Amen. If you had a Bible, let me return with me to 1 Timothy 5 verses 3 through 8 as we continue our study in Paul's letter to a young minister and the congregation at Ephesus and on through time even to us. In 1 Timothy, we've been seeing that the church is a family, God's family. Jesus died to redeem the church of God and He gave up everything in order to give us to God and to one another forever.
Every Christian belongs to God's household. Last week we saw in verses 1 and 2 that in this household of God we are to treat other people like brothers and fathers and brothers and sisters like family. We are even to confront one another in sin and about sin. Tonight we see that we are to care for one another with our resources.
Last week confront tonight, care. Let me invite you to give attention to God's Word, 1 Timothy 5 verses 3 through 8. Honor widows who are truly widows. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show Godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents.
For this is pleasing in the sight of God. She who is truly a widow left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in sublocations and prayers night and day. But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well so that they may be without reproach.
But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Amen. This is God's Word and making cut our hearts with it. Let's look to Him in prayer.
We teach us your way, O Lord, that we may walk in your ways. Give us undivided hearts that we might fear your name. Mold and shape us by this word that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work of service to you who first served us and still even now serve us. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Well, family is God's idea. I read this week in World Magazine about a set of grandparents, even great great great brothers. Leo and Ruth, they have 12 children.
They've been married 59 years. They're 12 children. They have 53 grandchildren. They have 46 great grandchildren and one great great grandchild, more than 100 children in their lives.
Says Leo, the good Lord just kept sending them. Can you imagine? Well, of course, of course, children are a blessing from the Lord. But also can you imagine in a family of that size some of the drama that would go on like it goes on in all families, the kinds of conflicts they would be that would need to be talked through, sin conflicts, but also perhaps, and I don't know this family, but also perhaps the kind of care and provision that would need to be made for some within the family as hard circumstances hit.
I don't think we need to worry too much about the great great great grandparents. I figured 10 bucks a month from each kid would provide 10,000 a month for their retirement. Anyway, as people and family, sin against one another, we need to be confronted, but also sometimes people and hard circumstances need to be cared for by one another. And it's that way in God's family too.
And that's what this passage is about. And I want to highlight from this passage four things with you. I'm going to give you them as we go. The first thing I want you to see and consider is this, that God cares for the most vulnerable in his family, in the church.
That's the kind of God he is. He's the kind of God who manages his family well, even should there be great need for the most vulnerable. One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is in 2 Kings chapter 4 verses 1 to 7, it's the story of the wife of one of the sons of the prophets who cries out to the prophet Elisha. She says, your servant, my husband is dead.
And you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves. Their family had served God faithfully. And you can hear her asking Elisha in that, will God be faithful to us? Will he provide for me?
Does he care about my situation? Because if I can't pay my debt, she's saying, then my children will be enslaved to pay off those debts. And I'll lose everything in this life. What does God's prophet say to her?
And that story, he says to her, what shall I do for you? Tell me what have you in your house? And she says, your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil. And then he says, well go outside, borrow vessels from your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.
Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all the vessels and when one is full, set it aside. So she went from him and shut the door and she did as he told and she poured and they brought as the sons brought the vessels to her and when the vessels were full, she said to her son, bring me another vessel and he said there's not another vessel and then all the oil stuff flowing. So she kept pouring and God kept providing, it was miraculous. And she came in and she told the man of God saying, and he said to her, go, sell the oil and pay your debts and you and your sons can live on the rest.
Now why did God do that? Because he's the kind of God who cares for the most vulnerable among his people. We have another beautiful story of this in Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse 11, when we hear that Jesus went into a town called Nain, it's a village in Galilee and his disciples and a great crowd had gone with him and as he drew near to the gate of the town, a man who died was being carried out. The only son of his mother and she was a widow and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
So here's this elderly woman. She's lost her husband and now her only son, an adult son, who's been undoubtedly providing for her. Now what's going to happen to her? Now when the Lord saw her verse 13, he had compassion on her.
Do not weep, he said to her. And then he came up and he touched the beer, that's the stand on which the coffin was held and the bearer stood still and he said, young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Why?
