Sermon Transcript
Well, I was thinking recently about how Jesus was into organized religion. He was into organized religion of the right kind. The right kind wasn’t the religion that He saw practiced early into His ministry when He walked into the temple and He was so angry with what He saw He flipped the tables over of moneychangers and those selling doves, and then He made a whip out of cords and He chased the money-hungry hypocrites out of the temple. Can you just imagine that? Just think about that.
Does that kind of fit your description or your perception of Jesus? When you think of Jesus, do you think of a man who’s got a whip in His hand and His face is red and He’s running people full force out of God’s house? Or do you think of Jesus as somebody who’s sitting on a grassy hillside and He’s calmly, gently reminding people that they need to love other people and serve other people? Well, actually, both of those images fit who Jesus is. Jesus at times was just downright angry, and that showed up in the temple when his anger was directed at organized religion, man-made, man-centered religion.
Jesus was angry with the religious leaders who had turned the temple, which was supposed to be a place of worship and prayer, they had turned the temple into a den of robbers and thieves. The beauty of the temple had been tarnished by greed and power and man-centered Man-made traditions and restrictions and divisions, and the beauty of God-centered prayer and God-focused worship, that had been shoved aside. Instead of people focusing on loving God and other people, that had been replaced with rituals and rules. In other words, Jesus was against that kind of organized religion, the wrong kind of religion. But as we’re going to see today, that’s not to say that Jesus was against all organized religion.
In fact, Jesus was for organized religion, but what you may think He was for may not be what needs to be forefront in our minds. I mean, take just for instance the matter of organization. Okay, think with me about organization for just a minute. Organization— we talk about organized religion— organization isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, being organized is usually better than being disorganized or just being, you know, you might say, well, that’s me, disorganized.
But organization has its place. Like, for instance, we like organization in the family, don’t we? We like the fact that somebody is going to prepare the meals, that somebody will pay the bills, that chores will be divided up, that if we don’t organize to do those kinds of things, then maybe nothing’s going to happen. In the family, so we organize. Or on the job, we have organization on the job.
That’s good. Somebody’s in charge, somebody unlocks and locks the doors, somebody’s focused on sales, other people are focused on accounting, somebody cleans the bathrooms, takes out the trash. So all of that’s just a part of the organization of the company, we might say. So we have healthy families and healthy workplaces. They need a level of organization to function effectively.
Well, the same could be said with regard to the church. We need a level of organization where we then translate into reality what God wants for his church. So we have these goals and we put organization with it so that hopefully the church can demonstrate in even greater ways goodness and love, such as caring for people in need, but we do it in hopefully intentional ways. Now, this is an interesting topic. James actually writes about it.
James, you might know, is Jesus’ half-brother. In James 1:27, he said this, religion— religion that God our Father accepts— so there’s some that he doesn’t accept— religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. You might say that that’s religion at its best. It’s looking after orphans and widows in their distress. That’s one of the two things that James says is true religion.
If it’s true, if it’s real religion, then it’s going to be reflected in serving people and caring for people and loving people, just as the Lord does. In fact, Psalm 146:9 says, the Lord supports the fatherless and the widow. That’s to say orphans and widows have a very special place in God’s heart, which means especially among those who would say we’re religious, we should have a very special place in our hearts for orphans and widows. I’m right now mentoring a pastor in Kenya. We have this Skype call every few weeks and we talk through his ministry, but his whole ministry got started because of orphans in the village, and they needed somebody to care for them.
And he started to care for these orphans, and this ministry has grown over time. These kids who their parents died at most oftentimes young ages, but he’s doing what he can to pull resources together and organize resources, and God is using that to have an impact in this village in Kenya. You know, if you’re familiar with the Bible, the New Testament talks about the importance also of caring for widows, of how important it was in even the early church. And you may remember if you’ve read through the book of Acts, which is a book that talks about— excuse me— about the early church, that the early church encountered a distribution problem when it came to handing food out to the Hebraic widows and the Hellenistic widows. So, the Hebrew-speaking widows and the Greek-speaking widows, and what happened was is that the Hebrew-speaking widows were being taken care of in the daily distribution of food, but the Greek-speaking widows were missing out.
