Honor Widows Who Are Widows Indeed #2

So last week we started our study in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verses 3 to 16. It's a big section. It's concerning widows. It's a fairly long passage. It has to do with how widows are supposed to be treated in the church, how they're supposed to be thought of. And I almost said last week, but I think I'll just say this week, that the second half of 1 Timothy is really about practical Christian living in the church. I found that over the last couple of weeks I'm not spending a whole lot of time talking about... Jesus Christ and his death and the mercy that God had for us when he sent his son into the world. And I've wondered, like, am I missing something? Am I not doing what I should be doing? And yet, I'm talking to you and preaching to you about the things that Paul's written to Timothy and tells Timothy, these are the things you need to know about how to conduct yourself and how to live life as a Christian minister and how the church ought to function. And so I don't think that we're missing anything by not always talking about the life of Jesus Christ.

I think there's many other things in Scripture that flow out of his life and his death and his resurrection that are essential for us to know and to understand so that we're fruitful and we give God glory in every season of life, in every area, in every circumstance that we face. And so this week, last week, this week, and the next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about widows. Last week we learned that widows do need to be taken care of, and we really just, the whole point of last week's sermon was to say the responsibility of taking care of widows, falls first to their family, not to the church. Though the church is there to step in when there are widows who, as Paul describes in this passage, he says there's widows and then there's widows indeed. And we're going to talk about what it means to be a widow indeed today. But we saw that widows actually need care and that it's our job as children or grandchildren to make a return to them, to prioritize our life in such a way that when our parents or our grandparents need care,

that we wouldn't just go, that's not my job. They were supposed to save money their whole lives so that they wouldn't be a burden to me. That's not what Scripture teaches us about the care and the honor of our parents' widows in their old age. And so it's something we need to prepare for. It's something we need to prioritize. And it's something we'll need to work through because there's all kinds of particulars to the circumstances that you find a widow to be in. And we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Before we read our text, I want us simply to see that...

Our parents spent many, many years loving for us, loving us, caring for us, sacrificing for us. Some of you just had little ones and you're just starting to learn. Or you will have little ones and you're going to start to learn. You're going to get an education in the mercy and the kindness of God because you're going to become a parent and you're going to see the work and you're going to spend the next few decades of your life doing it. And it's your privilege to do it for your children. And so we, as children, having had... all of us having had parents who've done this work for us, owe it to them to repay that debt. And that's what it means to take care of our parents in their old age. They've taken care of us for probably close to 20 years. And I'd venture to say that most of us won't spend 20 years of our life taking care of our elderly parents. Not to the extent that they've taken care of us. And so it's something we ought to be eager to do as the Lord provides us opportunity to do it. This was last week.

This week we're going to be continuing our study in this passage, and we're going to focus mainly on what I'm going to call the qualifications of a widow to be put on the list. And I'll explain what the list is and what I mean by qualifications. But first I want to read to you this passage that we're going to be studying. Would you please stand for the reading, for the word of the Lord? 1 Timothy chapter 5, verses 3 to 16. It says, Honor widows who are widows indeed. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, They must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make a return, some return to their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of God. Now she who is a widow indeed and has been left alone has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day. But she who gives herself to want and pleasure is dead even while she lives. Prescribe these things as well, so that they may be above reproach. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith.

and is worse than an unbeliever. A widow is to be put on the list only if she is not less than 60 years old, having been the wife of one woman, having a reputation for good works, and if she has brought up children, if she has shown hospitality to strangers, if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has assisted those in distress, and if she has devoted herself to every good work. But refuse to put younger widows on the list, for when they feel sensual desires in disregard of Christ, they want to get married. thus incurring condemnation because they have set aside their previous pledge. At the same time, they also learn to be idle as they go around from house to house, and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention. Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach, for some have already turned aside to follow Satan. If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, she must assist them, and the church must not be burdened.

so that it may assist those who are widows indeed. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. There are some things that I can't deal with. I can deal with crying babies and lots of things in the congregation, but I cannot deal with my shoe being untied while I preach. So what is a widow indeed? Well, we'll start off with what is a widow? A widow is a woman whose husband has died. Now, they could be young, they could be old, there could be all kinds of circumstances that attend a woman's husband dying. Most of the time when we think about widows, though, we think of their husband having died after many, many years, decades of marriage, and they're old. We think of widows as being older women. And we see in our passage that Paul acknowledges that some women are widows when they're young. What is that? Do you know what that is? It's not me. Okay. All right. Another thing I can't get over, as you were.

