Relationships in the Family of God, Pt. II: Honoring Widows

 

Relationships in the Family of God Pt. II

Honoring Widows

 

 

For our guests, we are going through the book of 1Timothy. Paul spends quite a bit of time in this letter addressing the issue of widows in need and how the church is to minister to this specific group of people in the church. In fact he spends more time addressing this group of people - widows - than any other single group. This probably indicates that there were a lot of widows in the Ephesian church where Timothy was pastoring - it was a hot issue Timothy was facing.

 

We don't have a lot of widows in the church, but we will find that there are truths and principles in this passage that will help guide us in how we are to serve, not only widows, but the needy in our midst. So let's pray, let's read, and let's jump right in.

 

1Timothy 5:3-16

 

I.                   The church is to reflect the compassion of God for the needy

 

The fact that Paul takes so much space reflects God's heart for the needy. In ancient days, there were few people more needy and helpless than widows and orphans. They had little protection and few to no resources for their support, and were desperately dependent on the charity and care of others for their survival. Few in their society would be considered weaker than widows and orphans.

 

The evolutionary concept described by Charles Darwin as "natural selection" and later phrased as survival of the fittest, would influence men like Hitler to believe that weakness was an evil to be exterminated for the good of society.

A 1937 Nazi propaganda film, Victim of the Past, showed a disfigured handicapped person and declared:

‘Everything in the natural world that is weak for life will [unavoidably] be destroyed. In the last few decades, mankind has sinned terribly against the law of natural selection. We haven't just maintained life unworthy of life, we have even allowed it to multiply! The descendants of these sick people look like this!'

The Bible paints a very different picture of God than Darwin and Hitler paint of Mother Nature. One of the most wonderful revelations in the Bible about God is that He is a compassionate God who cares for the weak and needy. He has compassion for the needy - his heart is moved by their need and suffering, especially the orphan and widow:

 

Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. Psalm 68:5 (ESV)  

 

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:27  

 

Pure religion is to reflect that compassion. The church is to reflect the compassion of God for the needy by becoming the family that the orphan and widow need - protect and provide for them.

 

Before we move on to look at what that compassion is to look like, I want to remind us of how grateful we should all be that God is a compassionate God toward the weak and needy, because we are all weak and needy. When it comes to God and our eternal destiny, no one is strong, no one is fit. We are sinners in desperate need of mercy - and that is what we find at the cross. Cross is the pinnacle of God's compassion on the weak and unfit.

 

Jesus became weak on the cross - suffering and dying in our place so that we might receive mercy. Every Christian is the recipient of amazing compassion and mercy. And the church's greatest expression of compassion is to share the gospel with others, for the forgiveness and reconciliation with God that is possible only through the cross is everyone's greatest need.

 

A friend, Tim Kerr, who pastors a Sovereign Grace church in Toronto was telling me about his evangelist grandfather's last words to him. He had led many to the Lord over the years of his ministry, and appropriately his last words to Tim were: "don't forget to love souls." Evangelism is compassion.

 

God is a compassionate God and the church is to reflect His compassion to needy, including widows. What does that look like? This passage gives us important components:

 

II.                Christian compassion is charitable to the truly needy

 

Honor widows who are truly widows...

 

Probably means financial support, just as a few verses later honoring elders will include paying them appropriate wages for their work. Honor by financial remuneration. Verse 9 - let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age - seems to indicate there was a list for widows who had no other means of support to enroll on whereby the church became their family and source of support.

 

A component of Christian compassion is charity - to give to the needy.

If thou art rich, then show the greatness of thy fortune; or what is better, the greatness of thy soul...support the distressed, and patronize the neglected.  Be great; but let it be in considering riches as they are, as talents committed to an earthen vessel.  Thou art but the receiver. ~ Laurence Stern.

This provokes us to remember that we are to be a generous people - ready to be great in giving. We live in a day when there are abuses of charitable giving and much wisdom needs to be shown. Any church has limited resources and needs to be good stewards about how and where to dispense them. But we also need to watch our hearts - don't become jaded and closed to genuine need. May we remember to be generous to the needy.

 

III.             Christian compassion teaches personal and family responsibility to the needy

 

I am purposely not distinguishing between compassion and teaching people to take responsibility because I don't think they are two separate things. True compassion will always call people to take responsibility.

