to do so. And let us not be against such
an idea, but let us not think that it's something we're bound
to either. And so it is, any more than having
a bishop. Now a bishop, that word, let
me back up there. That word, I don't know that
I even mentioned this when I was there before. The word is overseer. Now you can't make a man be an
overseer. He can't be hired to do it. I
mean, you can do it in a carnal sense, you know, but an overseer
is somebody who has the benefit of the brethren in his heart.
And when the scripture says he must give an account before God,
does that mean that he's gonna be in some dire straits when
he comes up before the Lord? No, it simply means that he has
a burden upon his heart and he is judged daily before the Lord
in that realm. He can't escape it. See, a man
who has the burden of an overseer, he doesn't ever get away from
that. He's never at ease in concern
for the souls of those whom the Lord has sent him to oversee.
He doesn't do it as lords over God's heritage, but hopefully
by being an example to the flock. But being an overseer is a gift
and calling of God that can't be imitated, can't be helped. A man can't escape it. And then he says, these things
write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly. But if
I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave
thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living
God, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now, we've spoken
to this end. This is what Paul's writing to
Timothy about, is the activity of the church. how the church
is called to operate. Now these are principles that
he sets forth rather than an outline of things they must do.
These are the things that they can do as the Lord sees fit. And so it is as the Lord raises
up men to this end. But he says, how thou oughtest
to behave thyself in the church, in the house of God. Now I remember
as a kid, We were always taught to behave ourselves. You ever
been told to behave yourself? You didn't anybody really have
to explain to you what that meant, did they? Because you kind of
knew what it was to behave. Now, it wasn't very easy to behave
because you didn't want to behave. I didn't. I mean, I know most
of y'all probably grew up and y'all just wanted to do everything
your mom and daddy said to do. But I wanted to do what I wanted
to do, and it seemed a whole lot more enjoyable, at least
for a season anyway, to do what I wanted to do, until I found
out, well, that wasn't really the best thing to do. And so
when he says to behave thyself in the house of God, what does
he mean? How y'all act? Now I want you to act, huh, in
the house of God. To love one another, to pray
for one another, do good for one another. bear one another's
burdens. That's how we ought to behave.
Not going about, you know, backbiting and coming up with little things
that we can get upset with one another about. I mean, anytime
you put a group of people together, it doesn't make any difference
how spiritual they are or whatever, there's always gonna be little
aggravations that's gonna arise. Why is that? because you're the
way you are. And it's easy to look at somebody
else and think that that's because of the way they are. But see,
the problems you have is because of the way you are. It's not
because of the way somebody else is. Oh, well, if they do this,
I'd be all right. No. No, because you'd probably
be looking for something else. See, that's a tough thing, isn't
it? I mean, we don't really like that. And I know everybody kind
of laughs about it, but we don't really believe that. We all,
we do believe that if they would just, if they would just, or
if they wouldn't, you know, I'd be all right. Well, would you?
I don't know. I mean, may the Lord teach us
to behave ourselves, how we ought to behave ourselves in the church
of the living God. Now, he says here some big words,
some, I mean, this is a grandiose statement here. Think about this. He said, how thou ought to behave
thyself in the house of God. Now again, when I was a kid,
they always taught us that the house of God was the place you
come to meet. You know, like with this ceiling
and these walls and that sort of stuff. And it is a house,
and we hope that by the grace of God, he's given it to us.
And in that sense, it is a house of God, but not more so than
the house he gave you at home. It's just a building. Now, should
we take care of it? Well, should you take care of
your own house? I mean, would you tear it up?
No, of course not. Would you go wild? No, of course not. So how ought
you to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church
of the living God, the pillar of ground of truth, the house
of God? How is the house of God the people
gathered together? The Lord said that you couldn't
build a house. The Lord dwells not in temples
made with hands. Where does he dwell? He said
that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. And when we
come together, that's a special, blessing of the house of God
in one spot. Is it not? I mean, you can come
down here in the middle of the week and there's nothing here.
I mean, you can come in here and maybe you might think of
the memories of something that happened here that was good,
but it's when God's people are here, that's when it's the house
of God. See, when the Lord is in the
midst of His people, the pillar and ground of the truth Now does
that mean that everything the church says is true? No, but
what it does mean is that the Lord has ordained that the coming
together of God's people would be that which would be a foundational
stone for the sons of God to gather around, is it not? I mean,
we're built up upon this foundation. If the church If our goal here is to just have
church, then we've missed the point. But if our goal in coming
together is to magnify Jesus Christ, then we're of all men
most blessed, because it is in that gathering that we are blessed
in his name, the pillar and ground of the truth. Now, that means that we ought
to be real careful what it is that we set forth as being the
Word of God. The Bible is the Word of God.
What I think about what the Bible says is not necessarily the Word
of God. Now the Lord may, it may be,
but we need to be mindful that when we look at the scriptures,
We're not looking at them how we want to see them, but we're
looking at them as how they are. That is the pillar and ground
of the truth. You see, the scripture will not lie. I might lead you
astray. But the scripture never will.
And the place where the scripture is to be manifest is among the
saints of God when they gather together. I mean, we gather together
to sing. Now, when we sing, are we just
singing to be entertained? I mean, do we sing just because
we like to sing? Well, I like to sing. But that's
not really why we sing, is it? We sing because we want to declare
the truth of God. See, you declare the truth of
God when you sing. We sang it there a moment ago.
Who can cheer the heart like Jesus? majestic sweetness sits enthroned
upon the Savior's brow, his head with radiant glories crowned,
his lips with grace overflowing. Is that not the truth? I mean, is that not a blessing? When we pray, when we preach,
when we teach, all of these things must be based in the Word of
God. And as the church gathers around
that, it is indeed the pillar and ground of the truth. I mean,
it's firmly planted, is it not? The Lord said, upon this rock.
Well, what was the rock? Now, a lot of people think the
rock was Peter. No, he said, thou art Peter. And he used the
word stone, which literally means a pebble. And what he said was,
thou art a pebble. But upon this rock will I build
my church. And what is that rock? But it
is that rock that followed the children of Israel. It is that
rock which is Christ. Christ is the pillar and ground
of the truth. And his worship is that which
supports the people of God. And so we're blessed in that.
And we're gonna stop there. I'm going a little long, but. Next week, we'll look at one
of the most profound verses in all the scripture. And when a
person looks at this passage of scripture, I mean, there's
nothing left out, is there? I mean, if you took this scripture
right here, and you believe everything that's in it, brethren, you believe
the gospel. And without controversy, There's
no dispute. There's nothing you can do to
overturn this. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in the
glory. That sums it up. Is that not our hope? I hope
is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus'
name. On Christ, the solid rock, I
stand, all other ground.