Let us begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
Our gracious Father in heaven, we come before you grateful for your bountiful blessings, your tender mercy, your loving kindness, for the things that you do for us each and every
day that we do not even realize.
for the glory and majesty of your power which upholds all of the universe around us and allows us to continue to exist.
Lord, we are grateful for all that you've done.
We're most especially grateful for your son who came and died on the cross for our sins that we might have the hope of eternal life.
We pray that we might always look to your word for wisdom and understanding, for guidance and strength.
who might be diligent in opening your word to know both how to live but also how to be saved and how to reach those who are lost.
We pray that you will forgive us when we sin and fall short of your glory, all as we ask in Jesus' name, amen.
oh
In 1 Timothy chapter 3, we got down to about verse 11 dealing with the wives of deacons and elders.
We're in the midst of this discussion because Paul is giving Timothy instructions concerning what these roles were to be and who was to fill them, the qualifications for an
individual to take on the role of an elder or a deacon within the body of Christ.
And so part of Timothy's responsibility as he goes to Ephesus, which is where he's at when Paul writes to him in this letter, is to establish elderships in the congregations that he
is at and to uh set these things in order.
So.
Paul has not only sent him with this responsibility of doing this, he's sending him with the qualifications and the instructions and the teaching about what these people are to
be.
And we noticed the qualifications for elders, we noticed the qualifications for deacons, and even though it is the case that it is the...
individual who is the man who is going to be holding the role, God sets expectations for the wives of the individual who's holding the role.
And so, God sets expectations for the type of individual and the type of family in their, uh that's going to be in this role.
So, you'll notice here, he says, verse 11, likewise, their wives must be reverent.
slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.
When you look at the
command given for the wives.
First, he says they are to be reverent.
That is, they are to be those who honor authority and respect God.
They are to be those who live in the fear of the Lord.
All of these things are tied up in this idea of reverence.
But he also points out that they are to be not slanderers.
They are not to speak evil of
those, especially they are not to speak evil of those who are not guilty of the things of which they speak, but he continues that with temperate.
What does the word temperate mean?
Say what?
This is the idea of someone who is tempered or someone who is under control.
This is someone with self-control.
They are to be those who are in control of themselves.
They are to be those who are tempered.
just the same way you might uh think of steel or a sword being heated up and going through the fire and then being cooled down and heated up again and then cooled down and heated up
through that process, that metal becomes tempered, it becomes stronger, it's more...
uh able to accomplish its job because it's gone through difficulties and been proven.
That's the idea behind temperate.
One who is in self-control having been tested by the challenges of life.
And so these individuals, these wives must be those who are of a character that they fear the Lord.
They do not use their mouths to harm others, and they have been tested and proven to be in control of themselves through the difficulties of life.
But then also, he says, they are to be faithful in all things.
When you have an individual who's faithful in some things, what do you have?
Someone who's unreliable.
Someone who's unfaithful in some things.
Someone whose character leaves a lot to be desired.
Because you never quite know if you're gonna get the person who's diligent or the person who's not.
And one of the biggest struggles that employers have with the young generation of people coming out of school is if they turn their back.
There's their employee over there on their phone.
Not working.
Not paying attention.
Not being faithful to their employer because they're distracted, because they're focused on everything else except what they were hired to do.
You know, when you think back to not too many years ago,
Your phone was something that you had access to.
If you were at work, your phone was something you had access to on break and no other time.
Now, many businesses rely on their staff having access to their phone and yet they also realize they pay a price for that because of the distraction, because of the constant
attention that is given to a device.
Now,
You step from that over into this and think about that as an example.
Here is a woman who she is diligent, she is faithful, and that is the makeup of her character.
Now, does it mean that she never gets distracted, never lets anything slip, never possibly fails to accomplish something she said she was going to do?
Is that what that means?
All right, not any more than blameless means sinlessly perfect.
but it means that she is faithful in what she does, and specifically faithful to the Lord.
What's the contrast of someone who is faithful in all things?
Not just that they're not faithful in all things, but what's the contrast of character?
Say again.
Okay, so an individual who is faithful in all things has responsibility, has higher standards, but what's the contrast to it?
What's the type of lifestyle of someone who is not faithful in all things?
All right?
They may be those who are lazy.
One of the things that coordinates with the idea of slanders is somebody who's spending time talking about others instead of diligent in their work.
