CHURCH FAMILY TENDERNESS

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 30, 2025 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message, preached March 30, 2025 from 1 Timothy 5:1-2

Theme: All of God’s people in the church ought to be shown the tenderness and respect proper to their place in the family.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Many years ago, I heard an interview with Dr. James Dobson. For almost 50 years, he has been looked to as an expert Christian counselor and adviser on the life and nurture of the family. This particular interviewer asked him—after all his years of counseling, writing, and speaking—if he could sum up all that he had been trying to say concerning the biblical care and well-being of families.

He said that he could sum it up in one word: ‘respect’.

Think of the wisdom of that! Wouldn’t it be true that most of the problems in the relationships within a family spring from a failure of individual family members to show the proper respect due to one another? So often, when problems occur, it can be traced to a failure to show respect for the perspectives or possessions or personal dignity of individual members within the family. Feelings get hurt; and they often get hurt so badly that almost permanent bitterness and resentment takes root. But when husbands show tenderness and sincere respect for their wives, and when wives show the same kind of sincere respect for their husbands, problems can be worked through very easily and romance can thrive. When children sincerely respect their parents by honoring their authority and trusting in their care, and when parents provide encouragement and loving discipline with a sensitive listening ear, their relationships grow deeper and more precious to one another over the years. When brothers and sisters respect each other’s feelings and show genuine affection and protective care for one another, they become supportive companions in their youth—and lifelong friends later in life.

I’m sure that the one word ‘respect’ doesn’t cover everything that’s needed for a happy and healthy family. But it’s certainly among the most crucial things that are needed. A great deal of good flows from mutual respect when it is present in the family. And I thought of the importance of ‘respect’ as I came to this morning’s passage. It’s a passage found at the beginning of 1 Timothy 5—in a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to young Pastor Timothy to instruct him in the care and nurture of our spiritual family—the church family. This particular passage highlights the importance of ‘respect’ for the health of the church family.

In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Paul told Timothy,

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 (1 Timothy 5:1-2).

And I need to tell you a little secret. Originally, I was planning to only give passing notice to these two verses and show how they set the tone for the larger passage that follows—that is, the passage on how the church should care for the widows God entrusts to its care. But I began to feel very strongly that the Lord didn’t want us to pass by these two verses as quickly as I was intending. They teach us a very important principle about church life overall—one that has a significant impact on how we care for widows … and also how we nurture all the other relationships within the church family. And the principle can be summed up this way: All of God’s people in the church ought to be shown the tenderness and respect that is appropriate to their place in the family. Whether it’s older men in the church, or younger men, or older women, or younger women, all of the members of God’s family need to be treated with the kind of respect and tender care that’s owed to them as members of God’s household.

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Now; as I was preparing to share from this particular passage, I began to realize that it touches on a subject that’s hard for some of us to deal with. It’s a passage that speaks of our spiritual family—our church family. But just the word ‘family’ alone brings up some hard memories for some of us.

None of us, of course, have had—or will have—a perfect family on earth. And most of us grew up in families that never heard Dr. James Dobson’s advice about respect. Many grew up in families in which respect toward one another—to put it mildly—was not a priority at all. And some of us have even had family experiences that have left us severely wounded and scarred in ways that may never completely heal. The word ‘family’ may make some folks among us wince. And what’s more, very few of us have had church families that measured up to the standard either. Many who came to faith in Jesus from out of hurtful and destructive family situations have joined a church in the hopes that it would be a truly healing ‘family’ experience—only to find that the same kind of hurtful ‘disrespect’ was exhibited even among those who said they were part of the family of God.

So, let’s admit that, in God’s household, we’re presented with a biblical standard that we often fail to measure up to. But if we’ve truly been redeemed by faith in the cross of the Lord Jesus, we will want to grow more into that ideal. Let’s remember that—even though it isn’t perfect—the church truly is God’s household. In Matthew 12:49-50, we’re told that the Lord Jesus once said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” Then, stretching out His hand toward a group of His disciples who were listening to Him teach, He said,

“Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:49-50).

And that’s the place where we ought to start—that is, by believing wholeheartedly what Jesus said that we are. We are His family. He is our true ‘Head-of-the-house’. And that means that the church ought to be the one place on earth where God’s people show the greatest possible love, courtesy, and respect for each other. When one member wanders off into sin, the others ought to love that wandering member so much that they come around and lovingly admonish him or her to return. When one of us fails in some way, the others ought to lovingly gather around to lift them up, reassure them in love and acceptance, and give them the needed encouragement to get back up and keep on walking for Jesus. When one of us has joyful good news, or experiences a victory in some way, all the others ought to celebrate and have a party to the glory of God the Father. The church family ought to be a place where we can stumble and fail, and learn, and grow, and be safe and secure in love. It ought to be a place where ‘respect’ of family relationships is the most evident feature.

And this also speaks to me as a pastor. The apostle Paul was letting Pastor Timothy know that he was the one who was to take the lead in this whole matter of church-family respect and tenderness. He was to set the example for all the others in the church. As Paul told him in 2 Timothy 2:24-26;

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

So, dear brothers and sisters, I am called upon by God to set the example of church family tenderness. And you—as my brothers and sisters in Christ—are called upon to follow that example and show tender, loving respect for one another. We’ll fail at times. We won’t always live up to the pattern that God sets before us. But by His grace, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in love for our mutual Savior, we’ll want to grow in it together. We’ll want to be the family He desires for us to be.

