Every Member a Minister

0:32Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you will a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. Honor widows who are truly widows. 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. She who is truly a widow, left all alone, has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well, so that they may be without reproach.

1:21But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and his words. Worse than an unbeliever. Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, 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.

1:54But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busy bodies saying what they should not. So I will have younger widows marry their children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burned, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.

2:43This is the word of God. You may visit it. My grandmother was a wonderful, eccentric woman who loved fancy things. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1905, so she was. Born some seven years before the fateful voyage of the Titanic and almost a decade before America entered the Great War. Her husband, my grandfather, passed away when my mom was in college and she remarried and moved down to Florida. And some of my favorite childhood memories are us packing up the old Plymouth minivan, taking out the middle seat, and spending the whole trip playing on the floor, board games, playing games, trying to find license plates out the window, dancing to the beach boys, all those kinds of things. Things that you would get thrown in prison for these days.

3:41But we had a great time. We loved it. My grandmother's health started to decline in the early 90s, and her second husband had passed away by that time. And so my mom, being the only child, decided that it was best for us to move her to Texas into an assisted living facility near us. And so we did that, and it was great having her closer. But after some time and a couple of falls, we determined that it would be best for her to just move in with us. And so we converted our dining room into a bedroom for her. And those were sweet times for me as a child. Just being able to hang out with my grandmother, talking with her on the back patio, and listening to her tell stories about her life and her upbringing through all of those amazing and tumultuous decades. Sadly, my grandmother's health began to decline in the mid-90s, and so we had to bring in hospitals. To care for her during the last year, and I just remember how much of a struggle that was for my parents, how many sacrifices they made to minister to her during that last season of her life. But she passed away in 1996, my freshman year of high school. And as I reflected on that experience of having her living with us and the sacrifices that we made, it occurs to me that today, in 2017, how unusual that is to have extended family living with you, just even a couple of decades after my experience growing up. Nowadays, families are split apart for a variety of reasons. There's activities for all different kinds of ages, starting at the very youngest of ages. And then now families are separated, oftentimes, by hundreds of miles, because jobs take us to different corners of the country, even different corners of the world. And we have such advanced medical care and assisted living care and retirement care that oftentimes family members don't find themselves living with one another among multiple generations. But I think we've lost something, too, as a result of some of those very good changes. We've lost that sense of being together as a family and the sacrifices that it requires for us to take care of people at every stage of life.

5:50And so it's interesting that in the church, the most common metaphor for the church is the family, the family of God. It's called other things. The body, it's called the temple. There are other metaphors as well, but the prevailing one is the family, where you have older men and women referred to as fathers and mothers, where you have younger men and women referred to as brothers and sisters, even children. This is a prevailing metaphor in the scripture.

6:20And so, if you've been here for any length of time, you know that at New Life we really value intergenerational ministry. We've tried to set up our entire church so that we are regularly interacting with and ministering to and receiving ministry from people at every stage of life and all that that entails. But I think because our natural tendency is to gravitate towards people that are our same age or in our same life stage, we need regular reminders of our call to minister and to receive ministry from people in every different life stage.

6:53And so, it's a wonderful thing that in God's providence we come to 1 Timothy chapter 5 today, which is going to give us instructions on ministering to people in every different life stage, and particularly those who find themselves as widows. Now, if you're here and you think to yourself, I don't really know what this has to do with me or with us in particular, as we talked about last week, we're a relatively young church. I just want to say at the outset, I think this passage is very relevant for us for several reasons. First, it reminds us that God cares about all people, especially those that society tends to forget and overlook. Look like widows.

7:32And so we're reminded of the compassion of God in this passage. But secondly, we should note that in the church or in our families, every one of us is going to have the experience of knowing a widow in our lives. Every one of us. So, to my knowledge, we don't have any widows who are members at New Life, and we don't have any widows that regularly attend New Life, but we probably will. And you may not have a widow in your family right now, but it's almost certain that your grandmother or your mother or your aunt or one of your sisters will become a widow at some point. And as we all know from experience, by the time something happens, it's too late to start preparing for it. So it's great in God's kindness that we are learning together today how we are called to minister to these special people. And so, for those reasons and several others, I think it's critical that we give our full attention to this passage that at first may not seem to be relevant to a young church in a college town.

