Responsibilities

00:01 It's good to be in the house of the Lord this morning. We want to greet each one in the name of Jesus. Good to see each one here. We look forward to our weekly meetings together, do we not? And to be able to worship the Lord together and see people that have been sick back in church again, and we're glad for the presence of each one. 00:22 If you would turn in your copies of the Scriptures this morning, I want you to be looking at 1 Timothy chapter 5. We are deep into the study of 1 Timothy. 00:33 We have looked at the first four chapters, and now this morning we come to chapter 5 and a very practical passage about how to behave ourselves in God's house. Kind of the theme that we've been looking at here is found in chapter 3, 00:52 verse 15: "I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God," which is the church, the pillar and ground of the truth. That means more than just how you need to sit still in church and not get up and go to the bathroom all the time and be reverent and so on. It's how to conduct yourself in the family of God, 01:14 how to live in the family of God in relationships and in propriety and in honor, respecting one another and honoring one another. And this passage this morning in chapter 5 has to do with the treatment of church members of different ones in the body of Christ. And I'll be honest with you, 01:34 it may be a bit sensitive this morning as we look at the subject of responsibility, having responsibility for each other in our relationships, having responsibility for widows. 01:50 And that's the bulk of chapter 5, verses 3 through 16 deal with how the church should respond to caring for its widows. 02:01 And then in chapter 5, verse 17 and following, it talks about the responsibilities that the church has for its leaders and the responsibilities that the leaders have for the church. And so certainly there'll be some things here for us to glean this morning, 02:20 and we want to be sensitive as we talk about different things because we're talking about people here. We're talking about people. We have no one in mind particularly, but the Apostle Paul was talking about people in the church. So we have our responsibilities toward our communities. We have our responsibility toward our individual families, 02:41 and then we have our responsibility for our church family. So I'd like to read chapter 5: "Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters with all purity. 03:02 Honor widows who are really widows. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents for this is good and acceptable before God. 03:16 Now she who is really a widow and left alone trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives, and these things command that they may be blameless. But if anyone does not provide for his own, 03:35 especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man well reported for good works, if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, 03:56 if she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work. But refuse the younger widows, for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry, having condemnation because they have cast off their first faith. 04:15 Besides, they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not. Therefore, I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully, 04:37 for some have already turned aside after Satan. If any believing man or woman has widows, let them relieve them, and do not let the church be burdened that it may relieve those who really are widows. Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, 04:56 especially those who labor in the word and doctrine, for the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain," and the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. 05:13 Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear. I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing with partiality. Do not lay hands on anyone hastily, nor share in other people's sins. 05:35 Keep yourself pure." We'll end reading at that point. If we get that all covered this morning, in the next 40 minutes, we shall be doing well. So with any great endeavor, there is responsibility that comes along with it. With any freedom, there is responsibility that comes along with it, 05:58 and you only receive the benefits when you're willing to walk in the responsibilities. And that's the way life is. And so with a good church, with a good church family representing Christ and a biblical church, there's responsibility that we have for one another. It's responsibility that we have for the church, for our part in the church, 06:17 and for the relationships that we enjoy. Now, irresponsibility, it can be said, is a sign of immaturity. And so I don't expect the same level of responsibility from my two-year-old as I would from a six-year-old or a six-year-old from a twelve-year-old or a twelve-year-old from an adult. 06:37 There are levels of responsibility, and the greatest responsibility is our responsibility that we have for ourselves, taking responsibility for our own walk, taking responsibility for our own choices, our own relationships, our part in relationships, and being self-responsible. Now, 06:57 it doesn't have to be said, but I'll say it anyway, that we live in a day and an age where responsibility nobody wants to take it. And so we want to dump it on the government. We want to dump it on the courts. We want to dump it on somebody in my past or whatever. People don't like to take responsibility, but that's what we're called to do. 07:18 We're not called to sue a McDonald's when we spill hot coffee on ourselves or to sue a... Well, I went and traded in a dehumidifier recently. And did you know that if you buy a dehumidifier or a fan, 07:39 that you will find a warning on there that says, "This may cause harm to reproductive health and cause cancer"? I'm like, "Wow. You mean we got to even be warned about a fan, about a chair, about a dehumidifier?" And it's like nobody wants to take responsibility because we're all afraid of a lawsuit. 