Living as Family - A Sermon

Living as Family
Sermon preached by Pastor Todd D. Baucum, First Presbyterian Church, Enterprise, AL
Nov. 26, 2011
1 Tim. 5:1-12 (ESV)
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, [2] older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.

The great struggle in applying the truths of this passage to church life today is not in understanding the text or its teachings. It is plain in what it says. There is much about how we should apply the principles of family life to the everyday experience of being the Church, the Body of Christ. The words are clear, the exegesis is not difficult. The problem is that we have lost the normative model of family social structures and the values that was representative in Eastern cultures, of which Ephesus was a part.
“Treat older men as fathers, treat older women as mothers and younger women treat as sisters”, implies basic assumptions that were for Timothy and the early church very basic to the culture. We in the postmodern West – just look at any “family” tv show and you see what I mean. Fathers are usually portrayed as imbeciles. We simply do not have the social structure (or much of one) to support us.
The great difficulty we have with this chapter today is that we no longer share these assumptions. Family life, for most of us has broken down. Respect for our elders is a forgotten concept. How can the Church meet this challenge today, and instill in its members a culture of family relationships that will in turn direct our lives?
Perhaps no other issue is so critical for us today. If we don’t grapple with this issue, then we must relegate chapter 5 to our footnotes of our Bibles. We will just scratch our heads and then place this among the texts that just don’t fit our culture.
That for us is not an option. This is God’s Word; it judges us for a reason. It hold up our culture and our times to not just an ideal, but to the standard God demands of us. Church as salt and light in our times has to rethink and to challenge our assumptions. Paul helps us to do this. In the Church, our view of people are radically adjusted.
In the Church the way we protect and provide for the most vulnerable and weak among us is critical.
In the Church, the people the world dismisses as useless are of immense importance.
1. First of all, the Gospel alters the way we look and treat one another.
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father. Treat younger men like brothers, [2] older women like mothers, younger women like sisters, in all purity.

Elders – that is those who are older – are to be accorded respect - treated as a honored father – a patriarch. This is still an important value in Eastern and African cultures.
Job 12:12 (ESV)
Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.
Men who have the wisdom that comes with age, are to be valued because of the lessons they can give to the young. Now, this does not mean as in some cultures an older man can never be corrected, but that he is to be honored and shown respect.
The movie “Gran Torino” starring Clint Eastwood, a tough, widowed Korean war veteran lives next door to a family of South East Asians. There is a young man from that house is about to be trapped into joining a gang. Eastwood takes him under his wings (he has no father, no role model). He helps him get a job in construction, tells him the value of work. One point they have a conversation in the garage, Eastwood is showing how to repair things – boy looks at all his tools. “I will never be able to afford all these”, he says. Eastwood replied– “I did not buy these all at once – I collected them over 50 years.”
There is a lot of wisdom in that scene. It is about what an older man can give to younger generation. To mentor and teach and share perspectives that takes 50 years to acquire.
This very comprehensive passage - Paul covers every possible relationship that we would encounter. How we treat older women also will tell us a lot about our faith. Proverbs 31 is a picture of a family where a mother gives, nurtures her family and supports her husband, but not as an oppressed servant, to be kept in her place. She is to be honored and highly respected by her husband, her children and the city leaders.
Proverbs 31:27-28 (ESV)
She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
[28] Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
Of, course there is also the way men – especially younger men were to treat younger women. In this area, some things never change. It was true that in Ephesus, women were targets for men and they were exploited. A culture that worships women (the ideal women), is the same that will abuse them.
Today we have not progressed or advanced in the way young women are treated. Our culture has lost the honor of true chivalry and respect for maidens. The egalitarian view of modern education is to treat everybody as equals, and this goes for sexes. We have done more than denied God as a culture, we have denied the God created differences of men and women.
Our children are experiencing the disastrous fallout of this social bomb.
The Gospel reshapes our thinking and our attitudes about these realities. It is not about a conservative turn back to the age of our grandparents, but towards the way God intended the way men are to be men and how they then view women and treat them. The Gospel will then be our only way forward in a dark world. Verses 1-4 set the tone for the rest of the chapter. But, the direction goes toward the issue of how we treat widows – what the church considered this important social issue. This chapter is a powerful look at how the NT church dealt with a key social problem of their day. The Lordship of Christ impacted their economics and their family life.
2. The Church and the Family worked together for God’s Kingdom.
(true widows)
[3] Honor widows who are truly widows. [4] 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.
Niv – says “put their religion into practice”
[8] 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.
One of the key social issues of the early church was the care of widows. Acts 6:1 – some widows were being neglected, so deacons were chosen to care for their needs – take them food. This was a church based welfare program. But, Paul makes is clear that only those who are true widows, who do not have family to care for them, are the ones who are to be cared for by the church.
See how the church and family work together? They are not competing against other, nor does one supplant the other or make it obsolete. The church is to support family life and families are to be under the guidance and oversight of the church. Families are reminded of their responsibilities to care for their household. Caring for parents and grandparents is a mark of true faith. This is a central theme in this letter – True faith connects to right living – Biblical orthodoxy is shown in godliness. If one fails to take care of his family he is faith denier. He is worst than pagan.
We are also called to pay back the life we were given. Grace is always connected to gratitude.
Verse 16 states the same rationale and God given duty for our families.
. [16] If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are really widows.
James 1:27 (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.
3. The Forgotten ministry of Widows.
[5] She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day, [6] but she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. [7] Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach. [9] Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, [10] 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.
In the Church, widows were not just to be recipients of care – but honored as important part of the ministry of Christ’s kingdom. First, they were to be given to a ministry of prayer intercession.
Like Anna – who prayed day and night in the temple, waiting for the coming of Christ, they are to be prayer warriors, engaged in a crucial ministry of intercessory prayer in the church. She was also to be like Dorcas, who took care of other women in the community through her service.
Acts 9:36 (ESV)
Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity.
There is a strong hint that this was a formal kind of ministry. Now, I don’t believe the Bible supports the notion of deaconess as an office. But, it is clear that there is a formality of some list – a register not just who gets meals on wheels, but of 60’s something women, who had to meet qualifications, of faithful service, hospitality and humility. In other words, they were women who had something to contribute to the church. (While I don’t endorse RC view of order of nuns and monks- we need to recapture this model of prayer and service.)
Whatever that looked like in the early church, there is a critical need for these spiritual grandmothers who through their godly prayers and holy service, teach our children, instruct our younger women and provide Titus 2 ministry of helping this present age see some wisdom: I pray for it and yearn to see it. Our daughters need it and our generation cries out for it.
Titus 2:3-5 (ESV)
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, [4] and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, [5] to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Imagine what would happen if in our homes and in our church we saw the Gospel making a difference in the way we viewed each other and in how we treated one another. It would be a glorious reality that would transform our society. This high standard of God’s Word is meant to confront our brokenness and it is a call for us to repent. Let’s repent and trust in God’s grace to do something glorious in our lives.