John 12 (2)
You always have the poor with you
- Read John 12:1-8
This morning I would like to address Jesus’ statement about poverty and the poor. In verse 8 Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you.” You always have the poor with you! Why is that?
Why do you always have the poor with you? At the time He said this, Jesus was in Israel, a nation once blessed by God, a nation that had plundered their slave masters when they left Egypt, by taking gold and jewels from their neighbors. Now Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you.”
Why? In this week of Thanksgiving, as we think about how the Lord has blessed us and as we thank Him for all He has given us and for all He has done for us, we address this question. Why do we always have the poor with us, and what is a Christian’s responsibility toward the poor?
I. CAUSES OF POVERTY
1. Oppression by those with wealth -
> James 5:1-6 Come now, you rich people, weep and wail over the miseries that are coming on you. Your wealth has rotted and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days. Look! The pay that you withheld from the workers who mowed your fields cries out, and the outcry of the harvesters has reached the ears of the Lord of Armies. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and have indulged yourselves. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous, who does not resist you.
One biblical reason for poverty is that folks with power take advantage of those without any.
A recent illustration of that, is the government mandated shut-down of places of business. A person works all his life building a business, building a restaurant, or a small store, and then people with power, people who are still getting their salaries, and who are still getting their pay, pass a rule that other people have to shut down their business. All of a sudden, that restaurant owner has no income. He still has bills like rent, and utilities, and insurance, but he has no income.
A lady who has spent a good portion of her life building a beauty parlor, a hair-salon, and the government requires her to shut it down. She loses it all.
Or think about the businesses which the mayors in many cities, allowed to be loose or burned. Again, people who have invested a lifetime into a business and because of the decisions made by those in power, people lose all they have.
Lottery - Those who play the lottery are predominantly poor, by a wide and shocking margin. The few dollars a year that a middle- or upper-class family might spend on lottery tickets for special Powerball drawings or stocking stuffers at Christmas is a sharp departure from the gaming experience of many poorer players. As one study has found, those in the lowest socioeconomic quintile are about one and a half times as likely (61 percent) than other groups (42-43 percent) to have played the lottery within the past year. And not only do the poor play more often, they spend much more, as well. For households that make less than $10,000 per year, around six percent is typically spent on lotteries.
The lottery is a scam, a disguised tax on the poor.
Oppression by those in power.
2. Laziness
Another cause of poverty is laziness. Let’s face it, some people simply don’t want to work and so are poor by choice.
> Proverbs 22:13 The slacker says, “There’s a lion outside!
I’ll be killed in the public square!”
If a person doesn’t want to work, they can come up with all kinds of excuses. There’s a lion outside.” Really?
Several years ago, near Christmas, I was heading to work on a roof near the Seminole Town Center. There was a man standing there holding a sign saying, “Out of work. Need money for Christmas.” I stopped and told the man I was heading to work on a roof and I’d pay him. The long and short of his answer was, “I’ll make more standing here with my sign than I will working for you.” So he didn’t come work.
I remember an interview I saw on TV a while back, of a young man in California who surfed all the time. He didn’t want to work, so he got food stamps so he could spend his time surfing.
Laziness can cause poverty.
3. Sinful living can cause poverty -
Do you remember the Prodigal son we are told about in Luke 15. He got his dad’s inheritance . . .
Sinful living can lead to poverty. How many of our impoverished neighbors are poor because of sinful decisions they have made?
10 years ago, I was getting off of I-4 in Deltona, when I saw a man holding up a sign that said, “Out of work. Have my own tools.” I said to myself, “He has his own tools? Maybe he does want to work.” So I pulled off the road. Told him I was a roofer and offered him a job. I told him where I’d pick him up the next morning. I picked him up that next morning, and I worked him for about a week before I paid him. The day after I paid him he wan’t where I usually picked him up. It was almost a week before I saw him again. I asked him where he was. He told me a friend had come in from out of town and they had decided to party, so they spent the better part of a week drunk in the woods instead of working.
If you drive East, out of Oxford Mississippi, you will see a overly large wooden bucket in a well. The name of the place is “The Cedar Bucket”. It was a furniture store. After Mississippi legalized riverboat gambling, the owner of that business started frequenting the casinos in Tunica. He lost his business and all he had.
It hits close to home for me as well. One of my Aunts and her former husband owned a clothing store. As a matter-of-fact, one of my more striking pairs of britches came from that store. I got them in the 70s. They were bell-bottomed corduroy. Red in the front and blue in the back. I made those things look good.
