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Colin Smith: God made a great promise in the Old Testament. He said, "Even to your old age and to your gray hairs, I am he who will sustain you." So, if you are caring for an elderly person, you are reflecting the promise and the heart of God.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I'm sure that many listening today are in seasons of caring for elderly parents, or maybe you've been in a season like that. Colin, it's great to know that if we are in a season like that, we're actually showing the heart of God.

Colin Smith: Yeah, that's exactly right. It's the promise of God. He says, "I will sustain you," but then God works through means. The means that he uses are family and friends and the church. That's what we're looking at in 1 Timothy chapter five.

For anyone who is caring for another person—whether you're caring for a child, an elderly person, someone who has particular needs—and you're giving yourself to a ministry of compassion to someone who's vulnerable, someone who has great needs, you are reflecting the heart of God. I hope that you're going to be encouraged in the work that you're doing today.

Steve Hiller: Well, I think you will be encouraged as we open God's word together. We're in the book of 1 Timothy, chapter five. Join us there as we continue a message called Gospel Compassion. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: As the family of God, we are to be sensitive and compassionate towards particular needs within the body of Christ. Let me give this word of encouragement. There are many in our congregation who are doing an amazing job caring for elderly parents, caring for grandparents.

I want you to hear this today: your ministry is a reflection of the heart of God. It really is. Paul says, "This is pleasing to God." It is a ministry that brings a reflection of Christ and a touch of the Holy Spirit.

God made a great promise in the Old Testament. He said, "Even to your old age and to your gray hairs, I am he who will sustain you." So if you are caring for an elderly person, you are reflecting the promise and the heart of God. This is not a small thing. Visitation, care, help, compassion are reflections of the heart of Jesus Christ.

God's first provision is through the family. And then God's first priority is a godly life. I want you to see this second principle here; it's very important. Look at verses five and six. Paul describes here two kinds of widows. Do you notice the contrast? He talks about one who puts her hope in God, and then he talks about another who lives for pleasure.

The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. He's talking about spiritual death there. Now, this introduces a second and also very important consideration in discerning how we should help a person in need.

The church should not give in a way that supports or enables an ungodly lifestyle. So, it's right to ask a question as we're seeking to discern what we should do in any situation: Is this person committed to pursue a godly life?

So, here are two very practical questions that we should consider when we're faced with a situation of need: What provision has God already made for this person, and what commitment has this person already made with regards to God?

Paul is making it clear that although the family responsibility comes first, there will be times when God provides for his people through the kindness that is expressed within the body of the local church. When the family is not there or when the family isn't interested, there is the family of God, and we are God's household.

That's the teaching that we have here, and I want you to know that this kind of ministry happens regularly at The Orchard because of your kindness. Every week when we leave from the communion table, we have an opportunity to give to the benevolent fund, which is used to help people in need.

I want to read some extracts just from four letters that I've chosen—letters that have been received by different members of our pastoral staff from folks in the congregation who really were in exactly the situation of 1 Timothy 5:5. They were putting their hope in God. They were asking God for help, and they found that God answered their prayers through a ministry that came from your kindness in the body of Christ.

I want you to notice, as I read these four testimonies to you, that each of these folks saw what they received from others as being a gift that came from the hand of God himself. That's the joy of Christian giving, isn't it? That people would discern in the kindness of believers that God himself, the Father, is through his own children caring for their needs.

Let me just read to you then. First: "Please accept my sincere appreciation for your help with some of my medical bills. It was definitely a gift from God, but it was extended by the church, and I appreciate all involved. God bless you for all your generosity, and thank you."

Here's another: "I want to thank you so much for your part in helping me get a replacement car. I am so grateful to God for the person who donated the car to the church and to you."

Here's another one: "As you know, my family and I have been through some very hard times these past few years. I truly never expected this church to receive my family and I as openly as it did. But that it would help us without hesitation financially the way it did was something that left me speechless."

"The benevolent fund aid that we received from The Orchard came at a time in my life that I sincerely could not see a way out. We were in an extremely desperate situation. That wonderful ministry was made available to us before anyone here even knew our names."

"You and the church were the Good Samaritan, and I and my family were the victim on the side of the road where many had passed us by and looked the other way. I thank God for never abandoning us during our darkest hour. It is by his grace and never-ending mercy that we have persevered. There is a heart-filling gratitude that I feel toward this church and all those who give to the benevolent fund that I simply cannot put into words."

