Proverbs 14

You know we've been studying in Proverbs. Did you know that when you just quoted out of Proverbs? Two weeks ago we studied about being a friend. We've been studying about relationships in Proverbs. We've talked about relationships to our spouses, relationships to our friends, relationships to our enemies, and today we go to our relationship to the poor.

You know, as Christians, we're to march to the beat of a different drummer, a heavenly drummer. We are not to be like the culture around us. And if there is something that should distinguish us as Christians, it is how we treat the poor. I think he was about 10 years old. Memory fades more and more week by week.

But we were sitting in the old post office in Washington, D.C. that has been remodeled. There are a lot of shops there now, places to eat. We were, the four of us, eating there. Louise, my wife, Caleb, my son, and my daughter Kate.

As we sat there eating our meal, I noticed that there were tears running down Caleb's face. Ten years old. I said, Caleb, what's the matter? He said, Dad, that man sitting at that table, he has nothing to eat. I hadn't even noticed, but my son Caleb had.

And I turned and looked, and there was a man, obviously homeless, his few possessions in a plastic bag that he was carrying with him. His head was down on the table. He looked like he was trying to get some sleep. But he obviously had nothing.

And there was no way he was going to be able to afford to buy a meal.

He said, Daddy, I've got to give him something. I want to give him some money. So we gave him some money, and he went over and, 10 years old, handed the money to the poor man. As I recall, I think he said, God bless you. And Caleb came back.

Sometimes it's in the eyes of the children that we see what we should see. and sometimes as adults we get hardened and our eyes no longer see. There will be various reactions to my lesson today. Some of you will say, oh, the problem's too big and sort of dismiss this issue of trying to help the poor around the world. Some of you will be uncomfortable, maybe some discomfort mixed with a little guilt.

guilt as we climb into our expensive cars after church to return to our large homes to eat a high-calorie meal that most of us could avoid.

Some of us will argue, well, that's really not what the church should be about. The church is to spread the gospel. It's not our job to be feeding the poor. We get sidetracked if we focus on that. Some of you will say, well, it's their fault if they only worked harder, if only they had done this or that.

And some of you will say, because the problem is so enormous and there will always be poor people with us, there's really nothing we can do and you will take no action. Well, today I call for action. But we are not, as Christians, to sit still in light of the overwhelming poverty of so many in our world. Of the approximately 6 billion people who live in the world today, 1.2 billion live on less than one dollar a day.

1.2 billion. Before we return to Sunday school next Sunday morning, over 250,000 children in the world will die because of malnutrition and its effects. So, today we turn to Proverbs and some other scriptures to ask the question, why should we help and be kind to the poor? I've given you a series of verses in your handout so that you can have those to refer to as we go through the reasons we should help and be kind to the poor. And after I give these reasons, I'm going to give you, as I usually do, some life lessons, some ideas about what we should be doing.

Reason number one, why we should help the poor and be kind to the poor. because the poor have dignity as God's creation made in His image. So your blank there is creation. Proverbs 14, 31 says, I gave you the wrong verse there. Proverbs 22, 2 says, Rich and poor have this in common, of them all and look at verse 4 chapter 14 verse 31 in your handout he who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker but whoever is kind to the needy honors god both these verses acknowledge that the lord is the maker of all humanity and that all humanity has been made in the image of God so that when we pass the poor person on the street, it is not just some object to be ignored or some object to be dismissed.

It is a human being who reflects the image of the one who has created them. And because this one is made by our creator and in his image, that one is worthy of our respect. Second reason we should help the poor and be kind to the poor. Because our kindness to the poor honors God. Your blank is the word honors.

Proverbs 14.31, we just read it, says, He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. And that word that is translated in the New International Version,

beggar. It is a word that indicates people who are of the lowest status and the lowest rung in society. It is being kind to those who are at the lowest rungs of society that honors God. How is it that we honor God when we are kind to the poor and to the needy?

it honors God because when we are kind to the poor and the needy we are obeying the commands our Lord has given us about the poor Deuteronomy 15 7 and 8 says this these were the commands that the Lord gave to the Jewish people to the nation of Israel he said if there is a poor man among

That was a command to be generous to the poor. Deuteronomy 15, 11 says, There will always be poor people in the land. We sometimes hear that quoted, don't you? There will always be poor people with you, to do anything. People fail to read the rest of the verse. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. The point is, sure, they're always with you. That's why you better be generous, because there are always people who need your help and need your assistance. Do not let someone turn and walk away. Oh, they'll always be poor. The Lord said that. He sure did. And what did he mean?

