The sermon discusses the roles of elders and deacons in the New Testament Church. It emphasizes the interchangeable use of words like pastor, shepherd, overseer, and elder to describe these roles. Elders are primarily focused on the spiritual needs of the Church, while deacons take care of the physical needs. The sermon highlights exemplary elders and deacons mentioned in the Bible, such as Timothy, Peter, and Stephen. The importance of humility, selflessness, and spiritual gifting in these roles is emphasized.

Well, we had the joy last week of voting in two new deacons and an elder, and this Sunday and the next Sunday we're going to continue to speak about that, these two offices of the Church. And this afternoon I want to give a message about exemplary elders and deacons in the New Testament. And, you know, most of the instruction about elders and deacons happens on a principial qualification, character level, but it seems to me that it's fairly rare to talk about the men who are deacons and the men who are elders in the New Testament. So that's my objective. I'll first speak of elders in the New Testament and then deacons.

And I want to just acknowledge a confusion that often exists in people's minds about the use of the word elders. They might be confused with the use of that word elder. Like if I say to someone in mainstream evangelicalism, I'm an elder, they're gonna say, oh, so you're not the pastor. And it really reflects just a misunderstanding of the words that the Bible uses to speak of this same office. There's the word for shepherd or pastor poimano, which means defeat.

There's the word presbuteros, which means a mature man with seasoned judgment. And then there's the word episkopos, which is the word for overseer, a man who's charged with the duty of seeing that things are done rightly and in order in the church. So these words, pastor, bishop, overseer, elder, they're all interchangeable words in the New Testament. But the whole idea is that they take care of the people of God through the Word of God and through the counsels that they might give. And God uses these means, and he uses deacons, and he uses elders for both of the physical and the spiritual needs.

Jonathan Edwards spoke about this very clearly, and he spoke about the fact that elders and deacons have two different kinds of work, and what he says is that one is care for the soul and the other is care for the bodies of men." And he talks about the fact that the church has many members but we are one body. And so I'll just quote from Edwards here. He says, so deacons have a watchful eye on the state of the whole flock also to take notice of the circumstances of their bodies, to observe who are under straits and in necessities, that their necessities may be supplied. Elders, however, are stewards of the household, that everyone may have his portion of meat in due season in spiritual respects. Deacons are stewards in the same household that everyone that is in necessity or in other words has needs and is a proper object of charity, may be relieved and may have his portion of meat in due season, as appears in the first occasion of the institution of the office of deacons in the sixth chapter of Acts, which was the poor being neglected.

And so he speaks of this fact that elders have their focus on the spiritual needs of the Church, and deacons have their focus on the physical needs of the church. Soul for elders, body for deacons. But we'll see later, it's not quite so simple. The line isn't as hard and bright as you might think, from what I've just said. Now, as we speak about elders, there are various things that we could speak about.

We could talk about the elders in Ephesus. In chapter 20 of the book of Acts, The Apostle Paul meets with the elders of the Church of Ephesus, and quite likely Timothy was there, Apollos may have been here, there, John the Apostle may have been at that meeting. We're not sure of the timing of all these things, but it's possible that they were there. And it was interesting, a group of us were in Ephesus just a few months ago when we were in Turkey. And it was remarkable to walk through the city and see the geography of where these meetings might have happened.

Now this meeting with the elders on the the beach of Miletus took place about a day's journey away from Ephesus. So these elders, this group of elders, they walked an entire day to go and meet with the Apostle Paul when he was on his own journey back to Jerusalem. One of the things that is clear for anyone who's ever been an elder or has ever observed the life of an elder, and that is that there are difficult roles that elders have to play and the Ephesian elders had a difficult role to play. Paul says, I fought with beasts in Ephesus. It was hard And so Augustine speaks of this.

He says, regarding the role of elders or pastors, disturbers are to be rebuked, the low-spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed, litigants pacified, the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil born with, and all are to be loved." So I think Augustine grasps some of the nuances and the various contours of the life of an elder. But not only do you have these groups of elders, this group of elders in Ephesus, there were also the elders in the Jerusalem council. We meet them in Acts chapter 15, And Paul and Barnabas debated with them in that council of elders in Jerusalem. Paul goes in and interacts with James. These are elders in the Church of Jerusalem.

So you have these various collections of elders that are mentioned in the Bible. Let's talk about Timothy. I'm going to call Timothy the embattled elder. He was a pastor in the Church of Ephesus. We read about that in 1st Timothy 1.

Things were hard. Timothy most likely wanted to give up. Life can be hard, and so Paul says to him, remain on in Ephesus. Don't give up. Don't leave town.

