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All right, guys, what I'll do, I'll get you to turn to Acts, Chapter 6, please. Acts, Chapter 6, and the title for the sermon tonight is Bible Qualifications for a Deacon. Bible Qualifications for a Deacon. We're not going to have a five-part series on the deacon. We've just got the one part, part one, and the only part on the Bible Qualifications for a deacon, because many of the qualifications for a deacon are very similar to those that we see for a bishop. But there are some additional things in this list that I want to cover. But you guys are turning to Acts, Chapter 6. And while you're turning to Acts, Chapter 6, I'm going to read to you another portion of scripture which mentions the word deacons. It's not actually mentioned that often in the Bible, but in Philippians, Chapter 1, Verse 1, Paul and Timotheus write this letter to the Philippian church, and it says, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Christ, or Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons, okay? So one thing we see very clearly as they write to this church, they're writing to all the saints, and these churches seem pretty well developed, you know? The fact that they've got bishops and they've got deacons, all right? So it just shows you there that these are two offices that are held in a church. And I personally take the position that there are only two offices in the local church that have some power within the local church, and those two offices are the office of a bishop and the office of a deacon. Now, let's start off with, you know, what the common teaching, and I agree with this teaching, what the common teaching of what a deacon is and why they are necessary. So go to Acts, Chapter 6, Verse 1. I already asked you to turn there. Acts, Chapter 6, Verse 1, and this is a story here in the church in Jerusalem, okay? And, of course, this is where the first church kind of started here in the New Testament days in Jerusalem, and this church started to grow, okay? It started to grow. We had the apostles there as well overseeing this church, and in Acts, Chapter 6, Verse 1, it says, and in those days when the number of the disciples were multiplied, was multiplied, so it's growing, right, the church is growing, it's great. There arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Now, here's something that I notice with church, and I've noticed with our church, and, you know, and other churches, there's going to come times when certain parts or workings of the church are neglected, okay? And here's the thing, it's just going to happen. Sometimes we'll see, it's just, it's not like you purposely neglect something, it's just that the way you're currently doing things just does not allow that work to be done properly. But the key thing is when something's being neglected, the key thing we see in the, in this church, and the key thing that I want to do within our church is if we see something neglected, we need to highlight that, mention, hey, this bit is being neglected in our church, whatever it is, and we need to address it. And in this case, it's, there's good reasons why it's being neglected. The church is growing, it's multiplying, right, that there's more work needed to be done, and this caring for the widows was being neglected, especially amongst the Grecians, all right? And of course, in these days, and the instruction given to church is that we ought to care for the widows in our church, you know? And we do, we have one widow within our church, of course, and you know, we should be a church that comforts the widows, that's there, that fellowships with the widows, you know, supports the widows. The difference with Australia, I guess, you know, in 2019 versus back then, is the widows did not have support, they did not have the stability, they did not have the financial aid, or if they needed help, they didn't have the man there to help them. You know, in Australia, we have the welfare system, you know? And so, usually, our states, and through your taxes, you know, you are helping support the widows, you know, people in need through that method. And so, I guess it kind of handicaps the church a little bit, where we don't need to really support widows as much as they did in Bible days. Nevertheless, as a church, we should be people that are concerned for widows. Verse number two, then the 12 called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. And so, I'm assuming the apostles are being told, hey, you've got to, you know, serve more, you've got to do more, and they're saying, look, it's not good for us to serve everybody, because we're not going to get the work done. It's not good for us to just serve God and neglect the word of God. The work of the apostles was to, obviously, get the word of God preached into the community, but also to preach the word of God within the church. And, you know, there's only so much you can do. As the church grows, there's only so much you can do. But the key thing is to never neglect the word of God. That's what churches do these days, right? They do every other activity, they do every other ministry, and then they choose just to neglect the word of God, instead of having a, you know, a strong sermon, you know, a sermon that feeds the soul, they'll turn to their 10-minute little sermons, and they'll do everything else except focus on the word of God. And so, now, this chapter of the Bible does not mention the word deacons, okay? Does not mention the word deacon. But this is commonly the chapter that deals with deacons. And you say, well, why is that? It's because we've got to go back to the Greek, all right? Now, there's nothing wrong with going back, I don't presume there's anything wrong going back to the Greek. We're not going back to the Greek to correct the English or anything like that. We're just understanding where this term comes from, because the word deacon is not actually an English word. It's a transliterated word from the Greek. And there in verse number two, when it says, and serve tables, the word serve there in the Greek is, let me see if I can pronounce this right, diakoneo, diakoneo. Now, I don't know if I pronounced that right, but that's kind of what it is, diakoneo. And already, you can see where that term deacon comes from, okay? And the key word for deacons in the Greek New Testament is the word diakonos, or diakonos, diakonos, which is the same kind of root word as diakoneo, okay? And so, this is where we get the word deacon. So, what they're saying is, and look, all it means, all it means is exactly what we just read there in English, to serve, okay, or to minister. That's all deacons means, okay? If you're a deacon, you're actually just a minister, you're a servant, all right? And so, but you'll soon see, this isn't just about, because all of us have the opportunity, we all should serve one another, shouldn't we? We all should serve the body of Christ, we all should serve the Lord, but you'll soon see in this chapter, it's not just about just general serving, there's actually an office, there's an appointment, there's an ordination that takes place with men. In verse number three here, look at verse number three. