Caring For The Poor

Question for you this morning. How many of you here remember the Make Poverty
History Campaign? That many. Two, three, four. Well a little bit more once you get
your hands up. The Make Poverty History Campaign was the most massive
anti-poverty campaign ever undertaken in the history of the human race. It was
launched in England on New Year's Day 2005 by a coalition of over 500 British
and Irish charities, religious organizations, trade unions, and celebrities.
And if you don't remember the Make Poverty History Campaign, chances are you
will remember the live eight concerts. Anybody remember that? As you know you're
much more culturally relevant. The live eight concerts was a series of
simultaneous concerts. Ten of them in number held all over the world
simultaneously as part of the Make Poverty History Campaign to try to put
pressure on the G aid nations move meeting towards the end of July in Scotland.
And the Make Poverty History Campaign in the live eight concert had a three-fold
purpose to call attention to the need for fair trade to cancel or reduce third
world debt and to provide more and better aid to the nations of the world.
The campaign and the concerts were the brainchild of Bob Geltoff and also Bono of
you two fame. And as part of this whole campaign there was a series of video
messages that were broadcast all around the world. Here is one featuring Bono
that captures the essence of what this movement was trying to accomplish.
Take a look at this. Bono Bono. But you can relax I'm not asking you for your
money. I'm here to talk to you about something that turned my life upside
down 20 years ago. Like the whole world was turned upside down by pictures from
Ethiopia. Sometimes I wish I hadn't seen that TV report. Bob Geltoff started
wrecking my head calling me every day until we did band-aid and then live eight. And some
comedians took up the back. You laughed, you cried. And over the years you gave
289 million. Around the world 30,000 people are still dying of extreme
stupid poverty every day. I'm talking about children losing their lives because
of diarrhea or because they haven't had an injection that costs 25p. This means
someone dying every three seconds. That's someone's mother. Someone's daughter.
Another one. Here's Kalki. Beautiful, beautiful girl. Now her mother's no
longer with us because she couldn't get the drugs that you and I could find at
any chemist. It's an emergency. This year it's the best opportunity we're gonna
get to do something about it. World leaders are meeting in Scotland and
July at G8. They're gonna just go step consolation. More and better aid. They're
gonna discuss making trade rules fairer for everybody so that these people can
earn their own way out of poverty. It's a real chance to do something. Not just for
Kalki but for millions like her. What will our generation be remembered for?
Be internet? Yes. The war against terror? Yes. Wouldn't it be great if we were also
remembered as being the ones that set about making poverty history?
Just a little flavor of what that campaign was like and that make
poverty history campaign now itself is history. In fact the coalition was
disbanded at the end of January 2006. Though there's a Canadian version of it
called in poverty now that is still carrying on. And while the campaign
certainly raised world awareness of poverty to unprecedented levels around
the world and while it took some significant steps in reducing world poverty the
fact remains that really it has only made a very small dent. As a matter of
fact people have made the observation that if you take all the resolutions that
have been passed and agreed upon by Western nation since the year 2000 and if
you were to put all of them into practice which itself is doubtful because
people have a way of backing out of their promises even if you put all of them
into practice then children would still die not at the rate of one every three
seconds but one at the rate of every 3.5 seconds. Is that a reduction? Yes is it
significant? Hardly. And what that illustrates I think is two things. It illustrates
first of all the immensity of the problem. It boggles the mind because it
involves so many things. It involves economic systems. It involves crooked
governments. It involves selfish hearts. It involves the power of seed. The
problem is immense not only but because the problem is immense the challenge of
finding a solution is also huge and who of us here when we see the images
particularly in third world countries or even when we confront the reality of
poverty in our own midst how many of us sometimes just simply feel
overwhelmed and you say where in the world do I begin yet scripture talks a
lot about caring for the poor and though the context of the passage that we're
looking at together this morning is making sure that your left hand doesn't
know what your right hand is doing I want to broaden that a little bit and talk
just a little bit about practical steps that you and I can take to at least help
alleviate the problem and so on the time that we have this morning just a
couple of principles that I think are helpful to keep in mind as individually
and corporately we try to answer that biblical call of giving arms to the poor.