They were not being fed. And so, what did the church do? Well, what the church did was it put together an organizational plan, a plan to make sure that everybody, all these widows were fed. You say, Well, why even bother with that? Because helping people is at the heart of God.
It’s his desire to reach out and to express love to people who are in need and to meet those needs. Well, that’s all to say that what we’re going to look at this morning has that mindset behind it. We’ve been doing a study through the book of 1 Timothy. We’re in 1 Timothy chapter 5 this morning. And 1 Timothy focuses on one of these matters that’s true about religion.
It focuses on the matter of caring for widows, caring for widows. Now, right off the top, some of us might say, well, I don’t really care about that. Well, that’s probably why we should be talking about it this morning. Caring for widows is something that’s at the heart of God. We want to lovingly do all that we can to care for widows who are in our midst and even outside of this church.
We want to do all that we can to care for them. And that’s something that God wants for the church as a whole, but also God wants that as individuals for us, as members of his family. If you’re a member of his family, he wants you to be a person who individually and collectively as a church does whatever’s necessary to care for widows. In fact, true religion does that. And so Paul wrote to Timothy to talk about that very subject because they had a need in the church in Ephesus.
To care for these widows that were among their congregation. And so Paul writes to Timothy, and this is what he says. If you have your Bible open to 1 Timothy 5, we’re going to start in verse 3, or The Message note has the section on it, notes have a section on it for you this morning that you can look at. But it simply says this, give proper recognition, Paul writing to Timothy, give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
This is going to be interesting to talk about this morning. And the widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Give the people these instructions too, so that no one may be open to blame. If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
And then jump down to verse 16, 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, let me just give you a thought that we’ll just work with here for a few minutes, because basically what Paul is saying to Timothy is simply this: the church must care for widows. The church must care for widows. And he gets right into that, verse 3, when he says, give proper recognition.
The words give proper recognition, and some of your translations translate that differently. The Message translation says, take care of. The English Standard Version says, honor. The Berean Study Bible says, support. And the Good News Translation says, show respect for.
And essentially what you have here is Paul saying with regard to widows that the church needs to show value or honor or both to widows. By helping them in their time of need. And the big idea that he’s going after here primarily is financial help, as you can see down in verse 16 where finances are suggested here so that the church can help in other areas of need. But the word could also refer to this word that we’re talking about in verse 3, give proper recognition. It could also refer to more than just financial help.
It could refer to spiritual help. It could refer to emotional help and other ways that we might help widows. So evidently, here’s the picture. The church in Ephesus had widows in it, and there were some widows in it that were really in need. You see that in verse 3?
You might even underline those words, really in need, meaning they had no family and they had no means of making ends meet. They had an insufficient amount of income or resources to meet their basic needs. So this is to say They were desperate for help. In fact, they were so desperate for help that you see in verse 5, the widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. So essentially what you see here is that this widow, the only recourse that she had was to go to God and to pray.
It’s kind of like many of you have gone to God in your time of need. Maybe it was for a job, and the only thing that you could do some point in this job search was just turn to the Lord and say, Lord, you’re going to have to intervene. I need your help. Please, please intervene. Please give me a job.
Well, that’s the picture here. These widows who are really in need, they have nobody else to turn to but to God for help. And so they’re turning to God. They’re really in need. But the church also should take into consideration her needs.
And so Paul is writing to Timothy to bring that out. And this particular widow, by the way, is distinct from a widow that had a family, who had a family that could support her. So in verse 4 it says, but if a widow has children or grandchildren, and that could be any one of us, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice. These children or grandchildren should learn to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. You ever thought of it that way?