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you, seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. Now, the word appoint is just synonymous with the word, you know, ordain. If you ordain someone, you're appointing them to a work, and the apostles are asking the church, look, choose seven great men in your church. You know, the best seven men you've got, full of the Holy Ghost, wise, so we can appoint them to these other administrative tasks as you will. Verse number four. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word, okay? So, when is it, you know, when should a church require a deacon or the office of a deacon? You know, if we have, if we're a church and we have men that meet the qualification and that they would like to take on that office of a deacon, do you think I should just ordain them if they're ready to go? I don't think so. What we see in this example is the need arises, the need of a deacon arises. Therefore, now we're going to appoint a deacon. Now, it's awesome if you already have men that are qualified for that task, but, you know, some churches, you know, will appoint men, you know, give them offices within a church, but it's not necessary, I mean, you know, we have a small church. You know, at the moment, really, I don't feel it necessary to appoint someone else to help me out with the church, you know. Now, I do kind of feel that way a little bit because we have the Sydney church and of course I can't give my full focus over there. So, that's something that I'm more thinking about, you know, having somebody that I can appoint to the business over there, but not so much here because we're a smaller church. But, hey, if this church grows, if we're doing more, and, you know, we feel like things are being neglected, then maybe at that point we will see a need to appoint or ordain deacons, all right. Now, look at verse number four, verse number five, sorry. And the same pleased the whole multitude. And they chose, now these are the seven men they chose, and the first two men that I mention here, the reason they mention is because they're the most prominent men in this group of seven that we read about in the Bible. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles, look at this, and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them, okay. So, they get ordained, they have the laying of hands upon them. Verse number seven, look at the results of this, verse number seven, and the word of God increased, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. So, we see great success, you know, the church has grown, we have a need, we fulfill the need, we appoint these seven men to the office of a deacon, now the apostles are more free to proclaim the word of God, more people are getting saved, more people are getting discipled, the church is growing, praise God, we see a great success here with these deacons that are being taken on board. Now, the first deacon that's mentioned is, of course, Stephen, right, Stephen in verse number five, now if you guys just go to verse number eight, Acts chapter six, verse eight, we know the story of Stephen, right, it says, and Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people, and of course, we know that Stephen, you know, was just preaching the gospel, he was then accused falsely by the chief priests, and he's our first New Testament Christian martyr. He loses his life for the cause of Christ, so he's a man of faith, he's a man of courage, you see his character, because, you know, he stood up, he didn't, you know, shy away from proclaiming Christ and preaching the gospel, and he loses his life for the Lord. So, definitely, like the Bible says, a man full of faith and power before, in verse number five, he said, full of the Holy Ghost. You know, this was a man that was recognized, you know, choosing a deacon, it's not, you should only ordain people that meet the qualifications, right, this guy's full of the Holy Ghost. Now, if we have a big church, and there's a need for deacons, but no one meets the qualifications, no one's full of the Holy Ghost, no one's faithful, no one's, you know, everyone's carnal or whatever, then you're better off not appointing people, they're just going to make things worse. You won't meet people that are in touch with the Lord God, that have the power of God in them. So, we see a great example of Stephen, and he took on, look, he wasn't a bishop, you know, but he was a deacon, and the Bible, you know, exalts him, you know, and there's great honor in being a deacon for a church as well. You know, it's not just the pastor, you know, we have deacons as well, and look, everybody in the church, you know, can be great. When we look at the Apostle Paul and his epistles, he highlights many members in churches that aren't taking offices, but, hey, he acknowledged them for the great work they're doing for helping him in the gospel, those kinds of things. You don't need to take an office, you know, to be recognized by God, you know, in the church. All right? You just have to serve the Lord, be faithful to him, and be faithful to the body of Christ. Now, go to Acts chapter 8, please, Acts chapter 8, verse 5, Acts chapter 8, verse 5. The second man that's mentioned here in this group of seven deacons is Philip. Now, I'm just going to read, I personally believe Acts chapter 8, when it talks about Philip here, I personally believe it's the same Philip of these seven. Okay? There's also Philip the Apostle, and some people sort of argue, is it Philip the Apostle, or is it Philip the deacon? I just, again, I just, from my natural reading of the book of Acts, I'm reading Acts chapter 6, they were pointed at seven, Philip's the second one mentioned in this list, you know, kind of up there in prominence of the list, we get just two chapters later, and now we're dealing with Philip again. I believe, just by the natural reading, I could be wrong. I'm just saying, I actually believe this is definitely one of the seven deacons, but I'm not going to be dogmatic about it. Okay? But anyway, I believe it's the same guy. Look at Acts chapter 8, verse 5. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. Okay? So, what are these deacons doing? Are they just being, are they just administrators? Are they just paper pushers? Are they just serving the needs of the brethren within the church? No, as we saw with Stephen, and as we see with Philip, they're out there preaching Christ. They're preaching the gospel. I never want to lay my hands on anybody that is not actively, you know, continually, consistently going out and preaching the word of God. These are the examples that we see in the Bible, you know, people that actually care about getting the gospel out to their community. Go to Acts chapter 21, please. And of course, you know, Philip is the one that the Holy Spirit sends to the Ethiopian eunuch. You guys know the story, of course. If your eunuch gets saved, gets baptised, and then the Holy Spirit takes him away again. Now, if you say, well, I don't know if that's the same Philip. Maybe that's the apostle Philip. Well, go to Acts 21, verse 8. So, we're several chapters later, several chapters later, Acts chapter 21, verse 8. And then it says here, and the next day, we that were of Paul's company departed, and came unto Caesarea. Now, Caesarea is not Jerusalem. Okay. It's another area. And we entered into the house of Philip, the evangelist. Now, this Philip is the same, you see here, which was one of the seven, and abode with him. Okay. So, we see that now, Philip, for whatever reason, is now living in Caesarea. Okay. This is several years later, from what we read in Acts chapter 6. And here, he's got, you know, he's doing the work of an evangelist. Maybe it's the office of an evangelist. You know, when it comes to evangelists, I haven't fully figured out in my mind, you know, if this is just like a work, is it an office, whatever. But the key thing is, he's not at the church in Jerusalem. Okay. So, it looks like he's in Caesarea to evangelize, to preach the gospel. So, maybe he's acting kind of how we would commonly call a missionary. Maybe he's been sent out. He's no longer taking the office within the church, but he's been sent out by the church in Jerusalem to preach to in Caesarea. And this is definitely the one, one of the deacons, because he says here, which was one of the seven. So, it's definitely the same guy. It's just, again, to reinforce the fact, this guy is preaching the gospel. Okay. This is a guy that's trying to get the gospel out. Look at verse number nine. Not just him, it says, and the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy. So, of course, when the Bible talks about prophecy, it's talking about proclaiming the word of God. Even his daughters, and of course, they're not doing it in church, they're prophesying, meaning they're going out with their dad and preaching the gospel. Not only are they prophesying, they're the virgins. So, these are chaste virgins, right? Before they got married, you know, they're not lewd, you know, harlots, you know. Philip's done a good job raising his daughters. They're faithful. They're saving themselves for marriage. And while they're single, and this is probably good for us, for they have daughters, us men, we have daughters, good, hey, man, before our daughters get married, you know, make use of the time for them to go out sowing with dad, you know. So, we see that he trains his household to be preaching the gospel as well. And if you guys can just, well, actually, go to Romans 16, please. Go to Romans 16. And while you're turning there, so we see that the man that was a deacon was also an evangelist, preaching the gospel. You guys go to Romans 16. And also, when it comes to a bishop, you know, the book of Timothy, you know, that's a pastoral epistle, Paul writes to Timothy how to conduct himself as a pastor, as a bishop, Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, 5, he says, but watch now in all things, and do our afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make foolproof of thy ministry. So, even the bishops are required to do the work of an evangelist, not just the deacons, but the bishops also. Again, I'm not going to ordain a man who's not actively, consistently preaching the gospel. And once you are ordained, what should you be doing? Still preaching the gospel. Okay, how many pastors get ordained, now I've got the responsibility in the church, and I'm going to send others to go preach in the gospel, but I won't go myself. No, no, you know, pastors and bishops and deacons should be setting examples. They should be training people, you know, helping people in the same work of preaching the gospel. Now, you guys are in Romans 16, verse 1. The reason I asked you to turn there is because, again, we're going to go back to the Greek a little bit here, but I don't know, have you ever heard people say, well, women can be deacons as well? Anyone, have you guys heard that before, that women can be deacons? I've heard that before, all right. And it comes from Romans 16, verse 1, all right. So, it says here, I commend unto you, Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church, which is at Centria, okay. So, the word servant, when you go back to the Greek there, it's Diakonos, okay, which is the deacon, and as I see Phoebe here, and in fact, I think some of the modern versions, I might be wrong, but I think some of the modern versions, instead of saying she's a servant of the church, they'll actually say she's a deacon. You know, just check that out, you know, but I think I heard that somewhere. I didn't confirm that, but so they'll say, see, here, Phoebe, you know, she's been called a deacon of the church, and so, hey, women can be deacons as well. But what did we cover? What does it mean to be a deacon? Again, it just means to be a servant, okay. Now, King James Bible is correct. She's been a servant in the church. Any lady can be a servant in the church, right? The lady that vacuums the floor, you know, the lady that maybe buys the food, maybe the lady that just, you know, you know, sits there and prays for the brethren. You know, they're servants, okay, and if we were talking Greek, we'll be saying, hey, they're being deacons, because they're serving one another, but here's the thing. There's a huge difference between being a deacon as a servant minister to one another. There's a big difference between that and having the office of a deacon, okay. That's the difference. One is an office, and, you know, a position of authority within a church, and the other one is just, well, regular service, regular ministry. We can all be deacons serving one another, but only some will be given the office of a deacon where they actually, you know, are doing work for the church in an official capacity, all right. Now, if you hear that as the argument, if you ever have somebody say to you, well, look, you know, Phoebe's a deacon here, well, all you need to do is take them to the previous chapter, I'll just show you very quickly, Romans 15, verse 8. Romans 15, verse 8, where it says, now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision, for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. Well, again, go back to the Greek for the word minister, guess what it is, deacon, diakonos, okay. So, did Jesus take on the office of a deacon in a church? Of course not, okay. So, again, you know, Jesus, but, hey, he was a servant, right. He served us, and so we can rightly say that Jesus was a deacon as far as the service, but he didn't hold the office of a deacon within a church, because one of the requirements is that you are the husband of one wife, just like a bishop, and Jesus Christ did not get married, so he didn't have the office of a deacon