The Deacons of the Church – 1 Timothy 3:8-13

THE DEACONS OF THE CHURCH

The Household of God

1 Timothy 3:8-13

INTRODUCTION:

In 1991, in the tiny town of New Berlin, in upstate NYC, a young physician named Bill Thomas performed an experiment. He was 31 years old and had just taken a new job as a medical director of Chase Memorial Nursing Home with 80 severely disabled elderly residents, many with Alzheimer’s and cognitive disabilities.

His aim, he said, was to attack what he termed the Three Plagues of nursing home existence: boredom, loneliness and helplessness. And to mount the attack, the nursing home would need to bring in some life: literally.

They would put green plants in every room. They would tear out the lawn and create a vegetable garden. And they would bring in animals. First they began with a couple of dogs, then added four cats. Next was birds. 100 of them. Then came a colony of rabbits and a flock of laying hens.

Then something amazing happened: the number of prescriptions required per resident fell to half. Total drugs used was only 38% of other homes nearby. Deaths fell 15%.

What happened? Thomas wrote: “… the difference in death rates can be traced to the fundamental human need for a reason to live.”[1]

That story is documented an American surgeon named Atul Gawande in his book Being Mortal: and it taps into one of the central storylines of the Christians Scriptures:

We were made for a reason—we were made to serve. Service is a key ingredient in what it means to be human. When Thomas brought in all those animals, he was bringing in life—but even more so, he was bringing in responsibility—and in giving the responsibility to care for these animals to the residents he was restoring their humanity.

As we turn in our Bibles to 1 Timothy 3 our text today centers on the call and qualities for service within the church. And we’ll answer three questions this morning from the text:

What is Service? Who is called to serve? And finally, why do we serve?

READ THE PASSAGE:

⁸ Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. ⁹ They must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. ¹⁰ And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. ¹¹ Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanderers, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. ¹² Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. ¹³ For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

First…

1. WHAT IS SERVICE?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: you said this text was about service… but it’s actually about deacons. Well, this sermon will be a little unconventional because I want to take that word deacon and tell you what it means from all of the New Testament.

The word deacon comes from the Greek word diakonos. You can hear the word deacon in there. But the word diakonos literally means “servant.” The word diakonia literally means service—and it was a common word in the ancient world. You would see a diakonos, a servant, working in homes and estates, in markets and fields. So: In John’s gospel, chapter two, when Jesus turns the water into wine—the one’s serving the meal are the diakonos- the servants. The same word is used when Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law—she rose and began serving them. In John 12, Martha served the guests at a feast that Jesus attended.

The word, service, is used not just to describe manual labor, but also spiritual service:

In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul speaks about charitable giving and gratitude and calls both of them service.

Paul spoke of his labor in the gospel as a service, and he even tells us that God gives pastors to equip the church for ministry—or service. It’s the same word. Deacon, ministry, service are all the same word.

So, what is service? Broadly speaking, it’s anything done on behalf of someone else. But, more specifically, Christian service is anything done on behalf of someone else, for the sake of Christ.

Jesus said that at the final judgment, when he divided the nations—the distinguishing characteristic of his followers is that they served the marginalized as if they were serving Christ himself.

Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

Now listen—Jesus puts service at the center of following him—and because he is the creator, this means he has placed service at the center of what it means to be human itself. We were made for service.

In Dickens’ famous novella A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge is haunted by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, and Scrooge says, “You were always a good man of business, Jacob.” And Dicken’s writes:

“Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” It held up its chain at arm’s length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. “At this time of the rolling year,” the spectre said, “I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!”[2]

What’s he saying? The reason I’m a ghost is because I refused to serve others. I neglected the very thing that made me human.

Atul Gawande, Jacob Marley, and Jesus Christ—what do they all have in common? They all understand that human beings were made for service.

We were made for baking bread for family meals and cleaning bathrooms after messy kids. We were made for giving money to the poor and giving thanks to God. And we were made to do all of it for Christ’s sake.

