1-31-08 Breaking The Spirit of Poverty
Big idea — often we fail to give to those in need, because we feel we don’t have enough ourselves. A powerful way to break the spirit of poverty within ourselves is by giving extravagantly — not from our excess, but from our necessities.
Bono – Lead singer for the band U2 is a rock star, activist, and unlikely prophet. He has been going around the world proclaiming the crazy idea that we can somehow eliminate what he calls “stupid poverty”. And what’s amazing is that people are listening. Christians are especially interested because Bono believes the church could be the vehicle that ultimately eradicates much of the world’s poverty. I think he may be right! The Bible talks a great deal about this.
Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you and everything you do. Deuteronomy 15:10.
Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need. Proverbs 21:13.
One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. Proverbs 11:24.
There are 2003 verses of Scripture pertaining to the poor, second only to personal redemption and salvation. The main thrust of Scripture is to meet God through working with the poor and disadvantaged. You see it in Matthew 25 . . .
“Jesus only speaks specifically about judgment once, and when he speaks about the day of judgment he says,
Matthew 25:31-46 (NIV)
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “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. 35 For I was hungry 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, 36 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.’ 37
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 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.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
This is serious stuff! When we help those who are in need we move towards heaven. When we don’t, we move towards hell. When we are selfish with what God has given us, we move towards hell. When we give some of what God has given us to others, we move towards heaven. Why is this you say?
The greatest commandments are about love. Can you say that you are loving those that you find yourself next to if you do not help them when they are in need? Does God love them? Yes! He was willing to die for them.
What’s amazing is that an Irish musician would tell the worldwide church the very thing God has been telling us for centuries! And who knows? If Christians everywhere did care and got involved, we just might do it. We might eliminate poverty. Why not give it a try? What do we have to lose? What more important things have we to do?
DVD clip of the Bono interview
So what is poverty? How do we begin to define it? Perhaps we should start by asking some questions.
Is poverty about a lack of food, water, and shelter? Is poverty about being sick and not being able to see a doctor? Is it not having access to education or not knowing how to read? Is poverty not being able to work? Could poverty be losing a child to illness brought on by unclean water? Is poverty being abandoned and left alone? Or is poverty having all you ever wanted, but still feeling empty inside?
Mother Teresa said. “We know that poverty means, first of all, to be hungry for bread, to need clothing, and to not have a home. But there is a far greater kind of poverty. It means being unwanted, unloved, and neglected.”
Poverty is about not having enough — enough food, shelter, opportunity, and dignity. Ultimately it’s about not having enough love. It’s about not having value in the eyes of another.
What is enough anyway? Amazingly, many of us in the United States, where the gross national income per capita in 2005 was $41, 657 or $112/day, feel that we don’t have enough. However, More than 3 billion people – that’s more than half the world lives on less than $2 a day.
One of the reasons that we distance ourselves from the poor, is because we fear being poor ourselves. We don’t want to lose control of our lives. We don’t want to wake up one day and realize that no one really cares about us. But the truth is, we’re rich. We just don’t realize it.
Show “Enough” track three on the sermon clips DVD. In this clip, average people are asked to define enough.
Command those who are rich in this present world. Not to be arrogant or 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. Commandant them do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay a treasure for themselves, as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of a life that is truly life. 1Timothy 6:17-19.
It is important remember that Paul is not saying that it’s wrong to be wealthy. This passage is not an indictment against the rich. Paul simply commands us not to put our hope and wealth. We, the rich, are commanded to do good things with our wealth, to be generous, and to share it with others. The result is that we take hold of a life that is truly life. Paul knew that we are most alive when we give our lives away.
So, how is fear related to poverty? We hold on to what we have, because we fear not getting more. I must remind us that most sin is fear. We try to control that which we were never meant to control. We fear because we are worried about things getting out of control.
Sometimes the more you have, the more you cling to it for fear of losing it. That’s spiritual poverty. When we think of poverty, we think of material poverty, but for most of us in the US, we have spiritual poverty. Spiritual poverty is when you have more than you need, but you are unwilling or unable to give it away. Spiritual poverty comes from not enough of God’s love inside of me – not enough trust in him; it comes from fearing that God is not who he says he is and that he won’t take care of me and my family if we do what he asks us to do.
This would explain why often it is the poor who are openhanded and give away the little they have, while the rich can be tightfisted. Who in this scenario is truly poor? Those who have a spirit of poverty see life as a limited pie. They think, “if someone gets a piece of the pie, there will be less for me.” But the Bible contradicts this kind of thinking:
One man gives freely, but gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. Proverbs 11:24.
Those with a spirit of poverty always asked the same question: “what do I get, and when do I get it?”
Poverty is real when my love is dead and medicated, and frozen by too much. But on the other hand, people who are loving God and know God, think to themselves “all I have and all I need comes from God. I don’t have to protect it, cling to it, or withhold it from anyone because God is the source of all of it.” They are guided by scripture
A generous man will prosper; and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” Proverbs 11:25
Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Corinthians 9:6
So if we really believe God’s Word, we accept that he will provide us with everything we need to do the things he has called us to do. If our hands are open to give, they are also available for God to place his resources in them. But when we hold onto what we have, we make it a real challenge for God to place anything in our hands!