08:00 And we don't want to use good sense. 08:03 We want to take something that happens somewhere and then stretch that out as far as we can to eliminate responsibility of corporations, of each one of us, of churches even. We should have a disclaimer in our bulletin, "Enter at your own risk. 08:21 You may be convicted," or something like that. But we need to take responsibility. Caring and respect for one another is part of that. In fact, I think we could write over this whole passage here the word respect. In verse 3, he says, "Honor widows. 08:41 Honor widows who are really widows." That's what he means, who are really widows. Well, we'll talk about that in a little bit. But honor, respect, respecting one another and respecting person to person. And so the first group of people he addresses here are kind of delineated by age group. 09:00 And he says, "I want you to not rebuke an older man." Now, that doesn't mean that older men are always right and they don't need to be corrected. But what it means is to not reprimand or sharply rebuke or harshly rebuke an older man, but entreat him or exhort him as a father, 09:22 appeal to him as a father, realizing that if you're the younger man, there will be a day when you are the older man. And we will once receive what we have sown. And if we sow contention and harsh rebuke to one another, that is likely what we will receive. 09:42 If we sow an entreaty or an appeal or an exhortation, that is likely the tone that will be set for what we will receive in our elderly years. So he said, "Just respect each other." I think that's why I say you can write over that, "Respect the elderly. Respect them." And then the younger men, 10:03 "Respect them as brothers, younger men to younger men and older men to younger men." We are to respect one another as brothers, honor one another as brothers. And sometimes brothers have disagreements. Sometimes they have sharp disagreements, but they've never let anything eliminate the fact that they're brothers. 10:25 They're brothers in Christ in this case. And so then we have the fact that the older women are to be treated as mothers and the younger women as sisters with all purity. In a very real sense, our culture is one that disrespects the elderly. 10:46 Now, this is in comparison with some other cultures around the world that have great honor and respect for their elderly. The American culture worships youth. The youth culture worships beauty, worships at the altar of the strong and the beautiful and the famous. 11:04 But in many Middle Eastern cultures and around the world, that is kind of reversed is that there is a position of honor for the elderly. And so just remember that when you think about how we respond to one another. 11:22 And I appreciate this congregation because I hear regularly, or I shouldn't say regularly, but semi-regularly from the youth that they want to be a part of the church. They want to be in relationship with us older folks and those of us that are now grandpas and grandmas. And they want us to be involved in their lives. 11:43 And let me tell you, we want you to be involved in our lives too. And it's a great blessing. It's a great blessing to have relationships with younger people. And some of the greatest relationships that I ever had were with people that were even 20, 30 years older than me. And there's getting fewer and fewer of those around. But 30 years older than me would put you at 90. 12:04 There's not that many. But I still treasure those relationships. They're relationships that are precious to us. 12:11 There is wisdom to be gained from Rehoboam when he would go to the elderly men, the elders of Israel, and ask them, "How should I respond in my reign now that I'm following as Solomon's successor to the throne?" And the older men said, "Just lighten up a little, Rehoboam. 12:33 Your father was a good king, but he really, really, really taxed us heavily. He used us heavily to build his empire, to build his king. Just lighten up a little bit, Rehoboam. And these people will serve you forever." And then he went to the young people, and he got advice from those it says, 12:55 whom he grew up with. So these were his peers. They shared his common view of life from that age group. And I find this interesting. And they said, "Boy, don't lighten up at all. If anything, you need to put the hammer down. I mean, you need to really, really drive these men harder, 13:14 these workers, more taxes, more abuse." They wouldn't have called it abuse, but more demands. And so what did he do? He rejected the advice of the elderly, and he took the advice of the young. And so it was a devastating thing to his reign. 13:34 It was used of the Lord because the Lord had said, "I'm going to divide your kingdom anyway." And so God used it, but it was not a good decision on a human level. And so sometimes we need to listen to the young. Sometimes we need to listen to the old. Sometimes we need to get a cross-section of people's advice and interaction. 13:53 And that comes as we communicate with one another and respect one another and honor one another. So then there is also this thing of having responsibility to train and equip the younger. I thank God for those men older than myself who invested in my ministry and who invested in my life. 14:14 I think of a man who is a dear friend, pastor friend. He's old enough to be my dad. And he sent us a large sum of money one time. And he said, "I want you to get some training in biblical counseling." And he paid for our way to go down to Lafayette to the biblical counseling training. 14:33 I thank God for that. He invested in it because he loved us and had a relationship with us and wanted to sow into our ministry. And that's what we need to be doing, the older to the younger, the younger to the older. 