Thursday - Act On It - The Night That Changed the Poor
Why does it matter if God uses the poor? Why does it matter to us, if we’re not poor by the world’s standards, if this is a night that changes the poor? We may not be nomadic shepherds sleeping with the sheep in a field, but this still matters to us.
We are in spiritual poverty. It’s different from material poverty, but very important to recognize.
A sign is offered to us, from the poorest among us to the wealthiest, and it’s a poor baby in a manger. This comes to us direct from God, though his heavenly messengers. God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material – by his standards rather than our own.
When we see our own spiritual poverty compared to Jesus, we realize we need to get up and get to this baby, get to Jesus’ bedside just like those shepherds. A spiritually or materially wealthier group may not have bothered – they may have considered themselves just fine – but the poor are those God started with because they are those who know they need outside help.
When we have enough, we can’t hunger for food. It’s the same with God – if we consider ourselves spiritually rich and self-reliant, we won’t bother with reliance on God.
This is why, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, or poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
In the Christmas story, all of humanity sees its poverty, its spiritual poverty, compared to this divine baby. We realize we are unable to get back to relationship with God, and yet he comes to us anyway. We realize we can’t buy our way out of this debt to God (called sin), so someone else bailed us out and paid it off.
In the Christmas story, God helps us see our own poverty – spiritual and material.
In so doing, we realize the world’s standards are empty – we are all poor compared to God’s standards, and all need him equally. This can motivate us to extend to others, who we now recognize as spiritually poor themselves, the same generosity God has shown to us.
Challenge: Give to the spiritually and materially poor in your life! Toy drive, food bank, direct to a friend. Tell them why – because God has been generous and loving to you.
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
Loading Content...
Share a Link to this Message
The link has been copied to your clipboard; paste it anywhere you would like to share it.
So what does it mean to do the will of our father in heaven, as a family of followers of Jesus? How do our values impact our routines and traditions as we develop into a church family?
One example that will guide us for the rest of this series comes from this description in the book of Acts, which tells the story of the first followers of Jesus organizing their extended family after Jesus died, rose and left the earth.
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe[e] came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Five main elements devoted to:
Growth in Discipleship – They shared some teaching and belief in common with each other, and those who knew Jesus, the apostles.
Groups in Community –They were together regularly.
Grace in Lifestyle – They gained favour with all the people through their changed hearts
Generosity of Resources – They were selling and sharing their possessions to ensure no one was in need.
God in Worship – They regularly attended temple worship, and were breaking bread in homes in keeping with Jesus’ instructions from the night before he died
We’ll explore each of these things in depth these next few weeks, because these are the same things our church community will be devoted to. We will try to keep it well rounded, and not just focus on one thing or another.
Challenge: Rank these from easiest to hardest for you.
This series looks at becoming “like family” with others learning to follow Jesus. We're exploring how the church is not a building, institution or event, but a community of people. It's important that explore what church means as we prepare to launch a new church in Ajax in 2014.
