This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
I've heard someone say I was one way, I'm one way in business and
I'm another way in church with spiritual things.
I don't read with that soul in the word of God.
I don't read with that soul. He said we are to do all things
that's unto the Lord. Everything, every thought should
be brought into the captivity and obedience of Jesus Christ,
not be one way one place and then another way in another
arena. We are all servants of the Lord
first. What happens when you live one
way at church in another way everywhere else?
In today's message, Pastor Lewis confronts the idea that you can
be one person in business and another in spiritual things.
The Word of God never allows that split life.
The Scripture says to do everything is unto the Lord,
bringing every thought into obedience to Christ.
God can keep your heart undivided when you serve Him
first in every area. How do you make sure every part
of your life is lived is unto the Lord?
Well, let's join Pastor Lewis in First Timothy Chapter 3 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Turning your Bibles to First Timothy chapter 3.
So why don't we pray and then let's go into the word of
Godfather. We do thank you for once again
we get opportunity to learn from you, Lord, to get into Your
word, the truth, the living Word.
Lord, Your word is living. And we thank you that we have
the privilege, Lord, to hear Your Word and to sit under that
word and have that word do its work in us.
We ask God now that you would bless us with the anointing that
comes from on high. Lord, if you're not speaking, if
you're not giving us what to say and what to hear, if you don't
open up our eyes and our understanding, our hearts to the
revelation of this Word, Lord, we will not receive anything.
So we ask God that you will pour out your wisdom on us.
Pour out your understanding Lord, and help us, O God, to be
able to receive from your word. We ask all these things in the
name of our Savior and our Lord. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
We're in First Timothy and we are in chapter 3.
Now. Last week we did talk about the
elders and the qualifications of the elders.
And as we went through that list, I just want to remind
everybody that as we go through these, these qualifications,
these lists of qualifications, we're not going through this in
a way that it's religious or that it's legalistic or anything
of that nature. It's not that anybody is just
looking and watching and say, oh, OK, I'll check the box on
that. That's not what this is about.
None of this can be done without the empowerment of the Holy
Spirit, which is why in the book of Acts, before Jesus even sent
the disciples anywhere to do any ministry, to do any witnessing,
he said, wait, wait for the power to come and the Holy
Spirit will come upon you and then you will be witnesses unto
me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the other
parts of the world. We can't do any of that without
the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
So as we go through these qualifications, I just want you
to keep in mind that these are things that we are all, each and
everyone of us are seeking God to help us with.
These are the things that we are pressing into the Lord to help
us to attain. And we have to be like Paul.
And so I'm not yet obtained and I'm not yet apprehended.
I can't keep in mind what I've done yesterday.
I can't keep remembering how I fell short yesterday.
I got to look to what's ahead of me, man.
I got a press toward the mark of God, the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus. So this is what we need to do on
a regular basis. So this is not a religious or
legalistic list, but there are things that that Paul is saying
that as a Deacon or as a elder or a pastor, these are the
things that we are looking and seeking God to possess so that
we could be a blessing to the people in the ministry and also
be a good example to people who are outside of the ministry.
Amen. Amen.
Let's talk about the qualifications of the deacons.
Before we do that, let's go to Acts chapter 6.
We can turn back there just for one second.
This is the best description and this is actually the foundation
or the genesis of where the ministry of the deacons have
started and starting there in verse one, Acts chapter 6, it
says Now in those days when the number of the disciples was
multiplying, there arose A complaint against the Hebrews by
the Hellenists because the widows were neglected in the
daily distribution. Then the 12 summoned the
multitude of the disciples and said it is not desirable that we
should leave the Word of God and serve tables.
Now, when we say that it's not that Peter and the disciples
were saying that this work is beneath us, that's not what he
was saying. What he is saying is that by
doing this it does take away from the ministry that we are
called to. Everyone has a ministry that
we're called to, and by doing things that is actually a
ministry or a service that someone else could be called to,
it takes away from our own. But he is not saying in any way
that we are above serving tables.
We do it all the time. It's not that we're above
serving table or serving tables is beneath us.
It is not. It's not beneath us to run the
vacuum sweeper in here. It's not beneath us to pick up a
broom. It's not beneath pastors to wipe
off tables and to serve people when we have our feast or our
fellowships together. It's not beneath us to do any of
those things. But what these men understood is
that God had brought forth a need.
He has shown a need. And when God does that, he's
doing that for a purpose because there's purpose and people who
are called to do those things. That's why even here, whenever
you see something that you sense is lacking and you come to
leadership and say, you know this is lacking, we should be
able to do this or, or is it possible that we can do this?
That's a ministry that God has probably laid on your heart.