So what is a widow? Well, typically I think if I were to ask you what is a widow, you'd say, well, it's a woman whose husband's died. But you'd be thinking, the picture in your mind would be of an older woman who's been married for a number of years. And that often is the case. But sometimes women are younger when they're widowed. I know a couple of women my wife and I have known who were, one of them I think was married less than a year and then her husband died. Actually, two of them. Maybe one of them was a little more than a year. But both of these women were widows in their 20s. They hadn't even had a chance to have children yet.

It's a very difficult situation. And so what does Paul say to the young widows? Well, he says that basically they ought to remarry. And we're going to talk about that not this week, but probably next week. I want to talk about younger widows and his instruction that they would remarry because I think that's something that's kind of gnarly to us. And so I want to work through that, but we're not going to do that today. Just know for now that with a young widow, Paul's general counsel is that they ought to get remarried, that they ought to have kids, and they ought to keep house and become a wife again.

and a mother. Sometimes a widow might be an older woman who's well taken care of. She and her husband have the ability for her to carry on living on her own for a time. She can take care of herself. And she might be a widow, but she's not in need of coming into our house or us having us care for her, at least not yet. But oftentimes when we think of widows, and really the widows that Paul's dealing with in this passage, are widows that we would think of as being old and destitute. Those who have no means or no ability to provide for themselves. When their husband passed away, they went, what am I going to do now? How am I going to live? Where am I going to live? How am I going to eat? A woman who doesn't have the means to provide for herself. And this is the hardest situation that you can find. And so this is the one that consequently Paul's dealing with. And he says to children, women, your parents, when they're in these situations, these are the parents that you ought to make a return to, you ought to provide for and care for. Because they can't care for themselves.

So how does that happen? Well, practically, there's a couple of things that we can do, even be doing now. For those of us who are anticipating that day, you ought to have life insurance, right? Really practical. You ought to have life insurance so that you're provided for. If you're having parents that are getting older, you ought to be thinking about your house and whether or not there's a place they can stay. What will we do? I know that I was talking with Daniel after the sermon last week, and he says, you know, me and my family, we were talking about what we would do if we needed to bring someone into our house. And so he's going, we just started thinking about what would it mean? We have a desire to take care of our parents if we need to, but what would it actually look like in our family? And that's a good conversation to have. It's something that we ought to be thinking about and talking about even before the circumstance comes. Because oftentimes when a widow...

needs care, it's not the sort of thing that builds for months and years. You may know that it's coming, but it happens at a very particular time. There's some sort of health emergency, and all of a sudden, mom can no longer live on her own, and now what are we going to do? Well, if there hasn't been work done ahead of that day, you're not going to be in a position to respond when that time comes. And so what should a family do for a widow, a woman in their family, or a father who's old and destitute? You can do all kinds of things. You could bring them into your home. You could help pay their expenses. There's all kinds of things that you can do to help support them. But the point is, with an old woman who's destitute and can't take care of herself, her children's responsibility is to step in to that situation and to help her. Now, that's what we talked about last week, and so I'm not going to preach that sermon again. What I want to do now is go a little further and say, what does this assume about widows? Well, it assumes that they have children first, right?

Which seems like, you know, duh, right? She's old, she's got children. But you realize that people my age, I'm 38, aren't having kids. And I talk to them. I have friends, you know, they're my age. And on more than one occasion, I've had people tell me, and I've told you guys this before, they'll say to me, I'm glad you're having children so that I don't have to. This is, you know, they're not Christians. And this is what they think and this is what they say. They go, I want to live my life. I want to have fun. I want to enjoy myself. I want to spend my money on the things that I want to spend my money on. This is what one young man told me. He and his wife have been married for a number of years and they just don't ever plan to have kids. He's like, we really like to travel. We really like to go do stuff. And kids get in the way of that. And so I'm glad you have kids and the population will be taken care of because of you making those sacrifices. Really what you're doing is freeing me up so that I don't have to.

Now, I might want to get upset. You might want to be like, well, that's a terrible, awful, no good, very bad thing to say. But really what I thought was, what are you going to do when you're old? Forget being a widow and needing to be taken care of. Where are you going to go at Christmas? By the time you're old, you're going to have gone everywhere. There's not going to be some new cool place you want to go when you're 70 that's going to be as sweet and warm to you as your children's house. You're never going to get to hold your grandchildren because you don't want to make the sacrifice now. So one of the ways we can prepare ourselves as we look forward, knowing that at some time we're all going to get old and most likely are going to need to be taken care of, we ought to have it in our minds that that's part of what our children are for. And that's kind of a gnarly thing to say in America because, as I said last week, there's this idea that parents...