himself. So, it's just crazy arguments that, you know, our liberal churches make up. You know, women can be deacons, and it's like, well, women can be pastors, and that's kind of how they do things. So, let's go to 1 Timothy chapter 3 now. Let's look at the qualifications of a deacon, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8. So, I don't want to harp on the things I've already preached on, as, that are the same as pastors. I'll touch upon it lightly, but just the newer things that I hear about deacons, I want to touch on, and 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8, it's like, it says likewise, so likewise, we just finished giving all the qualifications of a bishop. So, they're going to be very similar for a deacon as well. It says likewise, must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given too much wine, not greedy or filthy lucre. Now, two of the characteristics that are kind of new here in this chapter is the deacons being grave and not double-tongued. We haven't really covered that when we went through the qualifications of a bishop. So, what does it mean to be grave? Okay, now, if you just do a dictionary search for grave, it's kind of similar to sober. We saw that bishops ought to be sober-minded, okay, meaning, you know, you're fully, you're mentally fully aware, you know, as a bishop, and so it's similar to being sober, but to be grave is to be serious or thoughtful, serious and thoughtful. Look at verse number 11 very quickly in the same chapter. It says that even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. So, you see grave and sober there for the wives. Now, we're going to skip verse 11 as we go through this. I'm going to do one sermon on the wives of deacons and pastors at some other point, but I just wanted to show you that it mentions grave and sober as two different words. So, they're slightly different things, okay, but being grave is someone that is serious or thoughtful. Now, you say to me, well, Pastor Kevin, you're always sarcastic. You're always, you know, making jokes. You're always laughing, those kinds of things. Look, I like to muck around. I like to joke around. I like to alleviate the tension if there's ever tension, things like that, okay. There's nothing, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Now, I'm trying to reduce that as the pastor, right, because sometimes I offend people or whatever, and I'm trying to minimise that, but it's kind of part of my natural makeup as well, but when it comes to being sick, like when it comes to the house of God, when it comes to preaching sermons, when it comes to running church and the things that are important for the body of Christ, you know, I take these things very seriously. You know, I give these things a lot of thought. You know, I don't think church is just a place for fun and games. You know, I don't think this is, we're just having fun, we're just playing around. I take it very seriously that this is the house of God, this is the body of Christ, and we've been left work to do as his followers, as his disciples. So, when it comes to church, of course, I take things very seriously. You know, when it comes to praying for the brethren, seeing, you know, things that need prayer, you know, weaknesses within families and people, individuals, I take that very seriously. You know, I pray for those things, I take those things to the Lord, and so, you know, you can't have somebody that doesn't take church seriously. If they're not taking church seriously, they're not being grave. That's someone that's not, you know, fit for an office of a deacon nor of a pastor. You know, so, you know, someone that's grave is someone that does not neglect the work. You know, if you're given a task, you tell the pastor, hey, I want to look after this thing in the church. I want to do this, then being serious, that person is the one that, you know, makes sure the work is done, they're not neglecting. Remember, deacons are there because work was being neglected, and so, the deacons step in to make sure the work is not being neglected. That's why you need to be grave and serious, because you're going to carry out, you're going to be watchful for the things that have been neglected. You step in and you cover where the, you know, for the bishops or, you know, back in those days, the apostles as well. And, you know, so, it's important for a deacon to recognize when work is being neglected. When you think, hey, this area could be improved, this thing could be done better. Hey, this area is not so good in our church that they recognize, they need to have that visibility and understand, hey, this is an issue. But just like anything, if you're going to find a, look, anybody can bring up an issue with me. If you think we're neglecting something in the church, but always come with a solution, okay. Come with a solution. That's what the deacons are there for. You appoint someone over a business, not just to point out the problems, you appoint them so they can recognize the problem and say, hey, this is how we can fix the problems, okay. Otherwise, what's the point of the deacon if they're just finding problems? Bishop, can you take care of this problem? No. Why don't you take care of the problem? That's why, you know, you're being given that position or that offer. So, you know, if you're someone that would maybe one day like to have this office of a deacon, or, you know, as a stepping platform to maybe one day become a pastor, you know, be this kind of person, you know, try to recognize where can we, what can we do better as a church. And what can I do? You know, what solution can I bring forward to make sure these areas are not being neglected? And of course, someone that is grave is a man of his word. He will carry out that which he said he would, okay. Then, next thing in there in verse number eight, 1 Timothy 3.8, likewise must the deacons be grave, and then not double-tongued. Oh, man. Not double-tongued. So, these are the worst people in churches, right? The double-tongued. You know, they'll say one thing to you, but then they'll say something totally different to somebody else, you know. Or, you know, they, you know, they betray your trust. Maybe you say something that, you know, should have been kept between the two of you, and you take that information and you give it to somebody else or something like that, right. Troublemakers, double-tongued, hypocrites. You can't be this way. This should, this should go without saying. And what I'll get you guys to turn to is Psalm Chapter 12, please. Turn to Psalm 12. Psalm Chapter 12, and I'll just read to you from James 1.8, a passage that we're familiar with, which says, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. And that's why we don't want someone that's double-tongued to be a deacon, okay, take up an office, because he's unstable in all his ways, you know. And I realize that, you know, as a pastor, you know, I probably, one of the thoughts that I realize within