That if you’re a child or a grandchild, God wants you to please him by taking care of your widowed mom or taking care of your widowed grandma. And he’s basically saying, if you think that you’re a religious person, you say you’re a religious person, well, prove it by putting into practice your religion by caring for your widowed mom or your widowed grandma. Practice compassion. In fact, the sacrifice or compassion that you show to your widowed mom or grandma, you will never regret showing her that kind of care, even if it takes a lot of your time and even if it takes a lot of your resources. Caring for your widowed mom, he’s saying, is the right thing to do for a couple reasons.
Number one, because it’s repayment. I think that’s an amazing word that he uses here. It’s repayment in kind. It’s kind of like, just ask yourself this question: how many years did my mom take care of me? Or how many years did my grandma take care of me?
How many years was it? Was it 1, 2, 3, 18, 20, 25, 30? Is she still taking care of you? You know, Bernice is still taking care of our kids so that when I die, they’re going to have a lot of repayment to catch up on.
So, he’s thinking about payback, isn’t he? He’s talking about payback. And by the way, if payback kind of leaves a sour taste in your mouth, pay attention to verse 8 because it says, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. That’s kind of cutting it straight, isn’t it? That somebody that could care for the family and doesn’t care for the family, well, that’s basically an indication that their faith is not worth anything.
Now, when he says denied the faith, he’s not saying that they’re going to lose their faith. It doesn’t mean that they’ve lost their salvation. It just means that they’ve lost the opportunity to express compassion, which their faith is filled with. If you have faith, show the faith with some compassion. And one of the ways that you can do that is by providing.
By the way, the word provide in verse 8 means to plan before. It means to plan in advance. So knowing that your mom one day will be widowed or your grandma will one day be widowed, begin to plan in advance. What is it that we need to do, if anything? Is there something you’re going to need to do to help out?
Like you would make plans today for how you’re going to get to the airport tomorrow at oh dark hundred, make some plans for how you’re going to provide for your widowed mom. That’s the picture. Not to provide for her is to deny your faith. But not to provide is also, he says, worse than an unbeliever. I mean, even unbelievers, he’s saying, will provide for their moms, their grandmas.
I mean, they don’t even live under God-given commandments to do it, and yet they provide. And they don’t even have the Holy Spirit living inside of them, prompting them and urging them and giving them the compassion to care for those in need, and yet they provide. And so, he’s saying doing the right thing toward widows is just central to faith. We talk about religion. This is true religion, that if our religion is really true, then the first place it’s going to show up is in the sacrifice that we have toward our family.
In fact, this is so important to Paul that he says in verse 7, give the people these instructions too, so that no one may be open to blame. I mean, when we do what it is God wants us to do, there’s nothing to condemn us. When the day comes that our mom dies then, and we’ve done the best that we could for her in God’s name before she died, it makes all the difference in the world. You know, I’ve seen this in families that choose to care for their widowed mom, and then I’ve seen this in families that choose not to care for their widowed mom. And so oftentimes what shows up when they choose not to care for their widowed mom or grandma is regret.
No regret, regret over here. A witness over here, no witness over here. Love over here, no love over here. He’s saying you won’t regret this. In fact, this is right in the eyes of God.
So God wants us to intentionally care for widows, whether through families or through the church. Either way, the point is, is that widows who are truly in need need to receive care from the church. Now, not all of the widows who are in need should receive financial care. In fact, it’s interesting because in verse 6 he says this, but the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. Now, what’s he talking about here?
And what he’s talking about, I think, is the worst state of need a widow could be in because this refers to a widow who’s living apart from God. She’s spiritually dead. She no longer sees herself, or maybe she’s never seen herself under the authority of God. Her husband has died, and so now without authority, without any kind of restraint, she’s simply doing whatever it is that she wants to do. She’s eating, she’s drinking, she’s partying, she’s doing whatever.