Have conspired together with their children to never be dependent on each other that the children don't want to take care of their parents and They largely they learned that from their parents saying we don't ever want you to take care of us We don't want to be a burden to you and I say that's normal and it's not Christian It's humbling to have to have someone take care of you It really really is and I think it's harder for an older person than for a younger person because they've spent their whole life being able to take care of themselves and provide for others and to serve and to sacrifice. And when they come to the end of life, and now they need to be cared for, it's not an attractive thing. I've not met many older people who jump at the idea of being told they shouldn't drive anymore. They don't like it. And so what we want to do is help those in our lives who are older to handle the deterioration of their body and mind with grace, because it's very difficult for them.

We also ought to recognize that we're looking at ourselves in the future. And we ought to be preparing our own hearts and minds for the day when we're going to need to be cared for in those ways. And one of the ways that we prepare for those days is to have children. Paul assumes in our passage that the widows have children. And I realize that there are some women who are unable to have children who are barren. And I also realize that there are women who get to old age and need to be taken care of who were never married. But the vast majority of us want to or will get married, and the vast majority of those who get married do have children, those who desire them. In one way or another, through normal means or through adoption, or through simply loving the neighborhood kids or the church kids, they end up with children. How many of you could say, when I was a child,

You had your mom and your dad, but there was some other person who loved you and cared for you. They sort of took you under their wing and they were a parent to you. They were a mother, they were a father. What I'd say to you then is you have obligation to them who have loved and sacrificed for you to take care of them. It may be that they've taken care of you in those ways because they didn't have children of their own. But in the Lord, you became their child. So you're to honor them when they need to be cared for. And so a widow, we hope and we pray in some way or another.

will have children in her life, whether they're hers biologically or whether she's adopted them or whether she's spent her life loving and serving other people's children and the children of the church in the neighborhood. There's no woman who can't be a mother and have the love and the care and the affection of children in her old age to minister to her and to love her and care for her. And so when Paul assumes that these widows have children, I don't want us just to... Just to think of the exceptions and go, well, what about the women who don't have children? Or what about the woman who never gets married? Even those women, if they're godly and if they give themselves to serving Jesus Christ and to loving his people, they will have children. And those children will have affection for them. And those children will need to step in when the time comes that their mother needs care. So what is a widow indeed?

This is the question. So far we've just determined what a widow is. A widow can be young, she can be old, she can be wealthy, she can be poor. In any of those situations, her children, biological or otherwise, have a responsibility to care for her. Why? So that the church isn't burdened with caring for women who the family should be taking care of. Now, what's a widow indeed? Well, a widow indeed is the sort of woman who... doesn't have everybody. If you were to look in verse 5, it says, now she is a widow indeed who has been left alone. And by left alone, it means that she has no one to care for her. There are no children. There is no safety net in her life. There are no people. But it's not that there are no people who can do it. I think largely here, Paul's talking about that she has no people who are willing to do it. Because in just a few verses, he says that he who doesn't provide for his household, for his family, and especially those of his own household, has denied the faith.

and is worse than an unbeliever. Now, what is he doing? But appealing to the children who won't take care of their parents. He's shaming them. If you've ever wondered if scripture uses shame, Paul's using it right here. He's shaming children to say, you should take care of your parents. They've loved you and cared for you and you have an obligation to them and to the Lord. And if you won't do it, don't call yourself a Christian because for you to neglect this work is to deny the faith. It's to renounce Jesus Christ. That's how important it is for children to do this work. And nevertheless, even with that warning, there will be those who neglect the work and who say, no, I'm not going to do it. Not that I can't do it. I won't do it. I'm afraid to do it. It's too much work. It's too hard. We don't have the room. We're multiplying reasons for why we can't do the work.

I was talking with Luis earlier today and he said, you know, I really, I don't like it when people lie about why they don't do things. I like it when they just tell the truth. And they just say, I didn't do that because it wasn't important to me. Because at least then you're dealing with honesty. It's wicked, it's wrong. But when they're like, well, you know, we're busy and we don't have the money or the space or the time. It's not the truth. It's not the truth. You and I are motivated by things that are important to us, and we order our lives around what's important to us. And when something cuts across the grain of our priorities and says, if you want to be able to have this life and this sort of comfort or this sort of experience, you can't do this other thing over here. You can't take care of your mother. We make all kinds of excuses for why we can't. But which one of us couldn't give something, something significant for our mothers, if they needed the care? If the widow...

