I Timothy 5-6:2
Thesis: We need to have health relationships so that God is glorified.
As I was leaving church yesterday, I was standing outside the door talking with someone. And this cute, little seven year old girl with a lisp stepped out the door, put her hand on my shoulder and said �I�m thaying this because I care. Get thome help.� and she walked between us and went on.
It was cute. We all chuckled a bit. I�m still not sure what she meant, and I don�t mean to over analyze it. But as I drove away I thought, �Isn�t that just like us. We are quick to diagnose people around us, but we really don�t care enough to do anything about it.� We�ll give advice, but not love and effort.
We�re over half way through I Timothy, and today Paul is talking about relationships, and how we relate to the people around us.
Now, as much as I don�t want to admit it, the Gospel, Christianity, and everything that matters hinges on relationships. There�s been times when I�ve wanted to go back to Alaska, claim my brother�s land, build a little cabin in the mountains and forget this hopeless, dieing world. But for the sake of eternity, mine and those I might touch, I can�t.
Perhaps you�ve heard the statement, �Christianity is not a religion; it�s a relationship.� It�s a relationship with God that demands proper relationships with others.
God wants to have a relationship with you.
Christ suffered to restore your relationship to God.
You have to build healthy relationships with others to point them to Christ.
So how does all this relate to our text? We are looking at I Timothy chapter 5 and a little bit of 6, and again this is Paul writing a litter to Timothy about issues that Timothy was facing such as how to deal with widows, elders, and slavery. What we have to do is apply these instructions to our modern situations. Widows and slavery are not big issues to most of us, but giving respect and taking responsibility are. Because we need to have health relationships so that God is glorified. Give respect and take responsibility.
Give Respect (5:1&2, 17-21,6:2)
As I read the first part of the text I want you to look at it in light of giving respect.
Chapter 5 verse 1
1Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
Now skip down to verse 17. We�ll get back to the rest later.
17The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,"[b] and "The worker deserves his wages."[c] 19Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. 20Those who sin are to be rebuked publicly, so that the others may take warning.
21I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism.
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1All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
Give respect and take responsibility.
It doesn�t matter how old or young you are, or if your neighbor seems to want it or deserve it, we must always give them proper respect as one loved by God and made in His image. We�ve talked bout the fact the we are called to love God and love others. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, but He says in Romans 12:10 to honor or respect them above yourself.
Romans 12:10 (New International Version)
10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
And Paul says it again in
Philippians 2:3 (New International Version)
3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
Teachers, notice verse 21 of chapter 5
21I charge you, in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, to keep these instructions without partiality, and to do nothing out of favoritism.
Again we find this in
James 2:8-9 (New International Version)
8If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself,"[a] you are doing right. 9But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.
In every healthy relationship, teacher to student, student to teacher, child to parent, peer to peer, spouse to spouse, whatever, you must show respect.
If I�m dealing with a first grader at church and I put him down or look over his head while he�s talking. I�ve disrespected him and he�s likely to discredit anything I have to say. Or if I have a boss or an instructor that�s a real jerk, this is completely hypothetical, of course, and I wine or get in his face and tell him what I think, or worse, I tell everyone but him, our relationship will have walls big between us, and my witness for Christ is empty.
Whereas if we give people more respect than they deserve, they will be more likely to respect you in return.
As a teen you may feel the yoke of slavery. You can�t always go where you want to go and do what you want to do with the people you want. And as staff and faculty of a small organization, I�ve been told that it�s not a salary, it�s slavery. So let�s all consider chapter 6 verses 1&2.
1All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. 2Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
So that�s giving respect, now, as I read the rest of chapter 5 I want you to think about taking responsibility.
Take Responsibility (3-16, 22-25)
Starting with verse 3 of chapter 5.
3Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. 4But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these [the children] 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. 5The 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. 6But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. 7Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. 8If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
9No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband,[a] 10and 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.
11As 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. 12Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. 13Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to. 14So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. 15Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.
16If 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.
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22Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, and do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.
23Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.
24The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. 25In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden.
I�ve been accused of avoiding the hot issues, so let me say, The wine, in verse 23, was for medicinal purposes that were physical, not physiological. We have more advanced medicine now.
That�s responsibility for your body, but in a few months a man is scheduled for a parole trial for a crime he committed March 13, 1964. It took place on a New York city street and in to the halls of an apartment building. His victim was a 28 year old woman he didn�t know, Kitty Genovese. He slowly and brutally stabbed her to death. But this is the kicker, when it comes to witnesses, the police report said that approximately a dozen, the The New York Times claims least thirty-eight, of her neighbors witnessed the attack and/or heard her screams and did nothing. In the course of the 30-90-minute episode, her attacker was actually frightened away by one man who yelled at him from a window, then he returned to finish her off. Yet not once during that period did any neighbor really assist her. The implications of this tragic event shocked America, and it stimulated two young psychologists, Darly and Latane, to study the conditions under which people are or are not willing to help others in an emergency. In essence, they concluded that responsibility is diffused. The more people present in an emergency situation, the less likely it is that any one of them will offer help. This is popularly called the "bystander effect." or "Genovese syndrome"(In the actual experiment, when one bystander was present, 85 percent offered help. When two were present, 62 percent offered help. When five were present, then it decreased to 31 percent.)
This truth and these statistics, I would assume, are not only true for emergency situations but most situations that require our voluntary effort. If it�s as simple as picking up someone else�s trash in stead of stepping over it, or if it�s as big as giving your life to a thankless ministry, the bystander effect or "Genovese syndrome" is seen. We think, �That�s not my fault or job,� or �Certainly someone else is addressing it, or will address it, or should address it.�
Hello, if you see a problem, fix it. If you see a gap, fill it.
Back to that little seven year girl old I mentioned earlier, about ten minutes before I went outside, I had a couple of pizza boxes and some paper towels that needed to go down stairs. She was standing at the top of the stairs, so I asked her kindly if she would take them down and put them in the kitchen with the big trash cans. She closed her eyes, through her head back and said, �Why does it have to be me?� Now, in her defense, that�s a typical seven year old response, because they are brave enough to say it out load.
How often does God give us instructions and opportunities to serve and we think, �Why does it have to be me?�
When Queen Victoria was a child, she didn't know she was in line for the throne of England. Her instructors, trying to prepare her for the future, were frustrated because they couldn't motivate her. She just didn't take her studies seriously. Finally, her teachers decided to tell her that one day she would become the queen of England. Upon hearing this, Victoria quietly said, "Then I will be good." The realization that she had inherited this high calling gave her a sense of responsibility that profoundly affected her conduct from then on.
You are an aire to the throne. You are a child of God. You have and will have greater responsibilities. You have a high calling and it revolves around proper relationships. We need to have health relationships so that God is glorified. And our lives and message are creditable.
I like verse 24The sins of some men are obvious, reaching the place of judgment ahead of them; the sins of others trail behind them. 25In the same way, good deeds are obvious, and even those that are not cannot be hidden.
So in every situation, give respect and take responsibility, so that God is glorified.
Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Social Psychology in the Seventies (Monterey, Calif.: Brooks/Coal Publishing Company, 1972), pp. 33-34. quoted in Courage - You Can Stand Strong in the Face of Fear, Jon Johnston, 1990, SP Publications, p. 37.
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