Reflect the Purposes of Christmas
#1 – “To Preach Good News to the Poor”
December 1, 2002
Introduction
Are you ready for the wonderful sights and sounds of Christmas?
You know, the crowded malls, the friendly sales clerks and not-so friendly clerks, the long drive around the parking lot trying to find not just the closest parking spot but trying to find any parking spot, the fights over the last sweater in that particular size and color…?
Festive clothing comes out this time of year. Like this tie, for example. You like it? It’s okay, you can be honest, because I know what you’re really thinking – “that tie is a crime against humanity.”
Christmas has a lot of baggage with it, doesn’t it? You’ve got presents, and the expectation of presents, the hassles of decorating, family newsletters, and all sorts of stuff.
It can be a depressing time for some, and a great time for others.
I want to suggest that we get out of the rut of the holidays this year. How do we do that? I think we do it by looking past the celebration of the holiday. I’m all for celebrating, by the way. But I want to focus on the purpose of the coming of Jesus.
This morning Ian read from Isaiah 61. This portion of Scripture was a prophecy about the Messiah, who the Jews were waiting for to redeem them.
We don’t know for sure whether Isaiah understood everything that he said here, but he knew it was from the Spirit of God – that’s why he was a prophet.
At the top of your bulletin, you will see how Jesus read this portion in just a bit.
He applied this to Himself, proclaiming Himself to be the Messiah, and declaring that He was about to begin His public ministry.
Let me read this portion, beginning a couple verses back in verse 16 of Luke chapter 4:
LK 4:16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 "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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
Well, if you read a little farther, you find that the people listening kind of freak out a bit. They can’t believe that this carpenter’s son would proclaim Himself to be the Messiah.
And by the way, that’s what He did, and they understood exactly what He was saying.
Well, I would like to propose to you that the purposes Jesus lined out for the Messiah are still around. And I believe He has commissioned His followers to continue to bring His message to the world.
So today and for the next 3 weeks we are going to look at the “mission statement” if you will, and see what we can find in there to apply to our own lives and ministries.
Our focus today will be the first portion of that “mission statement,” – “to preach good news to the poor.”
And I want to show how Jesus meets the needs of the poor today, particularly through the ministry of the church.
And then I want to show how a person can benefit from the good news, okay? Let’s go.
First,…
1. Jesus meets the needs of the poor in pocket.
Jesus understands that we all have needs, and that many of them are physical and material.
In the Lord’s Prayer, we are to pray that God would “give us today our daily bread.” We are to ask Him for our provision, and for the strength to do our part.
But here’s something else Jesus said. I have it printed in your bulletin, from the New Living Translation:
"So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” – Matthew 6:31-33 (NLT)
In other parts of the Bible, God promises to meet the needs of those who love Him.
He doesn’t promise wealth, necessarily, but He does promise to meet the needs of those who seek His kingdom and make it their primary concern.
This also doesn’t mean it will always be necessarily easy.
We have to work for that provision sometimes. What I mean by that is that God does not promise to throw money in our lap so we can pay all our bills.
He provides by giving us talents to use in finding work or for use in business in order to take part in our economy.
I remember a few years ago watching a video by financial advisor Larry Burkett, in which he mentioned a couple he was counseling. The man had been unemployed for a while, and money was getting pretty tight.
When Larry asked how the job hunt was going, he replied that he was “just trusting God, like the birds do. God provides for the birds, and He’ll provide for us, too.”
Larry replied, “I’ve never seen a worm come crawling up out of the ground and go over to a bird and invite the bird to eat him. Those birds dig and scrape and claw for those worms. God provides them, but it takes work to find them. Go out and get a job.”
God doesn’t promise a free lunch – He does promise satisfaction in the food we earn.
Sometimes God provides in other ways, particularly for those who are unable to work, either through charity, or through the church.
And I can tell you that at times God has provided cash anonymously to my family when we needed it. But He has not promised that, nor has he made it a practice in my life.
But here’s where the rubber meets the road. It is my conviction that the church of Jesus Christ needs to do more as a whole to meet the needs of the poor in our area.
I am so grateful for the Salvation Army. They have the people who can make sure food, clothing, and shelter are given to those who truly need it. So our church supports the Salvation Army financially. That’s why I volunteered our church to man one of the kettles for the Salvation Army in a couple weeks.
There are a number of ways to get involved in the needs of the poor in our area. Find one or two and sink some of your resources in it. Actually, what you need to do is invest some of God’s resources in helpful agencies around here, and watch God work.