We remember that on the night before he was crucified, he got up from supper, took off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist, filled a basin with water and began washing the disciples feet. He said, “You call me teacher and Lord and you are right—you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Now listen—this sets Christianity apart from every other world religion and philosophy of life.

In Islam, you have a god who demands service, but never stoops to serve. In secularism you might serve others—but you really do it for your own sake—not because it’s an objectively good thing to do.

But in Christianity—not only do you have a God who demands that you serve—in his Son, Jesus Christ, you have God who has come down and become a servant.

That’s what service is. That’s what ministry is. It’s anything done on behalf of another for the sake of Christ.

So…

2. WHO IS CALLED TO SERVE?

Now, that may seem like a needless question to you. Aren’t we all supposed to serve one another. Don’t we teach this to our children?

• Share and share alike.
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• A friend in need is a friend in deed.

Well, I want to tell you that if you hold to a Christian worldview, then of course serving one another is a natural outworking of that.

But, if you don’t believe God exists, if you believe that there’s nothing that comes after death… I want to ask you… why serve anyone? Why give up any of your money for the poor? Why not do everything you can to get ahead regardless of who that harms?

Think about it. The secular worldview says that we’re all here by completely meaningless and random operations. We cease to exist after we die… and in a few hundred thousand years there will be no memory in the universe that humans ever lived at all… so you must feed the hungry.

Everyone we’ll ever know will be utterly forgotten in the eternal cosmic ice-age of the universe’s death… so make sure you say some kind words to others.

Friend, if that’s your worldview, then will you at least have the courage to live it out? Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow… you die.

Now listen… we all intuitively know that we ought to help the poor. We all know that we ought to encourage others rather than tear them down. So, the only way to hold onto a materialistic worldview and continue to serve people is to live in contradiction to your professed belief.

The Christian worldview comes in and tells us that serving others isn’t just a good thing you might do – it says were created and called into service by God himself.

God’s Word says we’re all called into service, and there are some who are exceptionally gifted for service, and then in this passage, Paul actually references an office in the church dedicated to service—that of deacon.

So, first, everyone is called by God to service. There is no one to whom to role of servant does not apply.

The show Downton Abbey depicted the lives of an aristocratic family in England who lived in the upper stories of an estate mansion, and the gritty work of the serving class who all lived below the ground level.

During the aristocracies it was believed that you were either born into nobility or born into service. It was in you blood. But when you come to the New Testament, everyone is called into service.

In John 12, Jesus said, “If anyone serves me, let him follow me.” He ties together the twin ideas of following him and serving him. All of the New Testament writers use the term in this broad sense—that anything we do in obedience to Christ is called service or ministry—and we’re all called into it.

Second, the New Testament says some are exceptionally gifted for serving.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 says:

⁴ Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

Then Paul gives a list of many, though not all the specific gifts: knowledge and wisdom, faith. He gives another list in Romans 12:

⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

What does all this mean? It means that God, in his grace, dispenses a variety of gifts to Christians in order to accomplish ministry together that they never could on their own.

This also means that we should never expect the service of one Christian to match the service of another. When we look across the congregation, we ought to expect different giftings. Teaching, encouragement, generosity, helps. All different gifts.

Just this weekend so many in our church served in a variety of ways. Many showed up to shovel mulch and pull weeds. We had a funeral here yesterday and many of you made food for a family you didn’t even know. Each week we have a member who volunteers to send our the newsletter and create the bulletin. We have a group of members who come in every Tuesday to sanitize rooms and set up for next week’s children’s lesson. There are a few members in our church who helped coordinate meals for the Wilis family as they welcome their new baby boy.

And God has dispensed all those wonderful gifts in his grace to us. Each one is valuable. Each one is indispensable for the flourishing of the body.

And here’s that that means: if God has brought you into membership here—he’s also gifted you, and your gift contributes to the flourishing of the body as well—if you are serving.

We want to be a church where every member ministers. Every member serves. We are not here to simply receive. We are blessed by God in order to be a blessing.