She’s spiritually dead. And the basic question that Paul is answering here is simply this: should you help that kind of a widow. If a widow who has no place in her life for God comes and asks for money, what should you do? Should you help her with money? Well, what’s the primary need she has?
That’s the question you got to ask. What’s the primary need she has? Because evidently she has some money, enough money to be able to buy some pleasure, to buy pleasure in whatever form that that comes to give her some kind of happiness. And actually this word pleasure in different translations is translated, for instance, in the English Standard Version, is translated as self-indulgence. So, she’s indulging for herself.
In the New American Standard Bible, the translation here for pleasure is wanton pleasure, and it refers potentially to sexual immorality. So, she’s living an immoral life. She’s having a good time at the expense potentially of the church. And so, essentially, the church is being asked to provide for this widow who is living for pleasure without any place for God in her life. That part of her life is dead.
And essentially, what he’s saying here, the implication is this, don’t provide or don’t feed her appetite. Don’t feed her fleshly appetite. In other words, the church is under no obligation to help the person who’s intentionally living apart from God, living in sin. If you want to help that person, don’t give them money. The best thing you could give them is the gospel.
Give her the gospel. Help her understand that God wants relationship in her life. He wants a relationship with her. So, pray for wisdom, pray for discretion, pray for God’s divine intervention, but the best way potentially you could care for a widow who’s not walking with God but is in need but yet has some kind of resources, and that’s evident by how she’s spending her resources or what she’s doing with what she’s got, The best way you could help her is talk to her about how God wants a relationship with her. He wants a relationship with her right now.
He wants a relationship with her forever. Jesus came to make the relationship possible. Her sin separated her from God. Invite her into a relationship with God. You know, one of the factors that’s coming out here is there’s a little lesson here with regard to helping others in need who are looking for a handout.
One of the things we need to do is take time to know. What is the true need here? What’s the real need? Be wise in what you decide to do. Said differently, be wise in what you feed them.
They may need food, that’s true, but you may not want to feed them money, but certainly you want to feed them the gospel. Certainly feed them the gospel. So what’s Paul telling Timothy to do, and basically what’s God telling us? He’s saying the true religion It doesn’t ignore people who are in need. It doesn’t— especially with regard to widows, it comes alongside and it doesn’t shut our eyes.
It meets the need. We open up our eyes. We don’t ignore it. The church intentionally and individually steps in and does what it can appropriate to help the person in need. Now, verse 16 kind of summarizes that mandate.
It says, if any woman who is a believer has widows in her family, she should help them. She should help them. Notice that the first care here comes from a family member, a believing family member. The first care wouldn’t come from the church. First care would come from the family member.
Don’t wait for the church to help them. You help them. This is individual care. And not let the church be burdened with them so that the church collective, the church collective can help those widows who are really in need. Church only has so many resources.
The church does need to help those who are in need. But if you are connected to a widow who’s in need, then do what you can to help that widow in need so that the church then can help those who don’t have family. And yet we want to do all that we can to meet those needs. So I think this is an interesting section of scripture that got me thinking, you know what, we need to start some talks around here at Bridges Community Church about how we’re doing in this area with regard to caring for widows who are truly in need. Is it possible we could do better with this?
And so we’ve put this next week on our agenda as elders. We’re going to have a conversation about this. I hope this starts more conversations about this. What can we do? We’re already doing some things, but what more can we do to help widows who are true widows in need and thereby practice our religion in the best ways that we can?
But we can also think about this as individuals. God has given to us resources. How can we come alongside and help those who are in need, and especially in our family? So the church must care for widows. Well, then Paul says this— this is really fascinating.
Verse 9: No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she’s over 60, 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. 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 have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going from house to house, and not only do they become idlers but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to. So, I counsel 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. Now, stay with me on this. This is a very interesting section. This is probably one of those sections in your Bible where the pages are still stuck together. You know, it’s like, I don’t really need to read this little section of Scripture, but I think there’s something here for all of us.
