YOUR MOVE
SERVE THE POOR
DR. JIM DIXON
JAMES 2:14-17, 1 JOHN 3:16-18
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
Who was the greatest missionary the world has ever seen? Some would say the Apostle Paul, certainly the greatest missionary of the Apostolic Age. Since the Apostolic Age, who has been the greatest missionary? Some would say Dr. David Livingstone. Certainly, he is perhaps one of the most famous. I would submit to you, at least for me, the greatest missionary was a man named Robert Moffat. Robert Moffat was born December 21st, 1795. He was not born to wealth. He was not born to a family that was highly educated. In fact, in his youth he served as a gardener. In the year of 1817, at the age of 22, after hearing Methodist missionaries, he gave his life to Christ and he made a commitment to Jesus that he would take the gospel to the world.
At age 22, in 1817, Robert Moffat sailed and came into the harbor at Cape Town, the southern tip of Africa, there to begin his language training that he might learn African languages. Then two years later, in 1819, when he was 24, Mary Smith came from Manchester, England to meet Robert in Cape Town. She would be his wife. They had fallen in love when Robert was a gardener for her father, Mr. Smith, at his vast estates. Mary and Robert both loved Christ. They both had given their hearts to Jesus. They were both willing to live or die, taking the gospel to the world. She arrived in Cape Town. They were married. The next year they had ventured forth, hiking on foot, carrying all of their supplies and materials by beast. They had gone north up to the borders of the Kalahari Desert. There in the Kuruman River valley they established a mission, which to this day is called Kuruman Station.
Today there are 12,000 people who live in Kuruman Station that was founded by Robert Moffat and his wife Mary. Robert Moffat, because he knew irrigation, had taken the Kuruman River and formed irrigation, created gardens right on the border of the Kalahari. He built this wonderful mission, built a church, which was the largest building in the Northern Cape, and he began to lead people to Christ. Robert Moffat led thousands of people to Christ. He was a blacksmith, he was a carpenter, he was an explorer, he was a horseman, he was an adventurer, and he fought the slave trade. This man opened up the doors to the African interior.
Robert Moffat and his wife Mary lived in Kuruman Station for 50 years, serving the great cause of Jesus Christ. He only came home to England one time. In 1839 he returned to London and he began to preach in England and in Scotland. As he preached in one little Scottish church, in the audience was David Livingston. It was the day that David Livingstone gave his heart to the mission field and promised to give his life as a missionary because of Robert Moffat. Then David Livingstone prepared for the mission field, came down to Kuruman Station, and there in the little church that Robert Moffat had built David married one of Robert and Mary Moffat’s ten children, a daughter, also called Mary.
David Livingstone stayed there at the Kuruman Station and it was there that he grew to understand the call and the task at hand. It was from there that he went forth to search for the source of the Nile, to seek and save and win the lost, and to serve as a medical doctor to people who were hurting both in body and soul.
I think it is safe to say, as we look at the whole world of missiology, as we look at the whole world of missions and the call of the Great Commission to take the gospel to the nations, that David Livingstone and Robert Moffat radically transformed the church of Jesus Christ. If the Bible tells us we are to go forth and minister to body and soul, the early church knew that we had to minister to body and soul. There came a time where missions were mostly soul winning. Robert Moffat and David Livingstone reminded the church of Christ that we are called to holistic ministry. We are to save souls, but we are also to care for the physical needs of the poor. Body and soul.
Here we are as a church. I think the church of Jesus Christ, as we seek to be missional in every sense, must minister to body and soul. We must do what Robert Moffat and David Livingstone understood and what the Bible charges us to do: Minister to body and soul. As we go into the inner city, not just here in Denver, but around the world, we seek to minister to the poor, we seek to minister body and soul. What I would like us to do is begin this morning by looking at our city ministries as we serve the physical needs of the poor and as we seek to minister to the body. I want us to begin with the body and give you a little glimpse of the call as we go and serve the poor and what that means physically. I want to begin by taking a look at the Bible and what the Bible tells us about the poor and what our responsibilities to the poor consist of and what the call is physically.
I know you have all heard of Sodom and Gomorrah. The judgment of God, the wrath of God was poured out from heaven against Sodom and Gomorrah, these wicked cities as recorded in the book of Genesis in the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters. Some people have wondered, “Where were those cities located? Have archeologists found them today?” The answer is that archeologists have not found them today and we don’t know exactly where they were located. We know what the Bible tells us. They were in the Vale of Siddim in the southern Jordan Valley. There has been unearthed, east of the Dead Sea, in what was the southern Jordan Valley, some ancient ruins, 4,000 years old that do date to the time of Sodom and Gomorrah. We don’t know that they were Sodom and Gomorrah because there were other cities that were called cities of the plain. We just don’t know.