myself, maybe I'm too open. Maybe sometimes I'm a little bit too transparent. But the reason I do that is because I don't want to be seen as double-tongued, all right. I want to make sure that, you know, I try to keep things as transparent as possible, as honest as possible, so that way there's no sort of misunderstanding. Like, if someone wants to ask me a question about something even personal to do with me, I'm quite happy to give the information, because I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be hiding information. And we'll look later on that, you know, I've mentioned to you many times, the clear conscience is so important to me, having that good and clear conscience. And sometimes, you know, I overcompensate, because I don't want to be seen as double-tongued. I don't want to say something to one person, then say something else and cause issues. That's why I'm usually quite transparent with things. And, you know, usually, you ask me something, I'm not going to hide it, you know, I'll just spell it out as it is. But you guys are in Psalm 12, verse 1. The Bible says, help, help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, and for the faithful fail from among the children of men. You see how, it's hard to find godly men. The Bible says here they're ceasing, you know, there's not many good men that can take on an office, you know, of a bishop or an office of a deacon. There's not many of them. The faithful fail from among the children of men. Verse number 2, they speak vanity every one with his neighbour, with flattering lips, and with a double heart do they speak. Man, that's the worst people. You don't know where you are with those people, you know. You don't know, are we friends today, or are we enemies today? I can't follow, you know. Can I talk to, if I talk to this person, are you going to get upset? Or, these, they're hard, because, and usually, it'll, flattery comes together with someone that's double-hearted or double-tongued. You know, they might speak flattering words to you one day, you know, build up your trust, you give them some type of information, then they take that, and destroy your trust, backstab you. Verse number 3, look what the Lord will do to them. The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speak of proud things. And so, we need to make sure we're people that when we speak, we speak with truth and honesty. You know, even if it's a little bit harsh, it's better to speak harshly to somebody, you know, as long as it's the truth, then hide that from them, and, you know, speak badly of them to other people, or something like that, you know. And Proverbs 27, verse 5 says, open rebuke is better than secret love. That's what the double-tongued person does. They'll give you the secret love, right, but then they'll rebuke you behind your back to someone else. That's better, just rebuke me publicly, right. I don't mind people criticizing me, as long as it's coming with love. I know, hey, you're my friend, you're saying this, because you want to improve me, you want to improve our church, whatever, but then there's other people that obviously just want to destroy you, and they'll usually come with the secret love to begin with. Verse number 6 says, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. If you have someone that wounds you with the truth, man, that's a good friend to have. Okay, sometimes you can get offended by them, and be like, oh, what, if he was my friend, he wouldn't say that. No, no, no, he's the best friend you'll ever have. You know, if he's willing to sacrifice friendship with you in order to help you improve, to make you realize, hey, look at this hypocrisy you've got in your life, look at this issue you have in life, you need to fix it up. That's how we ought to be with one another, and it's hard, because, you know, you can hurt somebody by the wounds of your mouth, but as long as it's there out of love to build them up, that other person needs to understand, hey, they mean well by this. You know, I'm all for improving. I'm all for, you know, examining. I often ask you guys, hey, give me feedback as a church, you know, what can we do better? I mean it. I'm not just saying it. I actually mean it. What can we do better? If there's something that's lacking, I'd rather deal with it now than put it off. And if you guys can go back to 1 Timothy chapter 3, please, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8. Not given to much wine. Now, I've covered this before when I covered the bishops, but just very quickly, just as a reminder of what I believe this is about, I explained that I believe this is about alcohol, okay? And so, some people would take this to say, well, hold on maybe this passage gives us permission to have a little wine, right? Just a little beer, just one beer, all right, and not given too much wine. Otherwise, yeah, you can have a little. But again, remind yourself, what is this in regards to? You know, we didn't just start here. We don't just open the Bible and we just start reading, you know, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8. There's a lot that came before that, right? And at the beginning of verse number 8, it said, likewise, master deacons, likewise. Like what? Well, we just read the last verses like the bishops, right? And what did it say in verse number 8, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 8, oh, sorry, chapter 3, chapter 3, verse 3, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 3, talking of the bishop, not given to wine. That's what it said about the bishops, not given to wine. In other words, not even much wine, not even a little wine, not given to wine at all, okay? And so, of course, not given to wine is the same as not given to much wine, but then which way do we go with it? Well, of course, the bishop started first, not given to any wine whatsoever, and then when we get to the office of the deacon, likewise, well, likewise, we're not given to any wine. So, of course, when you get to not given to much wine, it's the same as not given to any wine at all. It's the same thing, all right, not given to wine. Even Titus chapter 1, verse 7, when we get the other qualifications of the bishop, it says, for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine. Titus and Timothy confirm that bishops are not to be given to wine, not to be given to any alcohol, likewise, the deacon, the same, all right? The deacon doesn't get away with having a beer, you know, if you're that way, you're that way inclined, or maybe you're drunk and you need to be kicked out, but you're definitely not suited to take on the office of a bishop. And then it says also in verse number 8, not greedy or filthy lucre. Now, when the Bible speaks of this not greedy or filthy lucre, of course, the reason it's there is because the office of a deacon and a bishop, you're going to be handling money, okay, and church money. The more the church grows, you know, you're handling a lot more money than you may even have in