Sunday Sermon: Honoring Widows (1 Timothy 5:1-16)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. In Luke chapter 7

Jesus came to a town called Nain and it is the only place in the Bible that even mentions this little town located about 15 miles to the southwest of the

Sea of Galilee. Jesus' disciples and a great crowd had followed him there and as he approached the entrance to the town they came across this funeral procession.

A man had died and he was being carried out on a bier to the place where he would be buried.

Now a bier might be like a gurney which they're carrying on their shoulders like this or it could also be a cart and the man's body is being carried on the cart.

Luke recalls that this man was the only son of his mother who was a widow and it appeared as if according to Luke's account that the entire town had showed up for this particular funeral.

So you have Jesus and his disciples and a great crowd who are coming into the town while this man is being carried out by pallbearers and the whole town is following along after him.

It's like the town is exiting as they're coming in. Well verse 13 says that when the

Lord saw the widow he had compassion on her and he said to her, do not weep.

And he came up and touched the bier and those who were carrying the body stood still and Jesus said, young man

I say to you arise. The dead man sat up and began to speak and verse 15 says

Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Fear sees them all Luke said because they were certain this man had died.

This was 2000 years ago but it wasn't beyond people to know what dead is. They knew the man was deceased and yet here he is rising back up again and talking in their midst and Luke said they glorified

God saying a great prophet has arisen among us and God has visited his people.

And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.

This miracle which occurs early in Luke's gospel is very likely the very first time in Jesus earthly ministry that he raised the dead and it demonstrates not only his power over death itself of course for he too would soon die and rise from the dead but it also demonstrates his compassion for people.

The first time Jesus brought the dead back to life it was a widow's son who cared for her.

She would not have been able to care for herself she had no one left but Jesus raised him from the dead and Luke even recalls he gave him back to her.

Our God has great concern for widows. As we heard in our call to worship this morning from Psalm 146 he upholds the widow and the fatherless

Psalm 68 5 says father of the fatherless and protector of widows is

God in his holy habitation. When he rebukes Israel through the prophet

Isaiah for their lack of godliness he tells them learn to do good and then he describes what good is seek justice correct oppression bring justice to the fatherless plead the widow's cause.

Isaiah 117 God's heart for widows should also be the heart of his church.

Weeks back when we were in 1st Timothy 3 considering the qualifications for deacons I mentioned to you that the very first deacons ministry which we read about in Acts 6 was caring for widows and here the apostle has been writing to Timothy about how one ought to behave in the household of God in light of the mystery of godliness a phrase he uses that's synonymous with the gospel how are we to be godly in light of the gospel that was proclaimed to us over the last couple of weeks we considered being trained in godliness and one of those basic godly ministries that the household of God should be invested in is caring for widows for as we also heard this morning from James 127 religion that is pure and undefiled before God the father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world as we look here at verse uh as at these 16 verses verses 1 through 16 as usual as you have probably come to expect from me this breaks down into three parts number one the regard for all men and women in the church that's verses one and two right at the start of this passage number two the responsibility of honoring the widows in the church that's verses 3 through 8 and then number three the requirements for being enrolled as widows in the church verses 9 through 16 so i not only have some good alliteration going on with everything beginning with the letter r but i even managed to make the first two letters of each word match regard responsibility and requirements as we have in this passage in this we learn as the household of God in pursuit of godliness we care about what

God cares about how we are to regard each other in the church especially caring for those most in need because my friends

God considered our need by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and rising again from the grave it is in light of this message of the gospel that we care for the needs of others so first of all let's come back to the start of the passage here even though the bulk of these instructions has to do for uh has to do with the care of our widows you'll notice that the chapter begins with verses one and two in how we are to regard all men and women in the church do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father younger men as brothers older women as mothers younger women as sisters in all purity so remember again that Timothy is a young man probably in his young 30s as we considered last week being sent to pastor this church in Ephesus and he's been told not to let anyone look down on him for his youth but to set the believers an example but though he is a pastor there is still a manner of respect that he's supposed to show to certain people in his church he's not supposed to stand up in his pulpit and just be there like I'm the pastor you all are supposed to revere and respect me no rather he is a servant to the church as a shepherd and this is likewise going to be an example that he sets before the brethren you don't regard an older man in the church the same way that you would regard a younger man do not rebuke an older man