First of all any kind of giving must embody God's heart. There can be no
question that from a biblical point of view God has a very special place in his
heart for those who are poor we read in the Old Testament Psalm 3510 who is like
you O Lord you rescue the poor from those too strong for them the poor and the
needy from those who rob them and then Psalm 113 verse 7 he raises the poor from
the dust and he lifts the needy from the ash heap. God has a special
compassion for the poor and the needy because as I've said many times before
they lack the normal means of support and so God steps into the picture and one
of the ways of course in which he steps into the picture is he uses his
people who share his heart to become his hands and his feet and so we read in
Deuteronomy 151 there will always be poor in the land a very interesting verse
because later on in that chapter he says that if God's people walking covenant
relationship with him there will not be any poor people there will always be poor
people in the land and therefore I command you to be open-handed towards your
brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land and then Paul
English in chapter 2 in the context of reporting to the core leadership of the
church at Jerusalem about his ministry to the Gentiles he says their response to
him was to bless him and then he said all they asked was that we should continue
to remember the poor the very thing I was eager to do and if you read about
Paul's missionary journeys and in the corresponding passages in the
epistles then you discover that one of the things that he does is he takes an
offering among the Gentiles to bring it home to the Jewish believers because of
the famine which they had been experiencing all through history God's people
have always had a special compassion for the poor so much so that Scripture says
if anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no
pity on him how can the love of God be in him dear children let us not love
with words are tongue but with actions and in truth and the issue from a
biblical point of view in terms of sharing the world's resources is that
particularly in the body of Christ God wants our abundance to meet the needs
of those who are lacking and writing to the Corinthians Paul puts it this way
talking now about the offering that he is receiving from the Gentile believers
for the Christian believers back in Jerusalem he says our desire is not that
others might be relieved while you are hard-pressed but that there might be
equality at the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that
in turn their plenty will supply what you need then there will be a quality as
it is written he who gathered much did not have too much and he who gathered
little and did not have too little interesting passage a reference to manna and
Israel's gathering of manna in the wilderness and Paul uses that then to teach
us that part of our collective responsibility towards one another is to take
of our abundance and share it with those who have less so that everybody has
enough that's a biblical principle that proceeds from the heart of God and
that will increasingly be reproduced in your heart and in my heart as we
grow in God's grace and the Holy Spirit lives within us we cannot close our
heart off to people who are in need when God's love lives within us which is
why as I've said many times overall the centuries it's been God's people who
have always been on the forefront of the campaign to end poverty even Banal who
is a YouTube musician is perhaps you recognize professors to be a Christian
and is motivated in part by his Anglican church upbringing in pushing this
particular make poverty history campaign we must embody God's heart not only
but we must also exercise responsible stewardship now the interesting thing
biblically speaking is that the Bible never condemns wealth or the acquisition
of wealth as such it is a lot say about money and it has a lot to say about the
love of money being the root of all evil and it has a lot to say about greed
being wrong and ill-gotten gains being wrong and a selfish lifestyle being
wrong but it never condemns wealth because wealth in scripture is often seen as
a blessing from God which can then be used of God to extend God's love and God's
blessing to other people all around and let me give you just two quick
examples some of you know that when Michelle and I were on vacation we
spent the first week of our vacation in Michigan meeting with my pastors
accountability group usually we meet in San Diego in January but a lot of us
weren't able to make it this past year and so the powers that be decided to call
a second meeting in Michigan and one of the guys in our group has in his church
a guy who is a multi-millionaire heir to some humongous fortune and he built for
himself this incredible log retreat center up in northern Michigan set in 900
acres of land this place has got 16 or 17 huge bedrooms everyone with its
own you know whirlpool and and all the amenities that you could want and you
look at a place like that and you say to yourself how in the world can this guy
justify spending the kind of millions of dollars that he must expand putting
this thing together as a matter of fact when we were there he had a crew on the
outside stripping the finish off and restating the outside the second time
they've been doing this in seven years because he didn't like the color that's a
kind of money this dude is gone and it's easy to enter into judgment in terms of
his stewardship but you know one of the things that he does and you know he's
responsible before gotten all of this is he generously makes these facilities
