Two things in this passage:
1. Church Relationships - Interactions
2. Obligations to one another & to Widows
There are any ideas the Bible uses to describe the church:
Holy Nation - we’re fellow citizens
Kingdom - we serve the same King
Priesthood - we are ministers of His grace
Vine - emphasizes the vital connection to
Christ and to one another.
Temple - we owe Him our worship
Body - dependence on one another.
Differences in role, purpose, function
Assembly - we gather. The distinct “together”
Flock - we need to be led and fed
Finally:
1. Family
Verses 1-2
• describes how we are to relate to each other
• how we confront/exhort one another
• what our interactions should look like…
There’s a Connection between Matthew 18 & 1 Timothy 5
The goal of show him his fault is to win your brother is to deepen the relationship.
It’s a discipleship and spiritual growth issue.
How we treat and care for one another
The Church is a Family
This passage helps us to answer that and to grow in our understanding.
Treat one another as family:
• Older men: fathers
• Treat them with respect - honor them
• Look up to them - lean into their wisdom
• Seek their advice - learn from them
• Older women: mothers
• How you know you should treat your mom
• How you want someone else to treat her
• How you should treat all the older women
• Proverbs stresses over and over that we
should honor our mothers & fathers.
Listen to them and learn from them.
• Younger men: brothers
• You’re peers, equals, not superior
• Younger women: sisters
• in all purity
• Protect them
• protect their honor
• Stay pure
The Cross creates US – the church
Ephesians 1:3-14 - one of the most gospel-rich passages in the Bible lays out the US alongside much rich gospel truth:
• Jesus blessed US with every spiritual blessing
• by predestining US to adoption as sons
• WE have redemption
• forgiveness of OUR transgressions
• His grace abounds to US
• in Him WE have an inheritance
The church is a family.
We have a task, a purpose, a mission
We’re all in this together.
We pursue this goal together.
One of the things a family does is care for one another.
2. Caring for & Serving Widows
While the church is a family and we are to think of one another as brother and sister, there is still a distinction between the church family and the family family. The household.
God very much cares about women - especially widows.
Psalm 146:9 – Yahweh keeps the sojourners;
He helps up the orphan and the widow,
Psalm 68:6 – A father of the fatherless and a judge (protector) for the widows,
The first line of resource is the family.
Whether that’s a husband who made sure his wife was taken care of after he’s gone, or children/grandchildren who take a widow in.
This is so obvious to everyone, even unbelievers, that if you won’t do this - you’re worse than an unbelieving pagan. WOW!
There’s a very clear principle:
Take care of your family.
Verses 9-15 - “The List”
God has called every one of us to a specific ministry in the church.
This “list” in verse 9 is more about the list of widows that have the great joy and privilege of being prayer warriors for their church.
John Calvin says of these widows, who give great strength to their church: prayer by day and night is the special privilege of widows and the childless, for they are free from the things that very properly hinder those who rule a family from doing the same.
We all need to stop and think here.
What is my situation?
What kind of resources do you have?
How am I investing them for the Kingdom?
Everyone has different:
time
bandwith
focus
money
skills
energy level
abilities
passions/intereste/hobbies
etc.
Use them to maximum effort and invest them in the kingdom of God.
Rather than squandering them,
Verses 12 – thus incurring condemnation…
There’s a downward trend when not pursuing knowing God and making Him known in, with, and through everything God has blessed you with.
verse 16 – If any believing woman has widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed.
Two clear principles:
1. If family can help - the family must help
it’s the command of the Lord
There’s no “out” here
2. Husbands - your wife’s family is your family
Her mother is your mother
Her grandmother is your grandmother
THE BOTTOM LINE FOR EVERYONE
We need to live in such a way -
both in our household,
and as a church family
that anyone who observes anything we do:
~from the Sunday morning worship gathering down to a meeting of a couple of members over coffee ~
Looks at that and says: What’s the deal? What’s going on here? ow is it y’all so clearly love one another so much? Loving, serving, and honoring one another?
And we can reply: It’s The Gospel of Jesus Christ. It saves us, transforms us, and brings us together - Making a group of rag-tag humans into brothers & sisters who are all children of the King. We have the same Father.
You too can step into this family we call our church. How can you do that? By turning from your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ alone.
What does that mean? Here’s the answer in one minute - 164 words:
The one and only God, creator of everything, who is holy, made us in His image to Know Him and glorify Him.
But we sinned, we rebelled. We did our own thing and cut ourselves off from Him. There’s nothing we could ever do or would ever do to earn our way back to Him or even begin to fix the problem.
BUT – In His great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn to and believe in Him. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us has been satisfied.
He now calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness.
If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God.
And THAT is good news!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor Rob
