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I'm glad you're back for Day 3 of 1 Timothy Chapter 5. We're going to look at
verses 9 to 16 today. And as we begin our look at these verses, that's going to
be more about widows.

Remember we talked about that a couple of days ago. And in these verses we're
going to hear about a specific list of widows, something they did in the early
church. Those who devoted themselves to serving the church in their later years.

They were put on this list of widows. Not only did the church serve them by
making sure that they were fed, but they served the church by taking care of
practical needs in people's lives. In the Bible's talk about this list of widows
in the early days, there are some incredibly important principles about the way
that you and I serve and involve other people in serving.

Principle number one. Two principles we're going to look at. Principle number
one is that character is important when serving.

Maybe an obvious principle, but sometimes an ignored principle. Listen to verses
9 and 10. No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over 60 and
has been faithful to her husband and is well known for her good deeds, such as
bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints,
helping those in trouble, and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds.

Now the first question many people have about these verses I just read is why
over 60? What is that all about? Well, because many times a younger widow could
remarry.

And remember we talked a couple of days ago about the fact that a woman in this
society, unless married, had no way of her financial needs being met because she
couldn't get a job. But an older widow usually would not be able to remarry,
many times because men died earlier in this society. So a woman is 60, all the
men in this society are 50 and younger, so it would be almost impossible to
remarry.

And because of that, the church made sure that these women who were older than
60 were taken care of. Truth of the matter is, the focus in these verses is not
on the 60 part, but on the character part. Not how old she is, but what kind of
life she lived.

And you see the list there. Make sure that she has the character to serve in
what she's serving. You see, we all need to grow in character, and we all need
to be serving.

But I don't put somebody into a place of service hoping that will force them to
grow in character. What forces me to grow in character is the circumstances that
God puts me into in my daily life. And then I become the kind of person that is
a servant.

And based on that, I am allowed to serve in different ways in the church. In
this case, what kind of service do you look for in these women? Paul says, I
want somebody, look for somebody who has been faithful to her husband.

Now, he's now dead, this is in the past, but she has a character of faithfulness
in the past. And then he goes on to talk about some things in the present. Look
for someone, if you're going to have someone who is serving others in the
church, look for someone who's a servant.

And what's a servant? It's somebody who's well known for her good deeds. Not
known for the way that you look or not known for the way that you talk, but
known for the things that you do.

Not that it's bad to look bad or bad to talk good, but what do you do? Servants
need to do good deeds. She's known for bringing up her children with a character
and a heart of patience and love.

She's got that kind of character. She's known for showing hospitality. She's got
a character of generosity.

It's not all about her, it's about other people and serving other people. She
washes the feet of the saints. Now in that day, washing somebody's feet was just
a practical action like washing dishes today.

You would wash feet because they were dirty from walking the dusty roads. So
she's got a character of humility and service. Helping those in trouble.

She's got a character of unselfishness. Now you just walk through that. A
character of faithfulness, a character of patience and love, a character of
generosity, a character of humility and service, a character of unselfishness.

Paul says look for that because character is important when serving. Otherwise
what I call serving is really just meeting my needs and it doesn't really serve
you at all because you pick up pretty quickly on the fact that somebody's
serving you just to meet their needs. They're not there when you really have a
need.

They're only there when they really have a need. They're there on their timing
and not on your timing. They're there doing things that make them feel good
about themselves rather than being there doing things that really meet the needs
of Christ in your life.

That's why character is so important when serving. That's the first principle
here. A second principle beginning in verse 11 is that timing is important when
serving.

Verse 11 says this, "As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For
when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to
marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves because they've broken their first
pledge.

" These are incredibly important and practical verses in God's Word. They tell
us that doing the right thing at the wrong time can actually be harmful to your
growth. Here are these women who are younger and apparently they made a pledge
in that day of some kind that said I'm going to serve the church for the rest of
my life.

That's going to be my goal. A woman at 60, that made a lot of sense. But what if
a woman was 40?

She might be discouraged. She's just had her husband die. There's no one else in
her life that she might marry.

So she might make such a pledge. But then all of a sudden she meets someone and
she wants to marry. But she's made a pledge not to marry them.