available to a wide number of organizations particularly Christian ones who
can come there as a retreat center and that's one way in which you transfer the
treasures of this age into the age to come I got to tell you I'm not easily odd
they built this thing off site put it all together let it dry for a year or two
then disassembled it numbered all the pieces and then they put it up in this
particular location incredible but he shares it freely as a gift to the
broader Christian community that's one example still another example one of
the obituaries in the paper just this past week was the death of a woman by
the name of Brooke Astor the Toronto star devoted a whole page to her she
inherited from her husband who inherited from his father a fortune accumulated
by the fur and the real estate trade in the New York area and before her husband
died he said I'm willing you 60 million dollars for your personally use and
60 million dollars for you to share for charitable causes and so from that
point on from the point that her husband died and she inherited that money she
set up a charitable foundation and over the course of the year she has spent
$195 million supporting worthy causes particularly in the New York area one of
her favorite sayings was a quotation from Dolly Levi in Thornton Wilders play
the matchmaker saying money is like manure it's not worth the thing unless it's
spread around now there's an interesting take on money my point is from a
biblical point of view exercising stewardship means taking the resources that
God provides us with recognizing that we are responsible before God in how we
use it and that it can indeed be used as a blessing John Wesley I think put it
well when he said many years ago and you got to understand this in its proper
context he said make all you can save all you can give all you can he practiced
what he preached by the time he died he only had pennies left in his pocket but
he left behind him a terrifically rich legacy of generosity scripture puts it
this way one Timothy 6 17 18 19 command those who are rich in this present
world not to be arrogant not to put their hope in the wealth which is so
uncertain but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything
for our enjoyment notice the emphasis there it's okay to enjoy what God has
given you because that's part of God's generosity towards his people but he
goes on to say commend them to do good to be rich in good deeds and to be
generous in willing to share in this way they will lay up treasure for themselves
as a firm foundation for the coming age so they may take hold of the life that
is truly life Jesus earlier in the gospels he put it this way he said lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven by taking the resources that God gives us
whatever they are whether bountiful or limited as we share them in obedience
to scripture and by the prompting of the Holy Spirit they translate into a
reward in heaven because it becomes a practical demonstration of our faith our
hope is not in this world and in the security of this world but our hope is in
God and because our hope is in God that's why Christian people throughout the
course of the ages have been a generous people because they know that as they
give to the poor they lend to God as says the book of Proverbs so we are to
embody God's heart we are to exercise responsible stewardship and then our
aid must be strategic I dare say we've all heard the proverb give a man a fish and
you feed him for a day teaching how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime and
the challenge in helping the poor is how do you help the poor to help
themselves without creating the kind of welfare state the kind of welfare cycle
that makes them dependent on the help of others all the time and that's
precisely one of the critical issues in the whole issue of how do you help poor
folks whether that's on a local level or whether that's on a global level and
people who know a whole lot more about this than I do say there are three core
conditions that need to be met if the help that we give to the poor is going to
help them long-term rather than hinder them let me walk you through them very
quickly the first is justice justice means that everybody gets a fair shake
at life and that you aren't penalized for who you are by an economic
situation or by the oppressive powers of other people in other words
justice means that you are allowed to be who you can possibly be on earth before
the face of God very major issue and a very complex one as you can
appreciate because one person sense of justice is another person sense of
injustice empowerment that is to say if giving to the poor is going to do
them any good it must not rob them of the ability to look after themselves it
must in fact empower them so that they can rise to the occasion become self
sufficient and look after themselves that's always the aim now there are always
people who will always be dependent there are the sick the infirm people who
simply cannot stand on their own two feet those will always be the
poor among us that we have to look after but you know as well as I do that
poverty very quickly becomes a cultivated lifestyle if all I ever do is live
off handouts that living off handouts is all I know how to do so true aid must
give an empowerment and it must also have a built-in sense of accountability
that is to say there must be a way of being held responsible for what I
receive now part of the difficulty in global campaigns to alleviate poverty is
that many aid campaigns I don't know how to put this but they have unintended
consequences instead of exercising justice empowering people and holding them