that Jesus commends, takes her last mite, and she puts it into, and she offers all that she had in faith to the Lord, a great sacrifice for her. And Jesus commends her, saying that she's given more than anyone else. Which one of us can say, we have nothing to give to our mothers and to our parents, to the widows around us when they're in need? My point in saying all of this is, we have an obligation, not... primarily as a church but as individuals to make sure that there are not widows indeed who are left alone with no one to care for them. That's our job. First our own parents and then to those who are around us that have loved us and then to those who are around us that we have opportunity to love. Our responsibility as Christians is to demonstrate our faith by caring for those who are not able to care for themselves. As I said last week I'll say again James says

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, that you visit orphans and widows in their distress and that you keep yourself unstained from the world. This is tier one important stuff for Christians to take care of their widows and to not be looking for places and opportunities and ways to explain away their responsibility in this regard. We ought to be looking for ways to care for those who can't care for themselves, the young and the old alike. I think a lot of children look forward to a time when they're not... The responsibility to do what their parents say and to be burdened with either their parents' requirements. I think every child has this thing. I can't wait until my parents don't tell me what to do anymore. Some of us were vocal about it. Some of us spent our lives acting out our rebellion and saying, I don't want to be told what to do. Some of us just thought it. We just thought, I just don't want to be told what to do. I want to be free. I want to make my own bedtime.

I want to eat ice cream for breakfast or whatever the silly thing is that really upset you as a child. But I think all of us have in our hearts this desire to be free of burdens and responsibilities. And so when this passage comes to us, it says, no, it's going to resurface at the end of your parents' life, and it's going to be potentially quite significant. You're going to bring them into your house, and you don't know for how long. You're going to care for them. It's going to cost you money and time. You're not going to be free of this. And so even as young children, You have opportunity to be working in your hearts to cultivate a desire and a willingness to serve your parents and to love them. And so if you're a young kid and you're going, I can't wait till I can do what I want. Just know that you're going to reap what you sow. And if those are the seeds you sow, when your parents are old and need you, it's going to be even harder for you to do it. And so if you want to honor God and you want to take care of your parents, know that even as a child, a young child,

You have opportunity to be strengthening those muscles of faith by loving your parents and caring for them now. So a widow indeed is a woman who has no one who is able or willing to take care of her. Now this talks about, so far I've talked all about her life circumstances. What is the life circumstance of a widow? She can be young, she can be old, she can have family, she can have no family, she can have money, she can not have money. They could take care of her, they could not. These are all just the life circumstances. We can observe those and see what's going on. So what is the church supposed to do if a woman is a widow indeed? Are they supposed to just take her in? Well, actually, no. Most of the passage talks about this woman's character. Very similarly to the way that Paul, just a few chapters before, talks about the character of pastors and elders and deacons. There's quite a long list here of what this woman is supposed to be like.

To be put on the list, as Paul calls it. And the list in this passage refers to a list of women whom the church provides for financially, takes care of, that the deacons check in with and make sure that whatever, you know, whether she lives by herself or in a nursing home or wherever it is that she lives, whatever the accommodations are, that the deacons, those who are the ministers of God's mercy, through the church, that they keep up with these women and make sure that they have the things they need. They have their rides, they have their foods, they have their medicine, they have clothing, and all of this, whatever they need, they're seen to it. These women would go on a list. So what does it take to be put on the list? Well, it says here that she who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day. So a widow isn't just a woman who...

has lost her husband and has no one to care for her, this woman is supposed to be godly. If the church is going to care for her, she actually needs to be godly. And I realize that in saying this, I'm treading out on thin ice. Because none of us are godly the way we should be. And what child wouldn't say of their parents, they failed. They didn't do what they should have done. I wish they would have done this differently. I know some of you have parents that you wouldn't say that of, and I praise God for you. But many of us don't have parents that we can commend and say, they did a great job. And so what do we say about it? What are we supposed to do about it? What can we say of the woman? Well, here Paul says that she needs to be godly. She needs to have fixed her hope on God. She needs to be continuing in entreaties and prayers day and night. Now here's something that we ought to note about widows. An older woman, what is she able to do? How is she able to serve?

Is she good for anything? She can't take care of herself. She needs other people to take care of her. What can she do? Well, here Paul tells us what she can do. She can pray. And she ought to pray. That's one of the sweet things about older women who can't do much else with their lives anymore because their bodies are failing them. They're still able to pray. And so Paul here holds up for them their work. You ought to be women of prayer. That's something you can do. A poor woman can pray. An old woman can pray. A woman whose hands are gnarled up. A woman who can't walk. A woman who can't see. She can pray. And that's what Paul holds up for her as good work for her to do. Something we ought to look for in her. Now I want to ask you a question. What do you do if the woman doesn't pray? What if you were to look and say, we have a widow. No one's willing to take care of her. And she doesn't quite fit this description. What do you say to her? Sorry you didn't pass the test. You're on your own.

