All over the world today people are crying out for leadership. Perhaps in some measure that is because in our media-conscious and media-driven society we are more and more aware of the fragilities and the frailties of our world leaders and of the enormous and perplexing burdens that they face. But whatever the reason, in almost every country in the world to which one goes people are saying, “Would to God that we had real leaders in our country!” And we might say exactly the same thing about the church of Jesus Christ. We need leaders whose absolute integrity we can respect. Whose lives we can admire. Whose discipleship of Jesus Christ serves as a wonderful inspiration to us in the fellowship of His people! We desperately need leaders who are spiritually tall enough to be able to see where we should be led. We need leaders that we can love and who serve to us as models of the life of Jesus Christ.

There are some famous words of the American writer E.M. Bounds that have rung in my ears since I was a teenager. “God is not looking for better methods; God is looking for better people.” Because people are God’s methods. And hence from the very beginning our Lord Jesus Christ selected men whom He could train and equip and then send out to serve. And they in turn, the apostles, in every place where churches of Jesus Christ were established, selected people whom they trained and prepared and equipped and then sent into the work of spiritual and material ministry.

And because we are in the process in our fellowship of beginning to look to nominating elders and deacons in our church, it is salutary, vital, for all of us (and not least for those of us who are already elders and deacons or who may become such) that we be very clear-minded about what it is that we are looking for from our leaders. And so I might say this morning, if you are a leader in this church, this sermon is for you. And if you are a member of this church, this sermon is also for you. So that we may wisely lead; so that we may spiritually nominate; so that we may become a church that is strong in our leadership in our service in the kingdom of Jesus Christ here.

And so for a few minutes this morning we turn to this extraordinary passage in 1 Timothy 3. It has many remarkable elements about it on which we cannot linger, but one of the most remarkable is this: Did you notice what this passage says about what elders and deacons do? You would be very shrewd if you did, because these passages tell us almost nothing about what elders and deacons do! Perhaps this was assumed in Ephesus where Timothy was, because the apostle Paul had spent almost three years there. He had given a very special address to the elders from Ephesus. It is recorded in Acts 20. And perhaps all that was assumed. But perhaps what the apostle Paul is really saying that what elders and deacons do flows from what elders and deacons are.

We have a couple of little hints in this passage that elders engage in spiritual oversight. That deacons and their wives, or deaconesses, need to be the kind of sensitive individuals, wise and practical individual who are able to deal with practical and sometimes material matters. But in a sense, for the apostle Paul, what we do is always secondary to what we have become by the grace of Jesus Christ. And it is for that reason that if you reread this passage, you will notice something very interesting in the description of the elder and in the description of the deacon: almost identical things are said about both. In the New Testament, a deacon is not a second-rate elder. A deacon is not somebody who has not quite made it in the spiritual stakes. Deacons and elders are children of God given different gifts, but the quality of their lives, the apostle is saying here, is to be one and the same.

And for that reason, most of what I want to say from this passage this morning applies to both elders and deacons. And there are three things I want you to notice with me:

1. The privilege of this calling.
2. The primary qualifications for this calling.
3. The priorities of this calling.

The Privilege of This Calling⤒🔗

First of all, the privilege of this calling. You will notice that Paul refers to these in the case of the elder in verse one: “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” And then later on in verse 13: “Those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves.” It is two different ways, really, of saying the same thing: that there is great nobility, there are high privileges, there are honours for those who serve as elders and deacons as leaders of the people of God.

Now, we might think: is that not a form of arrogance and pride that the apostle Paul is encouraging here when he says, “If anyone aspires to the office”? Don’t we sometimes say that if somebody really wants to be an elder, that is a sign we should never make them an elder? Not in the apostle Paul’s book, for this reason: that the aspiration to be a leader in the church of Jesus Christ is an aspiration to get down lower in the service of God’s people, to bare their hearts, to share their suffering, to help their spiritual lives, and to be their bond-slaves for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that sense, we could aspire to nothing higher in the kingdom of God than going down lower! Because the church of Jesus Christ, as our Lord says in the Gospel, is not a multi-national corporation with share-holders. In this kingdom, leadership is humble service. Leadership is costly ministry. And of course in the New Testament church, as in many churches throughout the world today, leadership meant you would be on the front line of all the suffering that the church might ever endure.

So the apostle Paul is not blissfully ignorant of the costliness of becoming a leader. I have, in the last version of the NIV I used, written some words of Martin Luther across the top of a passage in which the apostle Paul speaks about the costliness of Christian service and leader: “If I were to tell people of the troubles I have had in Christian leadership, nobody would believe me.” And so to aspire to this is to aspire to bear the burdens of others, to lead the people of Jesus Christ in such a way that the knocks and the difficulties will come to me as a spiritual father rather than be borne by the rest of the family. But you see, when we engage in that kind of leadership as elders and deacons, when we stand out as leaders in that humble way, oh the nobility of the task and oh the honor that the children of God give to us! And so we need to be clear, says the apostle, that there is enormous privilege in this high calling.

The Primary Qualifications for This Calling←⤒🔗

And it is because it is such a privilege, it is such a high calling, that he also emphasizes not only the privilege, but the primary qualifications of those we call to serve in this ministry. Paul details them here in very many different ways, but essentially I think he is saying three things.