You also have the idea of someone who's self-centered.
Instead of being faithful to God, that means that their focus, their intention, their actions, their lifestyle is dedicated to what God
would have them to be doing.
They recognize their role and status as a servant of God, and so their life is aligned with God's will, not their own.
Now you contrast that with someone who is unfaithful,
And here's a person who is self-centered.
Here's a person who does their will and not God's.
Here's someone who insists on having it their way and not the way of what has been given to them or the instructions they have received.
This is someone who is not understanding their position in view of God.
They're not understanding their life or their role as a wife.
as a mother, because by the way, part of the requirement was that these individuals have children, so as a result of that, this is a wife, this is a mother, and who's the primary
person in most households who's going to be responsible day in and day out for the direction of the lives of the children?
The wife.
Who's going to be held accountable for it?
both, but in scripture you look at that text over and over again and it's the Father, right?
Go back to Ephesians chapter 6.
Ephesians chapter six, children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right.
Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth and you fathers do not provoke your
children to wrath but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
In order for a father to bring up his children in the training and admonition of the Lord, must the father do all the training?
No.
but he's responsible for it, which is why one of the qualifications for elders is they must have faithful children.
He is responsible for the training and the admonition and the raising of the children.
Doesn't mean he's gonna do all the work.
Doesn't mean he's going to do all of the teaching or all of the training, but if he is handing those children over to an unfaithful wife,
what's going to happen to the children.
There are very, very few children who don't grow up with the character of their mother.
It's just true.
When you go look at society, you go look, you don't have to look in the church, just look in general.
And one of the single biggest impacts in society is the character of mothers.
And when mothers are by their character unfaithful, go look at Israel's history and go look at some of the queens, go look at some of the women and the atrocities and the
degradation of society that resulted when the lives of women is characterized by unfaithfulness.
That's why it's not just enough that the man be qualified for the role in order to hold the position of an elder or a deacon, but God makes it clear that his wife must meet
qualifications.
Not that she must take on the role, but that her character will determine whether or not he can be successful in the role.
It will determine whether or not he can even be qualified to have
the role.
Consider as well, verse 12 says, let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.
The responsibility of deacons, here reiterated similarly to that of elders, is that they must be the leaders in their home.
They must first be qualified and tested by their actions in their own family before they can be handed the responsibility to serve the church.
They must be those who rule their children and their own houses well.
When you see a man who hands over all the responsibility to his wife, his job is to go out, make money, come home, be served, and all the other responsibilities are the wife.
Is that a man who is ruling his own house well?
Is that a man who is being what he should be within his own house?
Certainly not.
Now, are there times and circumstances where in a marriage you're going to have different responsibilities that shift between different people based upon situations going on in
life?
You get a situation where a husband's having to work two jobs so the wife can stay home with the kids and guess what?
There's some responsibilities the wife's gonna have to take on to make the household work because this husband's working 16 hours a day.
But if you...
look in the other direction, may there be some times where the wife says, sweetheart, you're gonna have to take on some of these responsibilities because of the things that I
need to do.
Absolutely.
And you see that example of them working together, serving together, working with one another, submitting to one another, if you remember that passage in 1 Peter chapter five.
So he says, for those who have served well,
deacons, obtained for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Now what did we say that the word deacon means?
Servant.
It's kind of odd that they can figure out how to translate the word servant as servant down here in verse 13, but they can't figure out how to translate it when it comes to the
name of deacons.
Their service is their role.
And if they have served well as deacons, they obtain good standing and they obtain great
boldness in the faith.
If you go back and again, the individuals in Acts chapter six, those seven men are not referred to as deacons, though they are certainly servants of the church.
uh In Acts chapter six, you'll find those seven men serve the needs of the widows, of the Grecian Jews, and as they conclude that,
After that point, you find two of them preaching.
You find Stephen preaching in Jerusalem, and Stephen will end up becoming the very first Christian martyr ah that we read about in scripture.
And then you find Philip, who was also among those seven, going into Samaria and preaching the gospel in Samaria, where even the...
uh The disciples were not at that time as well as going down and preaching to the eunuch there in Acts chapter 8.
So you find an example here among these individuals in Acts chapter 6 and the later chapters of those who based upon their physical service, based upon the way they behaved
in their service in physical matters, were given responsibility for spiritual matters.
They were given the opportunity to teach and to preach, and they had boldness in doing so.