There are some scholars that say that Sodom and Gomorrah are buried underneath the southern tip of the Dead Sea, and that may be. We know that the Dead Sea formed and expanded and perhaps covered ancient Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. We also know that today the southern portions of the Dead Sea are drying up and the land is surfacing. The land is being exposed and there may be archeological digs that will yet uncover and unearth Sodom and Gomorrah.
Why did God judge them? Why was the wrath of God poured out from heaven against these twin cities? The answer Biblically is multiple. Some have pointed out that they were judged for the absence of hospitality, and that is true. These wicked cities had no love of strangers. The answer is far deeper than that. Some have said, “Well, they were judged for their sexual promiscuity. These cultures, these cities were debauched sexually.” Certainly, that is true. We know this from the account in Genesis chapter nineteen. We also know this from the words of Peter in the book of 2 Peter. Certainly, Sodom and Gomorrah had been debauched sexually.
There is a strange account of angelic visitation and how the angels of God came and visited the nephew of Abraham whose name was Lot. Lot lived on the outskirts of Sodom and showed them hospitality. The men of Sodom came and surrounded Lot’s house, hearing that strangers were in town. They demanded that these angels, that they thought were men, be released to them that they might have sex with them. It’s a strange account. Certainly, the wrath of God was deserving.
There is a strange thing too, in the Book of Ezekiel, the sixteenth chapter, where we are given an account of Sodom and Gomorrah that surprises us. In Ezekiel chapter sixteen we have an account of the wickedness of the city, but no mention is made of sexual misconduct. We have an account of the wickedness of the city, but no mention is made of their hatred of strangers. The whole focus of Ezekiel sixteen is that they abused the poor. It says in Ezekiel sixteen, “God judged Sodom and Gomorrah because they abused and oppressed the poor.”
Certainly, the full answer is all of the above. God judged them for all of those reasons, but they did abuse and oppress the poor. We are told in Ezekiel sixteen that they were wealthy and they were arrogant. In their pride they looked down on the poor, and they did not care about the poor, and they oppressed them. The judgment of God came. If you really study the Bible, from the very beginning, from the first book to the last, from Genesis to Revelation, this is clear: God’s anger is kindled when we abuse the poor. The Bible makes that clear. His wrath rises when we abuse the poor. He wants the whole world to know that he cares about the poor. It is our move.
I mention Luke sixteen at every new member’s class because it is part of our vision statement that we care for the poor. In Luke chapter sixteen Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man, whose name may have been Dives, although it is a parable, and the name Dives just means rich man. This rich man lived in great wealth and dined sumptuously. He had abundance of wealth. At his gate there was this poor man named Lazarus who was a beggar. Jesus said Lazarus would gladly have eaten the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. In the course of time, Jesus tells us that both the rich man and the poor man died. The poor man Lazarus went straight to paradise, straight to Abraham’s bosom, but the rich man went straight to Hades. This is kind of a scary parable that has been both used and abused. It is clear that Jesus is warning us that we better care about the poor. It’s your move. They are at your gates. You better not neglect them. You better not oppress them. You better reach out to them. That is clear.
The Olivet Discourse is the great sermon that Jesus gave on the Mount of Olives. In Matthew chapter 25, Jesus tells us he will come again. He will come in power, he will come in glory, he will come with the heavenly hosts, and he will judge the nations. Before him shall be gathered all people and he shall separate them one from the other, putting the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left hand. He will say to those at his right hand (we are almost stunned as we read the words), “I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you came to me, I was in prison and you visited me, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world.”
To those on his left hand, “I was hungry and you gave me not to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink, I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was sick and you did not come to me, I was in prison and you did not visit me. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” What a stunner! It’s a passage used and abused, but there’s no question Jesus is saying you better care about the poor. It is your move. You better care about the poor.
Last year at this same time we had our city ministry Sunday and we focused on Isaiah 58 where the great prophet tells us that if we give food to the hungry and we bring the homeless poor into our houses and if we lift the burden of the oppressed, God will see it from heaven and pour down a blessing. The Bible is so consistent, Old and New Testaments. There can’t be any doubt about this issue. We must care about the poor. It is your move.
