Fit To serve - Part Two

Every one of us are called to be servants and yet in Acts 6 the early church saw a distinct need to select and ordain a unique group of men for a specific servant task in the church. They did not merely select warm bodies for the job a practice that is all too common today. What they did was issue a call for the congregation to select seven worthy men who could be trusted completely to do the job not only with integrity but in righteousness as well. It was required that they would be fit to serve the church.

Fit to Serve

The very concept of servanthood which we hold needs to be rewritten. We to often envision servants as unqualified to do truly important jobs - but being a servant is the highest calling in the church. In John 13, Jesus gave one of the most vivid examples of servanthood in the scriptures when he washed his disciples feet. Moreover, when the disciples began to argue about who was the greatest of all, Jesus told them that the greatest must be the servant of all.

When needs arose in the early church the apostles did not do what we normally and unfortunately do. Our common solution is to just shove any warm body into positions of service in the church. But the disciples understood something which we all too often miss: you need to be qualified to be a servant of the Living God.

Warm bodies are not sufficient. Neither does languid faith or weak doctrine make you worthy to bear the title, "Servant of the Church of The Living God". To be certain, anyone who wants to serve God can do so without needing to be a super-saint first. But long before you enter a role of official service you need to be mature. The role of deacon or servant was first of all just a description of a job. But in due time it also became a title. My question for you this morning is "Do you have what it takes to be a servant?" Are you "Fit To Serve"?

JustAs the church began to grow and change from the band of Apostles and about an hundred followers of Jesus it strained under the sudden addition of three thousand souls on the day of Pentecost. Surely God was teaching them also in that time that he was in charge of the church and he will grow it according to his design. Many of the difficulties which arose early came as a result of that growth.

Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone and finding them to be disagreeable in a variety of ways? Maybe they have a bad attitude or they have habits that make them out to just be the kind of person you don't want to hang around with. Now, imagine meeting that person and then after you've formed all your opinions you find out that they are a Christian or worse yet, a pastor. The effects can be catastrophic.

From the positive requirements of what the elder or pastor should be, Paul moves now to what we must not be.

How many of you have been to the Grand Canyon? Did you take pictures of the whole canyon? It really doesn't matter how big your camera is you simply cannot take one complete picture of the Grand Canyon. If you want a picture of the Grand canyon you're going to have to take hundreds of photographs and stitch them all together into one massive photo.

When you look into the qualifications to be an overseer or pastor what you're really getting is one snapshot of maturity in Christ. It's not a complete picture but it is a good picture. As much as that picture describes what Pastor's should be, it also describes what every believer should be growing to be. As such it is best understood as a series of Character traits which manifest or display themselves in daily life.

"it is necessary therefore for the overseer (watcher of souls) to be above reproach, a one woman kind of man {idiom: faithful to his wife}, sober (self-controlled with alcohol with a broader reference to his serious handling of his life), self-controlled (in general), orderly, hospitable, skillful in teaching, ..."

What happens when you put a child in charge of their siblings? Sometimes nothing, but sometimes the evil comes out and as soon a the door clicks behind you the power goes to their head and they begin to rule over their siblings like an evil tyrant.

It is a sad statement of reality that such things have happened in the church through the ages. Men in positions of authority have abused their power. As much as it demonstrates the power of the sinful nature it demonstrates even more the overwhelming need for continued humility and intentional application of God's word.

I want to get us back into the mode of studying First Timothy and Church 101 so a very brief review is necessary. In the first chapter Paul touches on Pastoral Leadership, the Foundation of the Gospel as the core of the church and the fullness of God's grace. It seems that in the church people were missing the point. There were teachers who were teaching the law wrongly. They had forgotten that the Law's singular purpose is the convict sinners and direct them to Jesus. Paul himself serves as the primary example of the chief of all sinners. If God can save Paul the blasphemer, the persecutor and the violent agressor than God can certainly save you. Amen? (I expect at least a few amens!)

The second chapter launches us into ministry. As children of God we are first commanded to pray. We must pray at all times for all people with every kind of prayer, intercession, requests, conversational, and above all prayers of thanks. The fruit of our prayers may well be the salvation of many souls.

The men are specifically commanded to pray without anger and dissension. The Women are specifically required to dress appropriately and to be devoted learners of God's word . Elsewhere we learn that women must teach other women but here we discover they must neither teach men nor exercise authority over men.

Now considering the context of what has gone before - specifically in terms of Paul's statements concerning women in leadership it is only natural that he begin to explain the requirements for leadership in the church but also to a certain extent to defend leadership.

This is why he begins the third chapter with "It is a trustworthy statement, if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do." In this statement Paul demonstrates a few principles for us to adhere to when it comes to church leadership.