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So; with all that in mind, let’s look at these two verses and notice first …

1. THE RECIPIENTS OF FAMILY TENDERNESS.

Paul told Timothy; “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.” Paul describes two factors that define everyone in the church—gender and age. And so, here, you can see that we’re to show church-family tenderness to all the believing men and women of all age groups among us.

Did you know that Paul wrote something very similar to another pastor in the New Testament? In Titus 2:1-8, Paul wrote;

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you (Titus 2:1-8).

I was surprised to find that—in the original language—when Paul said that Titus was to instruct these things so that the opponent may have “nothing evil to say of you”, the word “you” is in the plural. That speaks of the whole church family. The watching, unbelieving world is to look at the church and see older men, older women, younger women, and younger men living, all living in harmonious love and care for one another; and then be unable to speak evil of the church-family. And do you notice that the various classifications that he wrote about to Titus in that passage are the same as the ones he wrote about to Timothy in our passage this morning?

Look carefully again in our passage at what Paul told Pastor Timothy. First, he was to respect older men in the church body as ‘fathers’. “Do not rebuke an older man,” he said, “but exhort him as a father”. And that’s how a pastor ought to treat the older men in the church family—as honored ‘fathers’.

Now; as I’ve gotten older myself, I suppose that at this point I can claim the privilege of treating some of the older men in our church a little bit more like ‘brothers’. In fact, if I keep going—by God’s grace—I can soon look at several of the older men as ‘younger brothers’. But no matter where I may be in life, my role as pastor is such that I must set the example; and to thus encourage the whole church family to treat our older brothers with the dignity and respect due to fathers.

Did you know that that’s a part of the Old Testament law that God gave to the Jewish people through Moses? In fact, God associated it with showing reverence to Himself. In Leviticus 19:32, God commanded,

‘You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the Lord’ (Leviticus 19:32).

Think of it. If you truly reverenced God—and truly sought to obey His commandment to honor your father and your mother—then how would you go about ‘exhorting’ your own father? Wouldn’t you do so with the utmost care and tenderness and respect as the honored elder figure that God has placed over you? That’s how we’re to treat the older men of our church family.

Paul also told Pastor Timothy to exhort “younger men as brothers”. Biological brothers in a family are connected to one another in an inseparable kind of bond. They share the same bloodline. They are wrapped up in one another’s welfare and well-being. They should look out for one another, and look up to one another, and look for the best in each other and for each other in love. If they end up occasionally getting into scraps with each other—which is something that I’ve heard occasionally happens—they always end up hugging in the end. And that’s how Paul told Pastor Timothy that he was to exhort the younger men in his church family—as brothers. He wasn’t to be their superior, and deal with them as if they were his inferiors. He was to exhort them as his equals—respecting them as true brothers in Christ.

And that’s how the young men of the church family should deal with the other young men in the church family—that is, as brothers of the same family, with the same heavenly Father, with the same elder brother Jesus, and with the same eternal destiny before them in heaven. The apostle Paul once wrote to the believers in the Thessalonian church about the problem of some folks in their midst who were living in a dishonorable and disobedient way. He commanded the church family to deal with such a person. But he urged the believers in the church to treat him with the respect due to him as a fellow member of the family of Christ; saying,

Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thessalonians 3:15).

Paul went on to tell Pastor Timothy to exhort “older women as mothers”. I have always especially loved that particular command; because, as a pastor, I have felt that I have had many beloved ‘church moms’ over the years. There have been many godly older women in the church who have made the church family a happy, loving, safe, warm, protective, nurturing place to be. And if it were ever to be that a pastor needed to call one of those dear ‘church moms’ aside to address something that needed to be corrected, he should always do it as if he were tenderly and lovingly correcting his own dear mother.

The Lord Jesus was protective of His own mother. And when He was dying on the cross, He instructed the disciple John to care for her as if she was his own. In John 19:26-27, we read,

When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home (John 19:26-27).

Our Lord saw to it that John cared for Mary as if she was his own mother. Jesus united them together as in the same family. And what’s more, the apostle Paul also treated his older sisters in the Lord as mothers. At the end of the Book of Romans—in the ‘farewell greetings’ section—he wrote,

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine (Romans 16:13).

I suspect that, when that letter was read, those words really warmed the heart of Rufus’ mother—and probably the heart of Rufus too—to know that she was loved by Paul that much. And that’s how the church family should also treat the older women in the Lord who are in their midst—as tenderly and respectfully as beloved mothers should be treated by their own sons and daughters.

And finally, Paul told Pastor Timothy to exhort the younger women in the church family. But he was to do so with special care. Paul wrote to exhort “younger women as sisters, with all purity.” He absolutely needed to fulfill his pastoral role to them; but he needed to be especially careful to do so prudently, so that there would never be the appearance of anything inappropriate. Many a pastor has destroyed his ministry—and brought shame to the cause of Christ—because he wasn’t careful in this matter. And I suspect that Paul would have wanted Timothy to rely much on the ‘godly mothers’ of the church family to step in and help him when it came to exhorting his ‘sisters’ in the church.