“You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.” Wow! What an amazing promise! And really, aren’t many of us already “rich in every way” by most of the world standards? Why then, aren’t we also “generous on every occasion”?
It goes against our own logic and reasoning. We break the spirit of poverty when we give extravagantly and when we give beyond our means, when we give what we want to keep for ourselves, when we actually give what we need, when we give out of our own poverty. When we do this, something inside as breaks free. The spirit of poverty is broken in the act of giving.
This week, I was reading about a congregation who took their entire Sunday morning offering and gave it to a widow who had come upon tough times. They said it was a pretty scary thing, because they were in the red at the time. They were behind budget, but they still took their entire Sunday morning offering and gave it away. But what’s even more amazing is that at the end of the year, they had an excess. They finished the year in a black.
Extravagant generosity, not only frees us from spiritual poverty, but also frees our hands so that God can place its resources in them. So we can continue blessing others. The Bible illustrates this principle beautifully.
During a severe famine, God sent his prophet Elijah to the house of an extremely poor widow. Elijah asked her to bring him some bread. She replied that she had only enough flour and oil for one small meal for herself and her son. The poor family was literally starving to death.
Elijah said to her, “don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.”1 Kings 17:13
What an outrageous request! Elijah dared to ask this poor widow to cook him a meal, knowing she had only enough for one last meal. You would think that Elijah would back off and say, “Wow, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t think of taking the last of your food.” Instead, he told her to take her remaining flour and oil and feed him first. First? You got to be kidding? What kind of prophet is this? What kind of God would ask a widow for her last morsel of bread?
A God who loves this woman and wanted to provide for her, that’s who. Her hands were closed because she was down to her last crumb and was waiting to die. She’d given up on God and on life. She’d shut down, but God was about to give her hope again.
The amazing thing is, she did it! She did what Elijah asked. She gave sacrificially. She trusted. She stepped out in faith.
Elijah said to her, “For this is what the lord, the God of Israel, says: “the jar of flour will not be used up and the jar of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.”
The widow gave away what she needed and was freed. She ended up with more than she needed and was able to meet her family’s needs. Her dignity was restored, and she was able to give to others. She took her “not enough” to God, and God made it more than enough. That is what God wants to do for us.
God took 5 loaves of bread and two small fish – that which was not enough to feed more than 5000 people and he multiplied it so that there was more left over than what they had when they began.
This is why God calls us to tithe. It is an act of faith; tithing trusts that God is who he says he is and by tithing we become who he created us to be – loving and giving people – just like our Father.
What about you? Do you believe, you can give away what you have because God will continue to supply you with everything you need? Or do you hold onto what you have for fear of not getting more? What is enough? What is poverty? Is poverty not having enough, or having two much and not being able to give it away? One is a physical poverty, the other a spiritual poverty.
Now what?
How can you help someone realized that he or she matters? What can you do, starting today, to help win the war on poverty?
- You could start by learning more about poverty. Go to www.compassion.com/youcan to learn how poverty affects children worldwide
- You could reach out to the poor in your own family, church, or neighborhood.
- You could set aside money to give away to the poor. This could be as simple as giving away your pocket change. Make it a habit to use paper money in as many of your financial transactions as possible; then put your pocket change in a jar every evening. At the end of each month, you’ll be surprised on much money has accumulated. Give the money to someone who needs it.
What if you were born in a different country or you were from a different country. What if the shoe was on the other foot? What if you were starving or didn’t have clean drinking water, or couldn’t treat your child who needed to see a doctor? What if it was you in their place and they were in your place. Would you want them to be people of love, or people who clutched and horded.
Remember, you entered this world with nothing and you will leave this world with nothing. God owns it all. We are just managers of what he has given us. How are you doing with that?
Remember, heaven is about giving generously that which God has given you to manage and hell is about hoarding for yourself that which God has given you to manage. Heaven is about being selfless. Hell is about being selfish. Heaven is about giving what God has given us. Hell is the fear that if we give what we have away, then we won’t have enough. Heaven is believing that God is our provider and that we will never run out of what we need.
When we love God with all that we are, we love those that God loves. When we love God with all that we are, and we love others as much as we love ourselves, then up there comes down here. Heaven invades earth. Hell is kicked out. Love wins. When we love, we are givers of the best kind.
Life Link
Remember at the end of each group to point all the discussion back to God!
- Have you ever not had enough . . . or maybe known somebody who didn’t? (keep this question vague – allow people to come up with their own ideas about what is or isn’t enough). Enough of what?
- What is enough? Is more than enough better?
- What is material poverty? What is spiritual poverty? (not having enough trust and love of God)
- Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 2 Corinthians 9:6 What does this mean? Are you sowing generously or sparingly? Are you reaping the same?
- Recount the story of Elijah and the widow or read it. God calls us to give up even what we need in order to help others (if there is discussion about meeting our own needs first remind them of Jesus who was willing to love us so much that he was willing to lay down his own life for our benefit.) Why do you not give to the poor that which you need and that which is way beyond your need?
- More than half the world lives on less than $2 a day. The average American lives on almost $112 a day. How can we truly say that we don’t have enough? What changes are you going to make as a result of this message? How will you get free from stuff and get free from spiritual poverty? How will you help others get free from material poverty?
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