While the presidential candidates spar about one policy or another, today I want to talk about welfare reform or rather, Welfare as God intended it. Redistribution of wealth through the federal government is not God's plan for taking care of those in need. God's intent from the beginning is that God's people take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Those who are capable of taking care of themselves should continue to do so for as long as they are able. Please turn to and prepare to read 1 Timothy 5:3-16 where we will be focusing today on verses 3-8 which describes this church's requirement to care for widows. (Read it)

God's passion for The Helpless

Throughout the scriptures a significant measure of righteousness has been "What do you do with the helpless?" In particular two classes of people have always required God's special protection. In that culture especially the orphan and the widow typically had no social standing and thus were helpless. God describes himself as "A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, Is God in His holy habitation."^{(Ps. 68:5)} For this reason godly people will spend themselves on the widow and the orphan because like their Father they strive to deliver those who cannot deliver themselves.

Put yourself into this difficult position. In the course of your day you hear a rumor or know of another Christian who is sinning against the Lord. What do you do? Sadly most of us are so out of touch with godliness that we have an immediate reaction to just ignore it after all, what is it to me if another Christian is living in sin? But the reality of Scripture is that you are your brother's keeper. We are indeed responsible to help others be holy; and when we see that holiness failing we should help to bring about that change with an appropriate rebuke.

While our text this morning will come from 1 Timothy 5:1-2; a plain application of it comes right from Galatians 6:1 " Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted." (NASB95)

Please open your Bible to 1 Timothy 5:1-2 and read it with me. Read 1 Tim 5:1-2.

Respectfully

If we could summarize the rule for interacting with other people we could do it with one word: "RESPECT". Aretha Franklin Got it right. When we are preparing to confront another believer in sin we must keep in mind that this is a brother (mother, father, sister) in Christ - treat them that way.

He starts with older men and older women. Treat them the way you would your own father or mother. Paul is obviously drawing a connection to the Leviticus 19:32 injunction to stand before the grey headed and honor the aged in connection with revering God.

Dabbling is defined as “a superficial or intermittent interest, investigation, or experiment.”
¹I can enjoy dabbling in a lot of things. I like to dabble in technology. I work with it just enough to feel good at it. I dabble with woodworking. I'm learning to cut things straight. I feel good about a little something that I've built now and then – but if the results aren't exactly perfect, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I'm willing to bet that a number of you have dabbled in certain things.But there is one thing in particular which no one can afford to dabble in. You cannot afford to dabble in your faith. A little dabbling will not do it. Jesus said in Luke 9:62 “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
We cannot start to serve God and get distracted with other things. But we do. We need to be reminded of 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Dabbling in our relationship with the Almighty will only leave you wanting. If upon serious reflection you can see the tendency to go light in your walk with Christ than today I want to call you to getting serious about your faith.

Now to a certain extent you may already be taking your walk with Christ seriously. But if we are truly following Christ there really is no point short of perfect Christlikeness at which we can say, "it is enough. I am full of God enough to satisfy me so I do not need to walk with him any more than I do." there is always something in our lives which must be surrendered.

"You must not permit anyone to look down on your youth, instead you must become an example for those who believe; in speech, conduct, love and purity." - Personal Translation.

Introduction

During the early days of the civil war our nation was moved into a heightened sense of our need for God's protection and care. At that time Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase received a letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written by the Reverend M. R. Watkinson, minister o the Gospel from Ridleyville Pennsylvania.

He wrote:

Dear Sir: You are about to submit your annual report to the Congress respecting the affairs of the national finances.

One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins.

You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were not shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation? What I propose is that instead of the goddess of liberty we shall have next inside the 13 stars a ring inscribed with the words PERPETUAL UNION; within the ring the all seeing eye, crowned with a halo; beneath this eye the American flag, bearing in its field stars equal to the number of the States united; in the folds of the bars the words GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.

Introduction

I can remember as a child wondering why my dad kept getting up and going to work every day. It didn't seem like fun. I thought it would be a lot more entertaining to stay home and watch TV. Little did I realize then that a large amount of the fan mail my dad seemed to get on a regular occasion was at least a partial reason for his strong desire to head off to work in the mornings. To put it briefly, he worked hard because I ate a lot and needed new clothes.