8:35What we're going to learn as we go through this passage is that in the church family, every member is a minister. So, let's look together at verse 1 as we begin. Paul begins and says, Do not rebuke an older man, but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity. We're reminded in these first two verses, especially that the church is comprised of people in every different life stage and of every different age.

9:09And Timothy, as a pastor in this church, has the privilege and the responsibility of ministering to each type of person and making sure that nobody is overlooked in the body of Christ. As we talked about last week, Timothy's speech needed to be godly. His life needed to be an example for others to follow. And so Paul is going to give him instructions on how he is to speak to each one of these different life stages because all of them have different needs.

9:37There are different opportunities for ministry. And so he begins with older men. And Paul tells Timothy he's not to rebuke an older man, but to encourage him as he would a father. Well, the word rebuke means to express strong disapproval as a form of punishment. Express strong disapproval as a form of punishment. Now, there is a place for rebuke in the body of Christ. There are some things that need to be rebuked. Sometimes we need to bring strong correction as a form of discipline or punishment. There is a place for that. And certainly older men do need correction. Any woman who's married to an older man would probably say amen. They do need correction. So this is not a prohibition against correcting older men. It's a prohibition against correcting older. Men in a harsh manner. So instead of doing that, Timothy is to encourage him as he would a father, with the respect that is due any older person.

10:41Now, when it comes to older men, there are typical sins, we could say, or shortcomings that attach to all the different life stages and both genders. I can't possibly cover everything here, so I just want to mention that I think one of the ways that older men need to be encouraged is they need to be encouraged to continue to minister with the gifts that they've been given, even into old age. Because what tends to happen to men is that as young men, we start out real fiery and passionate, even impulsive.

11:13And as we get older, we tend to mellow out to a large degree. Now, there are people in my life who have been praying for my mellowing for many years. And so this is not always a bad thing. It's a good thing that as we get older, we tend to mellow out in some ways. But the downside to this is that as men get older, we can tend to mellow out in the sense of not giving the time and energy and attention to the things that need time, energy, and attention because they are the most important.

11:43And so instead of giving our full time, devotion, and energy to God and the purposes of the church, we begin to devote time, energy, and attention to hobbies, to vacations, to all of those things on the bucket list. And so Paul tells. Timothy to encourage older men. Don't let them get into those same ruts. And then he turns his attention to younger men. And Timothy says, or Paul tells Timothy rather, that they're to be encouraged as brothers.

12:15Well, friends, brothers have a special bond, and if you have a brother, as a man, you know what that's like. Now, they can be strained, the relationship, by disagreements and sin, but nevertheless, the bond that brothers have is an irreplaceable one. And so Timothy should speak to these younger men in a certain way, not in a condescending way, but in a way that builds them up, but in a way that encourages them. He's to set an example worth following in every area of his life. Because I think the temptation for older men with younger men is to speak in a condescending way to them. You know, when I was your age, I would have never filled in the blank. Or I can't believe that you're doing fill-in-the-blank. That doesn't build younger men up. That discourages them. And I think a lot of us who are men have that experience where older men did do those kinds of things to us, did condescend, did speak down, did belittle us, whether our dads or coaches or other people in our lives. And so it's especially important in the church that Timothy not do that to the younger men, but rather to encourage. Encourage them and build them up in Christ as his brothers. Paul then turns his attention to the women, and he starts with older women. And he says that Timothy is to encourage them as mothers.

13:44Well, how do you speak to your mom? Hopefully, kindly, gently, patiently, with respect. Mom is the one who dried our tears, who bandaged our knees, who made countless sacrifices all throughout our childhood and even into our adulthood to make sure that we became the people that we became. And so older women need to be addressed as mothers with the respect that is due, mothers, because in some sense, every woman in the church is a mother. Many women in the church are mothers of flesh and blood children through birth or adoption, but every older woman in the church is a spiritual mother, raising up disciples of Jesus, pouring her time and energy and effort into that next generation. And so these older women need to be encouraged. And they need to be encouraged to continue to run that race the same as the men, to finish well, to not spend their last years living for themselves or living for the things that the world says that they should live for, but living for God.