Paul says this word means to chide or to strike with insensitive or brutal words instead you are to encourage him as you would a father no one has had more influence on my spiritual growth than my own father

I am a Christian today I am walking with the Lord because of my dad

I'm even a pastor today because of my dad I was very honored that when I was ordained into the ministry on August 15th of 2010 that was my dad's birthday and he was present there at my ordination was a great honor to have him there if I ever had to correct my dad do you think

I would do it the same way that I correct my younger brothers one time one of my brothers got caught drinking under age got in trouble with the law got kicked out of school

I sat on his chest and yelled at him for about half an hour that's probably not the best approach to dealing with a younger brother either but I wouldn't dream of doing something like that to my dad so likewise regard older men in the church as you would a father younger men as brothers not like sitting on their chest and yelling at them that's not a new disciplinary measure that we're going to start implementing here at Providence in saying that you regard younger men as brothers this doesn't mean you pull rank hey

I'm older than you so you better listen to me the main intention here is that you regard him as a friend not like someone who is inferior to you as Paul had said to the

Thessalonians in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 when you have to warn a brother about something you regard him as a friend and not as an enemy and so even here as Paul is giving these instructions we regard an older man correcting him or encouraging him as you would a father and don't even neglect the younger men don't shrug your shoulder

I mean how have you how many of you have had that kind of attitude toward the younger generation before where you just kind of shrug their shoulders they're just acting like kids it's the way they are don't neglect even a younger man who may need correction but when you do correct him you regard him as a brother not as an enemy

Galatians 6 1 says brothers if anyone is caught in any transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted and just as these instructions are given of older and younger men so they also apply to older and younger women in the church regard older women as mothers younger women as sisters in all purity this instruction is given to Timothy as a pastor how he is to regard the women in his church regard them with the same affection that you would as the men but with the women

Paul instructs Timothy to treat them as sisters notice those last three words with all purity let there not be any impropriety or some manner that would be socially improper in the way that Timothy treats the younger women

Paul has a very similar instruction for Titus and I'm going to come back to that again when we get to Titus chapter 2

I won't flesh that out so much here but there is there is even a particular and sensitive care

Paul seems to emphasize here in the way that Timothy deals with women in the church don't neglect them either but in the way that you minister to these women let it be in all purity so that there's no charge of impropriety that could be made so in the meantime we've considered how

Timothy is to regard all men and women in the church next Paul's instructions turn to the responsibility of honoring widows in the church you'll notice this was the bulk of the instructions that we read in our opening reading look at verse 3 honor widows who are truly widows now you might not think that that sentence needs much definition but what does it mean to honor widows specifically

Paul is saying that these widows should be supported financially honor is not always directly tied with money sometimes it simply means to revere but to honor does mean to value the greek word tomorrow means to fix a value or a price so in this particular context in the way that Paul is instructing

Timothy to honor widows it is to financially care for these older women in Matthew 15 the

Pharisees asked Jesus why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders for they do not wash their hands when they eat now this has nothing to do with washing your hands for reasons of cleanliness so that uh you know you eat your food with clean hands the way you tell your kids do wash up before dinner that that wasn't what the

Pharisees were holding to here the Pharisees had made washing hands something of a legal requirement lest you eat your food with defiled hands and then defile your food and you eat that defiled food which goes into your body and now you've been defiled according to one rabbinic writing about this quote whoever eats bread without washing of hands it is as if he lay with a whore and says rabbi eliezer whoever despiseth washing of hands shall be rooted out of the world they literally made this a matter of whether you go to heaven or hell and another rabbinic writing says he that blesseth food with defiled hands is guilty of death this was how legalistic these

Pharisees had become and here they're trying to catch Jesus and saying see you're not as pure as you say you are your disciples say you are the people think you are you are letting your disciples eat with defiled hands that was the nature behind their question how dare you it wasn't like they were actually looking for some educated answer they were trying to accuse

Jesus of being impure and Jesus responded to them by saying and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition for God commanded honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die but you say if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me is given to God he need not honor his father and mother so for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God you hypocrites well did

