-Have you noticed how easy it can be to slip in and out of churches today? You have ushers to guide you into your seat in a dark auditorium. The music is so loud you can’t hear anyone singing next to you (which probably is appealing for some of you, right?), but it’s ok, because it’s still so dark that you can’t see if anyone’s sitting there anyway!

-Every age has their own segmented spaces so adults don’t need to be inconvenienced by little ones who have trouble sitting still, teenagers have video games so they don’t get bored listening to a middle-aged man talk for too long.

-But what if that’s not what church is supposed to be or look like? What if church is supposed to be a place where we’re pushed outside our comfort zones, where there are people who don’t look, think, or act like us who are involved in our lives on a daily basis? Paul is going to use some incredibly intimate language in today’s text to point out a different way for the church to treat each other.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

1. Family Members (1-2)

-How do we treat or view each other? For most of us, there will always be people older and younger than you in the church! We’re going to spend most of our time on these first 2 verses today because I think we need to talk about them more, and I would argue that the latter section is actually fairly straight-forward in terms of interpretation, I’m not completely sure how to apply it, but we’ll get there in a bit!

-1^st century relationships were almost the opposite of what we have today, we live in a youth driven culture, 1^st century was elderly driven, where the older you were the more respect you were supposed to be given. 

-I’ve experienced this moving back to MN! I run into my friend’s parents and I still call them Mr. or Mrs., even after they’ve told me to call them by their first name (I didn’t even think adults had first names!) I remember my parents asking me the names of my friend’s parents and I would tell them “Mr. and Mrs.”

-But even that has changed over my life! My kids call adults Ms. Or Mr. first name! 

-Older men: don’t rebuke, instead exhort or encourage him. 

-I’ve felt a shift in my ministry over the last few years, where I’m suddenly not the young guy at these conferences anymore! And I look at these other pastors who I just assume as high schoolers who are attending these conferences with their dads! But this is a tension point, because how do we live this verse out if older men are sinning? Which, let’s be clear, is true of everyone! We’ll continue our fight against sin until the Lord returns or takes us home. So what does this text mean when talking about leadership in the church?

-Don’t be flippant or dismissive towards older men, instead treat them respectfully and honorable, like you would treat your father. Does that mean you never confront sin in their lives? Absolutely not! Unfortunately, growth in holiness can’t be assumed (just a quick reminder, the name for growth in holiness is sanctification).

-Remember from last week the way Paul described our Christian walk: he says we’re to train ourselves in godliness, to labor and strive, practice these things, be committed to them, pay close attention to them, persevere in them. Does that sound easy to you? Friends, God calls us to give our everything in following after Him, to literally lay down our lives for Him! It takes grace-drive, God-enabled effort.

-And it doesn’t matter how old you are, your work isn’t done. Carson quote.

-And friends, you can tell the difference in older age between someone who has (through grace-driven effort) become more holy, and someone who has become more grumpy. Let me caution all of you who are older to not give up pursuing holiness in your life!

-I’ve shared this picture before, but I think it’s worth looking at again, because it’s been a couple years since I shared it. This gets at our whole concept of “One Step Closer” where I’ve had people ask me what those steps are moving towards, and we’ll go from the bottom to the top.

-Domain of darkness: those who aren’t following Christ, and as you can see that domain will continue until Christ returns. But there was a point in history where that realm was defeated, where a new people was formed called “the church” where people from every tribe, tongue, and nation can become new people, brought into the kingdom of the Son.

-Those people have an “L” above them to signify that they’re “Learners” who are learning the way of Jesus, following after Him, and never stopping learning more about Him. Just like in marriage where you never stop learning new things about your spouse, your faith is meant to continually be growing. And there’s various levels of growth that take place, but I would argue that you never remain stagnant, as Carson said. The drift, pull is always backwards. 

-The goal is gathering around the throne and worshipping Jesus perfectly, that’s why we work to daily take 1 step closer to that end. And then as we do that day after day we’ll become more and more like Jesus. And just so it’s clear: no one graduates in this! We all have places and areas in which we need to grow! But in relationships, we’re supposed to speak the truth in love, always looking to help people take steps closer to Jesus in our interactions, including with those older. Now, because we’ve done all this work, the next ones can be quicker!

-Young men: treat them like brothers. I never had brothers growing up, but I have 3 sons, and I’m not sure many of you would appreciate being treated how they treat each other! But there should be a familial connection to those younger.

