The Bible says we should care for the poor, but also suggests limits on what we do. How do we understand that balance so we can be Christ-like to those around us?
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening and welcome. Welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be here with you once again tonight as we wrap up our series, proverbially speaking, thinking about a subject that we see woven throughout scripture, which is God’s care for the poor. How does the church interact with those who are poor? What does that really look like to offer care to the poor and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan? We’re going to think about that tonight.
As we do, let’s come before our God, who cares for us, whether we are rich or poor. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for your care. Thank you for your love for us, though we come with little, in fact, really nothing to offer. You offer us your love and your provision and invite us into your family, into your presence. As we think about the things that we’re going to be talking about tonight, as we think about the places where we struggle to follow your lead and to share your heart, you help us to do so more by the power of your Spirit, reminded by the love that you have shown us. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
It’s funny how it happens that in preparing for a sermon, it’s almost inevitable something is going to happen that feels like it relates to it. And so it was the other day, I was on the side of the house in the yard and a lady pulled up in her SUV and got out of the car. At first, I thought she was lost, maybe looking for directions. I never recall seeing her before. Apparently, though, she lives somewhere in my neighborhood, and it quickly became apparent she wasn’t asking for directions. She was disturbed by the presence of my van that’s parked on the street.
The van’s always parked there when I’m not using it. It’s been there for a number of years and it then goes and helps with all kinds of ministry projects. I love this van. It’s a van that’s very much like many vans you’ve seen, but it’s special to me because this was my grandpa’s last vehicle and he loved this van. And yes, it’s a couple of decades old, has a little rust, but it’s an incredibly special vehicle. You can see, for example, in this picture, I’ve dressed it up with Faith Tree signs and it’s in the middle of the flags and so on for Faithtoberfest a couple of years ago. It’s been a part of so much ministry because it’s great at hauling things and it’s still so reliable. Every time I get in it, I think of him.
So, I see it and I see this incredibly valuable van, this special van, but clearly this lady didn’t. What she saw was this old vehicle and it bothered her as she pulled up in her nice new luxury SUV. It looked like something that was poor in her neighborhood and she wanted it gone. It’s easy to get upset about that. And it bothered me. It gnawed at me that day that she was so determined to argue about how this van was awful and needed to go. Then, in preparing for this series, it confronted me with the question, where do I fall into that same sort of mindset? Where do I look at what God’s word says about caring for those around me, including those who are poor? And I see someone, and they’re doing something or they have something that’s not as nice as I think it should be or arranged like it should, I think it should be. And I dislike them. I dislike their things. It’s really easy to fall into. Even if we are on the poorer side, we’ll probably have people that we look down on and we look down on how they do things. It seems like it’s just a part of our sinful human hearts.
But God cares about those who are poor and He calls us to share that heart. That’s what we see as we turn back to Proverbs chapter 14. We read:
“The poor is disliked even by his neighbor, but the rich has many friends. Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor. Do they not go astray who devise evil? Those who devise good meet steadfast love and faithfulness. In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly.”
We’re going to start at the beginning of that passage with that statement that the poor are disliked even by neighbor, even by those close. It felt a little bit like that watching this lady react to this van. She looked down on it. I tend to think if it had been a brand new, shiny luxury SUV, she wouldn’t have minded if it was parked on the street. If it was some beautiful sports car, she wouldn’t have minded. But she saw an old van and she didn’t see the value I saw in it. She just saw an old van and just wanted it gone. She would have liked the nicer vehicle.
And oftentimes, that’s how we are with people. We see people and they have lots of money and nice things and we want to like them. That’s what scripture recognizes here—that money can make people like other people, at least on a superficial level. But when we look at someone and they seem to have nothing to offer and they seem to have things that are worn and torn apart, our hearts often cast judgment instead.
We see that throughout scripture and throughout the Old Testament as God urges his people to be different, to be different than the other nations. We see that again in the New Testament because the church struggled with that too. Let’s take a look, for example, at James chapter 2. James writes:
“For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, ‘You sit here in a good place,’ while you say to the poor man, ‘You stand over there,’ or ‘Sit down at my feet,’ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court?”
James confronts a serious problem in the church. The church is growing and people are coming into it. You have some poor in the church and you have some rich in the church, and people are doing what people do. They’re gravitating towards the rich and the powerful and they’re offering them preferred seating. They see people coming in in their finery and they want everyone else to see these people in their finery as well so that, by extension, they get associated with it. Or maybe they’re hoping that they’ll get favors from these people.
The ones that James is addressing here, in part, are probably those who aren’t really rich or poor but are somewhere in between. And as they look at those who have nothing to offer them, whom are poor, and see those who have lots of wealth and lots of power, what do they want? They want those that have lots of wealth and lots of power to like them so they too can have lots of wealth and lots of power. And James says, don’t do that. That’s not how God thinks about the value of people in his church. It’s not how He looks at the people whom He has made.