your own house. And if you're struggling financially, if you're greedy for money, you might, you know, people have stolen money from churches. This happens in IFB churches, all right? This happened at Sunshine Baptist Church, okay, many, many years ago, not the leadership that's there today, but hey, one of the pastors was kicked out for mismanaging the money in the church, all right? These things happen. And so, if the deacon was required to, hey, look out for the needs of a widow, you know, and making sure they're serving the tables, of course, they're going to be in charge of expenditures, okay? Maybe the widow needs something in the house, we need to provide for her, they're going to be touching money, and they need to make sure they're not greedy, and they're not stealing money for themselves, which was meant to be allocated toward widows. So, you know, I think it's really important for, you know, it's really, I think if you're going into a position or an office within a church to be paid, but you think, okay, I need to be paid. I need a source of income, and I think I'm going to apply for the position of a deacon or whatever, you know, however it works. I think you've got the wrong mindset there. You know, you really should be someone that's already earning money, you're already making a living, you've already got a way to provide for yourself, you know, and you've proven that, hey, you can provide for the family, you've proven, you know, you're not someone that's wasting money, then when the opportunity presents itself, hey, can you take on the office, you know, you've shown yourself able to manage money in your own household, you know, then you can help out the church, you know, you're not going to be greedily taking that for yourself. And I'm really thankful, I'm just really blessed, right, that I, you know, for the first, more than a year, whatever it was, a year and a half, a year and three months, where I didn't even, I didn't take a single, you know, dollar from the church, you know, because I had a bit of an income, I got my own income from Sydney, even the first two months that I started this church, I was working part time, just in case I needed the income, just to see how things went, and, you know, I mean, I don't think I'm any, I don't think I'm the person that's ever going to be greedy for money, but it kind of, you know, it's good to be able to know that I could provide myself some other way if there ever was, you know, a need for my family financially, that I wasn't thinking first, oh, the church, that's where I'm going to get paid, you know. So, I mean, obviously, not everybody's in the same boat, but, you know, it's good if you've been approved that you can provide for yourself and your family, and you're not going to be greedy to steal money from the church. Look at verse number nine, verse number nine is something that's new to the office of the deacon, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. Any of you guys know what that means? Holding the mystery of the faith. What's that about? I was honestly kind of scratching my head a little bit there, the mystery of the faith. I know what pure conscience is. I love that bit of it, but if you guys can just keep your finger, then go to 1 Corinthians chapter two. This is the closest that I could see, 1 Corinthians chapter two, verse six. 1 Corinthians chapter two, verse six. The Bible reads, howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor the princes of this world that come to naught, look at this, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory. So Paul is saying, look, we, as religious leaders, we speak the wisdom of God, right? We're preaching the Bible, but it's a mystery. It's a mystery to the world, right? It's a mystery to the world. They don't understand it. Verse number eight, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory, but as it is written, I have not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God have prepared for them that love him. Now, verse number 10 is important, but God have revealed them unto us, revealed what? The mysteries of God, right? The mysteries. Who's revealed it to us? By his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. And I'm just trying to find something that will go with what does it mean to hold the mystery of the faith? And of course, you know, one of the qualifications of a bishop was to hold the faithful word, you know, holding the faithful word. What's not that different? Holding the mystery of the faith is being able to know and expound the scriptures. You know, you don't have the wisdom of the world. You know, look, when we get up here and we preach the Bible, when unbelievers listen to our preaching, they have no idea what we're talking about. They don't understand. In their mind, they're thinking, why would people that go to a church sit there for an hour and listen to this man preach, you know? They don't understand. Like, to us, it makes perfect sense. To us, we can enjoy, we love hearing the Word of God preached, even the things that were already familiar. It's good to hear the things, again, being reminded that the Word doesn't understand those things. You know, to the world, it's a mystery. And so what I see with the deacon is the deacon also needs to be someone that knows his Bible well. You know, he's also someone that can expound the scriptures. He's, you know, somebody comes up to the church and asks a question. He's also someone that can show, give an answer. You know, he's holding the mystery there of God and, or the mystery of the faith, you know? But he holds it in a pure conscience. This is so important for me. You know, I keep harping on about this, but it's so important, you know, to make sure we keep a pure or a clear conscience. There have been things that I've prepared to preach, that I've wanted to preach, and then I've really gotten into the Word of God and go, all right, I need to prove this from the, and I can't really prove it the way I would have liked. And I'm like, well, now I don't have a clear conscience if I do preach this, right? Because I don't have it clear enough. I don't have this. So, you know, I want to make sure that I keep that pure and clear conscience before the Lord. There's been times that I've actually preached. And you probably don't even notice, but I know about myself, right? I preached it, and then I've got it home, and I'm kind of like, no, I said that in the sermon, but I didn't even check that in the Bible. Like, I've just taken that for the last, you know, 17 years or whatever it is, 18 years that I've been in IFB, just I've heard that truth, and I've repeated it. And then I go home, and I really feel bad about it. Like, I feel bad in my conscience. Why did I preach that? I preached it because I've heard it, but did I really know that's in the Bible? Did I just preach, you know, I've never really done anything really horrendous or anything like that. But, you know, we need to make sure that when we open