Stay. Stay at it. And at this point, Timothy was probably in his teens or maybe in his 20s when he joined Paul. When he's an elder in the Church of Ephesus, he's probably older, but he may be in his late 20s or 30s As an elder in the Church of Ephesus, he's probably older, but he may be in his late twenties or thirties as an elder in the Church of Ephesus. And he was one of those young men that grew up in a godly home, and his mother and his grandmother taught him, and he had a foundation.

It was really interesting. I was talking to one of the brothers here earlier today after the sermon and he was saying how how his grandmother took him took he and his sister to church their their whole lifelong their dad didn't take him but his grandmother did and you know what I could see the strength in his eyes. All those years had an effect on it. You know, it made me wonder, is there anybody in our neighborhoods that we need to be bringing to church like that? You know any young people whose parents, they're just checked out, they're worldly, but they'd let their kids go, pick them up, pick them up.

You know, our family picked up a young man when he was very young and took him to church with us. But a few years ago, he met a terrible death of suicide. I wish he'd stayed. Oh, I wish he'd stayed. He had an opportunity.

But there are kids in your neighborhoods that are like that, too. But Timothy was, he grew up in this home from his youth. He was taught, and he was seemingly chronically ill. He had a stomach condition and the Apostle Paul says, take a little wine for your stomach. We don't know what his ailment was.

But we know that he served several churches. Paul sent him to minister in Ephesus and Philippi and Thessalonica. God used this man, Timothy, in different churches. He wasn't just in one church. He was primarily in Ephesus.

But it seems like he also served in other churches for the benefit of other churches. And sometimes you have men like that who serve in various capacities over various geographical footprints. He goes to Thessalonica, and there were serious troubles in Thessalonica. You read about this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 and he went there to correct the problems. Timothy, you know, also would bring funds to Corinth and he dealt with trouble in Corinth as well.

So one of the most remarkable things about Timothy comes from the mouth of Paul. The Bible says, let another man praise you. And Here's what Paul says. He talks about all the other people that he's with. And he says this of young Timothy.

They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father has served me in the gospel." Timothy was a selfless elder, and he was usable to many churches because he had a humble spirit, and he served the Apostle Paul. So that's Timothy. How about Peter? Peter is the fiery herald, diamond in the rough.

You know, remember Peter? He cut off the ear of the high priest. Peter was a fiery man. Do you think everything changed in his life after he was saved? Probably a lot changed, but I doubt if everything changed.

And he was a fisherman, and he became a fisherman. He was a fishing partner with James and John, and he was strong-willed and impetuous, sometimes childish, sometimes grasping for notoriety, like he wanted to be first. People said he was unschooled. He wasn't educated, But he'd been with Jesus. That's the difference.

That makes all the difference in the world. I don't care so much about your education, but I do care so much about your sanctification and your heart before the Lord Jesus. Peter was always putting his foot in his mouth, Jesus calls him a stone. He said foolish things. He denied Jesus Christ three times, and he became an elder.

You know what? Sometimes when you see some of the young people in your church, you just say, there's no hope for that kid. Don't think that. Don't think that. The one who denied Jesus three times became an elder, a really significant preacher of the gospel.

Don't lose hope. Don't lose hope for anyone. He was a critical leader in the Jerusalem church. He was called a pillar of the church in Galatians 2 verse 9. He turned the world upside down, and then he was turned upside down and martyred probably between 60 and 70 AD and died because of the gospel.

And he was the one that Jesus said to feed my sheep, feed my lambs. And he probably lived about 65 years and he was turned upside down, but the world was turned upside down. He probably spent the first 35 years of his life serving himself and he spent the last 35 years serving Jesus. So that's Peter, an elder. James, I'm just gonna call James the prayerful camel knees.

He was the half brother of Jesus. They called James old Camel knees because he spent so much time in prayer. And of course in Galatians 2.9 Paul calls him one of the pillars of the church. James was killed under the rule of King Agrippa. You can read about that in Acts chapter 12, that Agrippa the first killed James the brother of John with a sword.

You ever think about John as we're going through the gospel that his brother was killed with a sword? The most tender-hearted apostle had his brother killed. It must have been so difficult for him. You know, James and John met Jesus when they were mending their nets. Let's go to John, the tender-hearted elder of love.

He was a fisherman too, probably the youngest of the 12, probably 24 years old when he joined Jesus Christ. He was called the son of, one of the sons of thunder. In other words, he wasn't a wallflower. Okay? You know, he was a young man.

Like someone once said, young men tend to shoot from the lip. And John was probably a little bit like that. But the Lord really marvelously moved in his heart, didn't he, and made him such a tender-hearted apostle. Everybody calls him the apostle of love, everybody who's really read anything of John. It's difficult to come to any other conclusion.

