Dennis Tuuri

text is a responsive reading and song because it is the picture of the bride of Christ again the mother of Christ singing that of course but it’s a picture of the church and there is the reference in the scriptures that we are the bride of Christ today’s talk will be on widows and the sermon text we’ll return to is 1 Timothy chapter 5 again and that also is one of the reasons why I chose the particular praise that we sang early on about God befriending and defending the fatherless and the widow and the stranger.

And God has said that’s who we are. and we are in that vulnerable condition before him and he’s extended grace to us on the basis of Christ’s work. So let’s turn then in your scriptures to 1 Timothy 5. We’ll read the section verses 3-16. And our particular emphasis will be on the second half of that section. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

We stand to remember that God’s word is always a grace word to us, but it’s also a word of command to us. So we stand ready to hear the king’s word and act in obedience to it. 1 Timothy 5, verses 3 and following.

Honor widows that are widows indeed. But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents. For that is good and acceptable before God. Now, she that is a widow indeed and trusteth in God and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.

But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. And these things give in charge, they may be blameless. But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. Let not a widow be taken into the number under three score years old, having been the wife of a one man well reported of for good works. If she has brought up children, if she is lodged strangers if she have washed the saints feet.

If she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work, but the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also in busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not.

I will therefore that the Younger women, marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully, for some are already turned aside after Satan. If any man or woman that believeth hath widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the nature of it, that it is spiritual, that your spirit indeed must open our ears to hear it and he must write that word upon our hearts. We pray Lord God that he would illumine this text for understanding that we might on our part be committed to receive this spiritual food to the end that we might use the spiritual grace that comes with it to serve the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

We began this particular text two weeks ago and I really I’m finishing up that sermon. So the outline you have in front of you is for last sermon two weeks ago as well as this week. The only change I’ve made to it is I’ve added some material at the bottom that we’ll get to as we go along in this hopefully we’ll address it shortly. But however, even though it is essentially one text, there are definitely two sections to this particular text as I have shown on the outline that I’ve given you. Verses 3-8 can be seen as a particular section and then verses 9-16 as the second section.

Verses 3-8 deal with widows. But there is this transition in the second half to a new topic. It is important that we understand these things. This is one of several sections in the book of 1 Timothy that has included in the context of it verse 7: “These things give in charge, that they may be blameless.” And the implication from that is that if we don’t command these things, if we don’t instruct ourselves in these things, then we’re not going to be blameless. We’re going to have blame upon us.

We have to understand the scriptures teach about this very important topic of widows and it has implications as we pointed out two weeks ago certainly for the church’s role relative to widows but it also has implications for you personally in your own walk with Christ as we began to talk about two weeks ago. It has implications for children. I believe that in verse two when it says that let or verse four rather let them first learn to show piety at home to requite their parents—that’s not talking about the widows, that’s talking about the children of widows.

Starts in verse four: “If any widow have children or nephews.” So there’s instruction here to children and nephews to act in obedience to the fifth commandment and to prepare themselves for supporting widows when they get older. And it has commandments for us who are older who might have older parents, widows or even older parents in the terms of fathers and mothers who are financially disabled. For us to honor our parents, not just the widow, but honor our parents relative to support in old age to give back to them a portion of what they gave to us when they were young.

So it has all kinds of implications here. It has implications for the church. It has implications for us personally and we can make application to say that has implications for the civil state as well. So it’s a very important text.

But there is this transition section here where it goes on then to talk about this enrollment and my belief—and it is not an easy text necessarily. There are differences of opinion amongst very good commentators on what this enrollment is, but I believe this is a permanent role of supported widows on the behalf of the church.

And so I read the text that way and I’ve outlined it for you in that way. And in the context of that then the second half of this text which we want to focus on this week has specific things to say relative to that enrollment process and what it means and then there’s some applications we can make as well.

Now this is a text that has been—just so you’ll know—this is the historic basis most people believe of the orders of nuns in the Roman Catholic Church. It is without question that this enrollment was seen in the context of the second and third century church as an order of older women who would do things in the context of the congregation of the New Testament church.

And let me read some of the description that we find from the church fathers about these particular roles. It can be said that in this section—the second section—can be seen as widows and their work when the first section we spoke about two weeks ago are widows and their need. You can look at it that way: if you believe this is an enrollment for service, then certainly the second section definitely has as its topic certain widows that are placed on a list and that what that list is—there’s differences of opinion about—but we know at the early church believed there was this order of widows.