-Similar to the older men, treat older women like mothers! Respectfully, honoring.

-We need to spend a little more time on the younger women part, because Paul adds something here: treat them like sisters, but with all purity. I want to talk a bit about this one, because I think there’s been some misunderstanding in relation to this.

-Unfortunately, there have been too many accounts of abuse from pastors to younger women in the church, and each one of those breaks God’s heart and defames the name of Jesus in the church. That’s not a new thing, in fact it led Billy Graham (20^th century evangelist) to commit to never being alone with any woman besides his wife, which then was became known as the “Billy Graham rule” and it popped back in up popularity a few years ago because VP Mike Pence also practiced it.

-At first glance, it sounds great! And for someone like Graham, who traveled all over (or Pence) there’s some wisdom to it. The problem is 2-fold. 1 is when everyone viewed this as the golden standard for every Christian leader to follow, because churches generally have more women than men, which means if you follow this rule you would refuse to meet with a majority of the church. 2 is it treats every woman as a temptress. And I hate to break it to most guys, but you’re not that tempting! I thought it was the Christian standard to follow the Billy Graham rule when I was in college, but then I had someone point this text out to me and ask me: would you ignore your sister? Well, no…

-Now, this does require wisdom! It doesn’t say treat them as your wife! There’s a difference between your spouse and your sister, right? We have to understand that we’re more than sexual beings, and the overly sexualization of our culture goes completely contrary to the way of Jesus. Friends, we must work to live in all purity in all our relationships in the church. We must show the world a better way. We even see this with same-sexual friendships! People read about Jonathan and David and assume they were erotic lovers. Or they read letters exchanged between men 200 years ago and assume the same. The problem is we don’t know how to be friends today! It’s ok to love a friend, but it’s a different love than the love I have towards my wife! Are we ok admitting that we need friends? I would argue the best place to find those friends is in the church! It’s people who should be the most understanding of you, acknowledging our common need of God’s grace, and accepting us as the sinners we are.

-Did you know that the surgeon general labeled loneliness one of the biggest epidemics in our country today? Here’s what he said:

-And at the same time, did you know that Harvard released a study. QUOTE. Any guess what the medicine is? Attending church! This is literally life-giving, and I would argue it’s because it provides our true identity, tells us who we are and how we should live and brings us into a new family who is committed to loving and caring for us through thick and thin.

• Care for Widows (3-15)

-I have no clue what to do with this next section! I’ve been wrestling through it all week, because the context is so different from Paul to us. I said earlier that the 1^st century was more focused on the elders (older), but what I didn’t mention is it was also focused on men, so women were only viewed in relation to men: either fathers or husbands. That means that if a woman became a widow, she was essentially destitute. She wasn’t supposed to work, wasn’t supposed to inherit money, was supposed to continue relying on the rest of her family to take care of her. Which means if she didn’t have any family, she had nothing to live for and no one to support her. And into that world comes this new thing called “The church,” which actively looked to help the least of these. In fact, Rodney Stark, a sociologist, argues in his book The Rise of Christianity that the primary reason the church grew so quickly was because it cared for the people no one else did: women, infants and children, and the sick.

-Where I struggle is what do we do with this text in a world of social welfare systems, 401Ks, retirement accounts, and assisted living? There are some principles I think we can take away from this, but we have to admit our world today is very different than the world Paul was writing to!

1. In Your Family (3-8)

-Paul begins with a command to care for widows. This would have been completely revolutionary! There’s some people that try to argue that Paul is attempting to keep women subservient to the men and trying to perpetuate the gender gap that already existed in the culture. I don’t see that just with using this first verse! He’s saying to come alongside and care for them!

-Now there are some caveats given: first being genuinely in need, which means something different to Paul than it would to us! This is why I struggled with what to do with this text, because the rest of this section is all the reasons a woman doesn’t qualify! 

-The first reason a woman wouldn’t qualify for this is if she has living family. This connects to the 10 commandments, where God’s people were commanded to honor their parents. This was true in the 1^stcentury too, but apparently people would look for loopholes where they didn’t need to fulfill their responsibility to their parents. This is what Jesus says in Matt. 15. This is getting to something known as:

-Subsidiarity argues “that social problems should be addressed at the lowest and most local level possible.” (EDT, 675). So if a widow has family, the family should look to care for her.