accountable in a responsible fashion what often ends up happening is that in
fact for all the good intentions of aid programs they rob people of their
independence and they get further behind instead of forward give you a couple
of examples and the last 50 years the Western world has poured into the
continent of Africa 1.5 trillion dollars worth of aid yet Africa is worse off
today than they were 50 years ago that's a fascinating comment on the failure of
our aid programs give you another couple of practical examples one of the
aims of the Make Poverty History Campaign was to put pressure on the G8
nations meeting in Scotland in July to increase their giving to third world
countries raising their charitable giving to 0.7 percent of the gross
national product as well as forgiving and canceling the debt of third world
nations now a lot of the people signed up for that and they agreed that they
were going to do a number of those kinds of things and it all sounds very good
but it often has what I call the law of unintended consequences give you
a couple of examples the Western world says we're going to forgive the debt
but they're only going to forgive the debt of 18 nations instead of 16
nations and in forgiving their debt they're taking it off the aid which
those countries were to receive from them in the first place now see what that
translates into that translates into money going into the what is it the
international money fund the IMF but the countries themselves in fact receive
less money for development than what they would have received before that
debt was cancelled that puts them further back in addition for that money
cancellation or for the additional money that is being given the conditions
are so stringent that the countries are no longer free to assume their own
economic policies and are tremendously resistant to the kind of interference
that comes along with that kind of money to be given as a matter of fact a
person by name of Amante Trollori who is a former Mali in government minister
put it this way he said they are killing us while they say they are
developing us but they are lying we are not developed we are subjugated more
and more that's how complicated this business can get one other quick
example you know that Afghanistan I've used this example before Afghanistan is
one of the world's suppliers today of heroin because when the farmers there
grow poppies that's one of the best money making crops they have how do they
get that way a whole lot of factors have gone into that but one of them one of
the factors is the aid that as a nation we have been given to Afghanistan in
providing them with grain because until recently the rule in Canada was that
if we're going to provide aid to a country like that 90% of the aid that we
give them has to be spent buying our grain now the net result of that is that
we're dumping subsidized Canadian grain in the Afghanistan market that
depresses the Afghanistan grain market price the result is the farmers can't
make any money growing grain and now they turn to poppies because that's where
the money is to be made now recently that Canadian policy has been changed from
90% to 50% but you see how easy it is to say I'm helping you I'm doing this
for you're good but human nature being what it is our tendency is to help
ourselves thinking that we're doing good for somebody else and you don't have
to be international to run into this problem you and I we run into that same
issue and when we try to share our generosity with somebody else how many times
aren't there strings attached and how many times isn't it more about us than
it is about somebody else and that's why Jesus says don't let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing this is not about you this is not about what
it does for you this is about being obedient to God and in legitimate and
realistic ways truly loving your neighbor as yourself and so whether we
give aid globally whether we help somebody in our church or whether we help
somebody in the broader community our aid must be strategic it must be built
on justice it must be built on empowerment and it must be built on some level of
accountability two quick examples that I think embody battery realistically my
brother-in-law Conrad Van Dyke and his life Anna who is Michelle's sister had
up an organization called Christian Veterinary Missions of Canada and this
organization is involved in Sierra Leone and among other things one of their
projects is a poultry project Conrad is a poultry specialist and he spends an
enormous amount of time and energy traveling back and forth to Sierra Leone and
part of their aim this year is to set up an additional 100 farmers in being able
to raise their own poultry and become self-sufficient and in one of the recent
newsletters Conrad reports that he was meeting with a farmer who had been making
money by raising chickens and selling eggs but he was at a loss as to why the
chickens were not producing as well as he would hope and Conrad is by
said is a poultry specialist quickly went on to identify some basic
improvements needed in the chickens living conditions and so he provided a
model chickenhouse made of local materials and some very simple tips and here's
a picture I don't know how clear that will be of what that enclosure looks like
very important to understand that typically the Western world has moved into
Africa with Western technology and Western know how and then it sits in it
wrought because people haven't owned it it has not become reproducible the
story goes on to say that with these simple improvements the farmer was