Isaiah prophesy of you when he said this people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me in vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men in other words instead of financially supporting their father and their mother as they should the pharisees were taking the money that they made and they were saying this is

God's it's God's money and so then when their father and mother were in need the pharisees were going sorry mom and dad

I've dedicated this money to God so it goes to God and then their parents go uncared for it doesn't matter that they dedicated this money to God they transgressed the law and therefore sinned against God because they were not obeying the commandment honor your father and your mother so even here in Matthew 15

Jesus connects honor with financial support even that fifth commandment to honor your father and your mother can also mean and be applied in this way that you would support them financially your parents supported you financially did they not and so when the day comes that they need that help so we as their children should be willing to care for our parents even monetarily so here when

Paul says honor widows who are truly widows he doesn't mean uh name the church library after one of your widows he means that the church needs to consider what their widows needs are and to care for them this doesn't necessarily mean that the church needs to set aside a budget line item for widows it could be one person in the church takes it upon themselves to care for this one widow it could be a family who cares for a widow that doesn't have a family or maybe the church does put in their budget to care for their widows no matter how this is accomplished a woman who has no husband who is too old to care for herself cannot work and even make for herself a living she is cared for by the church that's what it means to honor widows who are truly widows now so we don't take anything for granted here what's a widow well i asked that question and you probably automatically think in our western world vernacular a woman whose husband has died that's what a widow is that's true but when the bible uses that word widow that may not be all it means the definition of the greek word used here is simply lacking a husband thayer's greek lexicon adds that she is barren so she has no husband nor does she have any children and she could be a woman whose husband has died she could be a woman who's been abandoned by her husband or she may have never even had a husband at all and still qualify here as a widow and having never been married she also has no children who can take care of her or she may have been barren and was unable to have children these are those whom paul calls truly widows look at verse 4 but if a widow has children or grandchildren let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents for this is pleasing to god notice that right at the start of verse 5 paul says she who is truly a widow left all alone so if this woman has children or grandchildren she's not to be considered truly a widow as paul describes here she does have family who can care for her and and this instruction actually bookends these instructions about caring for widows we see this instruction come up here in verse 4 if a widow has children or grandchildren let them first care for her there's gonna kind of be something right there in the middle as well in verses 7 and 8 and then we see it come back up again at the very end verse 16 if any believing woman has relatives who are widows let her care for them let the church not be burdened so that it may care for those who are truly widows so if this woman has children or grandchildren then they should care for her first and not put her as a burden upon the church to have to care for her when there's members of her own family who can do this so let's pick up again in verse 5 she who is truly a widow left all alone has set her hope on god and continues in supplications and prayers night and day you're reading that passage the first woman that i thought of she who is truly a widow left all alone set her hope on god continues in supplications and prayers night and day the first woman i thought of was my grandmother mimi she died a little over 10 years ago but she was a woman who had been abandoned by her husband she was not a widow but had great children who cared for her and she was a woman too who continued in supplications and prayers night and day i i never knew a godlier woman than my grandmother and it was amazing how outgoing she was with the gospel what a testament to me when i was a little kid she loved to take me to hardy's uh hardy's had a completely different look back then it was it was orange had an orange roof uh hardy's sign now it's kind of like you can't distinguish a hardy's from a carl's junior but it had a different look back then and and one of the things that we loved to get at hardy's was sausage and biscuits so she would take me to get like sausage gravy and biscuits in the morning and we i still remember pulling up to the hardy's window and the lady comes to the window and says ma 'am that'll be six dollars and 15 cents or whatever and mimi's handing her the money and goes here you go ma 'am do you know jesus and suddenly we're right there in the drive -through line and mimi's got to share the gospel with this lady she would do it at the library at the grocery store when she took us to the park wherever it was she had to tell somebody about jesus and we all knew her to be the prayer warrior in the family on top of that if we had any needs any requests they went to her and she prayed for him and we knew she was praying for him and she would write us handwritten note cards and say here's what i prayed for you this week even as her grandson i continued to receive those cards up until the day that she died and so this is a woman who is a godly woman this particular woman is a believer this is not an instruction given to the church to go and find all the widows in the community and care for them this is specifically a woman who is