-Then Paul goes back to the true widow: she’s in need, is all alone, but entrusts herself to God and focuses on praying to Him (petitions is another form of prayer). Hold on to this role that they’re focusing on, because I want to talk about it again in vs. 9. 

-In contrast to a widow who focuses on prayer is someone who is self-indulgent. Some translations emphasize a sexual nature of this, but the primary focus of the word is on material excess, flaunting her wealth. This leads to her looking like she’s spiritually alive (like all these godly widows) but spiritually she’s dead!

-We’ve seen “above reproach” in relation to church leaders previously, so hold on to that thought until vs. 9 too!

-Really briefly, Paul explicitly gives us the idea of subsidiarity here: if someone doesn’t care for their nuclear family, they are worse than an unbeliever. I would argue that what Paul is including here is the new family that we all have – the church family that comes about under God the Father. Think of what Jesus said in Luke 8.

-Paul is saying that the faith that saves us must be a faith that changes how we live. We’re called to work to provide for the needs of our church family, otherwise we’re even worse than those who aren’t following after Jesus!

-An implication of this in our lives is that Christians should work to be the best employees they can possibly be! And they should look to extend that blessing to others! Work hard, live a faithful life, be a faithful witness to God’s plan to reconcile the world to Himself. 

• In Your Church Family (9-15)

-This is the verse we’ve been building up to! And the reason I said to wait is because some people argue that this was an official role in the church: the widows who devoted their time and energy to praying for the church, thus were compensated by the church. This is the minority position (meaning less people believe this to be the case). Most people believe that this was merely a list of women who were widows who qualified for church assistance, committing to remain widows and care for others (12), but not referring to an additional office to elders and deacons.

-But Paul’s expectations sound similar to church offices, don’t they? Age limit, faithful in her marriage, and faithful in good works. 60 would be past the age of being able to work and provide for herself. The good works listed are interesting:

-Brought up children: not only has she been a faithful wife (assuming she was married) if she had children, she was faithful in raising them. It doesn’t say she must have children, but the normal ordering is marriage to children (infertility)

-Shown hospitality: she was willing to share with others out of her abundance.

-Washed: just as Jesus did on the night He died, this designates that the widow is someone who was willing to be a faithful servant to the church

-helped the afflicted: helps the marginalized, even more marginalized than she was!

-devoted to good work: intentionally looking for ways and opportunities to be a blessing to everyone she comes into contact with.

-In contrast with this, Paul goes back to those who should not be put on this list: younger women who have become widows because they’ll want to re-marry. And the desire for marriage is a good thing! But if they had promised to focus their attention and energies on the church, and then renounce that promise to pursue marriage they’ll be forced to go back on their word to focus their energies on praying for the church.

-And those who are younger have too much energy! He says they’re idle, wasting the days away. AND they’re gossips and busybodies, women who are spreading stories around to places they shouldn’t be, stirring up division in the church.

-And friends, this isn’t just an issue for women! This is just as true of the rest of us! Anytime you’re tempted to complain about someone else when they’re not in the room you’re turning to gossip. The Bible commands us to not do that, but it says if we have a problem with someone, we’re required to go to them.

-And the reason for this, Paul says, is for our witness to the world. We look to be faithful in our homes because our homes are outposts of God’s kingdom. Our families are supposed to represent a new way of living where we live as if Jesus is actually the King (because He is!). Friends, your Christian witness starts with the way you treat your family, both your nuclear family and your church family!

-And the church is called to actually care for widows who have legitimate need. What does that look like? That’s where I’m not completely sure! I asked a pastor/friend about this yesterday, and he said they have a list that the Deacons hold on to so that if a widow asks for help the church bends over backwards to come alongside and help. That sounds like a reasonable application point from this text to me! But we haven’t done that before, which is something for us to pray for together! We haven’t even had Deacons in the past, so add widow care to the list of things we need to do! But I’ll end with some things for us to think and pray about as a church family.

-First: do you honor your mother and father? Honoring doesn’t mean just going along with whatever they want, especially if there’s painful things you need to work through. At the minimum, even if the relationship is strained or hurtful, you can pray!

-Second: do you honor your church family? Are you willing to prioritize your siblings and parents in the church, or do you try to just sneak in and out as fast as you can?

-Third: how do you show that honor? What does it look like for you to show honor, and would others in the church see that?