Let me just read some of the titles of this order out of the early church fathers and the documents of the early church. These were called the intercessors for the church, the keepers of the door and the altar of God was another way to refer to this particular order of widows. We read on the veiling of virgins from the early church about the year 204. Tertullian, one of the early church fathers writing this, he states that the task of these women was quote “that their experienced training in all the affections may have rendered them capable of really assisting all others with counsel and comfort.”

So counsel and comfort is what Tertullian says this order did. Other early church fathers said that they were to give good counsel to the younger women. They were to pray and to fast. Their job was to visit the sick, to prepare women for baptism, to take them to communion and give guidance and direction to widows and orphans who are supported by the church. This order of more godly older widows who are supported by the church would also then work in the context of advising particularly widows, orphans and then the women of the church as well.

So it’s an important text historically for what occurred. We want to interpret the text though not on the basis of the early church fathers. The early church fathers have a lot of things to say that are not necessarily the best extrapolation of what the scripture text teaches. It’s the tradition of the church and it’s important. But of course, we’re people of the word. And I believe that the text since it begins and ends with a statement of support of widows that the role must be included in the context of that support as well.

In other words, if you look at verse three, “honor widows that are widows indeed.” And then verse 16, “if any man or woman that believes have widows, let them relieve them, and not the church be charged, that it may relieve them that are widows indeed.” It seems to me the book ends indicate that everything in the middle there has to do with the support of widows, not just the first half.

Having said that, there is however a difference in support. I believe that the scriptures are clear that we’re all individually to help people in need, whether they’re widows or just people that are out of work or whatever it is. God particularly says widows, strangers, and orphans or the fatherless are particular recipients of the grace of the church individually and corporately. And I believe that this text certainly says the church has an institutional role as well to support widows indeed.

That’s what verse 16 ends by saying that they may relieve them that are widows indeed. In other words, the church itself institutionally may relieve the widows that are widows indeed.

Now, if we went back to Deuteronomy 14 and the Old Testament—actually the portion of God’s law relative to the application of the tithe when the when the children of Israel entered into the promised land, okay, particular slice of history talking about here in Deuteronomy 14 says how to administer your tithe in that particular historical context.

In other words, Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek. Yeah. So the tithe exists prior to Levitical legislation. Levitical legislation says that in this particular chunk of redemptive history, God’s dealing with his people when we have a centralized sanctuary, a temple, a picture of the Lord Jesus, a centralized sanctuary there, not altars all over the place in the patriarchal period.

Now, this is what I want you to get: the tithe. God says, “And a portion of that tithe was used to deposit at the gates of the city and to provide for the relief of fatherless widows and strangers.” Now, there’s dissent over whether in that administration of the tithe and Levitical law, it was done individually or it was done through the gates of the city. In other words, the city church that existed in the local areas.

Well, if we look at this text, we can see it correlated with that. We can say that the institutional church receiving the full tithe of the people would use a portion of that tithe to provide for the support of certain widows and fatherless and by extension strangers. And so we find this really not some kind of disjuncture from the Old Testament Levitical law but really an application of those same principles or truths as found back then about the administration of the tithe.

So let’s look at the particular ones who are to be enrolled in what I believe is this enrollment process relative to the institutional support of the church. In other words, a permanent role of people that are supported. And we’re told very explicitly in this section that the requirements—a widow must be a widow indeed, in other words, desolate, not having people that can care for her. And that she must be a godly widow.

We saw that in the first portion of the text that she trusts in God. She has a habit of habitually relying upon God. She does not give herself over to a life of ease or luxury. Because the scriptures say that if somebody does that they’re dead while they live. The living dead are those—whether they’re widows or not—who think the whole purpose of life is to enjoy what’s here and not glorify God.

Now we’re to enjoy what God has given to us in Christ and the created order. But our job here on this earth is to be emissaries of the Lord Jesus in the context of wherever he places us. And to think that our life should be a life of luxury is just plain wrong and it’ll make you very frustrated unless God gives you over to that and relieves you of the need to interact with people at all by putting you up on a mountain someplace. But if you got to interact with people and you’ve got to live in the context of the life God has provided for most people, you’re going to find it very frustrating if you think your job in life is just to kick back and relax.

And that’s good because God says that if you do just kick back and relax and don’t see yourself as a worker, a servant, a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re the walking dead. You’re useless. When you die and go on to heaven there’s nothing you’re doing here anymore except occupying space.

