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(upbeat music) - Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to
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- Glad you joined us for day three of First Timothy chapter three.

We're going to focus on verses eight to 10 today. And as we focus on these verses,
we're going to continue to talk about living this life of integrity. We've been
talking the first couple of days of this chapter about living a life of
integrity, focusing on those who lead the church.

And the first several verses, Paul talks about overseers or pastors of the
church. Now he's going to continue to talk about this life of integrity as he
focuses on deacons of the church. Let me read verses eight through 10 and then
talk a little bit about deacons.

And then what Paul has to say to us all through what he says to deacons. Verses
eight to 10. Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not
indulging in much wine and not pursuing dishonest gain.

They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.
They must first be tested. And then if there's nothing against them, let them
serve as deacons.

Now before taking a closer look at these verses, first, what is this about
deacons? Who are deacons in the church? We all know what the pastor of the
church is, but churches have a lot of different definitions of what deacons do.

Well, the word deacon, diakonos, in the Greek language, simply means servant.
It's the same exact word. And I know that in some churches we made deacons into
the administrators of the church.

In other churches they're like, they take care of the finances of the church.
But the Bible simply says ministers are servants. They are leaders who serve
others.

So whether it's through the finances or administration or simply serving people
with pastoral care needs, counseling people who are hurting, deacons are people
who choose to serve others. That's what they make a part of their life. At
Saddleback Church, we have deacons.

We just don't call them deacons. They're actually our small group leaders. They
in our church do the ministry functions of a deacon.

They care for God's people one-on-one. The word deacon, the word servant, that's
what it means to do. And that's exactly what our small group leaders do.

Rather than meeting and deciding decisions about what color the wall should be
painted in the church or making administrative decisions about the finances, our
deacons are meeting with people and meeting those needs every single day of the
week. That's what a deacon does. And that's how that's lived out in our
particular church.

It's lived out a lot of different ways in different churches. The key is,
however it's lived out, it has to be servant-hearted. That's the focus of it.

Living a life of integrity is living a servant-hearted life. And there are three
important things that these verses teach us about developing the kind of
integrity that lasts. I don't want to have integrity that lasts for a few months
or a few years.

I want to live a lifetime for Jesus Christ. So how do I live that kind of life?
Because as Paul says, this is what you need to look for in a deacon, he's
looking for the kind of person who's going to have integrity, who's going to
have faith that lasts.

He talks about three things. It's sort of a formula. He talks about character
plus truth plus testing.

That is integrity that lasts. That is a faith that lasts. Character plus truth
plus testing.

Let's walk through them. First, character. Character is in verse eight.

Deacons likewise are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much
wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. That's character. And he's really saying
here, if you want to look for character in a person's life, look at how you
handle four things in your life.

Look at how you handle your relationships. That's worthy of respect. Look at how
you handle your heart.

That's sincere, the word that he used. Look at how you handle your hurts. That's
not indulging.

Look at how you handle your money, not pursuing. And let's walk back through
those. Look at how you handle your relationships.

Paul says you need to be a person who is worthy of respect. Do you handle your
relationships by hiding from other people or by living your life for Christ
openly before others? That's where the respect comes from.

Not from being perfect. You're confessing your wrongs. You're making it right
when you did somebody wrong, but you're also living the life of Christ that he's
pouring into you.

That's a life that's worthy of respect. That's part of integrity. That's part of
character.

How do you handle your relationships? Second thing is how do you handle your
heart? And he uses the word sincere.

I have a heart that's sincere before God. I am not living faith in order to get
something else, to get approval or to get this or to get that. Now I understand
that all of us struggle with mixed motivations.

I certainly do. We're human beings. But sincerity means the best I know how.

I'm living this life because Jesus gave his life for me. And I want to give back
to him. I want to give to others.

And yeah, I've got some impure motivations. God, clear those up. I sincerely
want you to clear those up.

I don't even see some of them yet. Help me to grow. That's a heart of sincerity.

How do you handle your heart? That's part of character. A third part is how do
you handle your hurts?

What does that have to do with not indulging in much wine? One of the ways that
we handle our hurts is to hide from our hurts. And those who find themselves
indulging in a lot of wine or indulging in a lot of entertainment or indulging
in a lot of sex or indulging in a lot of shopping or indulging in a lot of money
or indulging in life are usually hiding from the hurts of life.