Some of the recent advertisements out for a consulting firm use Tiger Woods to highlight their professionalism <show a few of the print adverts>. Tiger Woods is on top of his game. As an athlete he is not only one of the best but one of the most recognizable in terms of excellence.

Any fool can play cow pasture pool - but if you want to golf like Tiger Woods it's going to take discipline and hard work; not to mention an enormous investment of time. That company claims that they know what it takes to be a Tiger. Bully for them. You might want to work on that hook or slice you've been nursing but I've got something more important than your golf swing for you to work on.

Do you have what it takes to be godly?

Open your Bible to 1 Timothy 4:6-11 where we encounter what could almost be called a formula for being a good servant of Jesus Christ. In the context it refers specifically to Timothy as the shepherd of the church in Ephesus; but in principle it applies not only to myself but it also applies to every servant of Jesus.

Look at what Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4:6-11. Twice we read the injunction teach these things. It's actually repeated again in verse 15 where Timothy is told to be absorbed in them.

"These things" is more than a reference back to the last few verses, but rather serves to represent everything that has gone before. "these things" is equivalent to "everything I've told you".

The Battle cry of our time is that truth is relative. You can believe what you want to believe and as long as you believe it sincerely that's ok. However, truth by it's very nature is specific and exclusive. Two competing thoughts cannot be truth. Yet in churches all over the place this morning - there may be a rather large... variation in what is being proclaimed as truth. Not merely because the Bible is a big book but because false teachers and false teaching have not been restricted to the first century church.

How many of you have ever suffered from an "earworm" (a song that gets stuck in your head). It's sad to say but I still take a great deal of (wicked?) pleasure in implanting songs into people's minds and then watching them struggle to get rid of it. I've found that it works best with old show-tunes and snippets of songs which are otherwise almost entirely forgotten.

But what if you could put a song in your head that should stay there? One of the methods of the early church was to put doctrine to music so that the hymns they sang were full of meaning. To a certain extent we do the same thing today but not all of our songs are as doctrinally rich.

Before his death in about the year 220 A.D. Clement of Alexandria described the constant worship of Christians this way:

"We cultivate our fields, praising. We sail the seas, humming. Our lives are filled with prayers and praises and Scripture reading before meals and before bed, and even during the night. By this means, we unite ourselves to the heavenly choir."¹

Not much remains of some of those early songs. No doubt the early church sang from the Psalms, but they also began to write new hymns which specifically testified about Jesus. There are a few instances where some of the early hymns of the church made it into

In the weeks leading up to his second space shuttle mission, Rick was busy and isolated. He was busy with an intense preflight schedule of training and planning. He was isolated by the required isolation of pre-flight quarantine which separated him from his wife (Evelyn) and two children (Laura - 13 and Matthew - 8). During a pre-flight NASA interview he was asked "Outside of your time with NASA, what's been your most enjoyable time or experience in life?" His response revealed his heart:

"Well, I think apart from NASA, the most enjoyable part of my life has been my time with my family. And, if you think about, probably the pinnacle or the most exciting or memorable events, I would say probably my marriage and then the birth of our two children, and being there with my wife, and just the awesome experience of seeing a baby come into the world. And just being so overwhelmed with God's goodness in blessing us with two wonderful children."¹

His response explains why, knowing that his coming mission was 17 days long, he diligently prepared 17 personal one-on-one video devotions for each of his kids.

The Space Shuttle roared into the skies at 10:39 AM Thursday, January 16, 2003. A successful mission was completed on February 1, 2003. Finally the payload bay doors were closed and latched, all seven astronauts including Rick Husband were dressed and ready in their orange launch and entry suits. At 8:18 AM the Columbia's braking rockets were fired and at 8:44 AM Columbia entered the upper fringes of Earths atmosphere at approximately 14,757 Miles per hour.² A crack in the shielding on the left wing caused catastrophic failure of the craft. The entire crew was lost. The video devotions which Rick Husband had left his children changed in an instant from a gift into a treasure.³

Sometimes you might have thought (as I have), "I wish one of the apostles or God himself would come and tell me