14:46 And then he says, "Across the sexes, do this with all purity, that you would entreat your older women as mothers and your younger women as sisters with absolute purity and practicing godliness." Now, 15:05 I would also add to this and interpret this as saying that we need to protect our ladies in our midst. We need to protect our elderly sisters. We need to protect our mothers. We need to protect our sisters, and we need to protect even our children because, 15:25 unfortunately, we live in a day and an age when the reports of abuse and mistreatment of children are rampant in our society, and it's not getting any better. I doubt that it's worse than it ever was. 15:40 I think it was just that we're now finding out how bad it's been for a long, long time where people will misuse and mistreat and abuse those who are weak and vulnerable, those who are innocent and pure, and rob them of their innocence and rob them of their purity and rob them of their self-respect. 16:01 And so we need to protect those who are the weak among us and not allow things that would violate and rob them of their value and innocence and purity and childhood. I think this also refers to could be applied to dating couples. Now, 16:20 we don't have many dating couples here this morning, but if you're a dating couple, this applies to you. Young men, treat your date as a sister in Christ. Before my wife was my wife, she was my girlfriend. And before she was my girlfriend, she was my sister in Christ. And she's always been my sister in Christ ever since. 16:39 And so I would not want to treat her in a way that's any different than how I would treat my sister in appropriate ways. Respect and honor, not overreaching. 16:51 The Bible says in relationships, sexual relationships, we're not to defraud one another, which means to overreach and to take that which does not belong to us and arouse things within 17:07 another person that should not be aroused at that stage in life. So we have these instructions to respect and to honor and to protect. Now, this comes into play then when we look at our responsibility towards widows, to honor, 17:27 respect, and protect the widow. 17:33 This is particularly dear to me because I married into a widow's family. I never knew my father-in-law, knew my stepfather-in-law very well, but I never met my father-in-law. I look forward to getting to heaven to meet him and thank him for his daughter since I've never had an opportunity to do that. 17:55 But it was very much a part of our consciousness when I married into the family that mom was a widow. She needed a widow without good health. She was in poor health and needed care and needed concern and needed respect. 18:15 And I'll be honest with you, I didn't always handle that well. I didn't always handle that well for a variety of reasons. But I think that we need to find out what the scripture says about widows. 18:29 Exodus chapter 22:22 says, "You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child." It kind of lumps in a number of scriptures, the widow and the fatherless together, the widow and the fatherless. "If you afflict them in any way and they cry out at all to me, I will surely hear their cry, 18:49 and my wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword." Wow, that's pretty significant, what God says about caring for your widows. "Lest your wife become a widow and your children fatherless." And so again, honor and respect and care for those that are weak. 19:11 Deuteronomy 26:12 says, "Part of the tithe off the land was to go to 'the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow' so that they may eat within your gates and be filled." Isaiah 1:17, "Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, 19:31 defend the fatherless, and plead for the widow." And Jeremiah 22:3, "Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place." And then James emphasizes this in the book of James. "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, 19:52 to protect or to provide for the fatherless and the widows and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." Now, in verse three, he makes an interesting statement here that you are to honor widows who are really widows. Now, what are we talking about? How can a widow be a real widow? 20:12 Well, in this passage of scripture, there are at least two types of or two categories of widows that are being addressed here. There are those who have lost their husbands. 20:24 Obviously, a widow loses her husband but has an extended family that can help take care of her in her needs. And then there are those widows who have no one. They are alone. They are widows indeed. 20:45 And then the third category may be such as this, those who have reached the age of being a senior whose family has grown, who has had an opportunity and a reputation through the years of being invested in kingdom work, whose priority is kingdom work, 21:06 and whose the rest of their life's investment is going to be kingdom work. They'll have reached the age of seniors who have lost their husbands and who have dedicated themselves to the service of God and the church. You'll see this as we go through this. As we already read through this, you will see that distinction. 21:28 So in verse five and verse four, if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to show piety at home. Let them put their faith into practice and take care of mom and grandma. I remember my dad pulling us aside. And he said, "Now." And I said, "Whatever happens, 21:47 if I die or when I die, there's an inheritance from my father that I will be receiving from his father." He said, "I want you boys especially to make sure that mom is taken care of before you do anything else without an inheritance, 22:06 which would come to you rather than to mom or to my mom. I want you to make sure that mom is taken care of." I appreciate that. I appreciate that. 22:17 Dad, even looking into his own mortality, was saying, "I have responsibility to my wife, your mother, and you have responsibility to your mother." I've told my children the same thing, that when I'm gone, whatever happens, take care of mom. 22:36 And they've all assured me that that is the case and will be the case. And I thank God for it. It's wonderful. It's a blessing to have children that will rise to the occasion and that will help their parents when they're old, especially their mothers. 