out there helping them. Isaiah 58, 6 and 7, the prophet Isaiah speaking for the Lord said, is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter when you see the naked to clothe him and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood how when we are kind to the poor and needy we honor god because we follow the commands he has given us toward the poor the third reason we should be kind to the poor and the needy is because when we help the poor we do it to and for the lord proverbs 19 17 says he who is kind to the poor lends to the lord and he will reward him for what he has done and then you remember jesus in matthew 25 40 those who had fed the hungry clothed the naked, visited the prisoners, and then Matthew 25, 40, the king will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. So when we care for the poor, we honor God and we act for God, and the scriptures seem to indicate there's a real sense in which we have done it to the Lord. And I think the sense is, it's not that Jesus is the person we're feeding directly, it's the poor person. But when we feed the poor person, we are doing it to the Lord. It is an offering to the Lord. It is something that we are doing out of obedience to the Lord. The fourth reason that we should be kind to the poor and needy is because the Lord will bless and reward those who help the poor. There is clear indication in scripture that there is reward and blessing when we help the poor. Proverbs 14 21 he who despises his neighbor's sins but blessed is he who is kind to the needy. Proverbs 19 17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.

You remember Cornelius in the New Testament? The Lord came to him in a vision. And Cornelius, according to Acts 10, 4, asked, What is it, Lord? And then the angel of the Lord says, Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Isn't that interesting?

It was his prayers and his gifts to the poor that the Lord had noticed and viewed as a memorial offering. Matthew 25, 34 says, Then the king will say to those on his right, Come you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance. The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in.

I needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison, and you came to visit me. And it's in light of what they had done that the Father says, enter into your eternal rest.

You know, there's a real sense that when we are generous to people, there's blessing in this life, because I usually find those who have been generous to others get that generosity returned. When we are kind to others, it usually comes back to us in some form or fashion from other human beings. But even if it doesn't come back from other human beings, if they take our kindness and still treat us badly, there is blessing that comes from the one who is on high. If not in this life, clearly in the life to come, honored the poor, and helped care for them. Number five, why should we be kind to the poor and the needy?

Because if we shut our hearts and ears to the poor, we show a lack of God's love and invite curses on ourselves. Proverbs 21.13 says, If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered. Proverbs 28, 27 He who gives to the poor will lack nothing but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses. James 2, 15 says this Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food if one of you says to them go I wish you well, keep warm and well fed What good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

And then one other verse, 1 John 3, 17-18, where the Lord asks this searching question through John, If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us love with words, not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. If we shut our hearts to the poor, we do not show God's love. We show a lack of his love. And we invite the Lord's curse upon us because just as the Father in Matthew 25 welcomes into his eternal rest those who have cared for the poor, helped the hungry, clothed the naked, away into eternal damnation those who hardened their hearts and did not help the poor, did not clothe the naked, did not feed the hungry.

The basis of our salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ, but that passage in Matthew 25 reminds us that those who are truly children of God will show evidence that they are God's child by their care and concern for the poor and the lord at the end of time will be able to hold up our care for those who were on the margins of society of society as the absolute evidence that we were indeed one who had put faith and trust in him you want to know if you're a child of god one way is to see what fruit is manifested by that relationship and at least part of that fruit should be a caring concern about those who are on the margins of society. The last reason I give today about why we should help the poor and the needy is because the Lord loves justice.

The poor are often the voiceless who are oppressed and need our help and our protection. Proverbs 29, 7 says, justice for the poor, the wicked have no such concern. And Proverbs 31, 8 and 9 says, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly. Defend the rights of the poor and the needy. The reality is that in many parts of the world that people suffer poverty because they are the victims of injustice.

There are policies or procedures in government that keep the poor poor and that make the poor poorer. We as Christians should want justice for the poor. We should stand against injustice because God is a God of justice.

As Psalm 82.3 says, defend the cause of the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and the oppressed. I don't know about you, in most Baptist circles I walk in, I don't hear a lot about discussions about justice for the poor and standing up for the rights of the fatherless and the weak. That's just not part of our vocabulary. That sounds like Jesse Jackson or Martin Luther King Jr.

but it is a very biblical concept that we would want justice for the poor so let me give us some lessons for life here and flesh out this a little further lesson for life number one or a in your handout is let's learn more about the poor in our world and our responsibility toward them i would highly recommend that you read books by a guy named who is a biblical Christian, but a biblical Christian who is very concerned about those who are on the margins of society. He's written one book called Good News and Good Works. He's got another book called Rich Christians in a Hungry World. Another guy named Stephen Charles Mott has a book called Biblical Ethics and Social Change. This is kind of deep. You've really got to want to read this book if you want to read it.

but it's a great book thinking about our obligations as believers. If you want to learn more about poverty, just go on the Internet and go in there and type in the word poverty, and you'll hit all sorts of websites that will help give you some insight and at least to the magnitude of the problem in our world. My second lesson for life is to be thankful and enjoy the gifts God has provided.