Because Jesus cares. He brings back the dead even miraculously to provide for a widow in her grief and in her hour of dire need. Now these are grand miracles and we don't expect to get grand miracles of resurrection in our lifetime, not yet until the Lord returns and they were all going to rise from the dead, but does God care any less for us? No.
Jesus practiced what he preached in his own life even while he was dying upon the cross. You may remember at the end of the Gospel of John, he made provision for his widowed mother who would have been left alone to give him into the care of her, into the care of the Apostle John, though he himself was poor in this life, he made provision that she was provided for him because of this and it's a simple point. This is the kind of God we serve. This is the kind of Father in heaven we have.
Psalm 68 verse 5, he is the father of the fatherless and the protector of widows. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 18, this is again about him. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and he loves the sojourner giving him food and clothing. That's the first thing we want to say.
This is the kind of God we serve and cares for the most vulnerable. Now the second thing we want to say is this, because God cares for the most vulnerable in the church, so should we. So should we. That's why he commands to honor widows who are truly widows and he goes on to talk about their financial support out of the pockets of the people of the church.
James chapter 1 verse 27 puts it this way, a familiar passage to you perhaps, religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Personal purity, sure, but also caring for and by that caring affliction it means what it means here, honoring widows in the providing for them in their destitution. They ought not be forced to beg. All who are really needy in the church should be provided for by the church.
That may feel distant from us in some ways because we live in an affluent culture, we live in a place where there's disability insurance, there's term life insurance, there's whole life insurance, right? There's a number of 401ks and pension plans and nursing homes and there are all kinds of ways that the elderly and the widows can be provided for in our culture and they live in a different world. They were much less well off in some ways than us. But the principle applies today.
In the early church they practice this with one another and we should learn to do so as well. In the early church, remember the early church book is Acts, the book of Acts. Acts chapter 2 verse 45 it says that the disciples of Jesus were quote, selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had made. In Acts chapter 4, just two chapters later verse 34, 35 we learned that there was not a needy person among them, as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and they laid it at the apostles' feet and it was distributed to each as any had need.
That wasn't communism or socialism. It wasn't the state government confiscating the people's resources under the threat of force and doling them out to everyone indiscriminately so that everyone would become equal or supposedly equal. That wasn't what was happening. This was instead Christian charity.
It's the voluntary and cheerful giving of our personal property and resources to needy fellow Christians within the body of Christ and it's motivated not at the tip of the sphere under the threat of a government by force but it is motivated by love. It is in order to meet needs not to make everybody equal and it's to honor Jesus because though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich as co-heirs with him of the universe and of every spiritual blessing. Therefore those Christians who have should share with those Christians who do not. In Acts chapter 6 we see again how this works itself out.
The church had an organized way of caring for poor widows. We learned in Acts chapter 6 the first five or six verses that in those days the disciples were increasing a number of the church was growing but a complaint arose against the Hellenists or by the Hellenists against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. In other words Jewish widows were receiving an adequate supply of the distribution but the Gentile widows were not. And so it says in verse 2 that the 12 apostles summoned the full number of disciples gathered them all together said it's not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.
Therefore brothers pick out from them on yourselves seven men of good repute full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom who will point to this duty but we will devote ourselves to prayer in the ministry of the word. So what you have is the beginning of the office of Deacon in the church. So the word Deacon isn't used. Most would see here the beginning of that office.
There's the ministry of the apostles, the pastors, the teachers, they are set apart for the ministry of word and prayer. And others need to be given to the ministry of service to the saints in need. Diagonal work. And so at first the apostles did it, Acts chapter 2 and 4, but then these others did it, Acts chapter 6.
And so was it, Acts chapter 6 verse 5 that what they said to the police to everybody they chose Stephen a man full of faith and others to help him, lay hands on them, set him apart for this work. And it was a beautiful thing as one helped another and all participated who could in giving to relief work in the body of Christ. And I want to say to us just a few words of application there that we can all help one another and you do help one another in so many ways. I'm so, if I could say it to you without you getting proud, I can say I'm proud to be part of a body where you so love one another, gift one another, serve one another, help one another.
