Introduction: Rev. Herb Sadler had heard about the idea from others. Not always do ideas that have worked for others work somewhere else. It seemed really risky. However, when you are trying to convince people that God’s work done his way really works you’ll try anything. What he did was simple. Rev. Sadler received approval from the board of the Gulf Breeze United Methodist Church in Florida to take $20,000 from the church’s budget and give it back to the church members! Someone asked the other day if they could do the "negative tithe." I asked what that was and they told me, "Well, that’s where the church gives back to you!" Maybe this was it!

In early October each church member was given either $1, $5, $10 or $20, and told they had to use it to raise more money, then give what they made to a charity or do some other good deed. The only requirements were that members were not to return the money to the church and that they report on what they did with the money. After three weeks the $20,000 has turned into $119,000 and still counting. Needs of people have been met locally as well as internationally. Rev. Sadler said the program was less about raising money for the church or worthy causes; it was about getting people involved in working with their heart, body and soul. (Pensacola News Journal, October 29, 2001). What it shows is that doing God’s work, God’s way brings rewards you never imagined.

Over these last weeks we’ve talked to you about Living Wisely. We’ve used the Proverbs of Solomon to discover what God’s Word tells us are the foundations for our giving as well as the steps needed to achieve financial security. Our first message told us what we were to do-give. Our second message told us how to do it--plan. Today’s message tells us why we are to give–-to help others. We give in order to join God doing his work his way!

What is God’s work? Undoubtedly there are many areas where we could say God is working. Yet I believe there is one area of his work that is uniquely his concern. Solomon said, "If you are helping the poor, you are lending to the Lord, and he will repay you" (Prov. 19:17). These words remind us that of all that are the focus of God’s work he has a special concern for those who are poor. That word in both the Old and New Testaments defines those who are humble, oppressed, needy, weak and dependent. God’s concern for the poor was commanded to Moses, it was the passion of the prophets, it was seen as the priority of Jesus and the concern of the church and disciples. Solomon said, "He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God" (Prov. 14:31). No matter where you turn in Scripture, the truth is clear: How we treat those who are poor is a reflection of our relationship with God. The question is: When it comes to us and to FBC, Jonesboro, what does our treatment of the poor reflect about our relationship with God?

I want to use three definitions of those who are poor. The poor are: Those who live daily without enough to sustain them. Jesus commanded a man who was his host for a meal that when "… you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind" (Luke 14:13). He meant the physically poor. The poor are those who come daily to the Care Center of FBC who don’t have enough food or clothes. The working poor are those who come to the Jonesboro Church Health Center who don’t have enough money to cover their medical expenses. The poor are children in the delta of Arkansas who wonder if they will ever really have enough.

In developing countries, one child in 10 dies before his fifth birthday. By comparison, in the United States one child in 165 will die before turning five years old. (UNICEF) Almost 800 million people—about one-sixth of the population of the world's developing nations—are malnourished. 200 million of them are children. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) Each day in the developing world, 30,500 children die from preventable diseases such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections or malaria. Malnutrition is associated with over half of those deaths. (UNICEF, World Health Organization) 6,000 a day die of AIDS in Africa alone. In the last 50 years, almost 400 million people worldwide have died from hunger and poor sanitation. That's three times the number of people killed in all wars fought in the entire 20th century. (Source: Bread for the World International Web site) They don’t have enough.

The poor are also those who live daily without the strength to survive. When Jesus began his ministry He said that His call was to "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed…" (Luke 4:18) This kind of person may or may not be poor physically but they are poor because they are oppressed, broken, weak or dependent. This is someone who is poor emotionally. They are someone who can’t go on without help. They are a person who recognizes their life is unmanageable and they need recovery from depression, chemicals, grief, divorce, or just life. We have a place for those who are poor like that—it’s called Celebrate Recovery.

Still a third type of person who is poor is one who lives daily without the security they will live forever. Jesus said that God had sent him to preach good news to the poor. "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." (Luke 4:18) This is a person who is spiritually poor. They have a poverty of soul that is so great that nothing but the grace of God found in Jesus Christ can fill. They are that affluent person in Jonesboro who is able to buy all the right things to make them feel special but never realizes they will never be able to buy eternal life. They are those in a Kosovo refugee camp who live without more than just hope for going home, but without hope for a life to come. They are those in a village in China waiting for someone to come and share good news with them. They are poor because they have never known the riches of Christ as their Savior.

Who are the poor? The poor are those without enough to sustain them, those without strength to survive and those without security of living forever. They are the objects of God’s work.

First, we help those without enough to sustain them by serving and sharing materially. John the Baptist was asked what was the basis of following God and he said, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." (Luke 3:11) The Old and New Testaments are filled with command after command that our care for those without enough means our involvement materially and physically. That means making it a priority to bring a can of food monthly for the Care Center. (Right now our cans last about one day.) That means taking an Angel Bag or participating in the Angel Tree and giving. It means giving to the budget so that 10 % your dollars can go out from here and serve either through the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship or Arkansas Baptist State Convention those who don’t have enough.