22:52 Of course, fathers need to take advantage of the opportunities to prepare for that day and set aside that which would be a blessing for his wife to prepare for that day as well. So children have an opportunity, have a responsibility to repay their parents. 23:13 That's what it says in verse four, "Repay your parents, for this is good and acceptable before God." All of us have been invested in by our parents. And we spent probably, in my case, 20 years being raised up by my parents before I got married. And some people go longer than that. 23:34 But at least for about the first 18 years, we have direct responsibility for our children. 23:40 Now, then he says, "At the end of life, turn that around and take care of mom when she's widowed." And so then we say, "But then there are those who are left alone who need special assistance." He would say that if anyone does not provide for his own, 24:00 especially for his own household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. And verse five, that's what I was looking for. 24:08 "Now she who is really a widow and left alone trusts in God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day." And so there are those widows who have no family. They have no one to look after them. And it is the church's responsibility to assist them for sure. 24:30 Now, it is also the church's we're here at Living Water that define our responsibilities like this, that children and grandchildren are the first line of defense when it comes to caring for our people if they're available. But where they're not able or in some cases, God forbid, not willing, 24:51 or they're not there to do so, then we try to make an effort to protect and support and give counsel to and at times benevolence funds to our widows who are doing the best they can to support themselves, but that may not be enough. 25:11 And so to those widows here among us, this is why I'm saying this is sensitive this morning. To those widows here among us, we care for you. We love you. We want to provide for you in appropriate ways biblically and to share with you in the grace of God's in financial ways as we can. 25:32 And so I just want to say that we're not preaching to you widows this morning. We're preaching to us. But you get to listen in. And we want to be cautious and careful and sensitive to your needs as our sisters in Christ and in some cases as our mothers in Christ. All right. 25:50 Then there is the widow role, the role of widows. I mean, the list of widows who receive congregational support. Do not let a widow under 60 years old be taken into the number. What is the number? 26:12 Well, the number speaks of those widows who have invested primarily in life in the kingdom of God. Their reputation is such that they have invested in the kingdom. They have invested in people's lives, and they have invested in the church. 26:32 He said, "These are the people that you would add to the role that the church should regularly support." In verse nine, 26:43 "Do not take them into the role unless she has been the wife of one man, well reported for good works. 26:51 If she had brought up children, lodged strangers, washed the saints' feet, and relieved the afflicted, diligently followed every good work." So this is a woman who has throughout her life and possibly at her husband's side has invested 27:09 in the kingdom of God and continues to invest in her elderly years. This is a woman who is not looking necessarily for remarriage. She is satisfied and content with her role as a widow and as a servant of Christ and the church. 27:31 These women were not ordained to the ministry, but they were very much involved in ministry. And having had their children raised, they were now in a position where they could completely and wholly give themselves to the work of God and the church. What a blessing they are. 27:50 What a blessing they are. This was my mother-in-law. This was my mother-in-law. Once her husband, who was the bishop of the church, the pastor, once he died, she had a crisis of identity because she was the pastor's wife. She had no identity on her own basically other than that. 28:08 And she had to work hard to know who she was and to understand her role in the church after Anita's father passed away. But she did. She found her role. And her role was to minister to other women in the church. And she taught Sunday school and Bible school, and she counseled. 28:27 And she did phone counseling and with different women in the church and one-on-one, face-to-face counseling. And she was invested in the work of the church. It just so happened after 18 years that God brought along a widower. 28:44 And of course, many of you knew John-O and Alberta who are members of this congregation in their final years of life. So the focus is on equipping them and taking primarily responsibility for that worker. 29:05 Now, who you don't want to have on your widow role. And this is where he really lays it out here. There must have been some problems. 