He was the one who loved the love of God and he was the one whom Jesus loved as well. Tradition says he was boiled in oil and he survived and the Bible doesn't say this but tradition does And he ended up on the island of Patmos and then he went back to the church in Ephesus to pastor in his very latest years. Then you have Barnabas, Barnabas another elder, he was an elder in the Jerusalem church. He seemed actually to have chosen Paul to be his assistant. And Barnabas accompanied Paul on journeys.

One of them was a 1, 400 mile journey. I mean that's like from here to the other side of Austin. That's a long journey to walk. And Barnabas was the son of encouragement. He was an encouraging elder.

You know, elders have different personalities, don't they? You know, some pull out the sword and chop off the ear, and others are just, you know, they just want to hug you, and they just want to encourage you, no matter what it is. Elders have different personalities. Don't get put off by different personalities, because God uses all kinds of different personalities. You know, in your elder team, you got three really different personalities, And it's good.

It's a good thing. Same with our deacons. They're all really different. I mean, like they're really different. And that's a blessing to the church.

We're one body with many members, many effects, many ministries and things like that. But groups of Elders and Deacons are the same. Then you have Paul, the unlikely trainer of Elders, the one who was killing members of the Church, who ended up being a trainer of members of the Church. An amazing turnaround. But the Apostle Paul never left the heart of the ministry of the Lord Jesus, and that was the cross.

He said, God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. That was the heart of his ministry, the love of God in Jesus who sacrificed himself for sinners. And then of course you have Jesus Christ himself, that great shepherd of the sheep, our elder brother in every way. He's the great shepherd. All other under-shepherds are imperfect, fall short, have personality flaws, things like that.

You've seen them. But we have one great shepherd of the sheep, that's Jesus. Okay, let's turn to deacons, the exemplary deacons in the Bible. First of all, we actually have the names of the first seven deacons. We have their names.

Their names are recorded right there in the Bible in Acts chapter 6. And their names are Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenes, and Nicholas. And there they are. Their names are written in the Word of God. I hope you all know the names of the deacons in your church.

I think you probably do. Interesting, I was having lunch a couple of years ago, and I'd gotten to know the waiter, and I knew where he had gone to church, and one of his elders walked in. And I thought they knew each other. He didn't even know that this guy was an elder in his church. So get to know your elders and your deacons.

It's a good thing. So you have the names of the first seven deacons, which were appointed in Acts chapter 6. And then in Acts chapter 6, you have Stephen. He's the first deacon I want to mention. Stephen was waiting on widow's tables.

He was a humble man. He was full of the Holy Spirit. He was full of wisdom. He was full of faith. He was full of grace just like the Lord Jesus Christ, and he beheld the face of Jesus in the hardest moment of his life when he was being when he was being martyred there with rocks being thrown on him but he was full of power he was full of forgiveness He was a forgiving deacon who forgave all the people around him.

I'll just read you a bit out of Acts chapter 6 about Stephen. Now think about this, you deacons. Now Stephen, full of grace and power, pray for these things, deacons. It was performing great wonders and signs among the people, but some of those of the synagogue of the freedmen, it was called, the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and disputed with Stephen. Deacons are going to face opposition.

They're going to be disputed with in various matters. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking. Then they secretly instigated men who said, we have heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God. And they incited the people and the elders and the scribes and they came up and seized him and brought him to the Sanhedrin. Interesting, you know, if you're a deacon some tough things might happen to you as well.

It did in the first century and it can happen to you as well. Being a deacon doesn't exempt you from attack and slander and difficulty and that type of thing. And then we read on, then they incited the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came up and seized and brought him to the Sanhedrin. And then they put forward false witnesses and said, this man does not stop speaking words against the holy place and the law. For we have heard him saying that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and will change the customs of Moses handed down to us.

And as they looked intently at him, all those who were sitting in the Sanhedrin saw his face like the face of an angel. And he was killed and he said, just like his Savior said, Father, forgive them. Forgive them. So that's Stephen. Philip, In chapter 8, we find actually a dividing line in the book of Acts from the ministry that's been taking place in Jerusalem to the spread of the gospel in Samaria.

And Philip plays a big role in this section. It shows how the gospel was spread into Samaria, and it shows this partnership of brothers, Philip and Peter and John working close together. Stephen and Philip were part of the first seven in the Jerusalem Church. But now you have Philip and Peter and John working together in Samaria. And when you get to Acts chapter 8, you really see this trail of blood, which leads us to the burial of Stephen.

And, but what's remarkable about this is that as a result of this ministry that Philip was engaged in, you find these words in verse eight of chapter eight. And there was great joy in that city. So Philip, the result of Philip's life was that you had a city full of joy because he preached the gospel and people were converted. And I'll just read you a section here in verses four through eight. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.

And multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did, for unclean spirits crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed and many who were paralyzed, and some were healed. And there was great joy in the city. These deacons preached the foundation of joy in their cities. We often think of deacons as kind of the janitors of the church. It's not like that.

They do take care of physical needs, but that's not all they take care of. They're spiritual men as well. We even have a sports team called the Demon Deacons. You know where that came from? It really came out of Southern Baptist Christianity, where deacons are actually kind of like demons in a church, not like angels.

You know, Stephen had the face of an angel, not a demon at all. But these were spiritual men, and we need deacons who are spiritual men, who are filled with the Holy Spirit, full of wisdom, and they're vigorous in carrying out their work. Then Philip meets a sorcerer who professes faith, and it's a remarkable story. He meets Simon Magnus. In other words, Simon Mr.

Magnificent. He presented himself as Mr. Magnificent, and he met with, he met a deacon who preached the gospel to him. Then also you find Philip, this revival was going on where he was, and the Holy Spirit told him to go to, to leave this place, and he says, go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. The Lord through an angel told him to do that, and so He leaves this thriving ministry.

Why would he leave a thriving ministry? Can you imagine all the needs that were not being met as a result of that revival? And now he's going to leave. Nobody wants to lose a deacon or an elder when things are hot. But the Lord, through an angel, told him to leave.

Sometimes, you know, the Lord is going to move somebody out of your church at a time when you think, we really need him here. It's going to happen. It happened there. But God was leading Philip in evangelism, probably even contrary to his own inclinations. Because often when God wants to do something, he makes changes in a place.

And he was a very busy deacon. He goes down and he meets the Ethiopian eunuch, and he's baptized. And that eunuch goes on his way rejoicing, which is again another mark of true gospel, rejoicing is the result of it. And then miraculously he's transported from the side of that river to the town of Azotus. And there he is standing there.

And God moved him there. Philip had four unmarried daughters, and all of them, they were prophetesses, which I think what that means is that they were women of the Word of God. They were women of the Word. Oh, how we need daughters of Philip like that, whose hearts are filled with the Word of God. And when you poke them, that's what comes out.

It's not fashion that comes out. It's not silliness that comes out. It's not their own vanity. It's the word of God. Let's raise up women of the word of God and fill their hearts with that.

So, now when you see these deacons, Stephen and Philip, you can see that they were preachers. Now, the fact that they were also preachers doesn't contradict the fact that they took care of the needs of the Church. That's what they did. They were administrators of the relief of widows. One of the things that I think we can conclude about this whole discussion about deacons is that the most spiritually gifted men were set aside to take care of the least and the most needy women at the church.

This is the wisdom of God. You know, as Jonathan Edwards said, the elders focus on the spiritual needs of the body and the deacons focus on this physical needs of the body, but they're not mutually exclusive. We have deacons who minister to spiritual needs in this body, and I'm so thankful for that. They're not just physical mechanical guys. They are also concerned and tenderhearted toward people.

The most effective deacons are always the most tender-hearted deacons. In my experience, deacons are men who are often most moved in the church, sometimes even most moved to tears because of the physical needs, because someone has been deprived of something, or they've lost something, or they've been hurt by something. And their hearts go out to them, and they want to come, and they want to meet the physical needs of that person. Even just in the last couple of weeks, we've seen that happen. We've seen deacons snap into action to mobilize our church to take care of needs in this church.

Really critical, heartbreaking needs, heart-rending ones, ones that wanna make you cry. And the deacons, by the way, snapped into action and mobilized us to take care of those needs. Praise God. I praise God for deacons like that. Spiritually minded men who love Jesus and they speak of Him and they might even preach, and they also have a tender heart toward the people.

So there you have it. Elders focus on the spiritual needs of the body, and deacons focus on the physical needs. And by the way, they often overlap. So, anyway, I praise God for the deacons that we have and the elders that we have here. God has done it.

He's appointed them. And let's be a blessing to them and help them and love them and follow them in the ways that they would lead us. Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you've ordered your church with various offices that you have conceived of in heaven, which are perfect, and which are so good for the soul and the body. Thank you, Father, for not just taking care of our souls, but also taking care of our bodies and the troubles we experience here in this wilderness journey that you have us on.

Lord, I pray that you would bless all the elders and the deacons that they would be humbled and humble and that they would be submissive to you and would care for these great and marvelous needs of your people. I pray also that you would have a very well-taken care of people here. I pray, Lord, that they would have the care and the help that they need, and that they would be able to say, we're very well cared for in body and soul. Lord, only you can make that happen, Lord, and we pray that you would do it. Amen.