I want you to just first of all notice in verses 9 and 11 the list, okay? Notice the list. Just circle the list, underline the list, because Paul is bringing up the list. He is asking basically who should be on the list, who gets on the list. And from what Paul tells Timothy, there are a few things that we know about the list, and then there is one big thing that we don’t know about the list, okay?
So, let’s talk about what we know about the list. We know that a leader like Timothy would be the person to put this widow on the list, verses 9 and 11. We know that only widows were on the list, verses 9 and 11. We know that widows over 60 were on the list. You had to be a woman over 60 to be on the list, and basically at that time retirement for a woman was considered 60.
The age of 60 or over 60 was the retirement age, all right? We also know that only proven older widows were on the list. So, her life had to be a testimony of her faithfulness to God and to the work of the Lord. And then he gives a number of matters specifically to look for, that she was a devoted wife, a one-man woman. We usually say one-woman man.
Here we’re talking about a one-man woman who is faithful to her husband, verse 9. She’s known for good works, verse 10. If she has children, she brought them up in the ways of the Lord, verse 10. That she practiced hospitality even to the degree that she served the saints by washing their feet. That’s verse 10.
That she helps those in trouble. That’s verse 10. That she’s devoted to all kinds of good deeds. So you got this picture of this amazing godly woman. That’s what you have a picture of.
But in addition to that, we also get this little picture here of how this widows and the, the list that had these widows’ names on it that these widows in some way took some kind of vow or some kind of a pledge or a commitment. And it seems that the commitment was related to singleness, to singleness, that they were going to remain single as a widow for the rest of their life. And part of the reason that they would do that is that then they would therefore serve the Lord. So it’s a vow to singleness. It also is a vow to ministry, but it’s also a vow to purity.
And so Paul then, in light of that, he says to Timothy, so Timothy, don’t put younger widows on the list. Do you see that in verse 11? Don’t put younger widows on the list. Of course, here’s the question: well, why can’t a younger widow be on the list? Well, he goes after it and essentially says because there’s a good chance that this younger widow is going to at some point in her young age She’s going to at some point fall in love with a guy.
You know, like Prince Charming, he just comes along and she can’t hold herself back any longer. Her heart starts beating off of, you know, the chart and she just— oh, she falls madly in love with him. And what happens is, is she ends up, verse 12, breaking her singleness vow, which is a serious thing back then. Her pledge to purity, her pledge to singleness, all of that’s going to go by the wayside and potentially, verse 15, she could end up falling into sin, into the waves of Satan instead of the Lord. Now, that’s not far-fetched.
You’ve probably read or heard about some people who have made a singleness vow to serve the Lord in the church, and somewhere along the way, they fell out of that vow in terms of their commitment to purity, their commitment to singleness. Their pledge to purity and singleness was just set aside. Paul’s saying here, it would be better for a young woman who potentially could end up falling in love somewhere down the road to not end up on the list, to not come on the list. It would be better to keep her off the list. It would be better for her not to make a vow and then end up breaking the vow, or maybe not breaking the vow, but still having to live as if she’s under the vow and could end up potentially resentful and maybe even hostile toward God because she would want to marry, She knows, I can’t marry because I took this singleness vow, and so now I’ve just got to, you know, I just got to tough it out.
And what that produces in her is a sense of unhappiness and misery, and maybe if she starts sinning and immorality, guilt and shame, and who knows where it can all go. So basically what Paul is saying to this single young widow, what he’s basically saying to her is, forget the list. That’s what he’s saying. If you’re a young widow, forget the list. You don’t need to be on the list.
Make a new life for yourself, which might— you see this in the passage— which might include marriage, and that ultimately might lead to having children and homemaking, and hopefully that would lead to a life of new things and staying away from unproductive and hurtful things in your life. Verse 13, what’s Paul saying? He’s saying not every widow should be on the list. Not every widow should be on the— it’s not in the best interest of widows, younger widows, to be on the list, nor is it best interest of the church to put younger widows on the list. So that’s clear.