None of us want to say that's the right answer, right? Well, what are you supposed to say then? Try harder. Come back in six months? No. How about we work with her and how about we minister to her and how about we help her become those things? Just like you and I need. How about we help her become godly? Because she still needs someone to care for her soul, even in her old age. And so she's not everything she should be, and yet she needs care. We ought to minister to her, not just her physical needs. but her spiritual needs. Nevertheless, we're supposed to look and see, is this woman godly? What has she spent her life doing? What are her priorities? What have they been? Because even though she's old and her body may be failing, she may not be able to take care of herself. She's still here because God wants her to be here. And that means she still has work to do and she still can bear fruit for him. And so our job is to help her bear that fruit in her old age, asking her to pray because it's something she can do.

And really, if you think about this whole list of what Paul's saying for widows, it's really nothing new. As we go through it, you're going to see this is really just basic piety for Christian women. It's not specific to widows. It's just saying, by the end of her life, when she's older and needing care, we ought to be able to look back over her life and see the testimony of her Christian faith. It should be evident. What else will you see when you look back over the testimony of her life? Well, inevitably, you're going to see all kinds of sin. Should we be surprised by that? Not any more so than when you're looking at a man to become an elder and you go, oh, he's a sinner? And I say, yeah, he's a sinner. Does he possess those things, those gifts and those qualities? Are they growing? Is he fighting against this sin? Is he seeking to serve God? You make a judgment.

And oftentimes with elders, what we would say is, this is a particular area of concern with you, and we want to see you work on it. Why not do the same thing with a widow? We ought not to treat the old and the infirm in our midst, in our families, as though they have no usefulness, as though they have no place. We need to love and care for them, just the same as we would someone who is young and able-bodied, who's productive, as we would quantify it. In fact, I would say to the churches that would refuse a widow care, I would say to them what Paul says here to the family members, that you've denied the faith. A church that would not take care of a widow has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever because even an unbeliever will take care of an old woman in need. And if the church won't do that, then it's not a church and the people there aren't Christians. That's how important this work is and I want us to see that.

So what do you do with an older woman who actually the testimony of her life is anything but godly? Paul says, the woman who gives herself to wanton pleasure, the woman who does what she wants and doesn't have any concern for righteousness and doesn't have any interest in serving God. It doesn't mean she's perfect. It doesn't mean she's never sinned, right? It just means she doesn't have any interest in this stuff. Paul says, it's a sad state of affairs because she's dead even while she lives. It's a sad state of affairs. It would be very sad to have our mother. come to a place in her life where while her body's still alive, her soul is dead. There's no spiritual life in her. Does he say that she shouldn't be taken care of? No. But he tells us it's very sad for her and her soul's in a dangerous place because she's dead even as she lives because she's not given herself to love of God. She's not demonstrated faith in her life. But he doesn't say she shouldn't be taken care of by her family.

It could come that the church might decide that they are not able to take care of a woman because of her apparent ungodliness and interest in the things of God. Like she could come to church but refuses to. But I often find that the sort of woman that would be so angry at Christians caring for her wouldn't be asking for help in the first place. Or wouldn't be coming to the church for the help. And so caring for a widow... takes wisdom and it takes discernment. This is one of the things that deacons do. They have to make judgments about these sorts of things. They have to bear with behind the scenes caring for those, caring for us in ways that most of us don't know about. And their work extends even to widows. Their job is to care for her soul, to make sure that her physical needs are met. Now, what does a widow's godliness look like? Or how does a widow make it onto the list? We've already said that she doesn't have to be perfect as well as saying it's...

You know, it's nothing new for a woman. It's just that she would have a lifetime of godliness in her rearview mirror. Paul says a widow first should be put on the list if she's not less than 60 years old. Well, he's saying don't put young women on the list. Why? Well, practically because they can get remarried and someone else can take care of them. Paul's whole goal in this passage is very clear and he states it explicitly at the bottom. It's so that the church would not be burdened with anybody who can be taken care of by their family. And so to the woman who's widowed early on, Paul's instruction is, you can still get a family. So go get one. Pray for one. Seek one out. Trust the Lord to provide one. That's his counsel to the younger women. And he says to Timothy and to the church, don't put them on the list. Don't take on their care because they're young and they're still able to remarry and to have children and to have somebody else come up and take care of them.