He is saying those we call to be leaders among us must first of all in their personal life be marked by deep spiritual integrity. Verse two, in the case of the elder: He must be above reproach. He must be sober-minded (that means he must be a serious Christian). He must be self-controlled. He must be respectable (that does not mean he must do the decent thing; it means he must be worthy of our respect). He must be hospitable (that does not mean he must have a big house; it means he must have a big heart). He must not be a drunkard, or violent but gentle, not quarrelsome. Isn’t that interesting? I have met some of the most quarrelsome people in the church who believe they should be elders simply because they have a gift to quarrel you into the ground. And Paul is saying we don’t want that. Why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ was never, even in controversy, quarrelsome, but gentle. Not a lover of money. And similarly with the deacon-verse: He must not be double-tongued (his word must be his bond). He must not be addicted to much wine, or anything else for that matter. He must not be greedy for dishonest gain. They must prove themselves blameless. The women must be dignified, not slanderers but serious Christians, faithful in all things. In personal life, marked by the deepest and the most manifest spiritual integrity.

Second, in family life they must be (if they have a family) marked by parental stability. Verse two, in connection with the elder: the husband of one wife, or perhaps most simply, a "one-woman man." Absolutely committed resolutely to his wife! And (verse four) “he must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.” Why is that so important? Because, says Paul, if a man can’t manage his own children, how is he going to cope with the children of God in the fellowship? And you notice similarly with the deacons. The deacons must be “the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well” (verse 12). The apostle Paul recognizes, as C.H. Spurgeon once said, it is possible to be a deacon in the church and a demon in the family. It is almost as though he is saying: if you are nominated to be an elder or a deacon and you came home on the Sunday for lunch, would your children say, “Dad, you are just the right kind of man; mom, you are just the right woman to serve as a deaconess in this church”? Or would they be surprised?

So spiritual integrity in personal life, parental stability in family life, and doctrinal orthodoxy in spiritual life. The elder must be able to teach. The apostle elsewhere speaks about the elder needing to know the Word of God so that he can use the Word of God to instruct and direct the people of God. We are to be able to go to our elders and say to our elders, “How does this work out in my life – this biblical exposition I am getting from the pulpit, or what I am learning in Sunday school class, or what I am reading in the Scriptures? And then you notice how interesting it is that something very similar is said about the deacon. Verse nine: the deacon must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. You see, the difference between the deacon and the elder is not that the elder loves and knows Scripture and for the deacon it does not matter! The only difference is that as the elder receives the Scriptures, his gift is to use (if I could put it this way) his tongue to impart the wisdom of the Scriptures to those to whom he ministers; the deacon receives the same glorious gospel from the Scriptures and his gift (or if she is a deaconess, her gift) is to use her “hands and feet” in order to take the wisdom of Scripture into the life of the congregation, that we may in some measure meet all the needs of our fellowship and none may go away spiritually or physically empty.

One of the most telling things the apostle Paul says about this (and I have often wondered of it, because I have never in my life known a church that has ever done anything about this) is: the elder (verse seven) must be well-thought of by outsiders. Isn’t that something? What is he like to work with? How is he as a manager? as a business-owner? as an employee? Why is this so important? Because the church of Jesus Christ has always been judged primarily by its leadership!

The Priorities of This Calling←⤒🔗

So Paul speaks about the privileges. He speaks too about the personal qualifications. And he speaks thirdly about the priority in our tasks. There is much here; let me simply point you to one thing that Paul says to the elders that I think is equally applicable to the deacons. Verse five: If someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he (notice the word) care for God’s church? That is what we are looking for, my brothers and sisters – elders and deacons who will care for God’s church. We are grateful for the care for our buildings, but that is not what Paul is talking about here. For Paul, the church is God’s people. Elders, deacons, who will in the name of Jesus Christ care for us.

And you see what that means. They must be those who know us and our needs as they move among us. They must be people who know the resources of God in His Word, and the resources that God has provided in the gifts of our fellowship. They must be those who can lead us in prayer and wisdom for the blessing of God upon our congregation. And they should be those to whom we can go without fear for spiritual and practical help. They must, in a word, be people who simply love the church of Jesus Christ and its members.

So I want to suggest, as we close, two simple applications. For those of us who are elders and deacons: this is our calling. I challenge you in the name of Jesus Christ to give yourself afresh all over again, and yield to these claims upon your life, that you may serve us well. And to all of us: that we pray and long for such leadership, that we give honor to such leadership, and that we are blessed by such leadership. No wonder, when Paul speaks about this kind of thing for himself, he says, “Oh, who is sufficient for these things?” Where is our sufficiency to be found? My dear friends, especially those of you who are elders and deacons, our sufficiency is to be found in this: that these two ministries – the ministry of the bishop/elder, the ministry of the deacon – are both first of all, as the New Testament tells us, the ministries of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is described both as the great shepherd and the chief bishop of our souls, and as one who is a deacon among the Jews for the sake of the salvation of the Gentiles. Our resources do not lie in ourselves, but only in Jesus Christ. And so our great task as elders and deacons is to look to Jesus Christ to supply all the resources we need for leadership. And our great prayer as a fellowship is, “Lord Jesus Christ, King and head of the church, bishop of our souls, deacon of our lives, pour out your Spirit upon our fellowship, that we may have leaders whose hearts beat in tune with your heart for all you plan to do among us. Oh, may God give to us such leaders.