That’s what we know from this passage. The big question is what we don’t know. We know that he’s saying the list should only have women on it that are over 60, that these women that are on this list have been faithful to their husband, And that these women are known for good deeds, for living an exemplary life. But with regard to what we don’t know, it concerns the whole purpose of the list. What we don’t know for sure is the purpose of the list.
What was the list for? What was the list for? And there are 3 answers that I’ve come across that you can consider. I’m not going to conclude this for you. I’m going to let you figure it out.
First of all, it could have been a support list. That would kind of, for many of us, seem obvious. A support list, it’s a list that has a list of widows on it that the church is committing to financially supporting. The church is financially going to support these widows because they are widows in need and they don’t have family. Maybe they’re single widows.
Maybe they’ve never had family. Who knows what the circumstances were? But the church is committed to supporting them until they die or until they win the lottery or something else, but you get the idea. A rich relative bequeaths them an estate or whatever. Just kidding you, all right?
This is a support list, okay? We’re going to do what we can to help these people. Secondly, it could be a ministry list, a ministry list. Widows who are serving in a recognized official capacity in the church, all right? That picture.
So, actually, in the first 4 centuries, We know of widows that were on a list that was called the Order of the Widows. The Order of the Widows. And this was an official group in the early centuries of the church. You can check it out in history. But basically, they were recognized in an official capacity on the part of the church to do ministry for the church.
And the third suggestion here is it’s a support and ministry list. So it’s kind of a combination type of list where it kind of overlaps with both of those matters. It’s a list of people that are receiving support and a list of people who are ministering in various ministry opportunities and all of that. But it was a list that people got on where they vowed singleness and they vowed service potentially to the church, to the church. Now which one of those suggestions is the right one?
I don’t know. I’m just gonna let you sort it out. Bernice and I tried to sort it out and she said that she was for the support list. Which I think is for obvious reasons, just in case I die. But anyway, come on, a little humor in here.
And I was for the ministry list because I think it would be good if Bridges continued to give her my paycheck if I do die. But anyway, the point is, I’m kidding with you here. We don’t know what the list is. Maybe you can sort this out. But we do know the main point that he’s going after here.
Do you see the main point? The church must care for widows. The church must step up, get organized, and care for widows in need. That was vitally important in that era. Why?
Because when a husband died, the husband was primarily the bread earner of the family. That was a world— we talk about this in our world, but even worse in that world— that was a world that was not job-friendly for women. And there was no welfare system. There was no life insurance. And so, when a husband died, it was potentially going to be a situation where the woman was not going to be able to make it unless there was family.
And so, he’s writing about how do you care for these women, these widows that are truly in need. You notice that he doesn’t include a conversation about men because it was a job-friendly world for men. Potentially, they could make ends meet if there’s spouse died. But not the case with these women. And the church must step up and care for the widows.
But it shouldn’t stop there. Widows, secondly, must care for the church. Widows must care for the church. And you see that here. There’s a great place, an opportunity in the church among widows to have an ongoing serving ministry of eternal impact, of loving others.
And those widows in need without any family responsibilities, without any family responsibilities because they have no husband, and in some cases they have no family commitments, they have potentially a lot of freedom to devote their time and their attention to caring for people in the church. And so essentially this is like an opportunity for women to step into ministry roles and to do what they can. So what you have here is a picture of true religion. What’s true religion? It’s the church caring for widows, and it’s widows caring for the church.
And that’s not the whole thing related to religion, but what we’re talking about here this morning, it certainly is. And when that happens, then religion’s at its best. The church is doing what the church should do. It’s focusing on caring for others in their time of need. It’s focusing time and resources and love on helping those who are in need.
And it’s doing what we can. That’s really a description of a healthy church. Or you might say it this way, this is a description of healthy religion. Healthy caring. Everyone caring.