Do you handle your hurts by indulging the pleasures of your life? Or do you
handle your hurts by going to God for comfort and asking him to do something new
in your life? That's the life of integrity.

How do you handle your hurts? And then finally, how do you handle your money? He
talks about somebody who is not pursuing dishonest gain.

The idea there is that it's okay to gain. He doesn't say look for somebody who
is not earning any money. Look for somebody who has no money in their bank
account.

He says look for somebody who's not pursuing dishonest gain. That's the list.
How do you handle money?

Are you pursuing it or are you working and you're trusting God? It's okay to
earn money. It's okay to use that money that you've earned to make a difference
in this world.

But if you have to pursue money in order to feel better about yourself, better
about your life, stronger in comparison to other people, that is an integrity
issue. That's an integrity problem. He talks about character with deacons.

How you handle your relationships, your heart, your hurts, your money. It's
character. That's part of this life that lasts.

It's character plus truth. That's the second part and that's in verse nine. He
says they must hold the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.

Now notice in verse nine, he doesn't just say they must believe the deep truths.
No, he says they've gotta hold 'em. It's not just something you intellectually
believe.

It's something you hold in your heart, you hold in your life. They're reflected
in your life because you hold them in your life. Something that you hold has an
impact on you.

Something that you know is true, you may know it's true and you don't think
about it, doesn't make any difference in your life that day. There's a lot of
historical facts that you know are true. But truths that you hold in your heart,
those make the difference in your life.

And he goes even deeper than that. He says I want you to hold those truths. You
want to live a life of truth?

Hold them with a clear conscience. That's the key phrase here, a clear
conscience. Nothing hidden from yourself or others.

As best as you know, you're living with a clear conscience. What Paul is saying
here to deacons is if you take a leadership position with a skeleton in your
closet, Satan will use the guilt that you have over that skeleton and the fear
of possible discovery of that skeleton to ruin your life for the rest of your
life. Don't do it, don't go down that road.

But this just isn't true of Christian leaders. This is true of all of us as
followers of Christ. There's those places in our life where we have guilt
because we've not dealt with that thing in our past.

We have fear that someone is going to bring out that thing in our past. How about
this? You hold the truth with a clear conscience.

You clear it up before God, and if there are others involved, there may or may
not be, you clear it up before others. That's holding on to the deep truths of
the faith with a clear conscience. That's the truth part.

It's character plus truth, but to live a life that lasts, there's a third part,
plus testing. Verse 10 says, "They must first be tested, "and then if there is
nothing against them, "let them serve as deacons. " If you want to live a life
that lasts, a life of integrity, a life of faith that lasts, don't be in too
much of a hurry.

Don't get yourself in the wrong place of responsibility at the wrong time. As we
said yesterday, it can be more harmful to your faith than helpful to your faith.
So Paul says, "Let them be tested.

" Tested, why would we be tested? I mean, none of us are perfect. We already all
know that, so why test them?

The reason for the testing is not to prove perfection, but to show readiness. If
you put somebody into a place of responsibility, if you allow yourself to be put
into a place of responsibility or leadership or service too quickly, then you
end up hurting your faith and your growth. So here's the formula.

You want to live a life that lasts, a faith that lasts, an integrity that lasts.
It's character plus truth plus testing. Let's talk to Jesus.

Jesus, we love you and we praise you for your love for us. And we know that you
are working in our lives for these things to happen. We're not trying to grow
ourselves.

We're trusting you for our growth. And so we ask, we pray today that these
things would happen. Lord, grow us in character.

Help us to handle our relationships and our heart and our hurts and our money,
the things in our life in ways that grow our character before you. Lord, we pray
that you would work in the area of our life of the truth. Help us to grow in
truth, not just to know more truths, but to hold truths more powerfully, more
strongly.

And help us to hold them with a clear conscience. God, if there's something that
needs to be cleared up, give us the courage to clear it up with you and clear it
up with others. And Lord, help us not to be afraid of testing, of waiting for
the right time to serve you in the right way.

And if the answer is no sometimes of being patient, knowing that you know all
things, then that you're at work in our lives. Lord, grow us in integrity, grow
us in faith so we can live a lifetime of integrity and faith. We ask this in
Jesus' name, in your name, Jesus, amen.

And we'll see you tomorrow. We're going to focus on verses 11 to 13, and we're
going to focus again on the importance of relationships.