29:15 I expect there were some problems reflected in what Paul says in verse 11 and following, which we already read. But he said, "Refuse the younger widows, for when they have begun to grow wanton against Christ, they desire to marry." In other words, 29:34 you may take them in the first year and you say, "No, I don't ever want to get married. I don't ever want to get married. I don't imagine myself with any other man than my husband." But give her two, three, four, five years, and then she's still interested in those romantic things. And that's okay. That's okay. 29:55 But if she made a commitment to singleness, she needs to remain single. Now again, using my mother-in-law as an example, she had made a commitment that while she had children at home, she would never remarry. And she didn't. 30:11 But what was interesting was the summer that her youngest child got married, the suitor came along and asked to start courting her. And so she kept her vow. And they were still involved in the work of the church. But she never did receive full support from the church by any means. 30:30 But she was very difficult for her to support herself. But she did have a job, and she worked at Clinton Christian School and in the library. And she also had some benevolent friends who would help her from time to time. 30:50 So who do you not want on the role? It's those who are likely to remarry. "For they forsake their pledge to remain single. 30:57 They get restless under the bonds of widowhood, and they are known for living lives of pleasure, living luxuriously, living self-indulgent and wastefully." And you can read about that in verse 11 and 12 31:16 and 13 and 14. 31:19 "Therefore I desire that the younger women marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully." Evidently, some of these women had been causing trouble in the church because they were on full church support and were now in a position where they didn't have to work. 31:41 And they became lazy and in the habit of being gossips, meddling into other people's business, and talking too much. Well, we'll leave that at that. But that's a danger. And so it was an issue in the church. So Paul addressed it and said, "This is the break here. 32:02 This is what you're looking for when you put a widow on the role. All women who can," he says, "should marry, bear children, keep their homes as homemakers." By the way, men, just a word of advice and caution, don't refer to your wife as a housewife. She's not married to the house. She is a homemaker. 32:23 And that's not just being politically correct. That is being wise. She is a homemaker, not a housewife. Anyway, we'll go on. "If any believing man or woman has widows," verse 16, "let them relieve them and do not let the church be burdened, 32:41 that it may relieve those who are really widows." Now, we have to put ourselves back here also in the day when there was no social security program and no safety net, financial safety net as it has been called. 33:01 And so who is going to take care of our parents? Well, it comes to the family first in line and then the church to make up the difference. And for those who are giving of their lives to the church, there should be a greater level of responsibility for them. Along with this, 33:20 let me just, while we're on the subject of widows, allow them to grieve. And grief comes in a lot of different forms, and it affects people in different ways. We don't say to a widow, "Well, he's been gone now for a year. 33:39 You got to get over it and get on with your life." No, no, no, no, no, no. She'll get on with her life, whatever that means, when God and her are ready and when she has been healed by our Heavenly Father, the husband from heaven. I ran across this by a man and author named Edgar Jackson. 34:00 Grief is a young widow trying to raise her three children alone. Grief is the man so filled with shock, uncertainty, and confusion that he strikes out at the nearest person. Grief is a mother walking daily in a nearby cemetery to stand quietly and alone a few minutes before going about the task of the day. 34:21 She knows that a part of her is in the cemetery just as part of her is in her daily work. Grief is silent, knife-like terror and sadness that comes a hundred times a day when you start to speak to someone who is no longer there. Grief is the emptiness that comes when you eat alone after eating with another for many years. 34:42 By the way, let me say this. One of the things I've heard from widowers, especially and widows, that one of the loneliest times of the day is mealtime, mealtime, when that person who used to sit beside them or across the table from them is no longer there. And the joy of sharing that sweet fellowship and communion is no longer available. 35:04 Grief is teaching yourself to go to bed without saying goodnight to the one who has died. Grief is the helpless wishing that things were different when you know they are not and never will be again. 35:15 Grief is a whole cluster of adjustments, apprehensions, and uncertainties that strike life and its forward progress and make it difficult to redirect the energies of life. And so we come alongside those who grieve, give them time to grieve, and recognize that people grieve differently in different ways and different timetables. 35:37 I know of a widow in another state who was a friend of my family for many, many years. I'm not sure. Her husband has been gone for 20, 25 years, and she still has his clothes hanging in her closet. She can't bear to part with him. That's okay. It's okay. 35:55 Now, it's difficult to know how to handle different situations that arise because people have feelings. People have different needs. There's the spiritual need, the financial need, and the social need. 36:16 And different people have different needs and expectations. And we can add to this, it's a little different dynamic, but those who are single, not by choice, but by necessity. 36:30 My heart goes out to those who would like to be married and are not because the sisters among us in that case have nothing to do. There's nothing they can do about it like the brothers can. There's the issue of singleness, not by choice. And widows become single not by choice, 36:50 not because they chose for their husband to die, but because that's what happened. And they have to deal with that and feel the weight of that press upon them. We all want to feel included. So how do we include? And if you get a chance to ask a widow, ask them, how do we include them in the the work of the church, 37:11 the whole church, the brotherhood, the fellowship? For some, it feels best by interacting with marrieds and families. I know of at least one sister who has said repeatedly, "I want to be around families. 