My uncle got addicted to gambling. They lost the store.
Sinful living can cause poverty.
4. Natural disasters can lead to poverty.
People lose businesses . . .
Even if they have insurance, they often do not have enough insurance to replace everything, nor do they have the resources to carry them over while they aren’t working.
5. Living in a fallen world can lead to poverty
a. Old age, when insufficient resources have been set aside, can lead to poverty.
b. Let’s face it, sickness, medical conditions, and medical bills can lead to poverty.
In 1979, when I was 15, I had surgery done on my heart. Most insurance back then was 80/20. The insurance company would pay 80 of the medical bill and the insured would pay 20%. The 20% my parents owed for that surgery, I later learned, was as much as both of them made in a year. It took them a while to pay that off.
That is nothing new. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, each tell us about a woman who had female problems who came to Jesus to touch the hem of His garment, to be healed. The Bible says of her, “she had spent all of her living on the physicians.”
In other words, she spent all of her money with the doctors.
Let’s face it, medical bills can hurt you. Back when Gladys had cancer, we were paying on her medical bills from 3 different years, 3 bills at the same time we were paying on.
I don’t blame doctors at all. They have an awful lot invested in their educations. It took a lot of work, and a lot of money, and a lot of time to do what they do.
I was talking to a Physicians Assistant the other day, who says she’s planning on bringing visiting family to see Christmas in the Country. Anyway, she said that the reason she was a PA was because she didn’t want to spend the additional time and money to get her doctorate.
We have the best medical care in the world right here. We have some of the best medical equipment in the world here.
I visited with a missionary in Russia once, who told me how grateful he was that when they had to go to the hospital that the doctors agreed to use a new needle with them, because they usually reuse them several times.
Good medical care is costly, and it can lead to poverty.
c. The sins of others -
Children make up 22.6% of the population of our country, but they make up 31.1% of those living in poverty. Is that their fault? No. It is the fault of others.
Other people’s sins can cause poverty. Think of the number of women who have been abandoned, who end up living in poverty. Think of the children living in poverty because their parents are addicted to one thing or another.
6. Changing definition of poverty
6th, one of the leading causes, if not THE leading cause of poverty in the United States is us redefining what poverty is.
Do you remember how Jesus described those in poverty?
There was the woman who had spent all she had with the doctors. There was the widow who put her last 2 mites into the temple offering. That is poverty.
Some of you remember Little Bill. Little Bill lived in Meadowlea and used to attend here before he passed. Little Bill grew up in a home with an alcoholic father. They had nothing. He told me of how great it was when they finally got together enough money to put screens in their windows.
A neighbor down the road started taking Little Bill fishing with him when Bill was 5, just so they’d have some food in the house. That’s poverty.
My mother and her siblings grew up at a time when their clothes were made from feed sacks. The meat they ate either came from the chicken farm they had or they hunted it in the woods. Once a year a neighbor down the road would bother a hog and they would get some. They got 1 pair of shoes a year when school started, and that pair had to last them until school started the next year.
I have pastored folks who grew up as sharecroppers. Mr. James Bailey told me of picking cotton as a child. He was too young and tool small to pull a cotton sack, so his mother made his first one from a pillow case.
Back then, it was beans and biscuit for supper, and the same for breakfast. You’d get meat once a week if you were lucky.
Mrs. Fortner, the wife of one of my former Ag teachers, told me that her family moved here from Mississippi, so they could pick strawberries. They would live on the strawberry farms, and they would pick the berries during the season when they were ripe. They didn’t get summers off. Their school was closed during the berry season.
One reason you’ll have the poor with you always is because every generation redefines what it means to be poor. They keep raising the bar. I can remember using hand-me-down TVs. 1 year when I was a child, we didn’t have a TV so my bother and I would go to a widowed neighbor and watch TV with her in the afternoon. We didn’t eat out. We had 1 vehicle.
The poor you have with you always because we keep raising the bar.
Think of those described as poor in our country. According to the 2000 census, 46% of all poor households own their own homes. 76% of poor households have air conditioning, while 30 years ago, only 36% of the entire US population enjoyed air conditioning.
In 1973, the average new house had 1660 square feet. Today the average new home being built is 2,434 square feet. The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. (Note: These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries not to those classified as poor.) I remember hearing at the Jerusalem Model at the Holy Land that in Israel’s early days, the average home in Jerusalem had only 300-600 square feet.