14:57And then Paul addresses younger women, and he says that Timothy. It is to encourage them as sisters in all purity. Now, if you have sisters, and I have two of them, then you know you cannot speak to sisters like you speak to brothers. If your brother is making poor choices, you might just put him in a headlock and give him a noogie. Tell him to quit acting like a fool. But you can't do that with sisters. I can tell you from long experience, that does not work.

15:32Younger women need a different form of encouragement, one that is gentler, one that is more nuanced. You can't treat them roughly like you do brothers. And so I think that one of the typical sins that young men deal with is they struggle with living for the future, whether eternity or just for years down the road. Young men tend to struggle by only putting their time and focus and energy and attention into whatever is happening right now.

16:03They need to be encouraged to think about the future and to plan for it and to live for it in some sense. But I think for young women, they have the opposite struggle many times. Instead of living for the now and everything that this particular moment might provide or offer, young women can tend to live for the future, thinking, you know, once I finally get into this program, everything will be okay. Once I finally grab it, Once I get this job or this promotion, once I finally get into a relationship or when I get married or when I have kids, then everything will be okay. Young women can struggle with living in the future, and they need to be reminded and encouraged by Timothy and everyone else in the church, you have a vital and important role to play now. They need to be encouraged to be content and to be thankful for what God has given them in their stage of life today, so that they don't miss today dreaming about the future. And so, friends, when you see that Timothy is supposed to encourage all of these different people, we're reminded of the great responsibility and privilege that we all have. Every one of us is called to do these things, to encourage the older men and the older women, the younger men and the younger women around us. And we need to adjust our encouragements based on the particular struggles that each one of these groups of people tends to have. And so it's a wonderful reminder to us. We are surrounded by all different ages and life stages, and every one of us has a ministry to those people. So Paul challenges Timothy to use his speech to build others up and to encourage them, not to tear them down.

17:44And in every church, there are certain categories of people that deserve special attention because they are so often overlooked and neglected. And one of those special categories of people is widows, and that's where Paul is going to spend the rest of his section talking about. So let's look at verse 3. Honor widows who are truly widows. 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.

18:23Ministering to widows has been a challenge in every generation. That's not a new thing. And it's been a challenge in every generation for a variety of reasons. But when you think about the first century, there were so many challenges to overcome if you were a widow. There were no pensions in the first century, no Social Security, no life insurance, no retirement plans. There were no assisted living facilities, no retirement homes. And so widows faced a particular daunting reality in the first century. But when you even think about today, there are many widows who don't have access to those things. They couldn't afford to purchase a life insurance plan. They couldn't afford to put away for retirement. They didn't have a pension. For a lot of us who are alive today, Social Security may not be there by the time that we are old enough to draw from it. You may not be able to afford assisted living or retirement home. And so, even for people today, this is not necessarily a better situation for the widow. But when you go back to the first century, you Have to realize that for widows in the first century, even if they were physically able to work, there were not a lot of job opportunities for them. The marketplace was nothing like it is today. So, if a widow didn't have anyone caring for her, then she was often forced into one of two bad choices: she could be destitute, her and her dependents, or she could get into disreputable work of some kind. Neither one of those was a good option. And so, the command here in verse 3 is to honor widows who are truly widows.

20:07Now, as we'll see, what Paul means by honor is financially support, provide for them, care for them. And he's talking about a certain subset of widows. He calls them true widows. Well, how do you define a true widow? Who is that? Well, Paul says here in the text: first, a true widow is left all alone. In other words, she has no family members who are either willing or able to support her. Maybe she has no living relatives, but keep in mind that in the first century and also in many places in the world today, if you professed faith in Christ, your family would often disown you. And so, maybe even if she had living relatives, they were unwilling to provide for her.