37:29 I don't want to just be at a table with the other singles all the time." That's okay, but not all the time. Okay. But then another person comes along and says, "Well, I feel uncomfortable around families and wives who have husbands and see that, and they don't know what to do with me." And so you can't say, 37:47 "Well, this is the way you handle a situation with a widow or a single person," other than to say, "We honor them and respect them and find the place where they best feel included." For others, that feels best by interacting with other singles and widows. 38:10 There are those who have been a part of friend groups as couples and continue to need to be friends. But then in that friend group, they wonder, "Where do I fit?" We go out to eat as couples, and I'm the odd person out. I don't have a husband there anymore. And so how does she fit? 38:31 We need to be sensitive to those areas and include them as much as we can and as much as they would have us to. And then there are young widows with children who need help in raising those children, especially widows with sons who have no male role model. 38:52 And maybe they live an isolated life as far as extended family is concerned. They're not in the proximity of extended family where there's grandpas and uncles and cousins who can take them under their wings. And that's what the church is there for. As men in the church, can we, if and when we ever have that situation, 39:13 take those young men under our wings and mentor them and show them how to be a man and lead them in manly activities and answer their questions as men? And then there are young women who have suffered divorce. 39:34 There are older women who have suffered divorce. That puts on a whole nother dimension of need. 39:41 And then there are widowers. Generally, the widowers don't need the support of the church financially, but they still need to know where they fit. 39:56 And it's a challenge to meet the needs of these various ones in the body of Christ. So what we would just say, first of all, is be aware of what those needs are. 40:11 Care for the widow, care for the divorcee who has not become divorced by any contribution of themselves. They did not want to be divorced. Care for them and in appropriate ways with all purity, verse two. 40:31 We do have a suggestion that has come up. We'll talk more about this on Wednesday night. I think it's a good suggestion, and I want to include it in our message this morning because I think it fits right here with the whole subject of First Timothy five. It has been suggested that we, as a congregation, 40:51 begin a widow's ministry of having, first of all, possibly a widow's banquet, a widow's dinner where we could open up to the community and also invite others and other churches. Churches have done that. It has been done in our community, but not recently and has been discontinued by those who did it. 41:14 And so we'll talk about that on Wednesday night and have a proposal from the outreach committee and think about that. How can we reach out to those among us who need spiritual help, financial help, but more than that, social help, 41:34 social involvement, and connection with the body of Christ? So what do you do with widowers? 41:42 I know of a family who every once a week, every, was it Monday night or Tuesday night, was their night to have the widowers in for supper. And if they could come, it was fine. If they didn't come, it was fine. But Tuesday night was the widowers' night. 42:00 "Come over to the house and eat your meal with us." Powerful ministry, powerful ministry. Men don't often cook so well on their own by themselves. My stepfather-in-law was known to eat raw potatoes because he wasn't a very good cook. Well, he probably should have been invited over. 42:21 We weren't living here at the time, so he probably should have been invited over for a good solid meal of mashed potatoes and a little gravy. So why do we bring this up this morning? Because it's in the text and then because it's in our lives. This is real people we're talking about, 42:42 people with needs. We all have needs, but then we all have a circle around us that can help those needs meet those needs. And all of a sudden, when the circle is broken and that one to whom they related to the closest in life is gone, how do we care for their hearts? 43:04 And so we leave this before you this morning. And for those of you that are in that situation, we do care. I would trust that nothing this morning has been said that's been offensive to you or hurtful. Rather, we want to take our responsibility, not just because it's a responsibility, 43:25 but because it's a blessing to bless you. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the body of Christ. Thank you for those who are older, even elderly. Thank you for those who are young, children, adolescents, teenagers, young families, middle-aged families, youth. 43:47 Thank you for all the ages. Thank you for all of the value that each one contributes to the church by being a part and contributing. I pray that each one, Lord, would feel valued and cared for, whatever stage, 44:07 whatever station in life they find themselves. 44:11 We do not understand, Lord, why we have to go through some of the things we go through, but we do know that whatever you call us to, 44:25 you will guide us through with each other, reaching out, being sensitive, taking initiative, and caring for people's hearts. Help us to do it better. 44:43 Help us to do it well and learn from the Lover of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.