Deacons Likewise Must Be...#2

Please forgive me if I've got a cough this morning. I hear that some of you do as well. We hope that in due time that will pass from all of us. This week we're going to be continuing our study of the office of deacons, specifically the process or the character that we're to look for when electing a deacon. What do those men have to be like? That's sort of the question I asked last week. But this week I want to spend time actually looking at the qualifications given here in this passage. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from 1 Timothy chapter 3 verses 8 through 13. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. 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. These men must 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. Deacons must be the 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. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So the first quality we come to in deacons is that they ought to be men of dignity. Now, what does it mean to be dignified? Anyone want to venture a guess? What's it mean to be dignified? Or an opinion, rather. What do you think of when you think of dignity? Not silly, says Sarah. They ought to not be silly. That's a very good start. What else? What's that? Respective, respectable, respectful to other people? Yes, absolutely.

They ought to be kind of men that have some weight to them, if you will. And I don't necessarily mean physical weight, though. That actually does help. They ought to be men of gravitas. Men who have a certain pull to them, if you will. When you enter into their orbit, you can feel their presence. You ever been around somebody and you're just like, oh, they're in the room. That's sort of what we're getting at with deacons being men of dignity. They're the sort of people who you go, oh. there they are. There they are. They ought to be serious men, grave men, respectable men. Deacons should have a sobriety about them. Now this is, you realize this cuts against the grain of our society. Do you like men who are serious? Sometimes, well, you know, it's kind of a, it's a trick question most of the time they are, right? Where it's like, yeah, I like men who are serious. I like men who are, you know, who don't just play along, but at the same time, I don't like them.

Because I know I have to mind my P's and Q's and I have to be attentive because they're not going to just pass over my silliness. There's a certain expectation that comes when they enter the room. You know, when a dad enters the room where the kids are at, all of a sudden the kids kind of straighten up and they're like, oh, dad's home. You ever been in a conversation with somebody or a group of people and then someone else comes into the conversation and the conversation dies? You ever wonder what's going on there? Well, oftentimes it's the conversation that was going on. The whole group in unison decides this isn't fit for his ears. So they stop. This is some of what it means to be a man of dignity. Now, what's true of a man of dignity? Someone who's sober-minded, respectable, serious. Well, you know that there are things that they care about. They're invested in their work. When you talk to them about something, you know you're not going to get a flippant, half-hearted answer.

You know that they're going to give themselves to it, and they're going to have expectations for you. They're not the kind of men who say, I'm just doing what I'm told. I had a guy say that to me this past week at a restaurant. I was complaining about something, and he just looked at me and said, I'm just doing what I'm told. But it was a stupid thing that he was doing. And I almost asked to talk to his manager, and then I thought, it's not worth it. But what I almost thought to say to him, as I was walking out, I thought, you know what I should have said to him? I should have said to him, you're not going to get very far in life just doing what you're told. You're just not going to. And there's this lie in our society, this pressure that men feel to just fall in line and to do what's expected of them. But there needs to be an examination of those expectations to see if they're dignified, if they produce good things in men. And what I'm convinced of is that that man I was talking to

was not going to be a dignified man. He was passive. He was just going to go along with whatever was dictated to him. And that's not the kind of man you want in leadership. He was not a serious man. He was not sober-minded. He was not concerned with or cared about his job. And so you want a deacon to be a man of dignity. You want him to be someone who cares about his work, who doesn't think that it's... He doesn't understand the work to be a reflection on him and his good character and who basks in the respect or the honor that the position gives him. You want to be a man whose heart is committed to the work that he has to do. And you want him to be a man of dignity, not just when people are looking, but all of the time, in his public as well as his private responsibilities. We're going to come more to that as we work through our text.