Just as I look at that van and I see value in it because I know it was my grandpa’s and so it has value that isn’t necessarily apparent at first blush by someone else driving by, God says, you might look at someone and think they don’t have anything to offer you and that they’re not wearing nice clothes and they’re not going to make the church look more important or influential in society, but those people have value to me. I made them and I want you to value them too. That’s what He says to you and to me.
He says that and challenges us that when we feel those things bubbling up in our hearts and we look at people and we think, this person, it’d be easier if that person weren’t here. This person isn’t adding anything. We look at that person and we see someone whom the creator has made and sees value in. And if we find ourselves in a position where we go from being closer to those who are poor in our own wealth or lack thereof and start to become more affluent, that we guard our hearts that we don’t go grabbing for power and more and more wealth, but instead we value what God values.
John Calvin, in reflecting on this passage, referred to the attitude that the church had as a contagion. And I think he’s right. He makes it a very clear distinction. It isn’t a concern on whether someone is wealthy or not. The concern is, what is our attitude in our own hearts towards other people? Are we valuing them based on their worldly value? Are we valuing them as those whom the Lamb of God has bought with His own blood? Are we looking at people and thinking, what can they do for me? Or how important are they in society? Are we thinking, how important are they to the creator?
That contagion that grows in us as we buy more and more into the worldly view of people is one that says, if you have power, if you have wealth, if you have connections, that you are of value, but if you have none of those things, you aren’t really. You can just go over in the corner. Oftentimes it’s not maybe quite that dramatic, but we need to constantly check our hearts because this is a contagion that’s present in the air, as it were. It’s out there constantly, and it’s so easy to fall into.
You see that time and again in churches that when you look at those who end up leading the churches, the leadership board, the deacons or elders or whatever it may be called at your church, frequently we don’t go and look for the people who are humble and have a heart for the flock and want to see every person grow and know Jesus better. We pick the people who have business connections, who have connections with the power brokers of our society, who have titles and incomes that seem important. And we start to justify it. We think, well, this person has been so successful, they can bring success to the church, or this person has been so successful, they can give a lot to the church.
Scripture challenges us there. Is that how we see other people? It’s not always fun to look in our own hearts and see how we evaluate other people, but we need to ask those times that we’re pulling up and we’re seeing an old van and evaluating it because it’s old and not thinking about the value inside of it. When we sit down next to someone at church and we’re evaluating, can that person be beneficial to me or not? When we think about inviting people to church, are we thinking about those that we would like to impress other people by being around, or are we thinking about those who are right in front of us who most desperately need the gospel, those who often are broken and hurting?
Why do I show favoritism? Because all of us do this. The reason it repeats over and over again in scripture is this is a temptation that is so easy to fall into, and you see it whether or not we are a particular location in society that would be deemed as wealthy. Because oftentimes, even if we’re poor, there’s someone who’s poorer than us, someone who’s less successful than us, someone who has fewer relationships than us, and we can look down on them. So the fact that we can look into our bank account and see not a huge sum of money doesn’t clear us from this. All of us need to check our hearts and ask, am I showing favoritism? Am I going towards the people who have something to offer me?
But you might say, well, what about the rest of that passage? Because it doesn’t end there. Take a look again at verses 23 and 24. The proverb continues: “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk only tends to poverty. The crown of the wise is their wealth, but the folly of fools brings folly.” It sounds like a condemnation, and if we go on into 2 Thessalonians, listen to what Paul says:
“For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies. Such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.”
Well, we read passages like this, and it sounds like there’s plenty to condemn those around us who don’t seem to be succeeding. When someone comes to the church and asks for assistance, we should look at them maybe and just say, well, if you want to eat, go and make some money. If we see people who are struggling, we can look down on them, it would seem, wouldn’t it? Because they apparently must have idleness and talk a lot and not be successful. Is that what scripture is saying here?
Or let’s add even something else on top of that. We see some of the people that want to really focus on this, and they devote all their attention to solving poverty, and they don’t seem to want to focus on worshiping God anymore.
Take a look at what happens in John chapter 12. Jesus said to Judas, as he was condemning the act of his feet being anointed by Mary, He says, “For the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.”
Why focus on the poor? Seems like they’re idle, they talk too much, they are a distraction from worshiping God if we’re busy trying to serve them. It seems like we can build a case like that, and oftentimes we do. But scripture doesn’t call us to either of those extremes. It doesn’t call us to an overfocus, like those who would say, well, we can’t focus on worshiping God anymore. We need to devote everything to solving the problem of poverty.
