The Poor You Have With You Always

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 . . .