Another way of saying it is that deacons are the kind of men that you should look up to. Not to be the kind of men you say, that's what I want to be like. That's the kind of guy I want my son to be like. And I realized that whenever I elevate the office of elder or deacon, as I've talked about it, it has this weird effect on us, where if I say that to the deacons, they kind of go, uh, just putting another brick in my barrel, making it a little heavier, you're raising people's expectations for me. And what I've found in my own life is that people having higher expectations for me has only ever been good for me. It's been hard. But it's always good when people say, we expect more of you. And so I want you to see that having high expectations for deacons, that they would be dignified sober men, is a good thing. We ought not to want, as Sarah said, silly men. Part of one way to define dignity is to say, what is it not? Well, the opposite of dignity is...

It's a really good translation. I thought of the word garrulous. Just someone who runs his mouth and just chatters and who doesn't have any weight to him. He's just kind of a waif. He's interested in having attention drawn to himself. He's interested in talking about things that don't matter. But he's not a man of weight who gets things done. And in a deacon, you want a man who's going to get things done. We're going to come to that in just a second. But dignity carries with it. A sense of propriety? A sense of discretion? A sense of comportment? And so when you think of a deacon, you ought to think of his appearance. You ought to think, does he look like the kind of man that people would respect? Does that seem strange to say? That the way a man looks actually matters with his dignity? Would you think differently of me if I had a big tattoo on my forearm? I think most of you would. You'd say, wear a long-sleeved shirt. You've done something foolish, something stupid, something undignified. Cover that up.

Don't show that. Don't flaunt that. What would you think of a man if you couldn't trust him with private things? If he couldn't hold his tongue? If he was the kind of man that when you spoke to him, you were unsure of who else might find out about your conversation? He's not the kind of man you'd want to talk to. You want a man of dignity, one who has discretion, who knows when to speak and when not to speak and what to say or do in those situations. A dignified man is not careless. He's not flippant in his work. In Acts 6, the people were told to choose men that were full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom. So what does a man of wisdom look like? How would we describe him? We'd describe him as saying he's a dignified man. He's the kind of guy you look at and you go, yeah, he's fit for the job. I said last week that you don't want deacons who are just doers.

who are just men on a puppet string, who just do what they're told. You want men who actually have the capacity to lead, the capacity to make decisions, the capacity to do hard work and to carry the load themselves, because they have a different load than the elders do to carry, and you want faithful men doing it. And so dignity is the first thing we look for in men when they're up for becoming a deacon. The second thing is that they must not be double-tongued. So what does it mean to be double-tongued? There's a couple of different things it can mean. The first is that they could say one thing and do another. They could be hypocrites. Trust is integral to this idea of being double-tongued. Deacons have to be trustworthy. When it talks here about someone being double-tongued, it's talking very closely about the man's integrity and his trustworthiness. Do you know men who talk a good game? We have all these sayings in our society that get at the problem.

He talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. That's to be double-tongued. Deacons can't be hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another. They have to be men of their word. Now I want to ask you, what does a man of his word do when he fails? Because deacons will fail. What does a man of his word do when he fails? He admits it. He says, that was a failure. That was a bad thing. I shouldn't have done that. Or I told you I was going to do it and I didn't get it done. I'm not going to wait until you figure out I didn't get it done. I'm going to come to you and tell you I dropped that ball. Would you please forgive me? I'm getting it taken care of. Now that might seem like the kind of thing that all men should be, and you're right, they should be. But it's especially important with regard to deacons that they not be hypocrites. It's also necessary that they not be double-minded men.

A double tongue comes from a double mind, men who don't have commitments or convictions or principles about them. To be double-minded is to be caught between two or more opinions. There's a lack of commitment, and it often comes from a conflict of interest. A man who's double-minded wants two different things. Now, can you have two different things if they're at odds with each other? Can you have, as the saying goes, your cake and eat it too? The answer is no, you can't. And so a man who is double-minded or double-tongued lives in conflict, not being willing to commit to either one of them forthrightly, not being willing to make the sacrifice necessary to do his job. Now, why is that important for deacons? Well, it's important for deacons because they're in charge of caring for the poor and making sure that their needs are met, for taking care of the needs of the church, the building, and the people. So what happens if you have a man who says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get that taken care of, but he doesn't do it?