We support you and pray for you to go forth and doing those
things. It's something that the Lord has
exposed. So anywhere this says here that
it's not that we should serve tables, but therefore, brethren,
seek out from among you 7 men of good reputation, full of the
Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
But we will ourselves continually.
And this is the ministry that the pastors and the elders are
called to do, is to give ourselves continually to prayer
and to the ministry of the Word. In other words, even the
oversight of the church. So that is the foundation, that
is the genesis of where the whole position of deacons have
come from. Now, it doesn't mention the word
deacons there, but the word Deacon in the diaconose is
actually Greek for servant or service minister.
It's a servant and which we all are.
But this particular service is geared toward helping the
physical matters of the church. And that's exactly what deacons
do. Just as the pastors and the
elders are given to the ministry of the Word and prayer and the
oversight of the church, well, for deacons, they are given to
the physical ministry of the church, the practical ministry
of the church. They take care of the structure
of the church, the outside and the inside needs of the church,
physical needs of the church. That's why we have deacons here
who will take care of lights if they need to be taken care of or
electrical issues that come up. And some of the other structures
that come. And you'll see them with ladders
and doing things that I may not be equipped to do or have the
understanding to do, but they just come right in and they do
it. They see the need, they come
right in and they do it. And that's the ministry of the
deacons. And in addition to that, they
also take care of a lot of the administrative things in the
church as well. You know, they deal with, you
know, when we used to do offerings, they would help to
take the offerings and a lot of the deacons will help in
counting the money in the offerings and things of that
nature to help to distribute to the people who have need.
A lot of times the deacons are involved in that service as
well. So it is a noble service and it
is something that men are called to do and they do it with
everything in them. Now, as we said last week, we do
have, I think I said 3, but we actually have 4 that are elders
and pastors. Myself and Clark are the two
pastors currently in George Pernis and John Morris.
Those are our two elders. But collectively we deal with
the oversight or the spiritual oversight of the church.
And then we have those who are the deacons in our church, and
that is Tom Brubaker, Brad Cheney, and Nick Steele.
And they deal with the physical needs of the church, the
structural needs of the church, including the financial and
administration. And some of them serve in a lot
of other ministries as well. A lot of those men teach.
These men are able to teach. That might not be one of the
qualifications under the name Deacon, but these men are
qualified men to teach. This church has been blessed.
I don't know if you're aware, but this church has been blessed
with many men who are able and qualified to teach, who go into
the Word of God and teach. It doesn't have to be me.
They could be a number of other men that'd be standing here
instead of me. There are many men in this
church who have a teaching gift and they are able to teach.
There are many women in this church who have a awesome
teaching gift as well. So this church has been blessed
with men and women who are qualified to teach the word of
God. And it's such a blessing because
the understanding of the doctrine is there and it's
evident throughout everyone who is here.
And I like it because I'm OK with being accountable to
someone. If I say something that's not
right, please let me know. And I know that these are men
and women who study. So if they were to pull me aside
and say that, I know I can trust it because these aren't just
people who just say, well, emotionally I didn't like what
you said. No, these are people were saying
I know that it wasn't right based on from the word of God
and they would be able to show that to me.
So we're we're blessed with that concern.
So anyway, it says here verse starting at verse 8.
It says likewise deacons must be reverent, not double tongue, not
given too much wine, not greedy for money.
OK, so he says they must be reverent and that just simply
means there must be men who are worthy of respect, men who carry
themselves in a way spiritually that they are worthy of respect.
People see their lives and respect them as men of God.
And that is a blessing because even children, and that's one
thing that you cannot fool. You can't fool children.
They know when you have the right heart.
They know when you have a heart for God, a heart that's tender,
a heart that's even when you're correction of a child, they know
that there is God in you. They know that there's a spirit
of kindness, a spirit of goodness in you, a spirit of
love and protection. They know that, They know that.
So when they too are respectful of deacons or and when the
adults respect these men, that is what exactly a Deacon should
be. They should be men who walk in
respect. Not only are they respected, but
they're also men who respect others.
And so we also understand that this character that a Deacon
has, it's worth imitating. And I can tell you the truth
that the men that we have here that serve as deacons, I would
have no problem if my sons were to look at these men as examples
of spiritual or Christian character.
I would have no problem with that.
The the men who have been serving here as deacons have
been men that we have been able to, I've been able to watch over
my time being here. Many of them were here before me
and I can tell you that I've seen that they love their
families, they love God, they love God's Word, and they love
God's people and that's important.
That is very important. They've demonstrated honesty,
they've demonstrated knowledge of the Word and love for Jesus
Christ and God and his Son Jesus Christ.
Their families are here in the church and they are men who are
faithful to their families. These are men that I have,
again, I have no problem watching them and seeing them as
good examples. And at the same time, while they
are respected, they respect, they're not double tongue.