You see the example of faithful men who obtained good standing and great boldness in the faith.
Verse 14, Paul writes, These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly.
But if I am delayed,
I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God." What is the house of God?
the church.
How do we know?
because the text says so.
He says that you might know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Paul is writing this letter because the letter's going to get to Timothy before Paul's gonna get to Timothy.
And he says, I hope to come to you shortly.
I hope to see you in person.
but these things are given to you so you might know how to act, how to behave, how to conduct yourself within the house of God.
what if Timothy received the letter and then Timothy decided, well, I know, Paul, that's what you said I needed to teach, but I just think that that's not gonna sit real well with
the church here at Ephesus, so I think I'm just gonna make some slight adjustments to what you told me to teach.
Not gonna work out all that well for Timothy.
Paul is telling Timothy, here are your marching orders.
You are a soldier of the cross, you are a servant of Christ, you know what you ought to do, and here is what you are to teach.
and there's no right for Timothy to be changing what he was told to teach.
Any more than there's any right for any preacher today to change what Paul instructed Timothy to teach.
We don't have the right to come along and say, I know that's what those qualifications for elders say.
But I think in this situation, given our current circumstance, that we really are going to have to just make some exceptions.
No, I don't think so.
Paul says, I'm writing this to you so that if I'm delayed, you might know how to conduct yourself in the house of God.
Timothy, you belong to the family of God.
You belong to the household of God.
And you have a role and a responsibility in that household, and you have to be faithful to it.
There is much that is said in Scripture about the responsibility of ministers to be faithful in their work.
Part of their work is upholding the truth.
Part of their work is being diligent to teach the truth.
Part of their work is not allowing the church to depart from the truth.
So Paul tells Timothy, this is how you're to conduct yourself.
But you'll notice as he describes the house of God that he doesn't leave us with ambiguity about who is the household of God.
That's by the way what the word house there means.
It doesn't mean physical structure.
It doesn't mean the four walls.
It means the household.
As you look at that, he says, and let me be clear about who the household of God is.
It is the Church, the assembly, that's what the word means, the assembly, the ecclesiastical called out ones of the living God.
Timothy, I want you to know how you are to behave yourself in the midst of the people of God.
And the people of God are made up of the church, the household, the family of God.
Paul is, as has been pointed out many times before, not telling Timothy how to behave when he walks in a building.
The building is not the church.
Now, while we accommodatively say, I'm going to church, and we mean we're driving to the church building, it is only appropriately true if the people are going to be in the
building.
Because the church isn't this structure.
It isn't uh a building.
It isn't some facade and it isn't made of brick and stone.
It is the people who belong to God.
When you live in the life of a minister, this is always important for young guys who are going, young and old guys who are going through a school of preaching to realize, you
didn't grow up in the house of a preacher.
It's hard to appreciate the glass bowl you live in as a preacher.
Yet it's true.
Everybody looks at you.
Everybody watches you.
Everybody assumes things about you, whether they know it to be true or not.
because they find out you're a preacher.
And that's not just within the church.
That's everywhere you go where you meet someone who finds out that you're a preacher.
I cannot tell you how many times I have been traveling somewhere or I have been working with someone in a secular environment only for them to find out that I'm a preacher and
their actions change immediately.
I appreciate the fact they usually start controlling their mouths more.
But the fact of the matter is they immediately start making assumptions about many things the moment they find out that I'm a preacher.
Now some of them, there was a guy uh at the conference who was running part of the live stream.
We were talking afterwards and we ended up having a good religious conversation and conversation about a lot of different things until about two o'clock in the morning one
night.
But uh we were talking about things related to the topic at hand at the conference and then I mentioned that my other job was as a preacher and he said, makes so much sense now.
Because not too long before that, he had asked me a question.
I was trying to explain something to him, and one of his guys who worked for him had pulled up a chair.
They were both just listening to what I had to say.
So sometimes it's a door opener.
He was a lot more willing to talk to me about religious matters after I said I was a preacher than before.
Because he spends his life working in LA where he tries to avoid bringing up religion for he doesn't know when he's going to get him fired.
But the moment he knew I was a preacher, he was much more open to talking about religion.
And for some people, it does the other.
Closes the door.
They don't want to talk to me.
They don't consider themselves on the same plane that I'm on in religious matters, and so they don't want to have a conversation.
They're afraid they're outmatched.