a christian who is being talked about here she has sent her hope in god come what may she knows god provides she loves her savior and even her dire concert her dire circumstances do not cause her to despair and in this way becomes an example to the entire church now while verse five describes a woman who is all saint verse six describes a woman who is all sinner but she who is self -indulgent is dead even while she lives john gill says that this is a reference to a woman who quote lives a wanton loose and licentious life serving diverse lusts and pleasures unquote she has not endured in the faith she has turned back to her flesh and to the world for pleasure she is dead in her transgressions and sins not forgiven and made alive in christ she may be alive in her body but she is dead in her soul she is no longer living as a member of the of god and the church has no obligation to care for or help meet her needs now as we continue to consider what it means to honor widows in the church paul says this in verses seven through eight command these things as well so that they may be without reproach we've we've seen before paul instructing timothy command these things right so these instructions regarding caring for widows command these also this is for the whole church it's not just timothy's job to care for the widows the whole church is to look out for those who are most in need but if anyone does not provide for his relatives this is verse eight if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household he has what denied the faith wow and is what else he's worse than an unbeliever that's astonishing right even even pagans even those who do not believe in the lord jesus christ nor do they care about the law of god they know how to care for their families even pagans understand this so how much more should it be upon us as christians to understand it you know despite how sexually depraved this culture has become and it seems like it's only getting worse the general consensus of our society still believes that cheating on your spouse is a bad thing have you noticed that i still remember back to 2009 this was but over 15 years ago now when tiger woods got into a little bit of trouble in his house it was the day after thanksgiving my dad and i were watching football you know whatever's on we're in the room together we're watching tv whatever sport we were watching was interrupted by this huge update tiger woods had crashed his cadillac escalade i'm going oh poor guy dude with worth millions and millions of dollars crashed his cadillac escalade why is this being interrupted well it turns out his wife comes out of the house with his golf clubs and is smashing the back windows suddenly this is a national story what is going on what resulted in this kind of reaction and day by day more and more details started coming out that tiger woods was a womanizer and not just with one or two women but dozens and dozens and i won't go into detail i want to elaborate on on the things that he got in trouble for but once that news came out the near universal reaction to that was what a jerk like nobody thought that his wife ellen had responded in some uh unruly kind of manner like how dare she go and smash his windshield no he should be thankful he didn't get his face smashed in considering everything that he did more recently i was reading an article about a famous tv sitcom at one point the writers of that show wanted to have one of the main characters cheat on his wife and the actor who played that character told the writers absolutely not i won't even film it and he told the writers if we do this our viewers will never forgive us for it isn't that wild that even in our sexually depraved culture even in a in a sitcom that's probably full of you know some sexual jokes in there and yet even they understand there's a line that you just don't cross that just isn't funny the united states of america has descended into a level of sexual immorality that would make sodom and gomorrah blush and yet most of america is still of the opinion that adultery is really very bad when it comes to caring for your family even unbelievers understand this concept though they care not for god and his word but a christian has heard about god's compassion for people most in need we heard it this morning you have heard from the law of god how we are to honor father and mother exodus 2012 and that's repeated again in ephesians 6 you have heard how a husband is to love his wife as christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ephesians 525 you have heard how a wife is to submit to her own husband as to the lord ephesians 523 you have heard the instruction to fathers to raise children in the discipline and the instruction of the lord ephesians 6 4 and how a mother is to love her children and care for and manage her home so if even unbelievers can understand caring for parents spouse and children how much more should you follow these instructions having heard from and known the heart of god according to his word if you neglect the members of your own household you have denied basic instructions of the faith it's as if you have seen and know that god cares for me he cared for my most serious need which was i needed forgiveness of sins i needed a solution to my death problem and god puts on human flesh and dwells among us the father sent his son to be the savior and whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life god considered my need in this way amen even suffering on my behalf oh but somebody else can care for those widows how dare we as god has considered our needs so we must consider the needs of others so we've read here so far in this passage first the regard one is to have for all the men and women in the church that was in verses one and two and we've heard secondly the responsibility to care for the widows of the church even beyond this how one is to care for their own family number three we read here about the requirements for being enrolled as widows in the church look at verse nine let a widow be enrolled now let