That means they're not 2 faced. Anybody remember the, the name 2
faced it, the term 2 faced it. We don't hear that much anymore,
but that person is 2 faced it. What does that mean?
You know, these are men who are not double tongue or they're not
2 faced it. That means that they're not
gossips. They're not saying one thing to
one person and saying something totally different to someone
else. So it's almost like it's two
different people. They come out of a meeting, they
tell some people, oh man, that was a great meeting.
That person did a really good job explaining that.
And, and that was that was awesome.
I, I feel like I understand, I feel like I've learned.
Then they go to someone else. Did that person prepare?
They didn't sound like they made any sense, you know, and it's,
it's just like they're double tongue.
They say one thing about one way and one thing another way.
And these are the kind of things that inner church can cause
discord. You know, when people are saying
different things to different people can cause discord.
But it also takes away from the character of the man who would
do it, because people then come to the point where they can't
trust what that person is saying.
But a Deacon is a man who does not gossip, first of all.
And when he does say anything that needs to be said, it's the
truth. And so he's saying it the same
every time. He's not changing it.
But a Deacon is also a man who was dependable.
He's dependable and he has no intent to deceive anyone.
In his heart. There's no God found in him.
There's no selfish intention in these men who are serving as
deacons, but they're reliable. They're reliable.
When they say that they're going to take care of something, they
take care of it. They say they're going to do
something. They do it.
And that's very important in terms of a man who serves as a
Deacon. Now here it says not giving too
much one. Now, this is interesting because
the elders, they were not to be given to wine at all.
So I guess the deacons don't have to be given to no wine, but
they can be given to some wine, just not much wine.
But actually even the elders are due to are called to to walk in
moderation whenever it is that they were to, to drink wine.
You do it in moderation. And the deacons are the same.
And we've already talked about those things last week
concerning drinking wine, not being given too much wine.
But I do want to say one thing. I just want to look at one thing
back here there in Ephesians, it kind of gives a good, actually a
very good description of the attitude that should be taken
when it comes to an alcoholic beverage like wine.
And that's mainly what the what the Bible talks about in the New
Testament, it's talking about wine.
But in Ephesians chapter 5 and in verse 18, it simply says and
do not be drunk with wine, which is in dissipation or debauchery,
but be filled with, I'm sorry, be filled with the Spirit.
OK, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.
So not to be filled with wine, which does speak to moderation,
but to not do it excessively, but to be filled with the
Spirit. So I guess sometimes it comes to
a point where we have to make a decision, am I going to be
filled with this wine or am I going to be filled by the
Spirit? I'd rather be filled with the
spirit. Let's walk in the spirit.
So then it says here, the next one he mentions is not to be
greedy for money. Don't be greedy for money.
And we talked about that too with the elders, but it's a
little bit different with the deacons because the deacons
actually are involved in the counting of money.
They're pretty close. They work pretty closely with
the money. I never see the money.
But the deacons, they count the
money and they can be involved in distributing money to other
people who have need. So it's important that they are
responsible in that area and that they're not greedy for
money. Because if they are greedy for
money, they could be tempted. They could be tempted if they
have a need, if their bills aren't being paid and they have
financial needs that need to be taken care of and and they don't
see how they're going to be able to do it.
If they don't have a control, they don't have control on this
being greedy for money and have that control that they need to
have that self-control, the spirit in them that helps them
to, to deal with these things with the level of integrity that
the church requires or that the Lord requires, not the church
the Lord requires. It can be tempting for them to
steal money or to use the, the months for the money for
personal needs. So we need to make sure that we
observe that the people who are involved with the money are men
who have the integrity and the women who have the the integrity
to do that without having to worry about any impropriety.
Now, I can say that as long as I've been here, in fact, I've
never heard anything here concerning any impropriety
financially here. You know, the men and women who
have dealt with the money and it's mainly been men, but the
ones who have dealt with the money, they have done it with
the highest level of integrity, highest level of integrity.
I have no problems about giving to this church and wondering
about where it goes. We don't never have any issues
with that. There are two, I've learned when
I was growing up, there are two ministries that we have to be
particularly careful of putting people.
You know, when we select people to go into ministries, there's
two in particular that we have to be very careful of.
One ministry is always going to be the finance ministry because
that's the money. And again, for the reasons why
we just stated, you know, the temptation for someone who has a
need. But the other is a children's
ministry. Got to be careful with the we
got to protect our babies. Got to protect our babies.
So we have to be careful and we have to be maybe a little bit
more a little bit more scrutiny, maybe involved and looking at
the background of people in those two positions before they
are appointed and let go to deal in those of the functioning
those ministries. So verse 9 now verse 9 says a
holding the ministry of the faith with a pure conscience,
the ministry of the faith holding the ministry of the
faith. What is the ministry of the
faith? Well, the, the mystery is always
a hidden truth. Mystery is a hidden truth.