My wife and I are involved in a children’s relief ministry, supporting a child; maybe that’s what God would have you do. Whatever. The point isn’t what my family does, the point is that God cares for the needy in pocket, and as His ambassadors, we should be doing the same.
Next,…
2. Jesus loves the poor in spirit.
I’ve printed that familiar passage from the Sermon on the Mount in your bulletin, in a couple of different versions. Let’s look at them real quickly, okay?
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3
“God blesses those who realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them.” – NLT
I really like how that second version says it, because it more accurately describes the attitude behind it.
I used to tend to think of being poor in spirit as being humble about my faith. And that’s part of it, but that’s not all of it.
The poor in spirit are those who, in the words of one man who wrote about this passage, “spiritually bankrupt.”
“It confesses one’s unworthiness before God and utter dependence on Him.” (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
And guess what? Jesus loves those who are unworthy of Him!
Now that’s good news, folks, and if you don’t understand why, let me see if I can help you a bit.
No one is worthy of God. No one. Not even the most religious person you can think of.
And this really threw the religious leaders in Jesus’ day for a loop. They thought they had it all together spiritually. They thought they had the inside track on God and heaven.
They were “pure” in their own eyes, but they couldn’t see that the Messiah was right in front of them. The one they said they were looking for with great anticipation was right there, but they couldn’t recognize Him, because they were expecting someone just like them.
Jesus let them know in no uncertain terms that the Messiah was nothing like them at all. The religious leaders tried to avoid sinners. Jesus came to save them and give them a new life.
He came to earth to offer eternal life to who? Sinners!
Can you see where I’m going here, as it relates to how we can continue this ministry of Jesus today? We need to be involved in the lives of those outside the family of God!
Aside from the financial help, the main benefit from my working outside the church is that I get to mingle with people almost every day who need Christ. And God has allowed me to get to know them and some of their hurts.
I am praying that God will allow me to minister healing to them, in His name, and that He will allow me to pray with a number of them to trust Christ for forgiveness of their sins and a home in heaven.
But for that to happen, I have to be with them. I cannot hide in my office, waiting for “sinners” to come to me all the time. It happens every once in a century or two, but I generally have to around people in order for them to hear the good news from me.
We need to be involved so they can hear the good news to the poor, both in pocket and in spirit.
Would you do me a favor? I want each one of you here today who call yourself a follower of Christ to ask God to bring to your mind someone you can pray for on a consistent basis through the Christmas season. Pray that God would be working in that person’s heart, and that you would have the opportunity to share the good news of heaven through Christ with them.
In fact, I want us to do that right now. I want to lead us in a prayer that will ask God to do just that, okay? Then we will get back into the message.
First, just pray silently for a moment.
Lord, we come this morning asking for something that we know is dear to your heart. You say in Your Word that You came to seek and to save those who are lost – those who are outside Your family – the spiritually bankrupt.
And we believe that You are still in the business of saving people from their sins, and changing lives. And we also believe that You want Your church be get involved in the lives of those You came to save.
So Lord, we are asking in just this moment, that You would impress on the hearts of those here who call themselves Your followers, the name of one person who does not know the offer of heaven that You have for them.
Work in that person’s heart, we pray. Draw them to Yourself, bringing to their mind what they have heard in the past, or giving them a hunger to find out about You. And we also pray that You would give us the opportunity to talk with that person before Christmas. Give us the opportunity and the courage to use that opportunity to bring good news to the poor in spirit.
Burn it in our hearts, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I pray that you just did that with me. In fact, if you did that, would you please jot a note on the back of the response card? I want to pray with you. If God brought a person to mind for you, and you want me to pray for that person with you, put the name on the card, and I will happily join you in praying for that person.
Before I move on, I want to also say here that all of us feel spiritually bankrupt at times, even if we have been living for Christ for a long time. That’s okay.
The problem comes when we don’t do anything about it. We need to cry out to Him to fill us again, to bring us back into His riches, which He has promised His children, the riches of His wonderful grace.
If you are feeling like that today, let me encourage you to not go to sleep tonight without taking care of this.
God loves you and wants to fill you with His Spirit. He wants you to re-experience the joy of a growing relationship with Him. Do it, won’t you?
God meets the needs of the poor in pocket. He loves the poor in spirit. Now I want to show you…
3. How to benefit from “the good news to the poor:”
Understand that Jesus understands.
One of the Christmas carols in our hymnal starts off by saying, “Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy kingly crown when Thou camest to earth for me.”