Could you imagine if in Acts 6 when they were told to attend to the conflict between the widows and to make sure they were fed, if they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got that taken care of, but then they didn't do it. What's the result of that? More conflict, but even more particularly, the widows go without food. It's really important work that they do. In that situation, we'd understand there's a real problem if those deacons hadn't done their job. They have vulnerable people that depend on them. who need them to be faithful. And so they have to be responsible men. Above all, they have to be honest, single-minded, faithful men who do what they're supposed to do. Another reason this is really important is that deacons handle church money. I've told you in our church that we work as much as we can to have transparency about everything that goes on with our money. There's one area where there's a bit of discretion, a bit of a veil, and it's over the deacon's work. You know, when it comes to what is the church budget,

It's all there, down to the penny. Here's what we're intending to spend our money on. This is what we're asking for. This is what we're going to use it for. And at the end of the year, we come back and say, this is how it went. Full transparency. Everyone knows what's going on. But when it comes to the deacons, we end up with a report. And the deacons say something more veiled. They say, well, the deacons fund brought in X amount of money. And the deacons fund spent X amount of money. And this is the type of work that the deacons did. Now why is there a veil over that work? Well, because they're caring for the poor and the needy among us. That means that there are those of us in this room right now who've been the recipients of the deacons' love and care. And it's a kindness and a mercy to us that their work and their love for us is covered so that our nakedness isn't exposed. But there's a danger that goes along with it, and what's the danger? Anyone want to guess what the danger for deacons is? They might steal money. They have access to money in a way that,

None of the rest of you do. I can tell you in our church, just so that you all know, all of our deacons have a certain amount of money out of the deacon's fund that they can spend without telling anybody until after the fact. 200 bucks, is that what it is? Yeah. And the only other person besides our deacons that has that responsibility is me. Our elders can't do it. And so they have the ability to take the church's money and to judge to a certain level. By themselves, I'm going to spend this money on this need right now. So you want faithful men who have their priorities straight doing this work, right? Because they've got access to the Lord's money that's been given to this church in the service of the poor. You don't want men who are skimming. Men who are susceptible to a plot or to a scheme to steal money. Just on down in our passage, Paul says that deacons can't be men who are fond of sordid gain. What's sordid gain? What is it?

Go ahead. Perhaps. Ill-gotten gain. Money you didn't work for. Plots and schemes. Get-rich-quick scams. Yeah. Here's a question for you to help draw this out a little bit. Can you think of a context or a circumstance in which deacons should refuse money? Should refuse to take money? I think absolutely there are times when deacons ought to refuse to take money. When should they refuse to take money? Well, when that money comes with strings attached. It's very common that... Because of churches' tax-exempt status, people who have money like to give money to churches because they want the tax benefit of it. And you have to realize and you have to think carefully. There's a danger that comes with that money that comes into a place. And it has to be guarded carefully to make sure that there's no room for the deacons or the men who have access to the money to be able to abuse. Excuse me.

You have to be careful to make sure they don't abuse their privilege, their responsibility. And so if someone came to our deacons and said, you know, I've got $10,000, and I'd like you to do this with it. One of my kids is in your church, and I'd like for you to see that money make its way to them. Would you do that for me? What does our deacon's response have to be? It has to be no. I can't guarantee you that I'll do that. You can give money to our church, but in giving money to our church, you are agreeing that we have full liberty to do whatever we see fit with that money. There can't be strings attached to it. You could make a request, but you can't tell us what to do. Handling money is very difficult. It comes with a big responsibility, and that's what deacons deal with. They have more latitude in the church in terms of their office than the elders do with regard to the money.

There's all kinds of checks and balances in place for our elders. One of our elders makes the deposits and records them, and another one keeps track of the books and balances the bank statements. There's no way that the man who has the money has the ability to snitch some of it without other people knowing. But the deacons have access to money, and they can do what they want with it. And so you want men who aren't double-tongued, men who aren't double-minded, men who understand what their responsibility is to care for the poor among us. and the needs of the church and that they be faithful in that work. They have to be men of principle is another way of saying it. They have to be willing to say no when something's not right. Not double-tongued saying, oh yeah, sure, we can take care of that. They must also not be drunkards. Now there's a couple of reasons they shouldn't be drunkards and we talked about this with elders already. The first reason is that drunkards are not the kind of men you want to emulate. And we talked about that with...

with the elders. We said, you don't want men leading the church who don't have any self-control, who don't have any ability to say no to themselves. But there's another reason you don't want men who are drunkards being deacons, and it's because of the nature of their work and the stuff that they deal with. You remember earlier it said that they have to be men of dignity, they have to be serious, they have to be sober-minded. Well, that's sort of the opposite of being a drunkard. They have to be men who can control themselves and act with discretion all the time, and that's not what a drunk does.