So the scriptures here have application to widows, but they also have application to us. So we see these two requirements of the support of widows: being those who are truly desolate, no children, relatives to help, and those who are godly.

Okay, there’s a differentiation in the charity of the church and of individual Christians based on these truths. And now in the permanent enrollment beginning in verse 9, we see an added criteria. We see now that you’re not to add anybody to this permanent endowment of the church—benefices, church grants of grace—who are under three score years old. There’s an age requirement. Now, okay. And then we have some criteria in verse 10 again implying the godliness aspect of it.

Okay, the husband—the wife of one man well reported of for good works. That’s the two requirements. That’s the two evidences of godliness: that she didn’t have a roving eye if she was married. She wasn’t—she was a one-man sort of woman always focused on the particular husband she had. Now the husband died and she remarried. It doesn’t disqualify her. This is just like the elder requirement. It’s a one-man sort of woman dedicated to one man.

And then well reported for good works. Again, she didn’t have good works then she was dead while she was living. And then there’s indications of what good works are in verse 10. She brings up children. She lodges strangers. That happens in the context of her home. Did she use her rule of the household to bring up children and to lodge strangers in the house? And then we have two things that she might have done outside of the house.

Did she wash the saints feet? That’s a compact phrase that refers to works of ministry and service to the body of Christ to saints. That would happen outside of the house normatively. And has she relieved the afflicted? Has she gone around to help the sick? See, it doesn’t mean she has to have done each of these four things. It doesn’t mean that a widow was barren and didn’t have kids, she couldn’t be put in the permanent role.

These are four ways she might have demonstrated devotion to Christ is pictured by devotion to her husband and whether she had good works. These are some of the good works that could have been demonstrated by means of these particular things.

And now we want to move on to verse 11 because now we’re going to talk about younger widows. We have here a section of verse 11 it’s a little difficult. The younger widows refuse. Okay, so the younger widows don’t get put on this list. And then he talks about younger widows and he says “when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith. And with all they learn to be idle, wandering off from house to house, not only idle, but tattlers also, in busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not.”

And then in verse 14 “I will therefore the younger women marry.”

Well, now if you think that verse 11 means to wax wanton against Christ is marriage, then you got a problem. See, this is a problem text in verse 11 if you just read it and don’t think through it real carefully because you think that well, you don’t want younger widows in the list. And reference to their younger widows, if they marry, it’s because they’re waxing wanton against Christ. But he goes on three verses later to say that he wants the younger widows to marry.

He wants the younger widows to marry. So verse 11 cannot be interpreted in such a way as to contradict verse 14. Okay. So what does it mean to act wanton against Christ in the context of marriage? Well, the text tells us that if they marry in this particular way, they’ve waxed wanton against Christ. And then in verse 12, they have damnation. They’ve cast off their first faith and then they learn to do these bad things as well.

Well, I think that the only way we can interpret this correctly is to say that whatever marriage some young widows are tempted to go into is the wrong kind of marriage. I believe that what this text is referring to are young widows who want to marry so bad that they marry someone outside of the faith.

You see, because then all the things that we read make sense. If they marry outside of the faith, they have rejected the headship of Jesus Christ. If you’re a woman and you’re under a godly man, that godly man serves as protection, covering, guarding you, nourishing you in the faith to the end that you remain consistent to the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s his job. Husbands, that’s your job. One of the jobs you have with your wives is to keep them in the faith.

And if the husband dies, now we got a young widow and now she’s certainly still subservient to Christ. But the normal way women are subservient to Christ—not the only way, but the normal way—is in the context of the family and in the context of being in submission to a godly husband and bearing children. Now she doesn’t have the godly husband. And now there’s going to be a temptation for her to throw off the subjection she has to the Lord Jesus Christ. And there’s going to be a temptation for her to marry outside of the faith.

And to do that is to wax wanton against Christ. To do that is to cast off the first faith. If she marries a godly husband, she’s not casting off her first faith. But if she marries a non-Christian, someone outside of the faith, now the scriptures say that is tantamount to casting off the first faith. And that is that brings about damnation.

So I believe that what we’re reading in verses 11 and 12 that fit in with the rest of the text as well is that there are things that young widows are warned against. And in some way, if they’re put on the permanent roles of the church, they’re going to be tempted in these two areas. One, to marry outside of the church. And secondly, to learn to be idle.