That happened ten times more than it does. One day we should say that perhaps in the not too distant future we look to the Lord to provide those from among us who will carry the office of Deacon who will lead us, who will be an example for us in this ministry and give us direction and oversight in this kind of ministry. One way that we have already sought to help one another and have done so here at Redeemer is to help one another when sudden emergencies bring unexpected expenses such as medical bills. We've helped each other that way.
We praise God for it. Another way to help here at Redeemer is that we do not have widows directly among us in this kind of situation. We do take up a Christmas offering yearly thus far that goes to aid, needy widows. In the last couple of years we've pooled our resources with churches across the PCA, the Presbyterian Church, and together have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to hundreds of widows in needy and destitute circumstances.
You can by way of a very particular application begin even now to save for that collection which comes up after Thanksgiving. The point is because God cares for the most vulnerable among his people so should we. Remember how Jesus put it? John 13, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Let's not just do that with words but in very practical and tangible actions. That's the second thing I want you to see. Now the third gets into some of the details of this text.
The third thing I want you to see is from this passage is that the church must discriminate. I say that provocatively. But the church must discriminate in the distribution of its resources. Which widows should receive support?
Not every widow says Paul. He's careful to qualify his remarks. He doesn't want them to engage in indiscriminate but rather discriminate ministry here under certain guidelines with criteria for who should receive. These help, this help.
Now we'll get into the details in just a second but step back from that. Why would you need to even say something like that? Why would you need to be selective as a church? Why would Paul place limits on this kind of ministry?
Well at least two things cause Paul to think this way and to command this way. The first perhaps most obviously is that Timothy and that congregation along with the rest of us, we live in a finite world. We have in the church a certain number of people with a certain amount of resources and time and skills and opportunity and as a result every time we say yes to one thing we do simultaneously say no perhaps to several other things. If I go shopping for Melinda for a birthday with 50 bucks to spend and I spend 49 of it on a kitchen gadget then I've only got a dollar left to spend on something fun.
Finite resources. I know, I know. Don't spend 49 of the kitchen gadget. I get it.
Second we live in a fallen world. Not just a finite world but a fallen world. And so we are all affected by selfishness and greed, pride and many other things and in short sin takes its toll on all of us, both the helpers and the helped. So here with regard to widows specifically the Apostle Paul says that he was aware that there were some widows hanging around who were very self-centered, were lazy, would take advantage of the church's kindness and generosity for purposes of self-indulgence.
And that's obviously a problem. There was another side to that problem as well, that equation. Paul knew the sinfulness on the part of those who were not widows but who would play a role in how things worked out. He knew that there would be some do in their greed and selfishness and idolatry and materialism would take advantage of the church's generosity in order to avoid providing help and assistance to people they personally could, even their own parents and other relatives.
And Paul says that kind of advantage should not go on in the church. So because we live in a finite world, because we live in a fallen world, Paul lays down two tests or two guidelines. Here we see in verses one to eight. The first is a material test and the second is a spiritual test.
In verses three through five he says, I don't want you to help widows who have other means of help available to them. If they have children or grandchildren he says verse four. Those should first supply the need. Children, grandchildren, other close relatives we might say should bear the responsibility to help parents and grandparents as much as possible.
So that those who can be help are widows indeed or really widows. Widows who have nobody in the church who's a believer, no father left, no husband left, no children, no grandchildren, nobody in no resources, no bank accounts. And then the second test is a spiritual test. Notice verse five, she who is truly a widow left all alone has said her hope in God and continues in supplication, prayers day and night.
This is the person he wants to see helped. She's a Christian lady. She's praying and calling out and leaning depending upon God. And we can choose to help non-Christian people of course.
We're at the discretion of our own resources and heart, desire and to give neighbor love, but we are commanded to help Christian women as a Christian church. We can give anybody we want, but we're commanded to help other Christian, fellow Christian women in this situation. The church should be the answer to her prayer is what Paul is saying. But verse six, consider the opposite case.