Second, we help those who can’t go on by caring and connecting with them compassionately. When Jesus saw the multitudes, Matthew records, "He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless" (Matt. 9:36). The heart of God is near to the hearts of those who hurt, who are bound and who are stuck in life. I believe every adult Sunday School class ought to be a place of refuge for people in pain. No, not that it’s a Sunday morning group therapy session, but a place—just one safe place—where a person knows they will meet someone who cares. You can’t always write a check to care for someone. You connect when you open your heart.

Third, we help those without security eternally by seeking and finding them spiritually. Jesus in Luke 19:10, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost" (NIV). That means that we as ministers and leadership decide that in light of the world as we know it that "sharing the unconditional love of God by proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior to the communities of our world" is our passion and priority. That means that next year we seek and find those personally lost to Christ. That we lead our church to unparalleled involvement in missions and ministry locally, nationally and globally. That means we pray, we plan, we prioritize, we project and we participate in God’s work to seek and save the lost in the communities of our world.

That is God’s work! To join him in his work we give materially, emotionally and spiritually.

Here’s where the challenge comes – there’s such an interconnection God has with the poor that when we help them we are serving him. The word in Hebrew means that God becomes the borrower and we are the lender. Jesus said that when you have cared for those who cannot care for themselves "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matt. 25:40). Somehow our helping those who are poor is equated in God’s eyes as serving Him!

So those who don’t have enough are served. Those who can’t go on survive. Those who are helpless are saved. This, Solomon says, is our reward. "…He will repay you" (Prov. 19:17). God honors our giving to the poor by rewarding us with the knowledge that serving them touches Him!

If we fail to help those without enough, those who can’t go on and those who will die without hope, there are four consequences:

• The suffering of others continues: This is just obvious. If God has given us the opportunity to relieve the suffering of others and we do not, then their suffering doesn’t change.
• The needs we have will be ignored. "Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need."(Prov. 21:13) If we shut our hearts to the needs of those who are poor, then we can expect to be ignored as well.
• The hypocrisy of our faith is exposed. Just as those who served the poor served the Lord, it was equally true that those who ignored the poor showed that they had a faith that was not genuine. Jesus said, "I tell you whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." (Matt. 25:45) Our failure to serve the poor shows our faith to be worthless!
• God ‘s discipline is directed upon our lives. Listen to Heb. 2:1-3. "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" He says, "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?" He is not talking about those who were needing to be saved but those who were already believers. There is a discipline of God upon us if we ignore this Good News by failing to tell others of its truth! How shall we escape?

You see when we consume more than we need and excuse our greed by saying the poor are just lazy, God listens. When we are consumed with our own lives and ignore the pain of others, God sees. When we are consumed with our own traditions and are silent to the lostness of others, God cries.

Conclusion: On the last day of his life, 84-year-old Anthony Bai dressed in his best day clothes—a brand new gray flannel shirt and pressed jeans, hugged his daughter goodbye, climbed into his gold Lincoln Town Car and drove off to serve his country. His family had tried its best to dissuade him. "Dad," his daughters said, "what in the world can you contribute—an old man who has heart problems, diabetes, and is deaf?" "You served your country once before," they argued. "Leave it to others this time. There are enough volunteers at the Pentagon. There won’t be anything for you to do."

But Bai had spent five days watching the horror on television, the crumbling towers in New York, the black hole gouged out of the side of the Pentagon, still smoldering just 15 miles from his Springfield, Virginia, home. He had driven to the site on September 12, only to be sent home by rescue workers. This time, he was sure. "I have to go," he told them. "There has to be something I can do to help." This time, his daughters knew better than to try and stop him.

Turned back from the Pentagon, he searched for a place where an 84-year-old veteran would be allowed to serve. He found his answer at the Salvation Army. On Sunday, Sept. 16, five days after the attacks, he was put to work on a medical detail, sorting drugs from large containers and putting them into smaller packages. He’d rather have been driving a forklift, or pulling bodies from the rubble. But at least he was contributing.

For hours, Bai sorted and filled and stamped dates on parcels. He didn’t say much. He just glowed. At the end of the day, completely exhausted, he signed up for another shift. That night Margaret cooked her dad’s favorites—London broil, potatoes and asparagus salad. Over dinner, they sat on the deck with friends and talked about terrorism and tragedy and patriotism and pride.

"There were tears in his eyes as he talked about the outpouring of help and love, about being part of something so important," Margaret said. "It was as happy as I’ve ever seen him."

After dinner, Bai hugged his daughter and promised he would call when he got home. He never made the call. They found him the next day, in front of the television, baseball cap perched on his head, a tiny American flag pinned to it, his dog Deedee dozing on his lap. He looked like he was sleeping. In fact, he had died of a heart attack. (By Helen O’Neill, Associated Press Special Correspondent, The Jonesboro Sun, Saturday, October 27, 2001.) Tony died giving himself away. He gave his life helping those who could not help themselves.

If you are helping the poor—those without enough to sustain them, those without strength to go on and those without security to live forever, "you are lending to the Lord." The question is: Are you? Will you? What’s stopping you?

Sunday, November 18, 2001

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org