Verse 13 is the idle part of this. “And with all they learn to be idle, wandering from house to house, not only idle, but tatlers also, and busy bodies, speaking things which they ought not.” Instead of busy workers at home, they leave the house.

And by way of application here: A Christian woman. This is an encouragement to you to see your primary occupation in the context of the home, the Christian home, being a godly wife, managing a household, raising children for the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to hear that again and again today because our culture says just the reverse—that you’re a failure unless you have vocation outside of the home. You’re an idiot. You’re some kind of bad person as a woman if that’s what you think your primary calling is.

And yet the spirit of our age is directly opposed to the teaching of the holy scriptures of God, the command, law, grace, word of God to us that tells young women that their role in life normatively in the context of the church of Jesus Christ is to be stayers at home to raise children.

He tells us that in verse 14: “I want young widows to marry, to have children, to guide the house.”

To guide the house, by the way, is a very intensive term. It doesn’t just mean sort of be their guidance. It means to direct the household, to be the superintendent of the house. That’s—you see it’s an interesting phrase to me because we would think of husbands as the rulers at home and we know that they are to be rulers at home. We know that from again from the list of qualifications for elders and deacons that they’re supposed to rule well in the context of their household.

But what this tells me is there’s a tremendous amount of delegation of real household authority to the wife. This is not some quiet non-talking, irrelevant sort of person here who just cleans the dishes. This is someone who manages in the context of the home. And you can think of the analogy to managing in the context of the church—the deacons being assistants to the elders. And so the wives are assistants to the husbands and they serve with real authority in the context of the home.

And Husbands, I tell you, I tell myself that when we do anything to diminish the authority of our wives in the context of our home, then we move against the very thing that the scriptures tell us is to be their sense of calling and purpose in life. We do it to our own hurt and we do it to their hurt. We do it to our children’s hurt and we do it to the kingdom’s hurt as well. Okay?

So, they’re supposed to stay at home. They’re supposed to rule in the context of the home. They’re supposed to bear children. They’re supposed to marry and they’re to give none occasion to the adversary. Satan is on a chain, but it’s a long chain and he’s out there trying to devour whom he will. And the way he does it in the context of the home is to lure women away from that sense of calling.

And in our day and age, the megaphones are blaring. The siren call to come here where things look good, but which are in fact shipwreck for Christian women. The megaphones are blaring. It’s a 100 watt per channel, quadrophonic sound or whatever it is to women: get out of the home don’t do this anymore, work in the context of vocation.

And even if Christian women are at home the tendency is if they are to follow the temptation in verse 13 to be idle and not attend to those home duties. And in a way the woman who is in vocation at work at least is kept busy through that work. But the woman who not only doesn’t go to work—which they’re not supposed to do normatively, I mean that’s okay on occasion—but who stays at home, but then doesn’t attend to the household management tasks and instead spends her time outside of the home primarily idle.

This idleness turns into a search for information and the search for information turns into tailbearing to other people. There’s old proverbs, many of them, that say that an inquisitive man, don’t trust him. Somebody’s asking you a lot of questions, it’s because they’re going to tell a lot of people the answers they get. There’s this tendency, there’s this transition.

This text tells us one temptation for women is to marry outside of the faith, young widows. The other temptation is to be idle, to be the living dead, not being workers for the kingdom, and instead to be idle. That idleness—idle hands, the devil’s workshop—the idleness turns into a searching out of information. There’s the word here that the women who are busy bodies—that is the same term for those who search out deep things in terms of sorcery and magic. It doesn’t mean they’re after magical things but it means they’re out getting information.

See, and then they use that information to share things that really are confidential things with other people. So those are the tendencies. Those are the two problems that young widows have. And I think then in the context of that to wax wanton against Christ is to marry in the outside of the context of the faith itself.

And there’s a correlation between verses 11 and 12 and verse 14 on the positive side. And then we have the concluding statement reminding us again that all this is in the context of support of widows.

Now I mentioned two weeks ago the importance of widows in the context of the Christian faith. There are applications that we can make for this. The scriptures from beginning to end talk about God’s concern for the widows in the context of the community of faith. And I want to talk about that a little bit more.

I mentioned it last time I talked on this text, but I want to talk about it a little bit more here. In the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 32:39 we read this. God says of himself. He says, “See now that I, even I am he, and there is no God with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”

God says that he kills and he makes alive. God says that he takes those who are symbolically dead in the context of being strangers, in the context of the fatherless, in the context of widows, and brings them into special relationship with him. He gives life to them. A widow is the picture of the most vulnerable state of humanity, at least it has been in the history of the world. A woman is more vulnerable than a man is. And a woman without a husband, particularly an older widow who is desolate, is the picture of someone who is totally left in vulnerability.