But all of this leads to, and I'll come to Tanya in a minute, all of this leads to the understanding that Paul's giving Timothy, you have a responsibility when it comes to how
you conduct yourself in the ministry.
Because as a minister,
As an evangelist, as a preacher, you are the herald, the messenger of someone else.
Who do you represent?
God.
We've talked about this before, and I'll mention this before we move uh forward, but who was the highest authority in Israel in the Old Testament?
Was it the king or the prophet?
The prophet.
Because the prophet had the authority to come to the king and tell the king what to do.
That only works if the prophet has more authority than the king.
So the mouthpiece of God comes with a great significant amount of authority.
It also comes with a lot of visibility.
It also comes with a lot of evaluation by others.
Absolutely.
uh
Mm-hmm.
Right.
And you look at this and there's a lot of things that, uh not to spend a great deal of time on this, there's a lot of things that are advantageous about how preachers are
viewed.
There's a lot of things that that causes a lot of additional difficulty.
You go look and read 2 Timothy and you'll find that Timothy is going through a great ordeal at the time that Paul writes to 2 Timothy, and he's distraught.
Paul talks about his tears.
There's a lot of burdens that Timothy is having to bear.
He's bearing those because he's a minister.
If he had given up the ministry, all of those things would go away.
So Paul's having to write and encourage him to remain faithful in the ministry because of the burdens that are being born.
Yes.
Right.
Absolutely, when you go over to what Peter writes and you look at Peter's statement in 1 Peter, yeah, 1 Peter chapter 2.
He says, coming to Him, verse 4, as a stone rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also as living stones being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
As He describes the Christians, just every ordinary Christian, He says, you're a priest.
Now you go back to the Old Testament law, and who were the ones who stood before the people?
Who were the ones who would have lived in the glass house?
Well, the priests would.
And yet, Peter makes sure to remind the Christians that every single one of them are priests.
Every single one of them are those who have a responsibility to set that example for the people to be that chosen generation, that royal priesthood, those people who are those who
belong to God.
So while we, by nature of the way we act within the church,
at times, and especially in some congregations, and I'm grateful for how this congregation is very much different from that, you have some congregations where they are entirely
focused on watching the preacher.
If the preacher does something wrong, there's gonna be a phone call.
If the preacher's kids do something wrong, there's gonna be a phone call.
Preacher's wife says something wrong, there's gonna be a phone call, ignoring the fact that if the member does something wrong, nobody's gonna hear about it.
Right?
But at the same time, guess what?
You claim to be a member of the Collierville Church of Christ and you behave a certain way out on the job site or you behave a certain way out on the lake or you behave a certain
way uh out camping or you behave a certain way somewhere in public and guess what?
They're gonna go, huh?
He says he's a Christian, look at that.
Why?
because you said you held yourself to a standard and then you live differently.
Or they're going to go, wow, that really is a Christian.
They had the opportunity to do this and they wouldn't do it.
They were encouraged to do this and they didn't do it.
They behave different, they live differently, they act differently.
And sometimes the world hates that.
You go back over to 1 Peter in our discussion on Wednesday night and you read where Peter says they don't understand why you don't live the way they live.
Where you don't follow the same dissipation and the unruliness and the debauchery that they live in, yet at the same time they're going to look at the way you live and go,
that's different.
That's different from everybody else, and it ought to be.
So, Paul says to Timothy, I'm writing that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
Some in religion say, I want Jesus, just don't want the church.
I don't believe in organized religion, some might say.
Paul says you can't have Jesus without the church.
As a matter of fact, Jesus said you can't have Him without the church.
Matthew chapter 16, beginning verse 13, Jesus asked the disciples, who do men say that I am?
And they said, well, some say you're Elias, and some say you're John, some say you're one of the prophets.
Who do you say that I am, Jesus asked.
What does Peter respond?
You're the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus is blessed, are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And upon this rock, not the pebble that is Peter, that's what Peter's name means, but the bedrock, the Petra, he says, upon this rock I will build my church.
and the gates of Hades, the gates of death, the gates of all the destruction that has come upon the human race from Genesis chapter 3 all the way forward, Jesus says the gates of
Hades shall not prevail against it.
To say, want Jesus, and not the church is to say, I want Jesus, I just want death and destruction the same the world has always experienced.
I want Jesus, I just don't want any of the protection or family He provides.