Jesus addresses that in that last verse we read, yes, but it doesn’t lead us to simply condemn the poor, either. God calls us to both-and. You see, when Jesus refers to the poor being with us always, He’s alluding to Deuteronomy chapter 15. In Deuteronomy 15, there’s all kinds of instruction. Deuteronomy is a retelling of the law at the end of Moses’ life, and so there’s lots of instruction we find in there on how to worship God properly and how to live as God’s people. In the midst of that, there’s the statement, you will always have the poor. What does it go on and say? It says that we, therefore, should seek to be generous with them. We should seek to restore them and help them.
And so we see here, scripture is calling us to a balance, to neither become the social services agency that ignores the worship of God, like those who were looking down on the act of worship towards Jesus were leading towards. We see today happen over and over again, where churches that are super focused on caring for the poor end up, it seems like, just becoming charities for the poor and not actually doing any preaching of the gospel. But also in the act of worshiping God, that we have the heart that God does to care for those who find themselves in an awful place. We’re called to a balance.
Scripture frequently calls us to these sorts of tensions, and sometimes we scratch our head and say, well, how can, for example, in Proverbs 20-24, how can we go from talking about how despising our neighbor is bad and people despise the poor to saying that the poor are essentially those who are idle? How can we look at these other passages and see these things? Again, it’s calling us to a balance. It’s just like in so much of life, we need corrections from both extremes.
For example, over the last few weeks, we’ve been experiencing a bit of a gas shortage in this country, in certain parts of it, at least. So people have gone to extremes to deal with their fear of running out of gas. Running out of gas is a bad thing. You don’t want to run out of gas and be stranded someplace or not be able to drive someplace. So we’ve seen all kinds of incredible, in the worst of ways, pictures of people filling up bags and huge tanks and everything else with gas so that they don’t end up being the one without.
But on the other hand, carrying a bunch of unsafe containers in your car can be almost worse than running out of gas. For example, there was this picture from last week of a Hummer that was loaded up with all kinds of gas so that it wouldn’t run out of gas. The owner had just stocked up and filled up these big containers in the Hummer with gas and what happens? The whole car catches on fire.
If there’s something worse than having a car that’s out of gas, it’s a car that’s been burnt by a bunch of gas. That’s far worse. We need balance. We don’t want to be out of gas. We don’t want to be being crazy and doing dangerous things to maintain a certain amount of gas in our supply.
Likewise, as we deal with the world, sometimes we see people who are struggling and they need to be encouraged, as Paul exhorts, to go do some work so that they can eat. And Paul knows that there are people in the Thessalonian church that need that exhortation so they’re not purely drawing on the resources of the church.
Jesus offers that correction so that the people remember that it’s okay to devote money to the worship of God and that not everything needs to be funneled into essentially a social services agency, but at the same time, it’s with a balance. And I think that’s why Jesus specifically uses that quote from Deuteronomy 15. He quotes it so that the people there who would know that passage would know that he was saying, yes, you should go ahead and praise one who’s worshiping me, who recognizes that the God of the universe is here, and that that’s a great thing, while remembering the instruction, the instruction that says, the poor are going to be with you, so take care of them. It’s not an either-or, it’s a both-and. And in that balance, we see God’s heavenly attitude instead of the worldly attitudes that we’ve been talking about.
A proper focus on our God changes our heart and starts to make that seemingly incompatible balance, that almost contradictory set of commands, start to make sense. So what do we see when we look to our God, when we keep a proper view of God and the worship of him as first in our lives, and we don’t turn into that social services agency, when we focus on who Jesus is, we start to understand how we follow His heart.
Take a look at what Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. He says,
“But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you also excel in this act of grace also. I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich.”
What do we see when we keep our eye on Jesus? We see someone who had wealth, had more influence than anyone in this world will ever have, who was entitled to it, who was purely and wholly deserved. What do we see? We see someone who gave that up that he might give it to us, that we might be made rich, that he would suffer the indignity of torture and death on the cross, that we might have the riches of eternal life and be in his family.
That’s God’s heart. God has wealth, God has power beyond all imagination. He needs nothing from us, but out of love for us he restores us when we are most impoverished. Because of that, he calls us to show that both by communicating His love and also actually taking care of the worldly needs of those around us.
Throughout the prophets, we see over and over again part of restoring Israel and restoring the proper worship over and over again was to care for the poor, for the immigrant, for the oppressed, for anyone who was marginalized, the sorts of people who would be forgotten and seen as not really having anything of value. The church should be known as the entity that best does that, not in spite of our focus on worshiping our God, not in lieu of focusing on worshiping our God, but through our worshiping of God.
Jesus points to that in Matthew chapter 25 where He says, He’s telling the story about those who cared for the poor. The king comes back and praises them for caring for the poor and they say, “When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” The king will answer them, “Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.”