Unintentionally, the church has put this woman into a place where her faith is
being challenged, bringing judgment on themselves. Now, those verses don't mean
in verse 12 that God's judgment is coming on that woman's life. Her judgment is
coming on her life.

She's judging herself because she made a pledge at the wrong time. First in
these verses, the church would have been asking these younger widows to make a
commitment that they could not keep. And second, the church would have been
putting them in a place where they were in the danger or the temptation to sin.

Timing when serving is important. Now this temptation to sin is really to me the
important part of it. I want to serve at the right times and in the right ways.

Well, verses 13 to 16 really begin to focus on the practical nature of this.
Listen to what they have to say. The danger of temptation and sin and serving in
the wrong way in verse 13.

"Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to
house. And not only do they become idlers, they also become gossips and
busybodies saying things that they ought not to. So I counsel younger women,
younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the
enemy no opportunity for slander.

Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan. If any woman who is a
believer has widows in her family, she should help them and not let the church
be burdened with them so that the church can help those widows who are really in
need. " Now in that last verse, verse 16, Paul goes back to what we talked about
yesterday.

The priority of family relationships, you have a widow in your own family, you
take care of them. If the widow doesn't have any family, the church needs to
take care of them. But I want you to know in verse 14, as Paul talks about the
importance of timing and temptation, in verse 14 he says, "I counsel younger
women to marry.

" Now he doesn't command here, it's simply counsel. It's not necessarily for
everyone, counsel, but this is the wise thing for most people to do. And what's
the principle here?

Well in this society, in that day, the only thing that a woman could do to have
responsibility was to marry and to take care of and manage a household. That was
the management opportunity for women. I know there's a lot of other
opportunities today and you have to apply that to what these verses mean to us.

They're saying that there is a timing for everything in your life. I've met
many, many people, men and women both, who will say to me, "You know, I think
maybe God is calling me into full-time ministry. Maybe they're a businessman,
maybe they're a businesswoman.

I think I should leave my business and I need to go and serve God full-time in
some way. " And many, many times my advice to them is exactly what Paul is
talking about here. There's a difference between God's timing and God's will in
your life.

What you're thinking about doing, it may be exactly God's will for your life,
but the time may not be right yet. If you leave what you're doing now and go do
this, you may have regrets about what you didn't do in business and that regret
will grow into a temptation or into a bitterness and Satan will take hold
through that. There's a difference between God's timing and God's will.

Now, specifically for these widows, what they were facing, Paul is saying that
without responsibility in life, we all tend to drift. If I put myself in a place
in life where I'm just sort of going from here to there, I don't have a lot of
responsibilities or all the responsibility is on me and I'm not ready for that
yet, I'm going to tend to drift. And Paul says while a 60-year-old widow might
be ready to manage her own life and responsibilities all by herself, a 20,
30-year-old widow may not be ready for that.

Now, you may not like to hear that if you're 20 or 30 years old. You may be the
most responsible 20 or 30-year-old in the world, but the truth of the matter is
with human nature, we have to realize who we are and be honest about our faults
and our failures and also our weaknesses. Without responsibilities, we all tend
to drift.

We'd like to think that we wouldn't, but we do. So my question to you is this,
have you been drifting? Have you been drifting in your life?

And if so, what new areas of responsibility do you need to add into your life?
Maybe you've been afraid to get married. You know God wants you to someday, but
you've been afraid to.

But you look at your life and you're drifting. That says to you, you need that
new area of responsibility in your life that grows out of your love for someone.
Maybe you've been afraid to start a business.

Maybe you've been afraid to begin a ministry, but now you find yourself
drifting. When you find yourself drifting, it almost always means there's an
area of responsibility that God has for you in your life that you are not
grabbing ahold of. What is it?

What is it that God wants you doing? Let's take a minute to pray. Our Father, we
realize that when serving, character is important and timing is important.

So help us all the time to build our character through every circumstance by
trusting in you in every circumstance. And help us to listen for your timing.
And Lord, if we're drifting right now, help us to see.

Help me to see what it is I need to grab ahold of, what it is you want me doing,
what responsibility you have that I am not holding on to right now. Father, I
ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow.

We continue to talk about relationships in the church, some principles about how
to relate to spiritual leaders.