me stop there for a moment some of you are probably aware that for the last three fridays on my podcast becky and i have been entertaining questions from listeners about church membership and one of the very first questions that came up that set us on this trajectory and then more people started throwing in other questions about membership one of the first questions that came up was i know i should be a member of a church but there's nothing in the word that explicitly says become a member of a church so how is it that we come to this conclusion that we must be members in good standing with the church well though there is not a specific instruction in the new testament that says you must be an enrolled member of the church there are various hints that membership was practiced in the early church and these instructions regarding the care of widows is one of those places if the first century churches had enrollment for widows you can be assured they kept enrollment of committed membership how else could a widow be enrolled in anything if there wasn't a committed membership to care for her so that's already implied there even in what paul says i don't i don't want to go off on that tangent but if you have more questions about membership and what scripture has to say about that you can refer back to those three episodes of the podcast that i've done or talk with me or chris or alan any of the brothers that you've seen up here dusty or josh we would love to talk with you more about what it means to become a member of providence so have that in mind though even though i won't go on a tangent here about church membership you still have that concept of membership in mind as we read these instructions look again at verses 9 through 10 let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than 60 years of age having been the wife of one husband and having a reputation for good works if she's brought up children has shown hospitality has washed the feet of the saints has cared for the afflicted and has devoted herself to every good work now paul gives these specifications so that the church won't find itself burdened with caring for a bunch of people who probably don't need the help as much and thus depleting the church's time and resources from caring for those who are the most in need now to say that she had been the wife of one husband that was not to say that she only ever had one husband in her life because here in a moment down to verse 14 paul says that he desires the younger widows to remarry so if that first husband dies then the second husband dies is the woman not to be considered truly a widow because she had been married more than once it could be because she had two husbands that maybe she had received the inheritance of two estates in which case that woman's probably well taken care of and doesn't need to be considered on the enrollment but the point here i believe is more likely this when you look at all the other characteristics of an enrolled widow you see here that paul is just simply describing a godly woman so to say that she was the wife of one man is like saying of a qualified overseer or deacon back in chapter three that he must be a one woman man right he doesn't have multiple wives he's not running off with mistresses or anything like that he is faithful to one wife so likewise this widow must have a reputation for being faithful to her husband especially when you consider as i said earlier that this woman might be a widow because she had been abandoned by her husband well who was at fault there was it him or was it her if she had been faithful to her husband and he was the one who had been unfaithful to her then that should not be held against her did she have a reputation for godliness as we had talked about in the previous chapter she brought up children that could be that she actually did bring up her own children it could be that she was uh like a matriarch in the community this was common even among jewish families that maybe a woman didn't have children of her own but the children in the neighborhood would come to her and she would help catechize them she showed hospitality to others and was a generous and giving woman she washed the feet of the saints as our lord did for his disciples when she was abled bodied and hard working she cared for the afflicted and she devoted herself to every good work these are not just qualifications for a woman to be enrolled as a widow in need of care she's also being a godly example to the whole church of how we all should consider ourselves with one another in verse 11 paul says this but refuse to enroll younger widows for when their passions draw them away from christ they desire to marry now again that's not paul condemning marriage well she shouldn't get remarried at all because again we see here in just a moment that he says i would have younger widows remarry so what does paul mean here when he chides these younger widows for wanting to remarry notice that they have worldly passions that draw them away from christ so desiring to remarry probably means that they're doing something as foolish as marrying an unbeliever or maybe they marry a man for his money so that they can fulfill their wanton passions in verse 12 paul goes on to say that they incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith they have worldly passions that cause them to leave the faith this is a concept paul is going to come back to as well uh later on in chapter six where those who are in love with the world fill themselves with all kinds of pangs and worldly desires and they abandon their former faith besides that he continues they learn to be idlers going about from house to house and not only idlers but also gossips and busybodies saying what they should not so instead of submitting to a husband they don't care for their own households they begin to meddle in other people's lives they give into fleshly temptations to become lazy and gossip about others remember last week in chapter four where we had those instructions regarding godliness we are to where timothy