And God says that when people understand their vulnerability to him, that he demonstrates his grace to them and restores them as it were back to life. The way that Elijah the prophet was sent to the widow on the verge of death and the fatherless in that case and brought life to that family. The giving of life is something that I believe the scriptures say we as Christians participate in a secondary sense of course in terms of being God’s imagebearers.

We’re to give assistance and life to desolate widows. We’re to make their lives—and we do it through the help of physical sustenance and we do it here in the context of the word of God by instructing people what the faith says their particular role or vocation in life is—and that’s a moving them to life, away from the deadness of not being serviceable for the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the scriptures tell us that’s a central aspect of who we are.

Now we want to take the word of God and you know one of the one of the temptations you come to a text like this—at least for me, a big temptation—is to say, “Here it is. Here’s the text that says that in terms of welfare, the civil state is not have a function.” Right? This has an application. The application of the civil state is rather obvious, isn’t it?

Social Security is a bad idea. That’s why I’ve got that at the head of the outline for you. In the context of the church, there are permanently supported widows, but they have to meet certain qualifications, and they’re not placed on the role of the state. They’re placed on the role of the church.

And so, the tendency here is to say, “We can make public policy out of these portions of scripture. And I believe that’s legitimate. I believe it’s legitimate to say that for instance, one of the things this text tells us is that the church must be very careful in its use of benevolences. Because if you put those younger widows on the role, then you’re going to lead them to have problems.

Paul doesn’t dislike younger widows. He’s trying to make them alive. He’s trying to minister grace to them. And the way to minister grace to a younger widow under the age of 60 is to not let her be put on a permanent role of from the church because that’s going to put temptations in the context of her path.

So the scriptures say that your use of benevolences, alms, that aspect of your tithe that relates to the fatherless, the widows, and the strangers, it’s important how you use it. It’s important to use God’s restrictions on how you minister that portion of your money because if you don’t, you’re going to put stumbling blocks in front of people. These young widows are going to fall.

Now, it’s their own fault, but you don’t want to be the one to put a stumbling block in front of some young widow that prompts her to a life of idleness and a falling away from the faith in the context of that idleness and producing an occasion for the adversary, the devil, to slander her and the church of Jesus Christ.

So the application of the civil state is rather obvious, isn’t it? Every welfare program of the civil state doesn’t have these requirements. It doesn’t seek godliness, does it? It says it’s indiscriminate in the sense of who the civil magistrate helps. So the civil magistrate is doing the wrong job and the civil magistrate isn’t using godly criteria even if it wants to take a part in the context of the administration of benevolences.

So they’re wrong on both counts.

So we have from this text application for the church and application for how we reform the civil state. And it’s timely because last week a Republican conservative house passed a minimum wage bill by which they think that they can interject themselves into the workplace and determine what a proper wage is for employers to give employees. And you know, one of the effects of that, of course, is just that if you got the same amount of labor, the guy’s doing the same amount of work he did yesterday, and today he’s making whatever it is, 50 cents an hour more, and here in Oregon, by the way, we’re going to have a ballot measure where the minimum wage go up to $6.50 within the next 3 years.

It’ll probably pass. So, what what changes? The labor is the same, the productivity is the same, but now you’re making a dollar an hour more that you get for that same labor. The labor and productivity hasn’t changed. What’s changed? The dollar has changed. See, it’s a de facto, it’s a devaluation by law, devaluation of the dollar that man gets. It becomes less valuable.

I don’t care what man thinks he can do. He cannot speak productivity into existence. He can’t speak wealth into existence. All he does when he speaks is to change the value of his little printed thing called the dollar bill today. And now it’s worth after the minimum wage laws passed, you can say that in very real sense, it’s worth 10 to 15% less than it was the day before it passed.

So this is application to us. And that’s the tendency, see, is to make the political application of God’s law. But notice that we don’t get to that application if we don’t understand the basic principle at work. The church cannot instruct the state that it must stay away from the support of widows and try to change minimum wage and the way those things work unless the church first tells itself this is what the law says for us. And you can’t say how the law speaks to us institutionally if you don’t understand the fundamental truths that particular law pictures to us.

