September 3 Sermon: Officers of the Church

There may not be anything that is much worse for an organization than to have undefined roles for the people who serve in those organizations. This often happens with large corporations. It's actually the things of plots of television shows and movies where you see people who have worked for a company that's been around so long and they've done certain things and sometimes people aren't even sure what their jobs are. Their roles were at one time defined, but it becomes a thing of comedic error to find that they don't even know why they're there or what they're doing. Makes sense why this happens. Things are going great in businesses. The money is flowing, and so people are hired because the business is thriving. Well, then suddenly it becomes time to tighten the belt a little due to hard economic times or maybe a drop in sales. Suddenly, questions start to be asked about, What does so and so do in their day to day work at their job? Well, sometimes it's discovered that someone was hired to do a particular job in the organization, but over time it morphed into something else because there was a need or because the job they were hired to do didn't have a clear job description to begin with, and so they were asked to do something else.

 Now maybe this changing of the job happened because someone wasn't pulling their weight somewhere else and a particularly productive person stepped in and did that job, and so they took over a significant portion of somebody else's job. There's all kinds of reasons that this can happen, and we've all seen it. It can happen not only in large corporations, it can happen in small businesses as well. I think most of us have been around situations similar to what I'm describing. Without clearly defined rules, it becomes difficult to not only accomplish your goals, but it can also become difficult to function properly. Now, I've said this applies to all kinds of organizations, and so it naturally follows that this is true for the church. Last week we looked at the structure of our Presbyterian church government, and we looked at different passages that showed us that this form of government is ruled by a plurality of elders to care for the spiritual needs of the people of God and also to protect the people of God from false teaching. Well, today we're going to take a little bit deeper look into the officers of the church by looking at the first deacons that we see in the Book of Acts, and then also by considering the qualifications for these officers in the church from what we read in Titus and 1 Timothy.

 As we quickly drop into the Book of Acts, we find that there is an issue in the early church. Now, we often feel that the early church was maybe perfect or free from any problems, but in scripture, we find that there were issues right away. There were always problems in the church. We know this not only from the narratives that we read in the Book of Acts and stories like the one we read today, but think about how much of the New Testament was written to correct error. I mean, without issues in the early church, the apostle Paul wouldn't have had much to write in his letters. Without things to correct people on, they would have been really short. Hi, this is Paul. God bless you. I'm out. That a letter. Maybe not that short, but you get the idea. The New Testament would be much shorter without error in the church, and frankly, his letters would have been really boring. But we see here in the Book of Acts that the church is growing, and so you're going to see these problems developing. This is why these things needed to be addressed. Of course, growth causes difficulties because you end up with more and more people that you have to care for.

 We come to this first verse in Acts 6, and we find that this problem is between two different groups in the church. Now, this is the first time two groups had a difficulty in the church that we read about in scripture. But as we know, it wasn't the last time that two groups were going to butt heads in a church. This continues to happen. This is the first one, but it kept on going. In this case, the two groups are between the Helleness and the Hebrews. Now, so what we have here is the are the Greek-speaking Jews, and they're upset with the Hebrew-speaking Jews that their widows aren't being included in the daily distribution. Basically, the Greek-speaking Jewish widows aren't getting food. It seems as though, we don't have much detail here, but it seems though that there's maybe some concern that this might be an issue of cultural discrimination. That because there's two different groups, one is being ignored because of the language that they speak. Now, we don't know how it came to be that they were ignored. It likely wasn't because they spoke Greek. But we do know that when the word gets to the apostles, that this is going on, they immediately are taking steps to remedy this problem.

We get from this that this is unacceptable. This is not the way things should be. But we also see that there was likely nothing malicious about these widows being ignored. They weren't just ignoring the widows because they didn't like them or something, or they thought they were worse because they were Greek speaking. It just seems that this happened because the way it's talked about here gives us the idea that the apostles are stretched too thin. They have a lot of jobs to do. They're caring for the spiritual needs of God's people by the preaching of the Word, and they were also seemed to be distributing this food. I'm sure when this started out, this whole enterprise seemed like it was doable. They could do these tasks. In fact, it may have seemed as, Well, if we're going to care for the spiritual needs of these people, it'd be easy for us to also care for their physical needs, so we can do them at the same time. Who knows what the thought process was? But this is what happens. As the numbers increased, it became more and more difficult for this to happen. We can get how this would take place.

 A few months ago, I went to Omaha to go to a concert, and our nephew, Levi, lives there. I met up with him before the concert. I went to see where he worked and we had supper together. He works for a company that provides common workspace and warehouse space for entrepreneurs. He was giving me a tour of this building. He mentioned that the reason they started the business, the reason this is necessary is because so many people decide to start a small business that ships out some product of some sort. Maybe it's something that they make or something along those lines. He said what they discovered was that there were so many people who started these businesses in their living rooms, in their spare bedrooms, in their garages, who all of a sudden there was a boom in their business, and the next thing they knew, they couldn't keep up with it. Their entire houses are filled with boxes trying to do this new thing that they had started, this business that they had started. As this business, Elevator is the name of it, they come in and give them a space to work and give them a space to have warehouse spots for their merchandise because of how quickly they could become overwhelmed.