Here's another. This letter was addressed to the intercessory prayer team: "I want to thank you for your prayers. I had lost my job, and it took over a year to find another full-time position. I went through all my savings during that time and could only rely on God to help me through this very terrifying time."

"I have a teenage daughter, and it got very tough for us. The church was my safety net. I had gotten to a point that I had no money and no job. When I mean I had no money, I mean I had some change in my pocket and that was it. During this time, God showed me who he was, and I found fellowship in the church."

"At first, it was very hard to tell people about my situation," she writes. "Money and no job has some shame in it," she says, "but God did not let me go. He provided church members who were generous, some anonymously, and the benevolent fund."

"Many times after that, when my gas tank was low and there was very little food, I would check my mail and there would be an envelope from someone—maybe a friend, but many times from someone who did not sign their name—with money. The card would just say, 'God loves you,' and with tears, I would thank God."

"My situation has changed. I now have a full-time job with great benefits. I'm not out of the woods financially as of yet, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is because of people's prayers, the benevolent fund, and God's mercy and grace that I'm where I am now. I now know that every breath I take and every step I make is because of our awesome God, and I praise him."

It is a wonderful thing, folks, a wonderful thing to be in the kind of ministry that God calls us to pursue. To be part of the body of Christ. Whose life will you touch today? Who will experience the help of God through your kindness this week? Responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit so that a person in need would experience the provision of God is a wonderful ministry that glorifies him. Thank God for it.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Gospel Compassion. We've been seeing how we're to cultivate a culture of caring. When we come back in just a moment, we'll see how we're to also cultivate a culture of serving. So, I hope you'll stay with us.

Our message is part of a larger series called 10 Distinctives of a Gospel-Centered Church. It's really a look at the book of 1 Timothy. If you missed any of the programs in our series or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that at our website, openthebible.org. There, you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at openthebible.org. Let's get back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: God calls us to cultivate a culture of caring and a culture of serving. These two go together, and you find serving especially in verses nine through 16. A caring church is going to be a church, a community of people who serve one another well.

This theme really is the focus of verses nine through 16. I want you to notice what I believe is a move from one subject to another. Watch this carefully with me. In verse three, we read about widows who are to be recognized, that is, honored and clearly supported. But in verse nine, Paul speaks about widows who are to be enrolled or to be registered.

He talks particularly here about a list. Do you see that in verse nine? Now, the question that's raised, of course, is: Is this a list of widows who are being supported by the church, or is this referring to something else? Now, the qualification for being on the list is quite clearly different from the qualifications of those who are receiving support earlier in the chapter.

And so, I've come to the conclusion that the list is not talking simply about those who receive support, but it is talking about something different. Notice what the qualifications for being on this list are. The first qualification is age: widows on the list must be over 60. Very unusual to have a specific age reference like that in the Bible, but you find it here.

Secondly, fidelity: person on the list must have been faithful to her husband. Third, ministry: person on the list is someone well-known for good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of saints, helping those in trouble, devoting herself to all kinds of deeds. This is describing particularly a believer who is seasoned in ministry.

And so, it seems to me that although there may well be overlap between the two groups that are described earlier and later in 1 Timothy chapter five, that this list that Paul refers to in verse nine is not a register of people who are receiving financial support. It is, in fact, a list of people who are devoting themselves to particular forms of service within the church.

Now, that leads me to say this to all of us mature believers—you realize I'm using a euphemism for over 60—to all of us mature believers, to those who have brought up children, and you've opened your home, and you've helped folks in trouble, and you have gained experience and maturity and you're over 60.

Your experience is a gift that you can offer into the hands of Christ for ministry in your golden years. And I think that is what Paul is talking about here particularly, about a group of women who did this and gave themselves to it in a dedicated way.

I want to take that theme and to expand it out and for us to see the potential for ministry among mature believers and for us to have a vision for that among us here. In fact, all over our congregation, there are folks over the age of 60 who are already doing this.

Last Wednesday, we had five teams of our people, mostly retired along with some younger women, serving 22 guests who came into the church with various needs. Our people listened to them, prayed with them, helped them with clothing, with gift cards for food and for gas.

I wish you could see every Thursday the team of men, mostly retired, who serve here every week working on projects all over the building. Their joy is infectious, and their ministry is a gift from the Lord to all of us. I could multiply examples.

But just the other week, I was talking to one of our over-60s in his home. And he said to me—he said, "I want to know who it was that defined the American dream. I want to know," he said, "guy over 60, who said that the American dream is to make enough money so that you can go off some place with no responsibilities and spend your golden years with no other interest but yourself? Who said that? It's not my dream."