Have you been around a drunk person when they're drunk? They like to talk. And what do they want to talk about? Sometimes silly things and oftentimes things that ought not to be spoken about. They want to tell you things that aren't your business. They want to unburden themselves at your expense. They want to complain. They want to grumble. Drunkards are not dignified and they're very prone to doing and saying things that they shouldn't. A deacon, above all, should want God's honor and his name to be protected and not maligned or disparaged because of their behavior. And so you want men who can control themselves. Next it says that deacons ought to hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. Now this is kind of a strange one. What does it mean to hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience? Well, the first thing you have to know is that the faith, the gospel, that Jesus came into the world to die for sinners is a mysterious thing. It only makes sense to us and has value to us when God makes it valuable to us.

You could tell two people the same thing. You could say, you're a sinner. You've done things you shouldn't have done. And you could have two people say, you're right. And you could say to both of them, there's a man, Jesus Christ, who came into this world, who's perfect, who lived a perfect life, never sinned, not even once. And he died in our place. Why? Because that was his father's will so that we could be saved. That's good news for us. And that was, at that time, for a period, very bad news for him. We benefit from his death. And you'll have different responses to that. Sometimes people will say, well, that doesn't make any sense. And they're right. The way we reason and the way we think, it says that doesn't make any sense. It does not follow that God would send his son, the perfect one, to die so that we could be forgiven, that the things that we've done could be wiped away. That's the mystery of the faith.

And so what you want are deacons, men who've taken hold of that, men who understand that. Deacons ought to have a good understanding of the gospel. Excuse me. Part of the reason is because of the people they're going to be working with. They're going to be working with people who are down on their luck, people who are discouraged, people who are without hope in this world. And their job is not just to meet their physical needs, but also to give them hope. So those men need to have a good understanding of the hope that's within them because their work's going to require that they give a defense, that they give an explanation for the hope that they have within them, that they can bear with those who are suffering and those who are destitute and those who are weak, the orphans and widows in their distress, and be able to offer them something other than money or food, hope of eternal life. They have to take hold of it. And they have to do it with a clear conscience. Have you ever been compelled to do something because...

You've done something good because you've done something bad previously. You think, well, I did this bad thing, so if I do this good thing, it'll make up for it. Well, that's a warning here to deacons not to do that, not to do their work as an act of penance. They have to do it with a clear conscience. They have to do it because they know that their sins have been forgiven, not because they're trying to pay them off themselves. That's important that they hold to the mystery of the gospel with a clear conscience because that is what they have to offer to other people. I know what you've done. You're telling me what you've done in the circumstances that you find yourselves in. We have many helps we can offer you. One of them is maybe financial. It may be food. It may be some tangible thing, but it's also going to be the hope of the gospel. When our deacons go to people and they work with them, the poor, they come to them, they ask questions like, how did you get into this financial situation that you're in?

Do you have a budget? And what they're asking about is stewardship. When they ask those questions, they're asking a question of stewardship. Are you a good steward of all that God has given you? And it's a question that a lot of people don't like to answer. They get offended when you ask them the question. Have you been a good steward? And they say, it's none of your business. And the deacons kindly and gently say, well, it is our business because my job is to take care of this money that God's given to me, and you're asking for it. So it's my business to know. what I'm giving money to. Now, if you had a man who just felt bad and was supposed to be merciful and loving, but didn't know that his sins were forgiven in such a way that he had a clear conscience about it, what might he do in that situation? Well, he might throw money at the problem. He might not say no. He might not ask the questions that need to be asked. In some ways, I'd say that diaconal work is harder work than elders work, because they often deal with strangers.