Sometimes that means that you’re on the receiving end where people are caring for you because of your point of need. And if that’s the case, then graciously with a thankful, humble heart, receive what’s given. Sometimes you’re on the giving side of things. Enjoy that, that God has given you the resources to give to others and to meet their needs. So graciously and eagerly do what you can.
Let the Christmas season focus be a year-long focus in your life. Past couple of weeks I was reading a second book that Dan Kimball wrote. He wrote a first book titled They Like Jesus but not the church. They like Jesus but not the church. And he’s talking about our culture and how unfortunately we live in a time where people, many people, want nothing to do with the church.
They want nothing to do with the church. They don’t have any good thing to say about the church. They see the church as a place of judgmental people, hypocrites, and they’ve got a list. And so Dan talked about this, and I thought it was such a really good discussion in this book. Well, he then came out with a second book, and it’s entitled Adventures in Churchland: Finding Jesus in the Mess of Organized Religion.
And what he did is he just felt he needed to come back, and he needed to give some counsel and some wisdom and some teaching with regard to the place of the church, to the importance of the church. That the church, yes, even organized religion, it can be a wonderful thing. That when it’s done right, that when this group of organized people really care, they really care and they really love people, the church can be a wonder to behold and the church can accomplish much good in the world. Yeah, religion can go south. It can be corrupted.
It could take a turn for the worse, but it doesn’t have to. And that’s the picture we’ve seen this morning. True religion can be beautiful, and great things can come out of the care of God’s family toward those who are in need.
So let’s not just talk about that. Let’s, let’s do something about it. Let’s truly care. Let’s as individuals and let’s as a collective body, let’s care even more. Let’s get our act together and do even more in the future than we’ve even done in the past.
I mean, really, in some ways we just came through and are in the middle here of the second month of a couple of amazing months in the church. This has been wonderful, hasn’t it? The amount of care that’s being expressed through Bridges Community Church. Go back to the Camp Fire relief effort, how there was an email sent out and so many of you responded immediately, got down here, bought a bunch of new stuff. We were able to take it over to the needs that were surrounding the Paradise area.
That was fabulous. Then we had the opportunity, remember, to fill up some shoeboxes, and you all got on board with that, and we were able to express some care to hopefully to some children that otherwise would not have a Christmas. And now here we are in December, we’re as a church ministering in a couple different ways. We’re ministering through the Salvation Army by ringing a bell, and I’m telling you, if you’ve never done that, you ought to do it. I was down in Los Altos this week ringing the bell.
It’s a wonderful experience.
But there are so many different ways to care. On the 20th, we’ve got what you already heard about, about this opportunity to make, prepare food, and serve food to people that are in need in our community. And there are more people in our community that are in need than we would even think. All of that’s just an expression of true religion, isn’t it? That’s what it should be.
So as we think about this, you know, as we think about what God’s doing in the life of the church, and we give God thanks for that, and think about the opportunities that are before us, We think about the opportunities in our family. True religion cares. It truly cares. Takes steps to do what it can to care for those who are in need. Can I get an amen to that?
Amen. Let’s pray. Lord, help us care. Help us truly care.
Help us open our eyes. To what’s happening around us, take steps to meet needs, whether it’s in our family or outside our family, in the church, outside the church. Help us, Lord, do what you do— extend loving care. So show us what that means and help us have soft hearts that are compassionate toward those that are in need. Help us not let everybody else care Help us care.
May we be known as a church that cares, a church that goes out of its way to care. May this be a place where through caring for others, people even find more than financial assistance, they find spiritual help, they connect with you. We pray for even that today, that if there’s anybody here that’s not yet in a relationship with you, that even today might be the day of salvation for them. They’d reach out and receive Christ as their Savior. But God, may we not leave what we’ve talked about in this building this morning, but may we take it with us, and may we represent you well, and may we reflect the kind of religion that you want religion to be— filled with loving care.
For we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