What else does Paul say? That she ought to be the wife of one man. Well, what's that mean? Does it mean that single women are out of luck? No, it means the same thing that it does when it says the elders have to be the husband of one wife. It means that they're faithful, that they're not unlawfully divorced, that they're not an adulterer. And there's no way to get around how gnarly that is. I remember one time I was, it was a young couple, they wanted to get married. and they weren't Christians, and they asked me if I would marry them. Well, I wasn't ordained yet, so I couldn't marry them, but I did preach at their wedding. We sat in counseling with them, and they were talking like they were Christians. They were like, yeah, you know, we're Christians, and this, that, and the other. The wife was. The woman was. And they were living together, and we were sitting in their living room together. There was not even any hiding about it. They were just living together, and they're like, she's like, oh, I'm a Christian, and I'm this, and I'm that, and the other.

The husband-to-be looks over and he goes, you aren't a Christian. And it was really nice because he said what everyone was thinking, which is, no, you're not a Christian. Because he's thinking, we live together. We sleep together. We don't ever go to church. Let's just be honest. We're not Christians. But then the issue came up is one of the questions we asked of them was, has either one of you ever been married before? And he says, yes, I've been married before. And then we asked. well, what were the circumstances of your divorce? And they both looked at us like, why does that have anything to do with this? And we said, well, because the Bible teaches that there's such a thing as lawful divorce and unlawful divorce. And if you had an unlawful divorce, I can't marry you to somebody else again because the Bible says that that would be sin. So I need to know what your circumstances of your divorce were. And this is all news to them. They're like, well, you know.

And they tell us the circumstances of it, and it turns out that they were able, even though they weren't Christians, they weren't obviously sinning by getting remarried given the circumstances of his first divorce. But it is something that we need to know about. And even for older women, something you check into, and you say, how's your life? What testimony has there been? Are you the wife of one woman? Or one man, rather, sorry. Doesn't mean that if she's been married more than once, she can't be on the list. Well, that would be awfully difficult because Paul tells the younger woman to get remarried. And so we have to use some discretion and some wisdom about the circumstances of this woman's life. Has she been a faithful woman? Has she loved her husband? Or has she been married seven times? Next, he tells her that she ought to have a reputation of good works. And what he's getting at here is how has she spent her time? The time of her life, how has she spent her time? Has she spent it in casinos? Casinos are filled with old people.

Is that where she spent her time and is that where she spent her money? Is that what she's about, just as an example? That's something you'd want to know as a church. Or has she, as Anna, the prophetess, one of the ones who welcomed Jesus with Simeon, has she spent her time praying and serving God's people? Does she have a reputation of good works? Has she brought up children? This is Paul circling back around and saying, are there any other people? who can take care of her. Now, why would he bring it up here again? Well, he's bringing it up here again because he's saying to the church, you ought to go tell the children that they need to take care of their mother. That'd be a fun conversation, wouldn't it? But it would happen. What if the children live out of town and they don't know what's going on with their mother? Wouldn't it be appropriate for us to call and say, hey, we love your mom and we know that you're not here with her all the time, but she's starting to deteriorate and we think you need to be making plans to take care of her. She needs you.

That's a reasonable thing for the church to say, isn't it? It's good to know if she's brought up children. Is there anyone that loves you or has means to take care of you? That she's been hospitable and that she's assisted those in distress. Has she ministered in sacrifice for others? Has she washed the feet of the saints? Is she devoted to every good work? I could go into detail on all of those things and say, here's exactly what it means. I mean, what widow among us, what person among us has washed anybody else's feet? What does it mean to wash the feet of the saints?

What did it mean when Jesus washed the disciples' feet? Has she humbled herself? Has she served people? Has she laid down her life? That's what we're looking for in a widow. But we're not just looking for that in a widow, really. None of the men should be sitting here and going, God, I don't have to do that. Is she a godly woman? Now, I wonder, as I'm preaching, if any of you are bristling at the idea of a woman having her life examined in this way. If you are... or if you're worried about or have any shame in you about what God's saying here, what I want you to know is that this is a benefit to a widow, just as it's a benefit to us to have our lives examined before we stand before God. Because you and I are all going to stand before God one day, and we're going to give an account of everything we've said, everything we've thought, and everything we've done. All these secrets, all the things we keep hidden, they're going to be known.