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30% own two or more cars. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player. Sixty-two percent have cable or satellite TV reception. Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens; more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher. As a group the poor are far from being chronically undernourished. Most poor children today are in fact super-nourished, on average growing up to be one inch taller and ten pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II. (Poverty, American Style, by FairOpinion, Oct. 13,2003).
In 2010, the poorest 20% of Americans consumed 3 to 30 times more goods and services that the averages for all people in a wide array of developing nations around the world.
These are those described by our government as being “poor” and yet the poor in this country are better off than the majority of people in the rest of the world. In spite of living in one of the most blessed nations in the world, at a time of economic growth and prosperity, there is a spirit of discontentedness in our land. Even in our churches, there is discontent. How right was the poet who said:
As a rule, man’s a fool. When it’s hot, he wants it cool.
And when it’s cool, he wants it hot, Always wanting what is not. (Don Jaques, The Secret of Contentment)
At this time of year as we move into the holiday season, how shall we respond to the poor?
II. HOW SHALL WE RESPOND TO THE POOR?
1. Share the Gospel with them.
> Luke 4:18-19 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me[k] to proclaim release[l] to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Ronnie Tullos. Grew up in the projects in Memphis. He was saved and later went back to work in the projects. I asked him about starting a church down in the projects, . . .
He told me it never worked. When they led people to the Lord, they stopped drinking and drugging. They stopped staying up all night. They started going to work. They started earning and saving their money and one of the first things they would do after getting on their feet was to move out of that area into better neighborhoods.
People and governments often say more money is the answer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. More Jesus is the answer.
What did Jesus say? The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me[k] to proclaim release[l] to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
You want to help folks? You want to help the poor? The most important thing you can do is to tell them about Jesus Christ. That brings rewards both in this life and more importantly, in the life to come.
2. If they won’t work, don’t feed them.
> 2 Thessalonians 3:10 if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.
Don’t support those who will not work.
> 1 Thessalonians 5:14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.
3. Help the truly needy
> Proverbs 28:6 Better the poor person who lives with integrity than the rich one who distorts right and wrong.
A person can be poor through no fault of their own. They can be poor with integrity. Help those people.
One of the best ways to help them is providing opportunities for them to work.
In the book, “The Least of these, a Biblical Response to Poverty” which I recommend, they write, “
The best way of alleviating long-term poverty is not giving people money or welfare, but providing opportunities through markets for them to provide for themselves. In the last 20 years, 25 countries have virtually eliminated poverty within their borders in this fashion. However, in the United States - a country with one of the world’s highest per capita incomes - the trend is toward an increasing dependence on the federal and state aid. Because a biblical and economic framework was ignored or unknown when adopting these procedures, we have created dependencies that are enslaving the poorest to a life of food stamps, and welfare checks, with no hope of personal fulfillment.”
Provide opportunities for those who can work, and material help for those who cannot.
4. Thank God for what you have
Max Lucado tells about living as an American in Brazil. One day, as he was walking along the street on his way to the University to teach a class, he felt a tug on his pants leg. Turning around, he saw a little boy about 5 or 6 years old with dark beady eyes and a dirty little face. The little boy looked up at the big American and said, "Bread, Sir."
He was a little beggar boy and Lucado said, "There are always little beggar boys in the streets of Brazil. Usually I turn away from them because there are so many and you can’t feed them all. But there was something so compelling about this little boy that I couldn’t turn away. So, taking his hand, I said, `Come with me’ and I took him into a coffee shop." Max told the owner, "I’ll have a cup of coffee and give the boy a piece of pastry…whatever he wants."
Since the coffee counter was at the other end of the store, Max walked on and got a cup of coffee, forgetting about the little boy because beggar boys usually get the bread and then run back out into the street and disappear.
But this one didn’t. After he got his pastry, he went over to the big American and just stood there until Lucado felt his staring eyes. Lucado said, "I turned and looked at him. Standing up, his eyes just about hit my belt buckle. Then slowly his eyes came up until they met mine. The little boy, holding his pastry in one hand, looked up and said, ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’”
Lucado said, "I was so touched by the boy’s thanks that I would have bought him the store. I sat there for another 30 minutes, late for my class, just thinking about a little beggar boy who came back and said, `Thank you.’"Brothers and sisters, if a little Brazilian beggar boy could make Max Lucado’s heart bubble, I wonder if we could make God’s heart jump for joy when we say, “Thank you. Thank you very much”? IT COULD VERY WELL BE. And this is God’s will for our lives. To give Him thanks and praise in all circumstances.
Song, Turn your eyes upon Jesus