astounded to discover that the chickens in the model house were able to lay
20% more eggs and to a poor Sierra Leone farmer a 20% increase in eggs translates
into enough daily income to feed the entire family each day and these farmers
learn that quite literally if you teach a man to raise chickens his family will
eat for a lifetime and the model house will be used as a prototype for other
new farmers and will house each 50 to 100 layer chickens the extra one to
three dozen eggs produced each day translates into two to five dollars per
day a tremendous boost in income for people who might previously have lived
on less than one dollar a day that's strategic aid that empowers and sets
people free one other quick example and that comes from Rick Warren and it's
a story related to mosquito netting Rick Warren is pastor of Settleback Church in
California he's the author of the purpose driven life in recent years has been
taking a significant leadership role in the evangelical church about providing
help to Africa particularly HIV AIDS but also in whole areas of poverty and
as reported in the current issue of leadership magazine president bush in the
United States just recently announced a campaign to deal with malaria in
Africa to the tune of one billion dollars and another group called malaria
no more decided to match it and so now this initiative is back to the total of
two billion dollars and so in typical fashion as we usually do in the
west they drew up a program to alleviate malaria in these countries causes the
deaths of numerous of people and kids every year of course and so in a typical
fashion they said we're going to spend money and buy mosquito netting because if
you can be hidden from these mosquitoes at night then we will cut the rate of
malaria infection by a significant percentage well Rick Warren has been
learning this lesson of making sure that the people you're trying to help own
the project and make it their own and so he went to the leaders of one of these
groups of people and he said this is what the United Nations is thinking of
doing and they want to buy you all this mosquito netting what do you think and
guess what they said we don't want it and he said what why don't you want it well
they went on to explain that they had already tried several net programs of
this nature and they said if you give us nets without training some of them will
be used for bridal gowns others will be used to catch fish and the rest will be
sold in the black market so he said then to them what do you want us to do they
said to him the first thing that we want you to do is the last thing on your
list help us to spray the breeding grounds from mosquitoes help us then to
learn how to manage our waste so that we don't give ground to these kind of
breeding grounds and so on they went through a whole program and they said
towards the end of that you put the rest of these things in place then give us
mosquito netting and it will really work and it's another one of those very
practical examples of the difference between coming from a Western point of
view and saying this is what we think you should do really stepping into
people's own shoes and getting their input and being humble enough he said to
the people later on he says you people have way too much power you're changing
American policy before it even gets announced because the Americans have chosen
to listen to this particular input our aid must be strategic and then just very
quickly on my final point here this morning we need to of course focus our
resources I said earlier we can possibly be all things to all men and when we
spread ourselves too thin we don't do anybody any good and so we need to
listen to scripture we need to listen to the Holy Spirit we need to partner with
reputable organizations like Christian reform world relief compassion
Canada other organizations who are on the forefront and who can serve as our
hands and our feet and who will step into the breach for us you can live
under guilt all the time because there's always more to be done only God knows
what we can do and what we should do and so each of us we can just focus on a
little piece of the pie be faithful there let the Lord worry about all the
rest then we know that when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ we know
that we have been faithful stewards over what God has given us and we will see
that the little that we have invested while long term make a huge difference
because it has addressed real issues it has helped people instead of hindering
people.
♪ Through our simple words and deeds let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Multiply your love through me to someone in me ♪
♪ Help me love to freely this grace that I've received ♪
♪ Let my simple purpose be to replace your life ♪
♪ Through my simple words and deeds let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let us see your kingdom come to the born and broken wars ♪
♪ Let us see my life of justice and mercy ♪
♪ Oh Jesus let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Multiply your trust through us to the hands of the earth ♪
♪ Where there's only bareness let us see new world ♪
♪ Here's a says new laborers working side by side ♪
♪ Let us see your harness come let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let us see your kingdom come to the born and broken wars ♪
♪ Let us see your life of justice and mercy ♪
♪ Oh Jesus let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Let love be multiplied ♪
♪ Multiply your love through us multiply your love ♪
♪ Multiply your love through us multiply your love ♪
♪ Multiply your love through us multiply your love ♪
♪ Multiply your love multiply your love ♪