And that’s why I say two weeks ago, I’ll say it again today. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it over and over: the picture here for us in this legislation, for us personally as a church in terms of widows is the picture of the grace of God toward unregenerate sinners. That’s what’s going on.

We were the widow. We were the fatherless. We were—our father was a wandering Aramean in the context of the scriptures in Deuteronomy that talks about the application of the tithe, the aspect dealing with mercy. The declaration was to be made: “I was a wandering Aramean and God did these great things. He gave me these blessings and therefore I pass them on.”

Scripture says, “Hey, you got to be merciful to receive that mercy in the context of the support of the church. The scriptures say over and over the picture of the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger is the man who is dead, who is brought back to life in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Turn if you will to Matthew chapter 5. The beatitudes beginning at verse 3. There are eight:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

And then an extension of that “when men revile you and say all manner of evil against you for my sake. They persecute the prophets which are before you.”

So it begins and ends at those who receive the kingdom of God. And it moves from those who are poor in spirit to those who are persecuted. And there’s a transition in the context of these eight beatitudes. Notice that the first four can be lumped together.

Those that mourn—that’s where it starts. A mourning over our state, recognizing that we’re widows and strangers and fatherless and dead. Blessed are the meek. The meek are those who are broken to God’s harness, made able to be used by him. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled, knowing that they don’t have righteousness in and of themselves. Okay. I skipped over the first—the poor in spirit. Those who recognize the first beatitude their poverty in spirit—poor in spirit, mourning, meek, broken into God’s harness, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Those are all pictures of our state of need before God.

Our need to be comforted, our need for being rich in spirit, our need of being humbled by God’s breaking of us, and our need for righteousness that we don’t have in and of ourselves. And it’s only after that we get to the actions of us. Blessed are the merciful, and then blessed are the pure in heart. These are conditions now of the regenerate man, right? Blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemakers—that’s what we’re going to do when we go to Salem and change the homeschool laws or change the get rid of the minimum wage laws eventually or get rid of the socialist welfare program we’ve got that brings God’s order to the civil state just like when you have God’s order in your house or in your room you’re a peacemaker.

But you don’t get to that end of the thing—which leads to persecution, by the way, is the eighth beatitude. You don’t get there unless you first go through these first ones where you understand your state of need before God.

Now I was cleaning my pool this last week and I had my children helping me, or I was probably helping them. They did most of the work during the day. I came home and then tried to clean it up at night or do the last bit. And I sinned. I got angry. I spoke improper words. I was impatient with my children. And God reminded me of all these great truths.

You see, when I—when you do that, man, when you get angry at your children’s deficiencies or your wives, part of what could be going on, what’s going on with me is I’m not extending mercy to these people that are weaker than me physically and maybe weaker in terms of discipline or understanding of how to do a task or whatever it is. I’m not saying you don’t have a job to instruct them, that there isn’t a proper time to use harsh words with your children, but I’m saying that too often with me what I do is I violate this precept to show mercy.

And when I do that, it’s because in my flesh, I do not recognize that God has shown mercy to me. Now, I mean, we know it intellectually up here. We know that, right? We know, well, we can’t say that and not be—if we’re Christians, we got to know we’re brought here by the grace of God. Yeah, we know that in our heads. But all too often, we walk in the patterns of the old man, the old habits we have that says that somehow it’s my work that’s going to produce God’s order. I’m going to be a peacemaker by taking the law of God and making it the law of this country and making it the law of this home.

Well, that’s only half of the story and it’s the second half of the story. The first half of the story is recognizing that we’re widows before God. We have need. We’re poor in spirit. We’ve got nothing. We’re bankrupt. We are debtors. We’re sinners before God. We have need for his mercy. And when we treat widows improperly and don’t have a heart—the Pharisees, their side of the curse of God was because they devoured widows houses. That’s the correlative to here in terms of being merciful.

Okay? They devoured widows houses. What I’m saying is that when we do that, when we act impatiently to those who are weaker than us and when we want people to be more like us, then it’s because we do not recognize our need before God of his grace and his mercy and his compassion. We cannot move to making civil application or even church application if we don’t on a regular basis remind ourselves that we are here by the grace of God.

So that’s half of it. The other half is that by the grace of God he has made us alive. Right? “I kill and destroy and I make alive.” God says. And God says yes, you’re the one who had nothing. You’re the one who should have mourned repeatedly and you’re the one who had to hunger and thirst after righteousness and you’re the one who has needed to be broken and humbled to my will. He says but I’ve done those things positionally in Christ in your life and I have made alive. You’re a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you’re called to walk in that newness of life.