was to be a good example of godliness and then we follow along in that example especially when it comes to speech conduct faith love and purity remember those five areas so this woman here is someone who has given up all five of those areas she is not a godly example in speech or in conduct she gossips she goes about from house to house she's lazy she does not show love she does not show faith and she certainly doesn't demonstrate purity if this woman remains in your church she becomes a burden in more ways than one especially on the church's resources so what is paul's solution to help prevent this kind of problem verses 14 to 15 he says so i would have younger widows marry bear children manage their households and give the adversary no occasion for slander for some have already strayed after satan for paul to say there some have already straight after satan this means that this has already happened in this church in his introduction to first timothy pastor john mccarthur says that first timothy is really a polemic meaning that this is a refutation against wrong practices or ideas there were some things in the ephesian church that were not right when paul sent timothy there hence why the very first instruction we have in the letter is don't let anyone teach any different doctrine return to the sound gospel and don't let anybody go astray from that if there are men in that church who are elders that are teaching other things myths and speculations and things like that paul goes on to talk about they're in chapter one get them out don't let them teach and so even here with regard to the women in the church some are behaving in this way they become gossips and busy bodies and they've gone after satan instead of after christ paul is not mildly speculating here about what may happen to such a woman he's speaking from experience and he's speaking into something that timothy has already observed happening in this church there may have been women on the widow's rosters who should not have been there in fact they shouldn't have even been in that church as 19th century theologian charles ellicott notes they had swerved from the narrow thorny road of self -denial which they had chosen for themselves and perhaps dreading after their public profession to form afresh any legal married ties they had followed that downward path into sensuality which surely leads to satan now just as paul had suggested at the start of these instructions concerning the care of widows so he comes back to at the end it should not be upon the members uh or it should be rather should be upon the members of a woman's family to care for her before that responsibility falls on the church or anyone else so look at verse 16 this book ends the instructions and brings us to a close here if any believing woman has relatives who are widows let her care for them let the church not be burdened so that the church may care for those who are truly widows you are surely familiar with the story of ruth in the old testament this was a woman who had married a man who died her mother -in -law naomi her husband died she lost both her sons and she here she has two daughters -in -law who are also widows ruth and orpa naomi is a widow she has two widows and she doesn't know what to do with them so she tries to tell them and convince them to go back to their families you can marry again you're still young i'm too old i'm gonna go back to the place where i came from orpa did that even with tears kissed went back to moab but ruth stayed with naomi and said you're my mother and your god is going to be my god and your home is going to be my home and she came with naomi back to judah specifically bethlehem was where they resided and she stayed there with naomi now ruth was young she was attractive she caught the attention of this man named boaz and one of the things that caught boaz attention was the way ruth cared for her mother -in -law ruth the widow who could go and marry anybody she wants she sticks with naomi and even comes back to a strange and foreign land that she doesn't know to care for this aging woman and then you know the story boaz marries ruth naomi is incredibly blessed and from the line of boaz and ruth would come king david and eventually the savior himself right there in christ's own genealogy is a deeply impactful story of caring for widows in john 19 as jesus is dying on the cross they're watching him die as a sacrifice for sins was jesus mother and his mother's sister and mary magdalene by the way all three of them were named mary mary the mother of jesus was a widow joseph had died sometime before jesus began his earthly ministry the scripture doesn't tell us when but we know that she had no one to care for her and at this particular time anyway and opinions differ on this but at least at this particular time jesus own half siblings the other children of mary don't believe in jesus they're unbelievers and so jesus doesn't leave the care of his mother to one of his half siblings one of her other children who does she give the care who does he give the care of his mother to john john the disciple who is standing right there and jesus looks at his mother who is weeping for him as he dies and he says to her woman behold your son referring to john and then he looks at john and he says behold your mother and john 1927 says and from that hour the disciple took her to his home you imagine that the most important and incredible event that a man has ever done in human history dying on the cross for our sins so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life that's the work that christ is accomplishing and a few words later he's going to declare it is finished the work of atonement has been accomplished and yet even there as he's dying taking the wrath of god upon himself he still thinks to make sure his widowed mother is cared for my friends that's the heart of god to care for those who are most in need and as god has cared for our need may we consider the needs of one another my faith lord

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