It's not uncommon for me to call one of the, you know, to call Abram and say, hey, I got this phone call. This stranger came to the church and needs help. And so what our deacons have to do is call that person or meet with that person, a perfect stranger, and then bore down into their life or try to, with no prior relationship or rapport or anything like that, to see what kind of help they need. Elders, most of their work has to do with us. We know each other. We've got some rapport here for the most part. We have an understanding about how things work or at least how things ought to work. But deacons have to work with all kinds of people. And so they have to have a good hold of the gospel and be willing at a moment's notice to speak to the people that they're ministering to, the strangers. And if they're doing their work as an act of penance, if they're doing this because they've done something wrong, they're going to be hindered in their work. They have to take hold of the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. They have to see themselves as free.

to ask and to do whatever is necessary. What else could be their problem? Why do they have to have a clear conscience? Well, our consciences aren't always clear. What else can our consciences be? What does Scripture warn us about? Well, it warns us about having hard consciences or seared consciences. And I think one of the dangers that deacons face, and you have to keep watch of, is that they don't become cynical in their work. And that's a danger that they all... will face, that they'll become jaded by the hypocrisy and by the lying and cheating of the people that they come to help. Why can't you take care of yourself? Why don't you listen? How'd you get yourself into this situation? Why do I have to help clean it up? Sorts of things that deacons might be tempted to think. And here we're told, no, they can't think and behave that way. They have to act as men with a clear conscience.

Not with a seared conscience, not with a hard conscience. They have to maintain their tenderness and their mercy and their gifts of compassion. I think often when we think of gifts of compassion, we think of being compassionate towards people who are deserving of compassion. You say, oh, well, I'll be merciful to them because they deserve mercy. But deacons spend a lot of time dealing with people who don't deserve mercy. who haven't just fallen on a difficult time that they had nothing to do with. They're usually helping people who've gotten themselves into a bit of a pickle. And they had some part in getting themselves into that pickle. And their work is to bring the gospel and apply it to those people who've made a mess in their own life. And if they're jaded or they're cynical and they harden their consciences against the mercy that God's shown them, they won't be fit to do their work.

Now we might call their cynicism discernment, and yet cynicism is not the same thing as being full of wisdom. The last thing I'd say about having a clear conscience is that they have to do their work freely and not under compulsion. Have you ever tried to get somebody to do their work, and you know that there's a debt being accrued when you ask them to do something? I've had times where I've asked men, said, hey, I need you to do this thing. I know that in their minds, I'm accruing a debt. I'm going to owe them for having burdened them with some responsibility that they didn't want to do. Deacons have to do their work with a clear conscience. They have to do it freely. Their work requires sacrifice. They have to do whatever is required of them without grumbling or complaining. Have you ever had in your life a circumstance that arises and whatever you had planned for the rest of that day or the next day is...

just gone now and you're not doing that you're doing something else it's not normal but that does happen to deacons when a need arises happens to elders too but when a need arises it falls to if it's a diaconal need it falls to those men and there are times when they're going to have to stop what they're doing and they're going to have to go and take care of it and it's common for us to think of those sorts of Needs arising in our family. Oh, my wife got into a car accident. I'm leaving work now because something happened. My son got sick at school. It's time for the whole schedule to change. Something like that. And we say, oh, clear the schedule. Something new has happened. But that's actually some of what's required of deacons. Which means they're going to face the temptation to grumble and complain about it when their life gets flipped up on its head for a time. Their work requires sacrifice and they have to do it without grumbling or complaining. They have to do it freely.

It's a privilege to get to be a part of people's lives, especially when there's difficulty in them, when there's crisis, when there's a need. And so they have to do their work with a clear conscience, knowing that there's been many sacrifices made for them. Chief among it is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And they say, if those are the sorts of sacrifices that are made on my behalf, then I'll make the sacrifices that are necessary on your behalf. You call, you let me know what your need is, you come and I'll be there. This is the work of a deacon. The last thing that I want to talk about this morning is that deacons are to be tested. How many of you guys like tests? Like being tested? Oh, you like being tested, huh? My four-year-old daughter. How many of you like, what does it mean to be tested? Well, it means to be brought under the microscope, if you will. To be examined. To be poked and prodded in places that you would, you don't like to be poked and prodded, generally.