That’s a fancy way of saying that Jesus took a step down to come to earth, to put it mildly.
The Bible says that He left all the wonders and glory of heaven to come down to this dusty and dirty old earth, get born in a barn filled with animals and manure.
He was not a rich man on earth. After beginning His earthly ministry, He didn’t have a home to call His own. He traveled constantly, and was not even welcome in His hometown.
If you are struggling, especially financially, you’ve just gotta understand that Jesus understands. And He hurts with you.
You can call to Him for relief and help, and He knows what you’re talking about.
Next,…
Use the talents God has given you.
I mentioned this before, but it merits repeating.
God has given every single person in this room a talent that can be used in one way or another. And depending on what it is, God can use that to help you financially in a job or in business.
Some of you are able to use your hands to make things and put stuff together. This is beyond me, personally. I admire someone who is mechanically inclined. I’m mechanically declined.
I’ve had to do it, but it is not easy. Man, I can become a walking disaster area with power tools. Construction workers blow me away. They can look at a bunch of wood and stuff and know exactly what to do with it.
Some of you are able to think analytically and come up with solutions to problems.
Some of you can teach.
Whatever. Use what you can, whenever you can. If you are not sure of what that is, ask God to show it to you.
You can even go the Career Learning Center and they will help you find out what you’re good at.
So use the talents and abilities God has given you.
The next way, and in my opinion, the most important way to benefit from “the good news for the poor” is to…
Seek His kingdom.
Look back at the passage under the first point in your outline.
Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of
God your primary concern.”
We all need to be reminded of this. It’s not a one-time deal, folks. We all need to be reminded that the kingdom of God is our first priority, even behind making a living.
So how do we do that? How do we seek His kingdom? I want to offer you four actions to take:
Gain His righteousness.
If you are not a follower of Christ, this is your first step. Call on Christ to forgive your sins and make you a new person, with the guarantee of a home in heaven.
When you do this, God makes you righteous in His sight. This means that when He looks at you, He sees purity, not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what Jesus did for you on the cross, shedding His blood to pay for your sins.
You will still want to sin sometimes, but God sends His Holy Spirit into your life to help you love and obey Him, which leads me to the second action in seeking the kingdom of God,…
Obey His Word.
You may have noticed that when I talk about Christians, I don’t call them Christians very often. I call them followers of Christ.
I do that very deliberately. Anyone can call himself a Christian, but not everyone can call himself a dedicated follower of Christ.
A dedicated follower of Christ, a disciple of Christ obeys what He said.
Jesus promises that obedience to Him is not a burden, because we will obey out of love rather than duty.
Obedience unlocks the door to the wonderful full life Jesus promises to those who love and obey Him.
Jesus said that He came to give life in all it’s fullness. It comes from loving obedience to Him.
Obey His Word. The third action in seeking the kingdom of God is to…
Claim His promises.
God makes some wonderful promises in His Word, the Bible.
I’ve mentioned a couple this morning – that He would take care of us as we seek Him, and that He offers the hope of heaven to all who call on Him for it.
He has many other promises in the Bible that are available to those who believe them and act on them.
He promises to give us the right words to say when we are called to give an account for our faith.
He promises to provide a way out from temptation.
He promises forgiveness when we confess and turn from our sins.
And that’s just the beginning. Live by faith in the promises of God, and just watch God work in your life and circumstances.
And the fourth action in seeking the kingdom of God is to…
Trust His integrity.
What do I mean by that?
Simply that God can be trusted completely to fulfill His promises to us.
Listen to this from Numbers 23:19 –
“God is not a man, that He should lie. He is not a human, that He should change His mind. Has He ever spoken and failed to act? Has He ever promised and not carried it through?” (NLT)
Folks, people will let you down. I will let you down. If I haven’t let you down yet, just wait – it’ll happen. I hope you’ll forgive me and encourage me in doing better.
But God will never let you down. Ever. He is true to His Word. You can count on, even when times are tough. He will fulfill His promises. His timetable might be different than yours, but He will come through, guaranteed.
You can trust His integrity.
As we close, let me just give you one more thought on seeking the kingdom of God. Be intentional. Make a commitment to get closer to God and follow through on it.
Take real action.
Starting on December 29, I am starting a series of messages on being intentional about life.
Don’t live life by default, live by decision. Start today by renewing your commitment to Christ and His kingdom.
Then not only will you discover the benefits of “the good news to the poor,” you will be ready to share those benefits with those who are poor in pocket and those outside the family of God.
Let’s pray.