She who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. He's talking here about the woman who's living for pleasure, living a life of sensuality, with no thought for what's right or wrong or following the Lord Jesus. He may have in mind here what was not an uncommon case in that day and age for a widow, truly destitute, destitute to give herself to a life of prostitution. He may have in mind here those who would upon the death of their husband bounce around from boyfriend to boyfriend getting their food wherever they could, which is in many ways another form of prostitution.
This is somebody who professes to be a believer. Yes, she's dead while she lives. She's spiritually dead. Her deeds reveal that she's not a believer.
And so Paul is saying I don't want you to enable that person. I want you to help the truly needy and the truly Christian, the saint. He doesn't want the church's responsible compassion to ultimately encourage irresponsible behavior among the irresponsible. So destitution and godliness are the two prerequisites he lays out here.
There's not just to be some kind of general handout to all widows everywhere. Now, one side note, I will say is this. He seems to be specifically referring to widowed mothers. But the passage does, I think, seem to allow for the application to both destitute mothers and even destitute fathers who are widows or widowers, at least in principle, especially if Paul talks about children repaying their parents, plural, not simply children repaying their mother.
So that if your father in his old age is destitute, a passage like this would apply in that case as well. So to summarize, the three points we've had and we'll take one more. God cares for the most vulnerable in his household. That's the kind of God he is.
Because God cares for them so must we. And thirdly, the church must discriminate in the distribution of his resources and may God give his church wisdom in those situations. But finally, the fourth thing is this. The church should be the third place Christians turn to for help.
God of course should be first. And he commends the widow who cries out to God day and night for help. You don't have to be a widow to cry, Lord, give me my daily bread. Help me provide for my family and thank you when you do so.
May we all have that disposition. God of course is the first place we turn. The second is, he very pointedly, says the physical family, our blood and legal relations. They should be the second source of help here.
And then the church should be after them. Verse four, if a widow is children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and make some return to their parents for this is pleasing the sight of God. He mentions in this passage four reasons the physical family ought to come before the church and all. And that's where we'll close on those four reasons.
In the first place he says, we are obligated by God to help our parents and grandparents. It's a way he says of repaying parents and grandparents who helped us when we were young and couldn't help ourselves. Paul is perfectly aware of the phenomenon of children who refused to take responsibility to care for their own parents. I'm not saying he knew the Dutch proverb, but you know the Dutch proverb which says, it seems easier for one poor father to rear ten children than for ten children to care for one poor father.
This is the history of the depravity of the human race that we care so little for our needy parents and grandparents. When we seek help, when we are in need of help, Paul says, and when we're in a position to help, we are not being generous and gracious when we help our parents and grandparents. We aren't just being a large hearted Christian. He's actually saying, it's a matter of justice.
They worked to supply our needs. Now we work to supply their needs is what he's saying. And if we fail to do that, we're being like the religious hypocrites of Mark chapter 7. We're in Mark chapter 7 and we learned that Jesus rebuked those who dedicated their money to God's service but denied that money to their needy parents.
They had this religious saying called Corbin, basically where they said, I, Corbin, they dedicated their resources to God. But they didn't actually give their resources to God in the temple. They kept them and used them for themselves but said, but you know, all of this has a separate dedication so that when their parents were needy, they could say, look, I'm sorry, but I just can't help you. I mean, this is God's money.
And Jesus rebuked that attitude and he denounced them saying they make void the word of God by their tradition that they've handed down to one another. The word of God said, I'm your father and your mother. This is what it means in their hour of need. So then let me apply that first point here that the physical family ought to come before the church by saying this.
Let us as Christian people, and I say this to myself as much as you, let us live beneath our means. Let us spend less than we make. Let us learn to do so that we can save up and have something to give should those needs arise. And let me say this, if you are an adult child of aging parents, have honest conversations with them about their personal finances and how they intend to be or hope to be provided for late in life, have the honest conversation, where is the money coming from and where will it come from years from now?