20:53So, Paul says if there are children or grandchildren willing and able, they should support her, they should do that. And he gives three. Reasons why. Look at the text. First, it pleases God. In verse 4, he says they should learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents. Parents do so much for their children. Amen, mom and dad? And Paul is saying, Look, the least you can do is make some return, to give back to those people who cared for you so greatly. And so the first reason is that simply it pleases God. But look at the second reason. It's a proper expression of faith. Look at verse 7.

21:42Paul tells Timothy, his command is to, rather, to command and teach the care of widows. Why? So that they may be without reproach. He's not talking about the widows here, he's talking about the church. He's saying, if you fail to provide for and care for the widows, then you're bringing reproach on the name of Christ. He goes on in verse 8 and he says, if you don't care for your relatives, look at this statement. He has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

22:17Wow. I mean, can it really be said that if you don't take care of widows in your family, that you are denying the faith, that you're worse than an unbeliever? I think if many people who Profess to be Christians, have never actually read this in the Bible before, they would say, There's no way that's in the Bible. There's no way. It just sounds like it's too strong of a statement. And yet, look at what Jesus teaches in Mark chapter 7. He's confronting the Pharisees here.

22:49And Jesus said to them, You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. It's like dripping with sarcasm. There is some biblical warrant for sarcasm. For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, whatever you would have gained from me is Korban, that is, given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.

23:28So, what was happening in the first century is that you had these people who were very influential, the Pharisees, teaching everybody else in Israel: if you were going to financially support your parents in their old age, but then you decide to take that money and give it as an offering to God, that's fine and acceptable. Now, why would they be doing that? Well, according to the rest of Jesus' teaching about the Pharisees, they were doing it to receive the praise of men.

24:00Nobody's really going to applaud you for taking care of your elderly mother and father, but if you give a real big gift to the temple, you know, you get your name on a pew, get your name on a building, I mean, then you're going to get some applause, you're going to get some recognition for that. And so they created this whole tradition that was really based around receiving praise and honor from people instead of God. And so Jesus condemns this. Look on the screen at James 2.

24:33What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. We can say all day that we believe in Jesus.

25:04And it is true from Scripture that we are not saved by works, but by faith that works. But for us to say those things and to believe those things, they need to have some kind of practical outworking in our life. And even Jesus Himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount that if we love those who love us, we're doing the same thing as pagans and tax collectors. There's nothing unique or Remarkable about us loving the people who love us. So the argument seems to extend to if we won't even take care of the people who have taken care of us for our entire lives, what does that say about our faith? What does that say about the God that we supposedly believe in?

25:49And so, friends, our generation has rediscovered one of the central tenets of Christian faith and of the Protestant Reformation, and that is justification by grace through faith. That's a wonderful thing. From everything that I can read about relatively modern church history, it seems that in the last 10 to 20 years, there has been a recovery of the doctrine of justification by grace and through faith. That's a wonderful thing. That is the central tenet of Christianity, that we are not saved by what we do, but through faith in Christ. But my fear is that so many people for the last 20 years or so have been hearing that doctrine taught over and over again in so many ways without any complementary teaching saying that when we trust in Jesus, when we put our faith in him, our lives should look different and we should be obedient. That what we have is a hollow Christianity. What we have is a cheap grace that really is saying we are saved through intellectual assent to the right facts, as opposed to we are saved through heart. Trust in Jesus Christ and the resulting life change that comes from that.

27:09And so I think it's critical that we view verse 8 in light of what all of Scripture teaches, that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. But if we have genuine faith in Christ, there should be works pointing to the genuine nature of our faith. So Paul says, first, that families should care for widows because it pleases God. Second, because it's an expression of our faith. And then, third, if you go down to verse 16, look at what he says at the very end of this section. 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 truly widows.

27:55So his last reason that families should care for widows, if at all possible, is so that the church isn't burdened, so the church can use its limited resources to care for those who really are in desperate need. So Paul defines a true widow as one who is all alone. And the second thing that he says is that a true widow is a godly woman. Look at verse 5. A true widow has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day.