They're already known by God. And I want you to see this as a benefit to a widow. Because all that's being said in this passage is, she should be taken under care by the church. And she should be called to live by faith and to bear good fruit, however old she is. And whatever her circumstances are. And if all she can do at this point is pray, then she ought to do that. And so I want us to be precious with our lives and the details of them. I don't want us to be defensive of a widow and whether she's godly or not and whether that's our business to ask those sorts of questions. Here Paul tells us these are the questions, these are the things we're supposed to look for. And that should be evident in some degree in the life of a Christian. Right along with their sins that they're fighting and putting to death by God's grace. You're going to find good fruit growing in among the sins. But as a woman comes to the end of her life,

The fruit should be evident. The thing she's given her life for. So much of the work that a woman would do, bringing up children in her younger years, is hidden work. Who sees it? The kids see it. The husband sees it. But it's not broadcast out as, look at this. It's humble. It's hidden. It's hard. But the fruit of what that woman did in her house when no one was watching for all those years, it will be evident by the time she's a widow. You'll see if her children are walking with the Lord. You'll see if she has spiritual children. You'll see if she's given her life to this work or not. It will be evident. And all Paul's saying here is, don't blind yourself to those realities. If she hasn't done any of the work, that also will be evident. So what's the application to us beyond what we've already talked about? Well, to recap, we're all going to need someone to take care of us someday.

Most of us will. Maybe some of you will die in a freak accident and no one will ever have to take care of you. Is that what you would prefer? I mean, I'm watching some of your face. You have facial twitches when I say that everyone's going to need to be taken care of and you're going, well, no, but, you know, well, I suppose you could die suddenly. Settle into the idea that you're going to probably need to be taken care of at some season of your life. Prepare for it. Have children so that there are people around to help you. Teach them that they ought to help you. And as they're Christians and as they grow in maturity, they're going to want to take care of you. Don't deny them that privilege. Because God tells them that this work is acceptable in the sight of God. He smiles on it. He's glad when parents are taken care of by their children. It gives them glory. And in our society, as less and less of this is going on, it's going to become a distinctly Christian thing to do. So we ought to do it.

We ought to prepare for it. What other application is there? Well, the widow is being examined. Her life's work is being examined. And so we ought to look to ourselves and go, what would they find if they looked? What does God see that nobody else sees in my life? Would I make the cut, so to speak? And if the answer is no, which I suspect many of us feel like the answer would be no, then what are we to do? Despair? Give up? No. Repent. If you have things that are weighing on your mind now as I'm talking, as I'm preaching, and you think, this is the problem in my life, repent of that and take steps of faith in the other direction. If you're not hospitable, as an example, if you're like, I don't really like taking care of other people, you have to repent of that. How do you repent of that? He's on the fast track, ladies and gentlemen. Have people over.

Be hospitable. It's like in our call to confession when the people say, how shall we return? It's as if we're saying, how should I repent of my unwillingness and lack of desire to be hospitable? What should I do? If you'll hear it, you should have people over. You should practice hospitality. And it'll be hard, and it'll be exhausting, and you probably won't know what to do with yourself, and it may not even be fun the first time. That's okay. you'll have been a blessing to the people who came over. And then you can do it again, and you do it better the second time. That's the application to us, because as I look out at you, most of us aren't widows or close to it. Most of us are not in that season of life, though there are those here who are in that time of life. We honor them, we care for them, we help them continue to bear fruit right up until the day that the Lord calls them home. That's what we do.

because that's acceptable to God. And that's what we care about as Christians. We want to be acceptable to God. We want to do things that are pleasing to him. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we love you and thank you for the parents that you've given to us that have cared for us when we were young. And we thank you not only for their mercy and their kindness to us, but also your mercy and your kindness to us, calling us into your family, giving us spiritual mothers and fathers in addition to our biological mothers and fathers. We pray, Father, that you'd help us to honor them, to take care of them, to help them produce fruit, good fruit, Christian obedience, even in their old age. As they draw near to a time when they will see you face to face, I pray that we would be a blessing to them, that you'd help us to be a blessing to them. And I pray that you prepare their hearts and their minds to receive our love and our care. Open our hearts to them.