That's what it means to be tested. And the scripture here tells us that these men are supposed to be tested. They're supposed to be poked, they're supposed to be prodded, they're supposed to be examined in a way that oftentimes is very uncomfortable. And what does that test require? Well, it requires some discomfort, but it also requires that a judgment be made. Did you pass the test or did you fail the test? I think for a minute back in Acts 6 when they were choosing... seven men from among their own selves to feed the widow's tables. Could you imagine being in that group? If we as a congregation were tasked with not leaving this place until we had chosen men to do this work, what would be going on in our group? Well, you'd have some men saying, not me, they'd be doing like Saul and going and hiding among the baggage. And you'd have other men saying, I've been waiting for someone to realize what I'm capable of.

And yet the difficulty is the people have to sort through all of that stuff and they have to make judgments about these men's fitness for that work. And they're going to be judging these men not based on what they are saying, not based on even what they're doing in the moment, but they're going to be making that judgment based on what they've already done, what they've already accomplished, what they're already like. He says, you need to select from yourselves men full of the spirit and of wisdom. And what we're looking for is that person that comes to your mind and you go, yeah, him. He's the guy. There's a testing and a judgment.

And it's a judgment of past performance. You know, in the workplace, sometimes people will say, they don't pay me enough to do that. And it's often a question of responsibility, right? There's something that is aimed at saying, I want you to be responsible for this thing. And their response back is, that's not my responsibility. I don't get paid to do that. It's above my pay grade, what have you. If you're the boss in that situation, What happens is you file in your mind with a big red flag on it, this guy is not the kind of guy I want to give more responsibility to. Because he thinks that the reward of doing hard work comes before the hard work. And everything with him is going to be a hassle and a negotiation where he thinks that he's worth more than he is. And that's not the kind of man that gets promoted.

Because he thinks more highly of himself than he ought to. The same is true with deacons. When you appoint a man to the office, the test is an examination of his past. There is no negotiation that says, if we make you a deacon, will you be all these things? Will you do all these things? There's none of that. The test is, has he done this kind of stuff? Has he done the work of a deacon before he had the privilege and the honor of being a deacon? Will he do the work before he's recognized for it? Is he the kind of man who comes and helps and gives himself to the care of the building and the care of the people of the church before there was any talk of him being a deacon? If he is, then he's doing well. If he's not, then he's not fit to be a deacon. Because he hasn't passed the test. Men who become deacons should already be demonstrating gifts of mercy and compassion. They should already be making sacrifices for the people.

They should already have a priority of serving the church and the poor. And they should be walking those priorities out before there's any recognition of it. Another thing I'd say about this test is that it's not pro forma. In our church, it's possible for you as a congregation at any time throughout the year to nominate an elder or a deacon. To say, I think Bill would make a good deacon. And our process is that the elders will... you know, consider that nomination, and we may or may not decide to pursue it. Now, what's that mean? Well, it means that sometimes there'll be people nominated who the elders judge haven't passed the test, so they can't be deacons. And those men won't even be put forward to the congregation as a result. But if they are put forward before the congregation, then what happens? Well, then you all get to decide, do they pass the test? Do we want this man to be?

a deacon in our midst what are you supposed to do if you don't want him to be a deacon vote no isn't that crazy you're supposed to actually make a judgment that's what a vote is it's a judgment it's a judgment and sometimes you'll have people who um are not passed or at least not passed well and so this test that these men are to undergo is not supposed to be a pro forma just a thing you do It's an actual examination that first the elders have to examine and then the congregation has to examine and say, yes, we want this man or no, we don't. Excuse me. The final thing I'll say about this test is it's not a one-time test. When you have men who are to be tested, there is a sense in which they're tested before they come into office. But then that test is sort of an ongoing checking up and checking on to see if they still meet the qualifications.

