The Least of These: Widows

I. Introduction
A. Even though this sermon is about widows, we’re going to learn a lot about God.
II. God has a special place in His heart for widows. That’s clear in the Bible.
A. God’s concern for widows
1. Ps.68:5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
2. Psalm 146:9 The LORD watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. (Cf. Deut.10:18)
3. Isaiah 54:4–5 “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. 5 For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.”
III. Last week we saw from Matt.25:31-46 that God has special compassion on those Jesus refers to as “the least of these.” Even though not mentioned in Matt.25, it is clear in the Bible that widows belong on that list. Now it’s time to ask why. Now it’s time to talk about the plight of the 1st century widow.
A. Widows then and now (in America) are somewhat different. They still have many of the sufferings of first century widows, but some others not so much.
B. Aspects of a widow’s life
1. Grief, loss of a loved one
a. Having to comfort the children while dying inside — for me that’s the hardest part of pastoring (e.g. BB, 2004)
2. Financial need or instability, loss of income
3. Vulnerability – IJM – protection, advocacy, “a defender of widows” (Ps.68:5)
4. Companionship (relational/emotional & spiritual support)
5. Support (physical assistance) – living is a two-man job
a. E.g. someone to go to the hospital with you, to back you up
b. Parenting alone: e.g. Ben & Michelle
6. Back-up — In a marriage, husband functions as vice wife, and wife as vice husband.
7. Someone who cares about the details of your life, encourages you, challenges you, and provides accountability.
8. Loss of favor and social standing — Scorn, rejection, humiliation
a. For women, identity was established in their husbands and family. Becoming a widow meant the breaking down of your identity, losing favor in the eyes of others, being seen as a nobody or even as cursed by God.
b. “Legally the widow was ignored for purposes of inheritance, and if her husband died prematurely, this was considered a judgment for the life he had led, and she became an object of reproach, partly for her inability to prevent his untimely death (Ruth 1:20, 21; Isaiah 54:4 – ‘the reproach of your widowhood’).” – Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible
9. Not easy to find another husband
IV. So what does God’s love for widows teach us about God?
A. He is a God of compassion.
1. The most frequently mentioned emotion of Jesus.
B. God is moved by the human condition.
1. His heart goes out to those who are alone, whose lives are vulnerable and unstable, who lack protection & security, who lack support, who are in pain.
2. This doesn’t mean He doesn’t allow the pain. He does have a purpose for the pain. But He also has compassion for those who experience it.
C. And God’s compassion on widows shows us that He is compassionate toward us when WE are:
1. Unstable
2. Vulnerable
3. Alone
4. Insecure
5. Lacking support
6. Lacking identity
7. When no one cares about the details of your life, God cares. God shows mercy to us in our need.
V. The old idea that hard circumstances are a result of sin.
A. The instinct to have disdain for the unfortunate.
1. The idea that God blesses the worthy with prosperity and punishes the wicked.
2. God allowed His people to think this way for a long time, that they might fear the consequences of their sins.
3. But the Book of Job, of course, blows this out of the water. Job’s friends think this way. So, when Job suffers, they conclude that he must have done something evil.
B. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking among conservatives today, even among Christians.
1. Poor people are poor because they’re lazy.
2. Oppressed people are cowards.
3. Sick people don’t have enough faith.
4. Prisoners are all bad people.
5. Immigrants are all suspect.
C. God doesn’t think that way, does He?
D. There is sometimes validity to it:
1. Sometimes our suffering is a result of our foolish choices.
2. If a man will not work neither let him eat. – 2Thes.3:10
E. But God allows suffering, more to one than to another, and not according to who is better and who is worse. He allows the best of people to suffer, and He often allows the most wicked to prosper.
F. Not only this, but God has compassion on sinners.
1. If God only had compassion on the righteous poor or the righteous least-of-these, there would be no one to have compassion on, because all have sinned.
2. But the most amazing category of people who are the objects of God’s compassion is sinners, those who have rebelled against God, those who have rejected Him and run away from Him.
VI. This is the good news of Jesus. God doesn’t wait for us to become good before He begins to care.
A. Mankind is like a widow. Created in a loving, intimate and joyful relationship bond, it came to a tragic end, and mankind has been living in the vast emptiness of aloneness and vulnerability and insecurity and lostness ever since.
B. God did not die, of course, but there was a certain deadness in the human relationship with Him.
1. It was as if man said to God, “You are dead to me.”
C. We no longer enjoyed a relationship with that intimate Companion who loves us and accepts us. We had it in the beginning, but it was lost.
D. The bitterness of a spurned spouse – “my ex”
E. But even though it was all mankind’s fault, even though we are the ones who spurned God, yet God still loved us, He still had compassion on us even in our rebellion.
F. He so loved the rebellious world that He sent His Son (John 3:16).
G. What’s the best thing you can do for a widow?
1. Anything you do to help her is temporary, except one thing.
2. Marry her. Like Boaz did with Ruth.
3. Jesus didn’t come to teach us wise things. Jesus didn’t come to help us clean up our act.
4. Jesus came to be our bridegroom.
5. He came to enter into an eternal and intimate bond with us, to turn those who had made themselves His enemies into His dearest friends.
H. Jesus doesn’t want to just help you, He wants to marry you. He has proposed. What will your answer be?
1. It can be a little scary. Some widows would rather just get a check in the mail, rather than enter into a new marriage.
VII. Widows: James 1:27 “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 from the world.”
A. God wants us not only to believe the gospel, but also live the gospel.
1. He wants to fill His children with His compassion.
2. If we have the same passions as God, that reveals the fact that it is from Him. When we have passions different from God, that shows it is from us.
3. Or, to put it another way, when the gospel really takes root in our hearts, it also takes root in our lives: the way we feel, the way we think, the way we treat others.
4. If we don’t show mercy to others, it looks like we think we deserve God’s mercy.
B. Other categories which fit under widows
1. Widowers
2. Divorcees (especially those who have been abandoned)
3. Elderly people
4. Single parents
5. Single adults
6. Bad marriages
7. Caretakers (supporting spouses because of illness or injury)
8. Separated or living apart (especially due to difficult work or immigration situations)
9. People whose spouse is deployed in the military