 Now, that's a completely different set of circumstances, but you can see how you can become overwhelmed, how caring for the people in the church seemed like a doable task, something small. Then the next thing, as there becomes more and more disciples of Christ, suddenly you're missing out on feeding a certain group of people because you don't have enough time, you don't have enough hands, the space where they are located is spread out. All this stuff just becomes overwhelming and it becomes a task that's hard to do. We see what the apostles did here to remedy this difficult situation. They tail the fellowship of believers to select from among them seven men who are of good repute, full of the Spirit, and have wisdom. These men are to be in charge of the serving of the tables in order that the apostles can preach and teach the word of God. The apostles are caring for the spiritual wellbeing of God's people, while these deacons are to be in charge of the physical wellbeing of the people of God. We still have this distinction today. What roles do we entrust to the deacons? They care for the things that are, for lack of a better way of saying it, physical.

 This manifests itself for us and the deacons, collecting the money and being in charge of the property of the congregation, taking care of these needs. They are also, just as the deacons were here in the Book of Acts, in charge of caring for the material needs of those who are in need. That's why if if someone were to come to me and they were to tell me about someone who was in need of food or some financial help or something like that, I wouldn't go to the elders with that request or that concern. I would go to the deacons. That's the job of a deacon. That's an important God-ordained task. This is what God has ordained deacons to do. It's how He defined the role. As I said when I was starting out, the clarification of roles is really important to have because without it, we might have an instance where something could easily get missed or there would be negligence because there wasn't a clear idea of who maybe holds the purse strings or who can distribute funds to make this happen. You get the idea. The clarity that defining these roles has not only allows for the best environment to care for the people of God, but also to have things being well ordered and also to have accountability to make sure that it takes place.

 Last week we saw the scriptural mandate for the plurality of elders, and this week we've seen the role of the deacons in the church. We can see that both offices are important and they're complementary to each other. But the only application for this passage is not simply that we need to consider elder roles and deacon roles as we go to nominate people for these offices in the coming week. There is more to consider than just the gifts that people have and to think about as we nominate people coming forward in a month or so, whatever it would be, are they a deacon type or they're an elder type? There's more to consider than just the giftings that God has given them for these tasks. We also need to consider character. We see from Paul, informings of this, as we read from two of his epistles today. We're going to take a look at 1 Timothy 1, and then look at Paul's important thoughts on looking after the flock in Titus. I'll point out where there's some overlap between the two passages, but we're not going to spend too much time considering these individual requirements, but instead we're going to focus on the overall character that those officers of church are to have.

 We're not going to spend time dwelling on those individual things, but instead looking at the big picture. We come to first Timothy, and we're going to look at Chapter 3:1-5. As we read through these passages today, you likely noticed that they were very, very similar. Now, I decided to read both of these patches. Not only because they were slightly different, there were different things to focus on, and also not just because of that certain emphasis in Titus about looking after the flock, but I also wanted to read both of them because they're similar. The character of officers in the church is something that Paul is consistent about. He wants it to be driven home to us. Now, in Titus, the passage started out with Paul talking about family life, but the order is flipped here in first Timothy as we see. What we see here in these passages is that character isn't just about whether these officers in the church can keep their family out of trouble or keep up appearances that everything is good in their lives. We see that they are to be of good and respectable character themselves. In fact, it says that they're to be above reproach.

 When I read that, that's a humbling thing because it's one thing to keep yourself out of trouble. It's one thing to make it seem as though everything is perfect in your life. It's an entirely different thing to be above reproach, right? To not only have the appearance that this is the case, but to have people believe that there is no way that you would do these things to truly that you truly act in this way to the point that if people were to hear that you did something, they would brush it off as an ugly rumor because they know you to truly have this character that people would never suspect that you are acting in a moral way to be above reproach is a difficult thing. It requires holy living. We see that this holy living that is talked about here in these passages is a varied list of things. It isn't just big ticket sins, the things that we think of as being a really big deal. It isn't just that the overseers in the church aren't to be drunk and violent. The things that they're to do is also to be hospitable, to be self-controlled, to be disciplined, to be holy.

 That's more than just the big stuff. That's in all areas of life. Now, we've seen this list here. It's lined out for overseers in the church. But ultimately, all these things we read about here, these are things that we should all be aspiring to, right? These are things that Christians are called to do. God calls each of us to live our lives in this way. This is important for Christian character, and so it's important for those who serve in the church. It's even more important because they are the ones leading. They are the ones who are also exhibiting this to the greater world as the people who are standing up in the church. From this, Paul moves on to commenting about the family life of those who are overseers in the church. We find that he is to be the husband of one wife, and that his children are to be believers, and that those children are not charged with debauchery or unsportination. Now, even I had to look up the word debauchery. I always forget what it means. I think every time that word comes up in scripture, I have to ask the internet what it means.