God is generous. So many of us have more than we need. And I don't think the Lord wants us to feel guilty about that. I think he wants us to be grateful for what he has provided to us. So enjoy the good things he's given you.

Be thankful for them. But I'm going to press us, let's not harden our hearts. Let's instead be people who are generous toward others. my third life lesson is let's remember barnabas and the model of the early church do you remember acts 4 34 to 37 there were no needy persons among them we're told of the early church there were no needy persons among them why not for from time to time those who owned lands or houses, sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. That's pretty radical, isn't it? In the early church, people still owned property. It was private ownership, but it wasn't private ownership that was viewed as being, oh, it's mine and I just get to keep it for myself. As there were needs, people even went like Barnabas and sold land and took the money and gave it to church and said, help somebody who needs it.

I've got more than I need. There are enough resources in God's church that there should be no poor people in God's church. The problem is not lack of resources. The problem is lack of our caring and figuring out ways to get material possessions and needed items to people who are poor. There should be no needy persons in God's church.

And then we've got to look out beyond the church. But the Bible, I think, is pretty clear. family and then look beyond the family number four let's stand against our culture of consumption that always says me first without a thought for the poverty of millions you need to read the Lausanne covenant 1974 the world conference on evangelism in Lausanne Switzerland produced the Lausanne Covenant, which calls on those of us who live in affluent circumstances to accept our duty to develop a simple lifestyle in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism. Louise and I, for our 25th wedding anniversary, went up to Cashiers, North Carolina, right near where we went on our honeymoon 25 years ago. This was back in August we went.

we went shopping and cashiers really more looking I guess that's shopping and you look you don't buy

and as we were there among all the shops and all the people I began to think about those poor folks in Ethiopia and Honduras In Venezuela, and Louise, being the perceptive wife she is, noticed I was thinking about something, and I try to kind of sometimes keep these thoughts to myself because they don't always, well, you know what I mean.

David, what are you thinking? My standard reply, nothing. That means I really don't want to talk about it. She said, no, what are you thinking? I said we could feed Ethiopia for a year with the money that's being thrown away here.

People buying antiques to replace more antiques that they didn't need in the first place. Now I have to walk a fine line here. Again, I think God gives us more than we need and he's generous. but what I'm concerned about is the hard-heartedness that just spins and spins and spins for self, for self, for self and never even thinks about the 250,000 children that will be dead before we return next week. In the 1996 Discipleship Journal magazine it was reported that UNICEF estimates that childhood malnutrition, preventable disease and illiteracy could be eradicated in the next 10 years $25 billion a year. Now I'm not sure money is always the only answer, but that was their estimate of how much money it would take to really deal in a significant way with these problems. And then it went on to report, in the U.S., we spend about $31 billion each year on beer. And they were trying to highlight for us how we just spend money on needless needless things when so many are hurting.

My fifth life lesson is to think internationally. You've got to think beyond the U.S. Yes, we have poverty in the U.S. It is not anywhere. It is a molehill compared to the mountain of poverty in the rest of the world.

In the United States, this year, the poverty level for a family of four is $18,100 for the year, about $50 per day for four people. You remember the statistic I told you just a few minutes ago? 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day. So even in our standards of what constitutes poverty in this country, a family of four in much of the world lives on less than $4 a day, and we're talking about $50 a day is the level of poverty in this country. I mean, it's just a staggering difference in what we call poverty and what's poverty in the rest of the world.

Sahara and Africa, over 46% of the people live on less than $1.08 a day. When I was in Ethiopia in March, I flew to the little town of Asosa, right near the Sudanese border. And as we were going to visit the hospital there to look at it, they were trying to build a road. And they did have a truck, a concrete truck pouring out concrete. But you know how they were transporting the concrete?

women were lined up with pallets sort of like a stretcher one woman one woman on one side one on the other and they were standing under the chute on the concrete truck they were filling the pallet as much as they could hold and then they were walking 50 to 75 yards dumping their pallet of concrete and going back I said if they just had a wheelbarrow think what they could do they don't have wheelbarrow they don't have money to afford wheelbarrow we go into the hospital there in a so-so. There is no anesthesia. There are no endotracheal tubes. They have about five bottles of medicine in their pharmacy. They have nothing. You've got to think internationally. The problems are horrendous. In Honduras, where we have gone with Baptist Medical Dental Mission International, if you've been there, you know what I say is true. People will stand all day long in the heat for pills that will last them only for, at best, a few months, vitamins, some basic medications.