It's somewhat perpetual. It may be that a man was fit for office at one point, or seemed fit, but that later in his life he isn't qualified anymore. Circumstances have changed, his priorities have changed, something like that. Something has shifted. And now you say, this guy's not a deacon. So what are you supposed to do at that point? You're supposed to come back and say, he's no longer qualified. And it may be that we first would go to the man and say, we don't think you're qualified anymore. Would you resign? And maybe he'd say yes. Maybe he'd say no. What do you do if he says, no, I won't resign? Our process would then be to come to you and say, we don't think that Bill is fit anymore. Would you vote him out of office? Would you remove his call? This is the nature of the test that deacons undergo, that elders undergo. It's perpetual. And if a man should be removed from office, we want to have a process to remove them. I remember saying to a guy one time,

an officer in the church. I said, you know, Bill, I don't think you're a pastor. I know you're a pastor, but I don't think you're a pastor. And so I'm going to recommend that you not be a pastor anymore. And Bill was shocked. He thought, who are you to make a judgment about whether or not you think I'm a pastor? And I said, I'm not making a judgment by myself. I'm going to recommend to those who can make the judgment that you ought not to be a pastor. But I think you ought to consider yourself first whether you're a pastor. And then he says, well, how can you make that judgment? And I said, you realize, Bill, that pastors decide every day that they're not pastors anymore and they quit. Should it only be their prerogative to be able to say, I no longer want to do this work or I'm called to it? Shouldn't it also be allowed that the people who have to work with them be able to make that same judgment and say, we don't think that you're a pastor anymore. We don't think you're an elder or qualified to be a deacon. And I think that...

it's absolutely appropriate that we as a congregation will be able to choose those who rule over us, and that there be an ongoing acknowledgement of their fitness for office. In our church, our elders and deacons are both set to serve three-year terms, and they're allowed to serve two consecutive terms, six years, and then they're supposed to take a year off. But what has to happen between years three and four? Well, one of the things that has to happen is they have to be put back up for... re-election. And they have to be voted on again. And so there's regularly built into our church government a way to process men's fitness and to circle back around and consider, are they still fit for office? Should they still be doing that work? Because what we want in the end are men who are qualified serving in this capacity. Because their work is very important. So they need to be men of dignity. They need to be men who are honest, not double-tongued.

and they need to hold to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and they must pass the test to be a deacon. I thought as I was preparing this sermon how much I should tell you about how our church processes it, because I don't want the sermon to turn into just a lesson of how our church government works, but I do think it's necessary that you know how we've tried to honor these requirements. and written them down into our church polity so you know how we actually govern ourselves. That it's not all just a subjective judgment of the pastor or of the elders, but it's actually something that's woven into how we function as a church because we think there's protection in that. That you would know the men you're governed by, that you would be able to voice your disagreement or your nomination of men, but that there'd be a process for this stuff to all be handled so that we can avoid...

The sort of division and dissension that comes from not having that stuff written down. And so I think the final thing I want to say to you, we're in the middle of this, these passages, but the final thing I want to say to you today is if you think that men are called to office or if you have concern about men who are in office, it's the sort of thing you should talk about, that you can talk about. It's not something that we hide. It's not something that we're, there's not some inner working that goes on that nobody's, that you're not privileged to. If you have questions, you can ask them.

How is it that he's an officer? How come he's not an officer? I think Bill would make a good deacon. Let us know. Tell us what you think Bill does that qualifies him. Because all of these things indicate or show our buy-in to this ministry and to this church and how we want to see it grow. I've been very thankful for the men that we have serving as deacons. They do a lot of work, and I and probably the elders see a lot more of it because we work with them. than you guys do on a day-to-day basis, but I'm very thankful for the work that they do. They're good men. But we need more deacons. We've got a big building to take care of, and the deacons are often pulling in other men saying, hey, I need help with this, I need help with that, and that's as it should be. But what we want to see is God raising up more men to lead and to rule and to take care of our needs and the needs of those around us. And so it's something we ought to pray for. Let's pray.