 

Paul essentially says if there is any other means for someone to provide for themselves, or if there are any family members available to provide then they are to do that. In fact, Paul goes so far as to say in verse 8

 

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.

He also counsels a young widow - rather than put her name on a list which is a vow to remain unmarried and serve the church, while receiving her support from the church, and possibly be tempted to later abandon such a vow, as well as be tempted to waste away the days in gossip and busy bodying, she should remarry and carry on in a productive and hardworking manner.

 

In other words, compassion doesn't even remotely resemble entitlement mentality.

 

I have learned firsthand the ineffectiveness of giving handouts to people who call the church looking for help without ascertaining their need and calling them to take responsibility. Any true help will begin there.

 

I have many stories, but several years ago I got a call from a single mother who asked for groceries for her child. We want to be compassionate so I went out and bought a bunch of stuff and ran it over to where they were staying. Her live in boy-friend greeted me at the door, profusely thankful for our help - even interrupting his favorite afternoon TV show to quickly help me carry in the bags. I was enabling them to live in a place of irresponsibility and perpetuate the entitlement mentality.

 

The OT method for helping the poor was ingenious. God commanded the Israelite farmers to care for the poor by leaving what was called the gleanings behind. Here is the Lord's command in Leviticus 23:22 (ESV):

 

"And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God."

 

In other words, the farmer was to deliberately leave some behind for the poor. But this was no handout - the poor then had to work to gather the gleanings. It promoted charity for the poor and preserved the dignity and work ethic of the poor at the same time!

 

Christian compassion must always include a strong call to personal responsibility. When someone is truly unable to help themselves, then the church must stand ready to provide all that it can to support and care for them.

 

IV.              Christian compassion expects the needy to contribute through good works

 

One more component to Christian compassion before we close this subject. It might surprise us, but Paul insists that the needy the church help be those who are contributing to the church's mission through good works. Glimpses:

 

She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God (faith) and continues in supplications and prayers night and day...(vs 5)

 

...and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

 

Good works bookends this description. It is a picture of a woman who is about good works - she prays and serves and cares for others more needy and opens her house and heart to others. It is an others-minded character that is the opposite of what he describes in verse 6, "she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives."

 

The woman (or man) who lives to indulge their own pleasures and desires is dead even if they're still eating and walking and sucking air. This mindset isn't limited to the wealthy. The poor can also live for the moment - rather than serve the kingdom of Jesus Christ they serve their own appetites of the moment. Dead even while they live. Church should not support that lifestyle.

 

For Paul, life wasn't about eating and drinking and feeling fulfilled. Life is a mission, not a meal. Shared in message on contentment these words:

 

Paul didn't look at life as a 70-year meal at a long table where object was to satisfy longings and desires and to get up full. That is not how he viewed life or defined contentment. He looked at life as a 70 year mission where he was called to serve God, Jesus Christ, and the advance of the gospel...

 

True of the truly needy widow. She has set her hope on God and she is doing what she can to advance the Kingdom of Christ and serve the Lord.

 

¨       Maybe she can only pray - that is hard and precious work!

¨       Care for others - counsel, comfort, care to those in need around her.

 

Almost nobody is unable to contribute in some way. Almost nobody can only be a consumer and not a contributor. This is not some selfish, self-serving way for the church to exploit the needy - this is what compassion looks like. Compassion steers us in a very different path than sentimentality does. It calls people higher - its goal is to help people live productive, healthy, God-honoring lives. It is not interested in accommodating self-indulgent lives.

 

The church should not be burdened with those who live that way.

 

Elizabeth Fry. Although not a widow, she was taken to London's Newgate Prison in 1813 and saw the deplorable conditions these women and their young children.

 

Three hundred women, with their young children, were shut up together in four rooms, without sufficient clothing, absolutely without any beds but the floor, in the cold winter, with no one to guide or control them, and with nothing to do...

 

For the next 30 years Elizabeth devoted her life to sharing the gospel with these women and seeing their conditions changed. She sewed woolen garments for them to wear, she brought in needlework for them to occupy their time, she gathered them twice a day for Bible readings. Within a short time the atmosphere of the prison was completely changed.

 

¨       Provokes all of us to consider: do I have a consumer mentality or a contributor mentality? Am I seeing my life as opportunity to do good works?

 

¨       Corporate prayer: help us to have compassion and truly help those who are truly in need.

 

¨       Open mike for a few minutes - if you feel led to pray, come down and pray. Close in prayer.