28:29This is really. Remarkable because remember, Paul is talking about who is a true widow and who then is eligible to receive financial support from the church. Well, the first one makes a lot of sense. It's fairly intuitive. Okay, if she's left all alone, has no one to provide for her, that makes sense. But look at the second qualification. Paul is essentially saying she has to be a godly woman in order to receive support from the church. Now, that might strike you as a little bit strange because I think most people are under the impression that the church is obligated to help anybody and everybody who asks for help.

29:08I think most of us feel that way, even if we don't say that out loud. We feel like anybody who comes to the church at any time and says, I need financial support, we are obligated to give it no questions asked. But understand that even the world doesn't work that way. Our government gives out assistance, billions of dollars of assistance, to people every single year. But our government does not give out assistance to anybody and everybody. You might think that they assist too many people or they assist too many people too much, but the truth is, they don't give out assistance to everybody and anybody. You have to qualify for it. There are certain criteria that you have to meet before you're going to get a check from the government. And in the same way, what Paul is saying is that there are certain qualifications that need to be met for widows to receive. Receive support from the church. And the qualification is that, in addition to being in genuine need, they need to be godly people, godly men and women. That's going to be a life of faith demonstrated in a commitment to prayer.

30:14Friends, there's only two ways to live: we can live by faith, or we can live by sight. We can set our hope in God, or we can set our hope on the things of this world. And verse 6 is very clear: anyone who lives a self-indulgent life is dead even while they live. He applies that specifically to widows. Why is that the case? Well, look at Mark chapter 8, verse 35 on the screen. Jesus says, for whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it.

30:56The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death. So if you're devoting your life to sinful pursuits, even while you're living, you're actually dead spiritually. But if you lose your life, if you pick up your cross and follow Jesus, you may be physically dead at some point, and your life may look like a total waste, but you're spiritually alive in Christ. That's the difference here. And so Paul is saying, the church. Doesn't have the resources to meet every single need. And because the church doesn't have the resources to meet every single need, they have to use discretion in who those resources go to support. So, in this case, with widows, it should be those women who are truly left all alone and who are leading a godly life. That ensures that their lifestyle, while they're being supported by the church, is not bringing reproach to the name of Christ or to the church, but is a strengthening of the witness together, that the church truly does have compassion on those who are needy, and that those who are receiving support are living their lives to honor the Lord.

32:09So, Paul finishes this section, and then he is going to begin discussing a second set of widows, a different subset of widows, starting in verse 9. Let's direct our attention there. In verse 9, Paul says, Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age, having been the wife of one husband, 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.

32:47So, you notice right away, Paul is no longer talking about those widows who should be honored. He uses an entirely different verb here. He says, there are certain widows that should be enrolled. Well, that word in the Greek means something like to register or to put on a list as a member. So, this has a very different connotation than honor, and therefore, I think that Paul is talking about another subset of widows in this section. A lot of people have read this passage and interpreted it like this is continuing the qualifications for those who will receive financial support, but I don't think that's the case because the verb is totally different here. It seems like Paul is saying that these widows are serving the church in a more or less official capacity. So, to break this down, you have all widows, any woman who has lost her husband. Then you have a smaller subset of widows who not only have lost their husband, but they are true widows. They are in need. There is no other family members to support them, and they're living a godly life. And then you have an even smaller subset who should be enrolled. And you notice here what I just read, these list of criteria, they sound surprisingly like the qualifications for elders and deacons in the church. There's a very specific thing, a list of things that they need to be and to do. So, for financial support, that office is, or that is very clear what that looks like. But these women are to be enrolled. And so, I think from everything that I can see here in the text, Paul is talking about them serving in kind of a staff position.

34:30Financially supported by the church to do ministry on behalf of the church. So, now let's look at these qualifications. What qualifications do you need to meet if you're going to be financially supported and minister on behalf of the church? First, she must be at least 60 years old. Well, Paul is going to explain why enrolling younger women is unwise in verses 11 through 13, but that can seem confusing at first glance. When Johann was reading the text, you may have heard this and been a little bit confused. Look at what it says in these verses: Don't enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for abandoning their former faith.