Finally, when we ask, “Who is called to serve,” and we look at 1 Timothy 3, we say: deacons.That word diakonos, which was a general word meaning “servant,” by the end of the New Testament time had become a specific office within the church.

Here’s the background: in Acts 6, the Apostles found themselves distracted from the preaching and proclamation of the gospel to attend to some administrative matters within the church. So they asked the church to select out some men of good reputation to handle those administrative matters so that the apostles and teachers could devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and to prayer.

Most Bible scholars understand this to be the origin of what Paul calls Deacons in 1 Timothy 3. In other words—Elders and pastors lead the church through the spiritual ministry of teaching and prayer. Why do elders wield authority in the church? Because they are the primary leaders tasked with preaching and teaching the authoritative Word. Deacons, therefore, free-up elders to minister to those spiritual needs by serving the administrative and logistical needs of the church.

We don’t have time to go through all of them, but notice the qualifications for deacons found in this passage: they are just as spiritually strenuous as those given for elders. There is no lessening of the standards for deacons. That’s because, as deacons serve the administrative needs of the church, they are entrusted with financial resources, personal resources, and the care of members—and all of this ministry will require deacons to be just as spiritually mature as elders.

So, the clear teaching of the New Testament is that the local church has two offices: Elder & Deacon. The state of NC may require us to have trustees as a non-profit… and we do… but the Biblical offices of the church are only two: Elder and Deacon.

Elders hold spiritual authority as those called by God to teach the Word. Deacons serve the administrative and logistical needs of the church so that the ministry of the Word is unimpeded.

I do hope to come back to this text at a later time in more detail… but I need you all to see this broader foundation for the office of deacon: this office is one of serving—that’s the entire NT background to the office of deacon.

So we’ve seen what service is: anything done on behalf of another for the sake of Christ. We’ve seen who is called: we all are, some are given special gifts, and there’s a special office of servants called deacons. Finally…

3. WHY DO WE SERVE?

Now, there’s a sense in which we serve because we are commanded to do it. Jesus did say, “you ought to wash one another’s feet.”

We are created by God. He is the potter. We are the clay and therefore it is enough for him to simply command us to serve. Some of you serve others out of a sense of duty. And that’s good—we should all feel that sense of responsibility and command.

There’s also a sense in which we serve because we realize the worth and dignity of our fellow man. We realize that when we serve another human being we are helping an eternal soul—someone who will exist forever and therefore whatever we do for them can never be lost or wasted.

C.S. Lewis, at the end of his sermon The Weight of Glory says this:

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

In other words—if you really stop and consider what a human being is—an immortal being—who will live on either in increasing glory or increasing despair… the weight of what a human being is will drive you to humble service.

So Christianity says we are to serve because we’re commanded. We serve because of the dignity and worth of our fellow man…

But most importantly—Christianity says you serve others—even when they don’t deserve it—because Jesus Christ served you when you didn’t deserve it.

When Jesus was commanding his disciples to serve one another… he could have simply said: do it because I say so. He could have just given the command and expected obedience.

He could have said, “Serve others because I made them. Serve them because they bear the divine image.”

What did he say? In Matthew 20 Jesus said,

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, ²⁸ even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

At the end of the Lord of the Rings, after Frodo and Sam made the perilous journey and destroyed the Ring of Power—they are invited to a banquet. And here these two little hobbits enter this great hall of warriors and princes and kings. They’re the smallest most insignificant people in the room.

As they approach the high seats of the kings where Aragorn is seated Tolkien writes:

And then to Sam’s surprise and utter confusion [the king] bowed his knee before them; and taking them by the hand, Frodo upon his right and Sam upon his left, he led them to the throne, and [set] them upon it,

Why do Christians serve? Because, to our surprise, and utter confusion, and great delight, the king came down from his high seat and didn’t just bow a knee—he went to a cross for us, undeserving though we are.

So we serve as we have been served.

[1] https://changingaging.org/blog/can-life-in-a-nursing-home-be-made-uplifting-and-purposeful/

[2] Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol (p. 14). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.