 It's a big word that means being indulgent, insensual, pleasure. What's the purpose of all this talk about the family life of an elder? Why is this brought up? Well, he is the husband of one wife because he's not to be sexually immoral himself, and he's not to be a polygamous. Then we have the statements about the children and how they act because elders are to be deliberate about raising their children in the faith and to have the home to be in good order. Paul does us a favor. He helps us to understand what we already know, but he spells it out clearly the motivation behind these comments. We can understand why this is being said. If someone's family is in disorder, then it probably isn't best that they spend time trying to help God's family be in good order. As I alluded to earlier, it's important that we understand that all of these character traits and having a well-ordered family aren't about keeping up appearances or putting on a good show. All believers are to live of integrity, aspiring to holiness, and this is a particular expectation of those who are servants in the church.

 Our passage here in first Timothy also mentions qualifications for deacons, and they are to be dignified, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, or greedy for dishonest gain. There's also family elements in these commands for deacons as well. Again, I'm not dwelling too much on these specifics, but instead on the big idea. Not only because we see these things as common Christian moral expectations, because I want to drive home the greater point of having these offices exhibit these traits. It's good for the people of God to exhibit these things and to live in this way. It's a way to care for God's people, and it protects the people of God in a way like I talked about last week. Call back to what we read towards the end of the Book of Acts last week, where Paul warned the elders in Ephesis that there were wolves at the gate and they were waiting to devour the flock. This was true in Paul's time, and it's true in our time, and so it's imperative that the officers of the church protect and care for the people of God. They do this not only with what they say, but how they live their lives.

 We see this displayed in the last bit that we read in the first chapter of Titus this morning, where it says, He must hold firm to the trustworthy Word is taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. Like I reminded us from the Book of Acts, there are wolves at the gate waiting to devour the flock. The elders of the church must hold firm to the faith and the teaching of it because they need to be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and also correct those who teach against it. This is so vital. We want to be sure that what we teach is in line with scripture. We all know what happens when we don't have that taking place in the church. We know that this is the case. It isn't just evident in a few denominations in the last few years. It's been going on for generations and generations. As long as I can remember, I've heard of splits in churches over doctrine and churches falling into error. The goal here is to hold fast to the faith in doctrine and practice to build up the church and to protect the church.

 I spoke about this last week, and I want to call back on something important that I drew out last week. We naturally look at these offices in the church, and we look at it as being similar to a board of directors in the secular realm. But that isn't what these offices in the church are for. They are first and foremost, servants. They're to be shepherds under the good shepherd, Jesus Christ. He is the servant who is their model. This is rooted in the gospel of God's grace, of Jesus coming as a servant in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He served people in a life of suffering, and in his bearing the wrath of God for our sin. He served us in his resurrection, securing eternal life for his people. Now he is still a servant right now interceding for us at the right-hand of the Father. This is the servant of God's people. Jesus is a servant. It's so important for us to remember this. As I mentioned last week, how the topic of looking at church government came up as we were looking at as elders, looking at the leadership training guide of the EPC.

 Again, I would recommend, if you want to take a look at this, ask me. I have a copy you can look at. It's a great book. But as we got to the point of the officers of the church in that book, I read something that I never considered until I read it in that EPC training manual. I think as Americans, we have a pretty good grasp of Presbyterian church government once we understand the basics of it, because we live in a country that has a similar form of government. We have a representative republic. We have a Senate and a Congress that have specific roles. They play those roles in the government. Very similar to having specific roles of elders, specific roles of deacons. In our government, they represent us as the citizens, as people. But the thing that I had never considered before that the training manual pointed out was a question. Who do the officers in the church represent? What do you think? Think about that for a second. Have you ever thought about that? Who do the elders and the deacons of the church represent? Well, they don't represent the sheep like senators and Congress people do.

 That's not who they first and foremost represent. They are representatives of the shepherd. They're Christ representative. They represent Christ in the church. They are to be Christ representatives to us and to the world. Their consideration is first and foremost what God has to say on any matter, and not what the people will think, but to hold fast to scripture. That is why we need to be holding fast to sound doctrine and to remember that the best way that we can serve people as elders and deacons is to hold fast to the faith in doctrine and in practice. That is how we represent Christ to the people of God. With that in mind, it helps us to understand the things that Paul has lined out for the officers in the church in his epistles that we read this morning. If we are going to represent Christ to the people, we should desire to know him and live in a way that reflects His Holiness. As we close up this morning, I want to issue a challenge, and those of you who have never been or never hoped to be elders and deacons are not getting off the hook here.

 This challenge is for all of us. It's a challenge for all the people of God. As we step out into the world, we represent Christ. We represent Christ to the world. Yes, it is a greater charge to the officers of the church, but this is a charge to every believer to represent Christ to the world. Understanding the grace that God has shown to us in Christ, we should desire to represent Him in the world. The best way for us to do this is to consider how Paul calls the officers of the church to represent Christ in the church, and to do the same thing in the world, to live a life that is worthy of the calling we have in Christ, to seek to live a life of holiness that brings glory and honor to Jesus. May each of us, elders and deacons, and all of the household of faith, may we daily live in repentance. May we daily seek holiness that we might be Christ's representatives to the world that others might hear the gospel and come to trust in Christ for salvation. Amen.

This message was delivered on September 3, 2023 by Pastor Mark Groen at First Reformed Church in Edgerton, MN. First Reformed is a congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.