35:17Well, on first glance, it sounds like what Paul is saying is that marriage is bad. Marriage is so bad that it can draw you away from faith in Christ. But we know, of course, from all the rest that Paul has written that he doesn't think that about marriage at all. In fact, he calls it a picture of the gospel. And even in verse 14, Paul is going to actually encourage remarriage among the younger widows. So the problem is not remarriage. The problem is that after being enrolled, some of these younger widows may not set their hope on God, as Paul just instructed them earlier in the passage, and instead set their hope on finding a new husband. And it could be the case that some of these women who are officially enrolled by the church could become engaged to and marry a non-Christian. And you must understand that in the first century it was customary for wives to take on the religion of their husbands. So, this obviously would be a bad situation for the church. Here you have a widow who is officially enrolled by the church. She's being financially supported to do ministry on behalf of the church, and then she gets engaged to and marries a non-Christian and she leaves the faith entirely. That's not a good look for Christ. That's not a good look for the church. That would bring reproach on the name of Christ. And so Paul says, don't enroll younger widows because you don't want that kind of a situation happening. But not just that, he's concerned that younger widows may waste their time instead of redeeming it for ministry if they're being supported by the church. Look at verse 13. He says, besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not.

37:14I think it bears saying that if Paul seems to be particularly harsh with young women, just remember he's always bashing men over the head with a hammer. So this is just him applying the same standard to everyone and calling people out for what we need to do and how we need to live. And he's not saying here that every young woman in the church is going to do this, going to give herself to being a gossip and a busybody.

37:39But Paul's concern is that they shouldn't be enrolled because they could still find another job and be gainfully employed. They could still remarry and bear children. Or they could be supported either by their family or by the church, so they should not be enrolled. And again, this is very similar to Paul's instructions regarding elders and deacons. So I think the lesson and the takeaway for all of us in this is that anybody who's going to serve the church in an official capacity, there's a high bar to meet. There's a high bar to meet for elders. There's a high bar to meet for deacons. There's a high bar to meet for staff members. Anybody who is acting in an official capacity for the church needs to be a man or a woman of high character. And so he says, do not enroll younger women. They need to be at least 60. Then his second qualification, look at the text, they need to have been the wife of one husband.

38:36It's the same expression that we find used of elders back in chapter 3. And this is really hard for me to say because I'm always teaching about elders and stuff, so I'm used to saying a one-woman man. But now I have to say a one-man woman. And that's hard. You may not appreciate that, but this is a hard expression to say. A one-man woman. And why is that so important? Well, who are these? Widows who are financially supported by the church to do ministry, who are they primarily going to be ministering to? To younger women. And statistically, most of those younger women are going to be married. So it's critical that they had a faithful marriage themselves, that she was fully devoted to her husband, that her marriage was an accurate picture of the gospel, so that those young women, by her teaching and example, can learn what it looks like to have a faithful marriage of their own. That's why it's so critical that she is a one-man woman.

39:39Third and finally, they need to have a reputation for good works. And so Paul defines that as faithfulness at home, raising children, showing hospitality, and then faithful in the church, washing the feet of her fellow believers, caring for those who are persecuted. Again, really similar criteria for that of elders and deacons. And so these are the types of women that should be enrolled officially. Women of high character, whose lives are worthy of imitation, whose teaching is sound. They're the kinds of women who should be employed, even in their old age, to minister on behalf of the church. Now, friends, this section of scripture to us may seem somewhat irrelevant, but that's exactly why it's. So critical for us to understand what Paul is teaching. Because I think many younger people in the church today, by their words and their actions, have communicated that there is no place for older men and women in the church or in society. And in a society that increasingly values youth, almost worships youth, I think we've sent the message to older men and women that there's really nothing for you to do here. You just need to get out of the way and we'll take it from here.