Open their hearts to us and help us to do what is right and do what is acceptable to you. Help us to give glory to your son, Jesus, who gave his life that we might be called by your name and have a future in heaven with you. Help us to prepare ourselves for that day and to bear good fruit and to be about your work until you call us home. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, Abram and Daniel, would you guys come forward? This we get to do. for the second time in a long time, which is actually celebrate the Lord's Supper. We've decided last month that we would start celebrating the Lord's Supper monthly as opposed to biweekly, at least for the time being on the first Sunday of the month. And so now we have the privilege of celebrating the Lord's Supper. So what is the Lord's Supper? Well, the Lord's Supper, plainly, simply put, is we have bread and we have a cup. And this is that we redo.

what Jesus did at the Last Supper before he was betrayed and ultimately before he was put to death. He took bread, he ate it with his disciples, and he said to them, this is my body which is broken, given for you. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you would think of in remembrance of me. Drink this cup, eat this bread. And so when we eat the little wafer and we drink the little cup, we're not looking for full bellies. We're looking for full souls. This meal is not going to make your tummy full, but it's going to remind you of a heavenly reality and the greatest mercy and kindness that's ever been done in this world. That's what this meal represents. It represents God loving us and sending his son into this world so that we wouldn't die in our sins, that we'd be saved from them. The cost of that salvation was Jesus' body being broken on the cross and his blood being shed, poured out of his body.

Not because of what he did, but because of what we did. Now I recognize that that reality, that sacrifice that Jesus made, has not been made for every single person in the world. Hell is a real place and it will be populated with people who have not put their faith and their hope in Jesus Christ. This meal is not for them. If you're not a Christian, I'm not trying to run you out of here on a rail. I want desperately for you to become a Christian and I want you to put your faith in Jesus Christ. But I want you to know that this meal is for those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ and who have loved him. Who've said, I'm a sinner. I'm undone. I need Jesus Christ to save me or else I have no hope in this world. That's who this meal is for. It's for those who profess their faith in Jesus Christ. Those who've united themselves to a church and who've said, we love Jesus Christ. We love his people.

We want to be with them. We want to worship you together with them. That's who this meal is for. There's no such thing as a lone ranger Christian, someone who has their faith all out on their own. I had a guy one time, you know, hunting season's coming around, and I remember talking to this guy one time about hunting, and he said he was a Christian, and he's like, yeah, you know, it's hunting season, so I'm in the woods on Sunday. That's where I worship God. And I thought, no, that's not where you worship God. This is where you worship God. With his people. That's where you do it. And so if you have a principle against worshiping with God's people and joining yourself together in community with his people, if you say, I ain't gonna do it, then I say that that unwillingness in you rises to the level of saying, then this meal's not for you because he died for his church. And his church is made up of individuals. And those individuals love one another and they care for one another and they spend time with one another.

And so we expect you to be a member of a church. Do you have to be a member of this church? No. As I look out, I know a lot of you aren't members of this church. You don't have to be a member of this church, but you have to have a commitment to a family of God somewhere. And if you're in transition and you're like, well, I'm between churches or I don't know, or COVID's messed everything up and that sort of stuff. I don't mean to exclude you from this table. I realize life happens in real time and people are making transitions and figuring out what's going on. I'm saying if you have a principle against worshiping with God's people or being a member of a church, then I say, no, this meal is not for you because that's a much bigger deal than you think it is right now. And I'm happy to talk to you about it afterward. The other caution I would give to you is if you're living in sin, what does it mean to live in sin? It means that you know in your head you're doing something that is sin and you go,

I don't care, or I do care, but I'm not going to repent, then don't come to this meal because Jesus' body wasn't broken and his blood wasn't shed so that you could continue to live in sin. His body was broken and his blood was shed so you'd be freed from sin. And so if you find in your heart that there's some sort of sin that you're holding on to and you're like, I'm not going to let go of it, I'm not going to do that, then don't come to this meal because repentant sinners are welcome to this meal. His life was given. So that we wouldn't be in bondage to sin anymore. We wouldn't love sin, but instead we would love him. And so if you've got sin in your life that you're unwilling to repent of, all of us have sin in our lives. Okay? All of us have sin in our lives. And this meal is for sinners. Terrible sinners. But those who repent. Those who say, I don't love my sin. I love Jesus. And I'm fighting against my sin. And this meal is for you. And when you take that little piece of bread and that little thimble of juice, you say,

This is a reminder to me of what it cost and that he was glad to have his body broken and he was glad to have his blood poured out so that my sins would be forgiven. That's what it represents. That's what it means to you. And if that's precious and sweet and dear to you, then I welcome you to this table. I want you to be reminded of this. I want you to join with me and the rest of the saints in proclaiming God's death, Jesus Christ's death until he comes again. I want it to be a meal of thanksgiving and rejoicing for us. Because this is the source, the foundation of our faith. It is what gives us joy. That our sins can be washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. I want to read to you now a passage of scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 where Paul talks about this meal.

Paul says this in chapter 11, verses 23 to 26. He says, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Would you please pray with me?