And in that newness of life, you will be patient. You will be kind. You will be merciful to those who need mercy from you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. That’s five. It comes as a realization of the first four of our poverty before God. And as an extension of that mercifulness, then we usher in God’s order, God’s peace in the context of our home, our church, our community, and the civil state.

It all flows out of a recognition that we were poor, but God has filled us. He’s made us alive, and he calls us then to make others alive. He has you come today to this table. He says, “Recognize that there’s blood up here, the blood of the Savior. Recognize that’s a picture of your sin, but it’s also a picture that your sin now has been atoned for and you’ve been brought into newness of life in Christ.”

And that leads to the section on the bottom of the outline dealing with Romans 7. Very briefly, turn if you will to Romans 7. This outline comes from Reverend Jordan’s talks at family camp last year. He really takes the basic outline from a guy named John Frame who’s a teacher at Westminster Theological Seminary, the western campus of that in California.

John Frame has written several books, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” etc. And he talks about this triune aspect of various portions of scripture where you have standard, motivation and situation. And I’ve given you the outline to show you that it’s not important that we talk about that a whole lot except that it is important to see that in Romans chapter 7 there is a transition that goes on here. I referenced this before, but look at it now if you would in Romans chapter 7.

And we’ll and we really see the same four-fold pattern as you go through the outline. So I’ll just take the first couple in verse 14: “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

In our flesh, in our old man, we’re carnal and sold under sin. And as a result of that, we find that in verse 15, “that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I.”

That’s the problem the Christian faces is that he finds himself treating his children impatiently and treating his wife impatiently or in a frustrated way or in an angry way or in less than a merciful way. Okay? And of course, he also thinks he’s a lot better at the task that he’s been called to do than he really is. That’s the other part of this.

I mean, I don’t mean to imply that the father is just impatient because he can do things good and the kids can’t. The fact is we deceive ourselves and we don’t really do things as good as we can and then we want to make somebody else atone for our sins. So we blame our children for our mistakes. That’s a common phenomena with husbands.

But in the best of circumstances, you do have the right standard in mind and you find yourself wanting to demonstrate mercy to your children or to your wife and to treat them with love. You don’t do it and it frustrates you and you wonder what is going on with me.

And verse 16 goes on to say in Romans chapter 7: “If then that I do that which I would not, I consent under the law that it is good.”

Well, what that means is that at the end of the day, I’ve been improper toward my children about the pool, for instance, and I feel like, gee, I shouldn’t have done that. The law of God says, extend mercy, love your neighbor, love God, and love man whom he’s created, and I didn’t do it. But see, there’s a comfort in this in knowing that I feel bad about the thing wherein I fell short of God’s law of love to my children.

So there’s a comfort in knowing that. And so Romans 7 begins with the dilemma we face, but it moves us on to a comfort in knowing that the dilemma is real for us. It’s good that you feel bad. It’s a reminder from God that you have been made alive by him. You understand what I’m saying?

See, it’s not just a reminder of your sin. That’s where it starts. It’s a reminder to you to remember your poverty in spirit apart from the grace of God. But see, the other half of it is it’s a reminder to you that you are now a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ and you want to follow God’s law. You have a desire to be you’re motivated by a desire to do God’s will. That’s the second aspect of these on your outline here.

You love God’s law. His whole word is law of love to you. You want to do it. You want to do that which you found yourself not doing with your kids or your wife or your employer or whatever it is. And actually your head, the head of your body, the real man that you are, it wants to do the right thing.

So even though sometimes members of your body—by that in the end of Romans 7 here, it doesn’t just mean the physical members of your body—it means what you put your hand to do, things you write, you know, things you put your hand to do, places you go, you go wrong places. Sometimes you do wrong things with your hands, you think wrong thoughts. But essentially now, you want to be free from the implications of call that death.

And then he ends by saying that there is this dead body, this body of death in verse 24 that I need deliverance from. But he goes on to say in verse 26 that we have been delivered from that.

“I thank God for Jesus Christ our Lord. But with the mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those which are in Christ Jesus.”

And what I’m saying here is that there are two things that go on when God convicts us about sin that apply to the text. It tells us first of all that we sin, that we are those people that are poor in spirit. But the second thing that conviction does is to assure us that God—