God cares about the poor, and when part of our worship of Him is sharing that heart, we’re doing towards Him what we do for others. When we look at someone who has nothing to offer us and we care about their needs, we care about seeing them restored, we’re doing exactly what Jesus has done for us.
When we do that with their physical needs, then that allows them to experience something that explains what God does for them for their spiritual needs.
What we need to do is look to Jesus and follow Jesus and ask, where is Jesus taking me? Because Jesus is taking us someplace, someplace better. He’s taken us from the most beaten down, impoverished setting of spiritual death to the endless riches of God’s heavenly kingdom. He moves us along in that. As we follow that example, as part of the way that we live that out is we help people go from their own worst places to better places. And that’s where this all starts to come together and to make sense.
We’re called to care for the poor, but not foolishly. For example, Paul’s instruction that we should make sure that those who want to eat actually do work. Well, that’s part of that. After all, we can’t ever eliminate poverty and we certainly can’t eliminate poverty if people aren’t willing to try. But for those who are willing to receive a helping hand and to progress in their physical lives to a better place, to receive help so that whatever’s gone wrong, whatever bad things have happened, whatever mistakes they’ve made can be set aside and they can start to improve in their own earthly existence, that we do that so they can also start to experience a bit of God’s grace and a bit of what He does in our spiritual existence.
So that we see an upward trajectory both of the physical and spiritual, not because God promises endless wealth, but because He calls His people to love each other and make sure that they’re okay together. It’s not enabling using, but enabling growing. And that’s what Jesus does for us. He doesn’t leave us to just be mired in death but keep throwing us lifelines. No, He pulls us out of death and brings us into life.
As those who have received His life, as those who have the joy of His life, we get to share that joy with others. As we come together as the body of Christ, as God’s family, and we know that it’s not most important if we can have the affluent and the powerful on our side, but that we have the most powerful on our side, and we help those who have little and nothing to offer us, because we remember that we had little or nothing to offer God.
As we do that together, we may not be wealthy, we may not have all the power we want, but we come into the presence of the one true power, and we worship Him and we celebrate Him.
Would you pray with me, please? Lord, thank you for being willing to face indignity, to face the messiness of human existence, to live amongst us, to dwell not even in the best that the world had to offer, but in a humble state, in an impoverished state even, to be willing to go through what we go through, and then to be stripped of everything, even life, for us, and to be judged and to receive all the debt that we had accrued, even though we had nothing to offer You in exchange. As You offer us eternal life, would You help us to be those who are generous both with the joy of the gospel and with what You provide us with physically, that in everything we might testify to the goodness and the generosity and the love that You have for us, that as we treat others, we might do so following Your heart, remembering Your love for us. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, I hope this series has been an encouragement to you, and we’ll come back to the Proverbs sometime in the future because there’s so much wisdom there, God’s wisdom for us. If this has been encouraging to you, please do share it on social media, send an email to someone who could be encouraged by it, invite someone to sit down and watch it with you. You can help us to share the wealth of Scripture with other people, the true wealth, God’s wealth, as we share these explorations in Scripture together.
We’re going to be continuing next week with a brand new series, and I can’t wait to delve into it with you. We’re going into Matthew 24 and 25 in a series called The Future is Here. We’re going to be thinking all about what Scripture has to say about the coming end times. We hear lots of people fascinated by it. Is the end near? Is the end far? Well, Scripture has a lot to say, and some of it’s confusing.
We might not be able to explain everything, but we see in these two chapters of Matthew a preview of what’s to come and a reminder of what God actually values. We often put the future far ahead, but do we recognize what God’s already doing that brings the future here? As we go through this series, we’ll be thinking about the questions we often ask about the end times, but in the context of thinking, what does that say about how I should live my life today and tomorrow? Because God hasn’t given us His word simply so we can know something about the future. God has given us His word so we can live today in a way that’s pleasing and glorifying to Him.
So, I hope you’ll join me for that next Monday night at 7 p.m. Invite someone who’s interested in the end times and would really like to delve into it. Invite them to join as well, and I’ll look forward to sharing that with you.
Also, this Thursday, we have a brand new men’s Bible study starting at 7 p.m. It’s going to be thinking about how the gospel goes forth unhindered in uncertain times. We’re going through the book of Acts. It’s going to be a great study. There’s a great group of guys that have been gathered together for a little over a year now, and it would be so wonderful if you made that group even greater by joining it. I really hope to see you at 7 p.m. on Thursday night for that.
If you have any questions about anything we talked about tonight, about the upcoming series or Bible study, or if there’s any way I can be praying for you, feel free to shoot me an email at the email address on screen. Leave a comment or prayer request in the comments below, and I can’t wait to see you again later this week and next week. Have a blessed week.
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