Something that's healed, that's not something that's hidden,
that's not been revealed. And a Deacon must hold the
mystery of the faith, must hold it before them.
It must be something that's out in front of them.
So what is the mystery? That God came in the flesh and
died for our sins. For a lot of people, that's a
mystery. Those who are outside the church
don't understand that. They don't believe that They
can't reconcile that in their hearts, you know, it's something
that they just can't grab a hold of.
But those who are inside the church, those of us who are
believers, we understand that. And we believe that and we
receive that. And that's the mystery of the
truth. That's the mystery of the faith.
You see, the mystery of the gospel was once hidden.
There was a time that was sent. It was even hidden from the
prophets who spoke it at that particular time.
They never really saw it to come to be.
But we, those things have been revealed to us.
It's been revealed to us. We have seen this come to be so
deacons are to not only understand the doctrine of that
faith, but also to obey it. So they walk in that faith with
sincere with a sincere conscience.
Sincere conscience meaning that they understand the difference
that between good and evil and able to make decisions between
good and evil. And if there is some violation
of whatever behavior, if there's been some sin, that person is
still keeps a pure conscience because they go and bring it to
the Lord and they repent. Confession is made, they're
purified by the blood of Jesus. So as deacons that facilitate
the matters of the church, church building or the church
business, they have to do it based on the word of God.
Very important that we do it based on the word of God.
Now everybody has constitutions, everybody has man written rules
or bylaws and things of that nature.
And that's fine, that's fine. But none of those things are
more important than the Word of God.
When we make a decision, it must be made based on the Word of
God, not a bylaw, not a constitution.
And in the church, the bylaws and constitutions or whatever is
written to try to govern or manage the ministry, that should
be done based on the Word of God.
I've heard it spoken before and it never sat right in my spirit.
I've heard someone say I was one way.
I'm one way in business and I'm another way in church with
spiritual things. I don't read with that soul in
the word of God. I don't read with that soul.
He said we're to do all things. That's unto the Lord.
Everything, every thought should be brought into the captivity
and obedience of Jesus Christ, not be one way one place and
then another way in another arena.
We are all servants of the Lord first.
So that is so important that when we do business or when we
have meetings and things of that nature, that what we discuss or
what we decide, it's all based on the word of God and not
someone's good idea, not some strategy in business that works
for the world. We should not sit into a
business meeting in the church and feel like we're sitting in a
Fortune 500 corporate business meeting.
Should feel that way. We should understand that we're
sitting with brothers and sisters who fear, acknowledge,
and uphold the Word of God. Amen.
Then in verse 10, it says it talks about being tested, he
said, but let these be tested first.
Then let them serve as deacons being found blameless.
This testing means be to prove them.
They should be proved and we should be watching their lives
and seeing how a man conducts himself in different situations.
You know, we can see the best of people here in church every
Sunday. We can see the best of people.
Everybody's wearing a smile, everybody's shaking hands,
everybody's hugging. But what we need to see in
ministry, when you put someone in a position like this, So what
happens if somebody disagrees with you?
What happens when adversity hits?
How do you deal with that? How do you deal with a situation
when you're offended? How do you deal with that?
So we have to see people in different than decision making.
When you have to make a decision, how was that dealt
with? Do you do it based on your
knowledge of the word of God or do you do it based on worldly
knowledge? All these are things that has to
be taken under consideration. That's why people need to be
proved or tested. Here on Living Waters of Grace,
we're in the books of First and Second Timothy.
Pastor Louis Harrell is walking us through these letters written
from Paul to Timothy. Toward the end of these letters,
Paul is anticipating that his time here on earth is coming to
a close. He's giving some final words of
advice to his mentee. Paul writes in Second Timothy 4,
verse seven. I have fought the good fight.
I have finished the race. I have kept the faith wherever
you are in your journey of faith with God, our hope is that you
have the willingness to fight for what's true, not
compromising, but holding fast to the Word of God.
Paul was reminding Timothy of this, and it's a good reminder
for you and for me today too. For helpful input throughout
this series, why not listen to all of these teachings from
First and Second Timothy on our website and go to
calvarychapelonline.com to access teachings, download our
app, and more. If you'd like to visit us this
weekend, we'd be delighted. Living Waters of Grace is a
ministry of Calvary Chapel Westmoreland in Greensburg, PA.
Come to our service held at 10:30 AM on Sundays.
We're located at 400 E Pittsburgh St., Ste. 6B.
For any other information on our weekly service, visit
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teachings. We thank you for tuning in today
and ask that you come back for more solid and biblical teaching
from Pastor Lewis right here on Living Waters of Grace.