40:59And I think, sadly, older men and women in the church and in our society both have heard that message loud and clear. And so a lot of them end up concluding in the last years of their lives, there's nothing valuable that I can contribute to the church. Or they might think that even if there is something valuable they can contribute, that their last years are best spent crossing off the items on the bucket list. And so Paul addresses those tendencies head-on. And he says, not only can older women have an effective ministry, they can have one that is financially supported by the church. There is still valuable work to be done. And so I would say to all of my older brothers and sisters who are here today: we need you. We need your ministry. We need your wisdom. We need your teaching. We need your example. In a society that is increasingly dominated by adolescents and 20 and 30 and 40-year-old men and women who act like teenagers. We need older men and women to show us the way, to give us the wisdom and the teaching and the example that we need.

42:08And for those of us who are younger in the church, it's critical that you see how valuable older men and women are to your own spiritual development. Not only because you can learn and grow from their teaching and their example, but because one of the primary ways that we grow is through serving others when it's hard. And if you have ever tried to care for an older man or a woman in the last stages of their life, it's exceedingly difficult. I would say it's much more difficult than taking care of young children.

42:43And so, one of the greatest ways that we can be sanctified is to give up our time to minister to older men and women. I'm so thankful that we have several life groups in our church that give up time every month and every semester to go and minister in local assisted living facilities. To just spend time listening to them, talking with them, praying with them, reading scripture with them, listening to them. It's those small and insignificant ministries. Nobody is going to post that on social media. Nobody is going to report that in the news. It's just those small and important things that serve others well and help us grow in our own sanctification. And so this passage is a great challenge for all of us because it reminds us that. In the church family, every member is a minister. Let's pray.

43:39God, we celebrate your infinite wisdom. I don't think that any one of us would have probably set up the church the way that you have. Instead, we'd have a church that was homogeneous. We'd have a church for our particular age and life stage. We'd have a church made up of people that look like us and talk like us and like the same things that we do. And our growth spiritually would be severely stunted by that situation.

44:33We celebrate the fact that in your infinite wisdom and kindness, you have set up the church as a family with older men and women, mothers and fathers, younger men and women, brothers and sisters, all of us children of the Heavenly Father, so that we can learn from one another, so that we can be sanctified by figuring out how to minister to every different life stage in all of the frustrations. Frustration and all of the conflict and friction that surround those things.

45:07It grieves me when people leave churches because they get offended by something that someone did or said to them. We are going to offend people, hopefully, not on purpose. But, God, you have set it up so that in all of the friction, in all of the challenges, we would grow in faith and in Christ's likeness. So, God, help us, help us because we have it as a stated value here at New Life that we love and see multi-generational ministry as one of the primary ways that we are called to live and grow. But we don't want that to simply be an aspirational value, we don't want that to just be something that we say is important to us, we want to live that out.

45:57And so, God, we ask for forgiveness for the ways that we have failed to even walk up to and introduce ourselves to someone who is in a different life stage, to say nothing of actually ministering to them and receiving ministry from them. May that change. We ask forgiveness for the way that, as older men and women, we've rolled our eyes at younger men and women, and younger men and women who have rolled their eyes at older men and women instead of being eager to receive.

46:30And to be humble. And so, God, we ask for continued spiritual growth here at New Life from the fact that we are attempting to do what is very difficult today in ministering to and receiving ministry from all different people. And, Father, of course, this morning, we remember our brothers and sisters who gathered last Sunday for worship and were slaughtered. We pray that you would comfort their families and their friends and their fellow church members. We pray that through great affliction and trial, their faith would grow and that there would be many opportunities for them to testify to the hope that they have in Jesus.

47:41This is an awful reminder that this happens every single Sunday around the world to different churches. And so, we pray that we would remember our persecuted brothers and sisters, and even those who are not directly persecuted for their faith but are going through. Great tragedy and trial, that we would suffer with them and mourn with them. And God, we ask you to bring great comfort and peace in this trial, that they would remember that Jesus suffered for them, giving up his life so that we could have eternal life.

48:30Thank you, Father, for your word, for the opportunity to gather and worship together today. In Christ's name, amen.