This touches on how a pastor is to be careful to protect his own respectability within the church family and before the watching world. As Paul wrote and told him in 4:12;

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity (1 Timothy 4:12).

The way that a pastor shows true church-family tenderness and respect to his sisters in the Lord is by being careful and protective of them … just as good brothers are to be careful and protective of their own sisters.

So; those are the recipients of the respect and care we’re to show to one another—all people of all age groups—both male and female.

And do you notice this doesn’t mean that we’re to show respect to each other member of the household in exactly the same way? This leads us to consider …

2. THE MANNER OF FAMILY TENDERNESS.

A younger pastor is not to treat an older man in the church family as if that older man was his brother—but rather to respect him as if he were his own father. He is not to treat an older woman as if that older woman were his sister—but rather to respect her as if she were his mother. He isn’t to treat all the people in the church family in exactly the same way—but rather is to respect the younger men as brothers and the younger women as sisters. In other words, he is to give special consideration to each person that he is responsible to exhort in the things of Christ; and to treat them in individually thoughtful ways—that is, in ways that show respect and courtesy toward each individual believer according to his or her identity in the family of Christ.

That’s a principle that we find in the Scripture for the whole church family. We’re to honor one another as members together in the family of Christ; and are therefore to be discerning in how we show tender care to one another according to the unique situation of that family relationship. Paul wrote about this once to the Thessalonian church. He told them;

Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all (1 Thessalonians 5:14-15).

We aren’t to treat each other in an insensitive, ‘cookie-cutter’ kind of way. If we deal with one another in exactly the same way—just going about ‘exhorting’ one another without regard to one another’s unique identity in the body of Christ, and without any discernment of the requirements of our unique place of relationship toward one another—then we aren’t showing the kind of respect for one another that ought to be evident in the body of Christ. As the pastor, I need to be an example in this to you; and you are to follow the example I set. So, let’s learn to treat one another with the kind of tenderness and care and respect that honors our duty to one another’s place in the context of the church family—whether it be honored father, beloved brother, treasured mother, or precious sister.

And note finally why Paul gave this instruction to Pastor Timothy. It’s because Timothy was commanded to faithfully exhort those in his church family. He had a pastoral duty to perform that needed to be adapted carefully to each person toward whom he was to fulfill it. And this leads us to consider …

3. THE NECESSITY OF FAMILY TENDERNESS.

Paul told Timothy, “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.” And the word that he used for ‘rebuke’ is one that meant ‘to strike upon’ or ‘to hit upon’. It’s the only time it appears in the New Testament. And it was meant as a figure of speech for speaking to an older man ‘harshly’ or ‘sharply’ in such a way as to demean him or humiliate him.

A pastor should never scold or sharply rebuke an older man. In fact, the structure of Paul’s words in these two verses strongly implies that a pastor should never speak that way toward any of God’s precious people—whether older men, younger men, older women, or younger women. I have seen pastors who have given way to their emotions and ‘harshly rebuke’ members of the church family … and who have permanently destroyed their ministries as a result. Good shepherds shouldn’t yell at the sheep; and if they ever do so, the sheep aren’t likely to forget about it.

But do you notice that Paul says, “do not ‘sharply rebuke … but exhort …” The word that Paul used for ‘exhort’ meant to call someone aside and admonish them or appeal to them. It’s a gentle approach that shows respect for their personhood. And just as the command to Timothy to not ‘sharply rebuke’ would apply to his duty toward all in the church, so the command to ‘exhort’ would also apply to his duty toward all the church.

So; family tenderness is necessary because it’s a part of the pastor’s duty to admonish the people of God in the things of God. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:3-4—at the very beginning of this letter—to admonish God’s people to stay true to the gospel. He wrote,

As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith (1 Timothy 1:3-4).

I would fail in my duty as a pastor if I didn’t admonish the individual members of the church family to stay true to, and believe, and declare the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, in order to do that as I should, I must practice good church-family tenderness.

And in doing so, I must set the example for the whole church family. You are responsible to exhort one another as well—never in a ‘harsh’ or ‘striking’ kind of way; but with the gentle admonishment that is to characterize a loving family. As Paul wrote in Galatians 6:1-2;

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:1-2).

To do this as we should, we all must show each other the tenderness and respect that is proper to one another’s place in the family—whether older men, younger men, older women or younger women.

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So; I hope you can appreciate why I have felt led by the Lord to focus on these two verses today. We mustn’t pass by them too quickly. They’re teaching us about something very important—something that we truly owe to one another as members together of the family of Christ—something that’s summed up in the word ‘respect’.

When we sincerely demonstrate the kind of respect we owe to each other, the world takes notice of it. As the Lord Jesus told us when He gave us that ‘law of Christ’ that Paul said we’re to fulfill toward one another:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).

Let’s grow increasingly to show the kind of tenderness and respect that is due to one another in the family of Christ … and thus prove to the world that we truly belong to Him.

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