up the mystery of the faith, when we're teaching the Word of God, we're doing it with a clear conscience. I'd rather our sermons be simplified and not too deep as long as we're keeping the pure clear conscience than really, you know, oh, man, are we going to get really deep in these doctrines? And you're preaching just nonsense and heresies that aren't, you know, and then you're going to be defiled in the conscience. You've preached this to the people of God, and it wasn't even correct. Now, look, none of us are perfect. Now, we're all going to make some mistakes as we preach. I'm sure, I know I have, and you guys will at some points as well. But, you know, even the deacon is required to be someone that knows the Word of God and can teach and explain, expound with that pure conscience. And I'm just going to read, I'm just going to rattle off some passages to you here. I don't want you to turn there. And the reason I hop on about this a lot is just because I see this as a constant theme in the Bible, especially in the New Testament. In Acts 23, verse 1, it says, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. Acts 24, 16, and herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men. Romans 9, 1, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost uses your conscience. To teach you things, okay? And you need to keep that clear conscience in order for you to hear from the Holy Ghost. And then we have a lot of references from the book of Timothy. Of course, Timothy being the pastoral epistle, 1 Timothy 1, 5, now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned. I want my faith, my Christian walk to be true, not to be feigned, not to be fake. But in order to do that, you need to keep that clean conscience, a pure heart, good conscience. 1 Timothy 1, 19, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith, hath made shipwreck. So if you put away that good conscience, you're going to cause your faith to be shipwrecked. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 3, I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience. Hebrews 13, verse 18, pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly. And 1 Peter 3, 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, verse 16, having a good conscience. That's how you answer men, okay? And of course, when you take on an office of a bishop or of a deacon, you're going to be asked questions. And sometimes I, you know, and if you look, if you don't have an answer, just I don't have an answer, let me get back to you. I don't know, just keep the pure conscience. I don't like people that if you ask a question, they always have an answer. Like every time, I know that you're just making it up at some point, right? You just don't want to show that, you know, you don't want to, you know, just humble yourself and say, you know what, I don't know every verse in the Bible. I've got to come back to you about that. I've got to look into that again. Or maybe sometimes you did know once and now you've kind of forgotten because it's just so much in the Bible to learn. I'm very cautious about people that always have an answer, always. They always have an answer to every scripture. They've worked out every verse in the Bible. It's like, hold on, what's going on here, you know? No one can do that except for the Holy Spirit. And are you guys still in 1 Timothy chapter 3? Yep, you are. 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 10, verse number 10. And let these also first be proved, all right? So should I just start a church and tomorrow appoint a deacon or in two months appoint a deacon, ordain something? Should we be doing that? No. It says here and let these also, not just the bishops but also the deacons, let them first be proved, okay? We can't just ordain people, you know, just, you know, rush. We need time to be able to prove them, to check them out. This is why I told you guys that my minimum require, one of my minimum requirements before I ordain someone is that they've been serving in a church under my authority for three years, okay? Three years, okay? If you think that's too long, well, here's the thing. You can still serve the church, okay? Even without the office, you can still be a servant like Phoebe was, okay? You can still serve. You don't need the offices. If you need the office to serve, then you're not qualified to be ordained, all right? You're just going to have your heart in the right place. You don't have a heart for the church. You don't have a heart for the brethren. You just have a heart for your own, you know, your own recognition, you know, your own pride. And so let these also first be proved. Then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless. Now, this is not saying let them become a deacon and then check if they're blameless as a deacon. No, they're already found blameless because they've first been proved, okay? So prove, hey, this guy's blameless. He's proven, hey, he's a good candidate for this position. This is the person we think should be ordained to the office of a deacon. This is exactly what we saw in the Book of Acts, Acts Chapter 6, when they point to the seven. You don't need to turn back there just very quickly. Verse number 3, Acts 6, Acts 6, Verse 3, it says, wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you, seven men, okay? They told the church, you, church, look out. You know, who are the best seven men of honest report? Hey, they've got to have a good reputation, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom. Hey, we can see this man loves God. He's been, he's moved by the Holy, he's wise. He knows the scriptures. He knows how to serve the Lord. Whom we may appoint over this business, all right? So, again, that's why three is minimum under my authority. If you've not done that, I'm not going to ordain you. You can still serve in the church. Please don't understand. That's, in fact, by serving in the church is how you're going to prove yourself. Hey, this guy's already doing the work. Let's just give him the office now. Let's give him, let's make him official. Give him the office because he's already doing the work, okay? So, if you want these officers, whether it's a bishop or a deacon, you need to start doing the work, even before. You know, before I became a pastor, I was already preaching on a regular basis. I was already leading ministries in churches, you know? I was already, you know, people would come up to me after a while because they started to say, hey, you're a mature believer. You might have answers. I can't always go to the pastor because there's usually only one pastor. And so, they'll look for other men, other men that are faithful and hey, what do you think about my situation here? What advice would you give me? What do you think the Bible says about other people coming to me? And they started to recognize, I had ladies come up to Christine and say, hey, has Kevin ever considered being a pastor one day? Because we think he might be able to do that job one day, you know? You know, you start doing the work beforehand, proving yourself, having that good reputation, and then it should just come naturally. Hey, we need a bishop, we need a deacon. Oh, yeah, brother so-and-so, you know? He's already doing the work. Why not that person? You know, he's already kind of won the hearts of the people, have that good reputation amongst the church. Now, we're going to skip verse 11. We're going to do a whole sermon on verse 11 probably next month or sorry, not next month, but the next men's class. Let's drop down to verse number 12. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, the same qualification as a bishop, ruling their children and their own houses well. Perfect. Perfectly aligned with that of a bishop. And again, we saw Philip the evangelist. What was great about him? Chaste virgins, these daughters, right? Keeping themselves for marriage and preaching the gospel. You can see that he's managing his house well. He was definitely a good candidate for the office of a deacon. Verse number 13, for they that have used the office of a deacon. Now, look, here's the thing. Some people might not desire the office of a deacon because I'm just serving tables. No, no, no. We see here that it's a great office to hold, okay? For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchased themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. So, today when someone wants to take on an office in the church, today when someone wants to get into full-time ministry, what are they asked to do? Go get a degree in the Bible College. Go get your bachelor's degree. Go get your, what else is there? I don't know what other degrees there are, right? But they basically say you need to get a degree at the Bible College and then you'll be able to, you know, serve for the Lord or serve in a full-time ministry. No, being a deacon, aiming for a deacon is a good degree. Yeah, you can put that up on the wall, right? I served in this church as a deacon for whatever years it was, you know? And not only is it a good degree, meaning you're getting good experience doing that, but it says and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. You know, being a deacon will actually help you increase your boldness for God. Why? Because you're taking on an office. You're now, you're someone that is sort of has been identified as a key person in the church, you know, a key pillar in the church. People are going to start coming to you more often than before because they recognize your position. You're going to be able to serve, you know, the brethren. You're going to be accountable for that because you're holding that office. And by serving, by doing the works, by preaching the gospel, you're going to build boldness by holding this office of a deacon. I think this is a great office to hold, you know? If we as a church ever need a deacon, I think it's something worth aiming for. And I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful that at Victory Baptist Church, I was able to serve as a deacon for two years, you know? I got to learn a lot about the, you know, the, you know, behind the scenes stuff with the church. Part of my responsibility as a deacon in that church was also to, so if there was sort of a big expenditure, then the deacons could kind of like authorize that. Now, I'm not saying that's how it should be, but the fact that it says not greedy or filthy lucre, you've got to keep in mind, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, God doesn't give us this exact, this is exactly the job that it needs. Obviously, in accordance to the church needs, okay? But the fact that it says not greedy or filthy lucre, then you must have some type of position where you can make cool some shots with the spending of the money. And that's basically one of the key responsibilities that I had was, hey, when there's a big financial decision, let's run this by the deacons before we run it by the whole church. And if the deacons rejected it, then it wouldn't be run to the, by the entire church or anything like that. And that's just the governance that that church particularly had. But I think there's wisdom in that. You don't want, I mean, the pastor should be the main one calling the shots, okay? But you don't want a pastor just spending like $100,000 without running it through some faithful men in the church first, right? You know, some massive expenditure like that. You want to, you know, try to have some accountability. And so, I see the office of a deacon kind of fulfilling that a little bit. And so, I really personally appreciate the two years that I had. The Bible tells me, hey, I purchased a good degree. I've got a degree, right? And it probably has given me boldness. Like it said there, I'm just going to believe the word of God. Maybe I wouldn't have the boldness in the faith today that I wouldn't, that I, you know, I would have had if I just skipped that step altogether. You know, I'm thankful that church was able to offer that position. I took that on board. But here's some mistakes that some churches also make. We just saw the qualifications. And they line up perfectly with that of a bishop. But, you know, there are IFB churches that ordain deacons that don't meet the qualifications. Should that surprise you? I mean, how many bishops do we see ordained that don't even meet the qualifications? But I saw people that would be ordained that aren't even married. They don't even have kids. Their house is falling apart. But it's like, but we need a deacon. But why? What do you, you should only appoint a deacon if the need exists in the church, number one, and number two, if you have people that meet the qualifications. Right? If you skip these things, you're going to make a mockery of what the Bible teaches in regards to deacons. So, look, I highly exalt the office of a deacon. I think it's a great thing to aim for. I hope one day, hey, if our church grows and there's a need for that, I can kind of see a need for it right now because of the two churches. And it's hard for me to be fully committed to both, you know. I mean, I'm more committed to the church here. And then I'm less committed to the church in Sydney. So, I can see a need, but I'm not going to force it. Okay? We've got, we need that person to be proved. We need to see a faithful person, someone that will serve the Lord, you know, because they love the Lord, because they love the church, rather than just love the office and the recognition that they'll get from it. So, I hope that's beneficial for you guys to see what it means to be a deacon. I do hold the position. There's only two offices in a church. The office of a, well, two offices of authority, which is the office of a bishop and the office of a deacon. And you can see the office of a deacon is there to help the bishop or to help, in those days, the apostles from being able to be free with the word of God, rather than handling all the administrative tasks. Let's leave it then. Pray.