It's amazing the level of poverty and what people will do to try to alleviate that poverty, just to get a few items, standing in line all day long. Honduras, I believe this is correct, it was at least two or three years ago when I checked, next to the country of Haiti, Honduras is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. And that's why organizations like B and D and I are so important.

Sixth lesson. Remember, our talk of God's love and our commitment to Christ rings hollow when we fail to help the poor. 1 John 3, how can you look at someone, how can someone with material possession see his brother in need and have no pity on him and yet claim the love of God is in him?

G, support actions that help the poor and speak out where there is injustice for the poor. I love Amos. Let justice roll down like rivers and righteousness like a mighty stream. it is a travesty that in the united states millions and millions and millions of people have no health insurance it is a travesty i don't care what your view is about how government should operate and so forth that's an outrage that people cannot even afford to get basic health insurance to have basic health care. Sometimes we Christians, because we fall in a certain spectrum of the political realm, we Christians that tend to really believe the Bible is God's word and Jesus Christ really is Lord, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes our concern for the poor is not matched by how we view what the government does in our country. There were some Christians who were on their knees praying in the Capitol when our Congress was talking about cutting assistance to some of the poor.

Granted, we need good welfare policies that don't encourage people to be poor, but also we need to be concerned enough about the poor to stand even against our government when it would take away the help. H, do something. Be generous. You cannot, you cannot, you cannot do nothing if you're a believer. submit in light of the staggering poverty in the world. Go work at the soup kitchen. Sponsor a poor child, Compassion International, Mission of Mercy. Send, give us some money at Joshua's Way. We'll go help. We've got people in Ethiopia and Venezuela. We'll go feed. Send some money to Honduras. Go to Honduras and work with the poor. When you go out to eat, one idea I heard and read in a magazine, Some people, when they go out to eat, they set aside an equal amount to give to the poor.

So you go out and eat one night in Greenville, big night on the town, okay. But you take that same amount of money and you give it in some way to help the poor. At least one idea. Help fill the food pantry at Greer Community Ministries. Get on a mobile meals route and go help feed some poor elderly people.

When you pass a poor homeless person, give him some money. Oh, I shouldn't give him money. He might use it in the wrong way. You're not going to answer to God for how he uses the money. You're going to answer to God for how you use the money.

And when Jesus said in Matthew 5, 42, Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. I think maybe he was telling at least to lean toward giving and not always holding back.

Fill a shoebox for Operation Christmas Child to help a needy child. And always remember the command of 1 Timothy 6, 17. Command those who are rich in the present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. That is the model for the biblical Christian.

generosity. And lastly, remember John Wesley. I would disagree with Wesley on some points of theology, but boy, he modeled this notion of helping the poor. For four years, John Wesley ate primarily potatoes. He cut meat out of his diet because meat was so expensive. And he said, what I save for my own meat will feed another that else would have none. Wesley, unlike most of us, instead of increasing his lifestyle as his income increased, developed a policy that when his income increased, he would not increase his lifestyle. He would keep his lifestyle the same and he would give away the difference. And every year as he earned more money, and Wesley over his lifetime good bit of money. He gave away more and more. At his death, he had given away most of the 30,000 pounds he earned in his lifetime. Other than his books, he only had a few coins left.

And I always love his last words, the last audible words they heard Wesley speak were these, the best of all, God is with us. And I think it was because of his steadfast belief that God was with him, that he was more willing to give away because he knew God would take care of him. So Christians, what you gonna do?

I hope you'll listen to the voice of the master and recognize that the best way we present the gospel of Jesus Christ and invite those to come into his kingdom is when we give them a cup of water and something to eat. Let's pray. Lord, I praise you that you have given us so much. But dear God, forgive us because we so often don't even think about the poor.

I pray that you will prick our hearts and our consciences

in our luxury and in our plenty. I pray that you will move us to be generous, to find some outlet, some way to help those who are in need. I pray that the love of Christ will be evident in how we use our resources. and I pray Lord that the name of our Lord will get greater honor and greater glory throughout the world as his people as your people lift up your name proclaim you as the only sufficient source of salvation that in Christ, in Christ alone there is hope there is no salvation in any other name but I pray that we will recognize that the receptivity to that message just increases by mountain heights when we show compassion and concern for other people.

In Christ's name, amen.