The poor.  I’ve seen them asking for money at intersections in London.  They’re warming up in a coffee shop on a cold day.  Their stories are varied and often complex: abuse, broken relationships, mental illness, injustice, poor choices.  The brokenness of the poor is often manifested outwardly.

Yet poverty abounds in a bedroom community where there is a perceived affluence.  Our perception of poverty, however, skews our vision from the needs around us.

In the middle of Paul’s defense of his gospel and apostleship, he says that the other apostles made one request of him: Remember the poor (Gal. 2:10).  It seems out of place, disconnected from everything else.

Or is it?

Our definition of poverty is often shaped by materialism.  People are poor because they lack money or resources.  Yet the Bible’s understanding of poverty is far more comprehensive and holistic.  Simplistic answers won’t do.

Before the Lord, we are all seen as poor.  Some of us realize it (Mt. 5:3).  Others do not (Rev. 3:17-18).  Poverty is not merely due to a lack – lack of resources, education, power, or purpose – but due to brokenness.  We lack the shalom of God – that well-being that permeates our whole selves.  We are all beggars before a holy God – needy, sinful, weak, and wounded.  And it is those who recognize that they are poor in spirit who are blessed (Mt. 5:3).  In order to find any wholeness, healing, and salvation, we must come before God as poor as we are so that we might exalt the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, “that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9).

In Christ, we have received every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3ff).  The hard part is to believe we are living the blessed life as people delivered from this present evil age (Gal. 1:4).  This present evil age says that we are valued by our works and performance.  The gospel says we are valued because we are poor and needy and exalt God’s grace by admitting our dependence upon works that Christ has done.  I like to think my value is based on what I’ve done, but the Bible says I am valued because I am made by God and can only be redeemed by grace!

Before we can ever help someone who is in need, we need the humility of the gospel.  In the gospel of Jesus, we hear these words: “Come ye sinner, poor and needy, weak and wounded sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power.”  When we recognize our poverty, we won’t approach those in need with our god-complex or economic superiority.  Rather, we see that all we have received is from grace and not from our works. And because of the grace we have received, we see God’s infinite mercy toward us in Christ and we will be moved to compassion so that we might show mercy to others.

 

See you Sunday when we can magnify God’s grace!

~Pastor Andrew

 

 

 

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