Let me also say this, if you are an elderly parent, don't leave your children in the dark about what your plans are, should circumstances turn difficult, should one of you be taken? Don't leave them in the dark about that. So then the second reason, the family should come before the church. Paul says, notice again at the end of verse 4, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.
He is after all the ones who commands us to honor our father and our mother, and it pleases him when from the heart his people and with our wallets obey him in this regard. It's pleasing, he delights in it. We are bearing when we do so the marks of his own character and nature, we are reflecting his own glory, acting like him in what he loves and cares about. Now the third thing is this, the third reason is this, to fail to provide for our parents and grandparents in a time of need makes us, Paul says, verse 8, worse than non-Christians.
His language is very pointed. And they would have known what he was talking about. If anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than unbeliever. He's not calling unbelievers bad.
He's saying, if a Christian doesn't do what the non-Christians do, what's going on? It was ancient Greek law that sons and daughters were not only morally but legally bound to support their parents. Anyone who refused to do so lost their civil rights. That's going to be the Athenian order said in one of his speeches.
And whom did our law giver condemn the silence in the assembly of the people? And where does he make this clear? Let there be, he says, a scrutiny of public speakers in case there be any speaker in the assembly of the people who is a striker of his father or mother or who neglects to maintain them or to give them home. Demosthenes, his main political opponent, agreed.
He said, I regard the man who neglects his parents as unbelieving and hateful to the gods as well as to men. And Fylo talked about the fact that even old birds, storks, and actually that word appears in this text that's the Greek behind some of this language, the storks actually care for their elderly parents. They build these massive nests, 10 feet by 6 feet. And the elderly parents who can all under fly are provided for by the young stork.
And so he talks about these birds who care for their parents because their parents taught them to fly. So he says, should humans do any less than that? The Romans had a law requiring this. And so Paul's point is, the non-Christian won't recognize is that this is the responsible loving thing for children and grandchildren to do.
How could Christians do any less? And what does it say about us, Paul is saying? What does it say about us if we do less? Do we even know the god who cares for the vulnerable?
And then the fourth reason, the last reason he says is this, we should look to our physical family before the church. Why? It relieves the church of unnecessary expenses. Verse 16, and we'll get there next week as well.
But he sums up his whole discussion about this by saying, let the church not be burdened so that it may care for those who are truly widows. If the physical family can do it, they ought to so that the church's resources can be more effectively used to help those who have no other help. So then I ask you again, are you saving money now for the future? Either your future or that of your family?
Are you like Joseph storing up during times of plenty for the lean years that may come? For when expenses will become greater? While work may become harder or even impossible to you? Are you saving for those days?
And to get very practical, do you have a life insurance policy? And why not? Now maybe you're independently wealthy and your death doesn't threaten your family's provisions and then that's fine. I'm not saying the Bible commands you to have something called a life insurance policy.
But here is a clear warrant to have one for many of us and especially if you're young. Like an IRA or a 401k of disability insurance, a long-term care policy and these other things, a life insurance policy is an imposed savings plan for the benefit of those you are responsible for. You can make plans now at a fairly low cost so that should then arise, your family won't become destitute, won't need to sell everything just to make it, won't lose everything and need to rely upon others. There is no shame for those who are destitute in relying upon the Lord and his church.
But we can make provision so that rather than needing that ourselves, we're in a responsible position to actually help others in their hour of need. And that's the way the gospel ought to work in our hearts. Proverbs 6 verse 6 and 7 says go to the ant of slugger and consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.
She plans ahead, she works diligently so that in the time there's plenty of food. And so may we be a people who fulfill the law of the gospel, the law of gospel love to one another which Paul puts this way in Ephesians 4. Let the thief no longer steal. But let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
May God make us people like that. Let's pray. Father, I would bless you that you are the giving God that you are generous and open-handed and we acknowledge not everybody's circumstances that's saved in this life. You have promised us great, great abundance in the new heavens and new earth.
Thank you that as well you were the God who came as a man and lived poor that we might be rich in Jesus. And I pray that you give us a heart of generosity like that and make us to be responsible in our care of others. In his name I pray. Amen.
Let's stand together.