Folks, we desperately need a redefinition of retirement. And I want to offer one to you. To re-tire is to get a new set of tires to keep you rolling in the service of Jesus Christ. That's my definition of retirement. And I want to encourage everyone in the congregation over 60 today: get a new vision for your golden years as the most useful years that you can offer to Jesus Christ.

One man who had that vision is one of my heroes of the faith, Alan Redpath. He served as a pastor in London for some years and then came to pastor the Moody Church here in Chicago. He was here for nine years. Then he returned to Scotland, and he became the pastor of Charlotte Chapel, which is my home church in Edinburgh.

Redpath had been there for just two years when at the age of 57, he suffered a near-fatal stroke. That crisis led him into a deep, deep depression. But God met him there in a powerful way, and after prolonged suffering, God gave him a remarkable recovery.

He returned to preaching at the Chapel for only a short time, and then he embarked on an itinerant ministry as a conference speaker. My first memory of him was when he returned to the pulpit at Charlotte Chapel after he had resigned from that ministry and had been traveling for a while.

I would have been just 10 years old. It was a big occasion in the city. Redpath was back for a Sunday, and people came from all over to hear him. The place was so packed on a Sunday evening that the children were asked—can you imagine this—the children were all asked to leave their seats and to sit on the platform and on the steps going up to the pulpit to make way for other people who were outside still wanting to come in.

As it happened, the ushers were all moving us around. I ended up at 10 years of age sitting on the second top step of the pulpit, literally at the feet of one of my heroes of the faith, listening to him speak about God's work in his life.

Then when I was 17, I went to a Christian convention at a place called Filey in England. There were thousands of Christians came to this thing from all over the country, and there were many speakers there. Every night, these men would speak in one of the venues. There were four or five different venues where you could attend an evening service.

I had my plan worked out. I was there for a week, and wherever Redpath was speaking, that was the place I went that night. And one night, when he was speaking about God's total self-giving to us, he said—and I picture it now—"I have asked God for 10 more years that I may live for Christ more fully than I have ever done before." Redpath was 68 when he said that, and I was listening, age 17.

And I said that night, "That's what I want. That's what I want. Ten more years to live more fully for Jesus Christ than ever before." You know, the roots of what we do with our senior years lie in the vision we embrace when we are young. So, I want to ask all who are younger than 60: What's your dream? What are you actually living and working for? What is it that you're trying to get to?

What are you going to do with the years that you have before you see the Lord? You know, God gave Alan Redpath his request and more. He lived for another 14 years and then went to be with his savior in 1989 at the age of 82. Ten more years to live for Christ more fully than ever before. Folks, that's the Gospel dream. Let's live it together.

Steve Hiller: What a great challenge. Let's live that Gospel dream together. You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called Gospel Compassion, part of our series 10 Distinctives of a Gospel-Centered Church.

If you've missed any of the programs in our series or you want to go back and listen again, you can do that at our website, openthebible.org. Open the Bible's a listener-supported ministry, and as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of John Stott's book called The Incomparable Christ. Colin, who is this book for?

Colin Smith: Well, it's for anyone who wants to know the Lord Jesus Christ better. And it's written by one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century. John Stott was a faithful preacher, a pastor, and a scholar for over 60 years. He's one of my heroes of the faith. I love to read his writing, and never more so than when he's writing on the most central subject of all: the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This book, The Incomparable Christ—if you've never read a book by John Stott, this is a great place to start. It's a deep dive on who Jesus is, and it comes in four parts. We see Jesus as he is presented in the New Testament, Jesus as he's been presented by the church over the centuries, Jesus as he's inspired various figures in history, and Jesus as he's presented to us in the book of Revelation. It's just a glorious snapshot of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and I think anyone who reads this book is going to feel that they come to a deeper worship of Jesus, a deeper love for Jesus, and a deeper trust in Jesus too.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy of this book as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Or again, our website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.

Guest (Male): This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: Hi, this is Pastor Colin again, and I want you to know about Watch Your Life. Watch Your Life is a six-session course that is geared for leaders but accessible to every believer.

The six sessions will show you how to grow in godliness, how to feed on Christ, how to pray in the Spirit, how to battle temptation, exercise faith, and discern God's will. There are questions at the end of each session, and you can use them on your own or you can discuss them with a friend. For more information, visit openthebible.org/courses. That's openthebible.org/courses.