And one of the things that's true when you marry into a family is that you get the whole family.
You don't just get that spouse.
You get the whole family, like it or not, love it or not, good family members or not, you're getting the whole family.
And some families, that's a blessing.
And some families, that's a curse.
And yet, when you have that relationship with Jesus where you have said, I will become your servant, I will become one who follows you, I will be a child of your Father in
heaven, you get the whole family.
You can't have Jesus and not the family.
So Paul makes it clear, Timothy, you have to know how to behave in the assembly of the body of Christ.
You have to know how to conduct yourself within the church of a living God because it is a part of his plan.
Jesus came to build
that which Daniel saw in a vision in Daniel chapter 2 that was a mountain that was made without hands that encompassed the entire earth and put to destruction all the prior
kingdoms.
The mountain of the Lord's house is a picture of the church.
New Jerusalem, picture of the church.
New heavens and new earth, picture of the church.
Family of God, picture of the church.
Bride of Christ, picture of the church.
Kingdom of Christ, picture of the church.
Kingdom of God, picture of the church.
all throughout the New Testament and Old Testament, picture after picture after picture after picture of the church.
Someone comes along and says, I'm not interested in the organized religion.
That's the same as saying, I would love salvation, I'm just not interested in any of God's plans.
Good luck with that.
It's not gonna work out all that well.
Now, let's reverse that for just a moment and say, how has humanity destroyed people's view of organized religion?
Met a man, a young guy, not a man, he was 16, 17.
When I was preaching in North Carolina, I was working at Books a Million.
So happened to meet this guy who was, you know, in looking at books.
We got talking about certain things and he had grown up Catholic.
He had grown up nominally religious, didn't really go to church.
But he had started reading the Bible.
and he had come to the conclusion that he just probably thought that God didn't really exist.
And so we talked for a while at one point when I was on break, and I asked him, why do you think God doesn't exist?
And he proceeded to give me as a list of reasons a whole host of false doctrines that Catholicism teaches.
And I helped him understand not a single one of those things that he outlined were in the Bible.
He's like, you're kidding.
He didn't have any idea.
He had started reading the Bible, but he had started in the Old Testament.
Hadn't read anything about the New Testament.
Didn't have a clue about the church that Jesus established.
And all of the misconceptions he had that he disagreed with and were attributing to things that could not be true because he couldn't see how God would do that.
were false doctrines taught by men.
You go back to the events of David with Bathsheba, and you look at the accusation that is made against David when Nathan the prophet comes to him.
Nathan points out that because of David's sin, he has caused the enemies of God to blaspheme.
What's the point of that?
The point of that is that Nathan is pointing out, David, because of how you've lived, because of what you've done, because even the enemies know what you've done.
They have attributed that character to God because you're His representative.
We need to be reminded that how the church operates is a reflection of what people outside the church think about God.
How the church functions, how the church is led, how the church follows those who lead it.
is an example that is set before the eyes of those who do not obey God and who do not believe what we believe and yet they're looking at us to say, if that's what a Christian
really is, fill in the rest.
Either I want to be one or I don't.
Turn to Acts chapter two.
You'll notice that.
m
Paul says the church is the pillar and ground of the truth.
In other words, it is the foundation of the truth.
We should not assume that Paul means from that, because he most certainly does not, that the church gets to determine what truth is.
That is not Paul's point.
Paul's point is that the church has a responsibility to uphold the truth that God has given.
But you'll also see in Acts chapter 2 that the church and its actions and the lives of the individuals who are a part of the church will determine the effectiveness of the truth as
well.
In Acts chapter 2 verse 40, with many other words he testified, that's Peter, testified and exhorted them saying,
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.
Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
Now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need." So notice, not only
have they continued in the apostles' teaching, not only do they continue in worship, not only
do they continue in fellowshipping with one another in a way that was very different from what the society around them was doing and noticeable they also were taking care of one
another at their own personal cost.
verse 46, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart praising God and
notice...
and having favor with all the people.
And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
The church of Jerusalem in the first century after it was established with those 3,000 who were baptized left an impression on the people around it because of how they treated one
another.
Their actions and their life became the pillar and the ground of the effectiveness
of what they taught.
Because it is really hard to convert people into a group of hypocrites.
uh
But it's really easy to demonstrate to people when there's true Christians around why that's very different from everything else they've always known.
All right, we're out of time.
Thank you for your attention.