In our passages of scripture for today, James, the earthly brother of our Lord who became the head of the Jerusalem church, writes, “What does it profit, brothers and sisters, if a man says that he has faith but has no works? Can his faith save him?” Martin Luther hated this passage. He wanted to throw the book of James out of the Bible because he was afraid that people would think that we are not saved by faith. We are saved by faith and by grace through faith, but all James is saying is that if you have really encountered the grace of Jesus and you have really placed your faith in him, there has got to be some fruit. “If your brother or sister is ill-clad and lacks daily food and you say to him, ‘God bless you,’ if your brother or sister is ill-clad and lacks daily food and you say to him, ‘Go in peace,’ if your brother or sister is ill-clad and lacks daily food and you say to them, ‘be warmed and filled,’ what good is it if you don’t give them the things needed for the body?”
In 1 John, chapter three verse sixteen (everybody knows about John 3:16, but this is 1 John 3:16), “By this we know love: That he lay down his life for us. So ought we to lay down our lives for each other. If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother or sister in need and closes his heart, how does God’s love abide in you?” To have the world’s goods does not mean rich. If you look at the Greek expression here, “ton bion tou kosmou,” it literally means the life of the world, but the phrase means to have what is needed to live daily life on this earth. That is all it means. “If anyone has enough to live daily life on this earth.” So you are not off the hook if you are not rich. This is addressed to anyone who has enough to live daily life on the earth and you see a brother or sister in need.
Who is this brother or sister? You might think, “Well, it must mean Christians. As long as I help the church, as long as I help other Christians, I am okay.” That is really not true either. It’s “ton adelphon” in the Greek.” There are two different expressions of ton adelphon in the passage and they are very different. You might think, “How can they be different since both of them say ton adelphon?” One has a short “o” and the other has a long “o,” and one is singular and the other is plural, and one means a brother as in the sense of any human being and the other means the brotherhood, as in the sense of the church. Most scholars today are agreed upon the fact that in in the Bible we are sometimes called to serve the brotherhood, the church, and that is a huge priority, but then at other points we are called to serve all people.
It is like the Good Samaritan. “Who is my neighbor?” You neighbor is anybody who is hurting. Your neighbor is anybody who is in need. So that’s where James is coming down here. Short “o,” “ton adelphon.” If you have enough to live day-by-day in this world and you see anybody who needs help and you shut down your heart… now, the word for heart here is “splanchnos,” and it doesn’t mean heart. We’ve just brought it into the English as heart because it fits out culture. But its literal meaning is bowels or intestines. And we don’t like to think of shutting down our intestines but understand that in the Hellenized world the seat of emotions was not the heart. In our culture, the heart is viewed as the seat of emotions. But in the Hellenized world, the seat of emotions was the stomach, the bowels, the intestines. It’s a word, this word splanchnos, that is often translated mercy or compassion—to be moved with mercy, to be moved with compassion.
So, what’s being said by John is, you have enough to live day-by-day in this world, but you see another human being in need and you shut down your compassion. You shut off your mercy. Do you ever do that? I’ know I’ve doner that. There’s a warning here that you don’t live your life that way as followers of Jesus Christ. We’re called to be people of mercy, people of compassion, and that compassion and mercy is to have a particular focus on the poor, those who are needy, those who are ill-clothed, those who do not have daily food. So, it’s our move again.
We have a lot of ministries we want you to move on. We have a lot of ministries we want you to sign up for, volunteer for. I know you’re all busy. I know some of you are exhausted. I know some of you have anxiety. I know some of you have concerns, and some of you have relational concerns. And some of you have medical and physical concerns. Some of you have financial concerns. And I think we’re all in the same… I mean, Barb and I have those concerns. But you see, we’re called to love. We’re called to love and we’re called to carve out time to help others. And we’re called to carve out time to help the poor. We go into the inner city and we have got over twenty ministries that we hold hands with. Some of which we birthed, but all of which are precious.
All of the years, we have been doing this because God gave us this burden to help the poor when our church was first born. Even in suburbia, the poor are at our gates and Jesus is calling us. I have never talked to anybody through all of the years who has volunteered who said, “Boy, I wish I hadn’t done that.” I have never talked to anybody through the years who volunteered and said, “I am so miserable because I did that.” What I hear is, “This is so great.” I have even heard, “This is so fun.” It brings joy. It multiplies joy and brings a smile to the face of Jesus and the blessings of heaven on your life.
Just look at the Bible—God kind of warns us that you might get in some trouble if you don’t care about the poor. Then there are the other passages like Isaiah 58 where he says, “If you do care about the poor, I will bless you.” In every way he is saying it is your move. And please move. Please do something. I think sometimes, I don’t know why, but it is so hard to get us to volunteer. And we need you. We have hundreds and hundreds of people that are needed to go with us into the inner city to help and to serve.
We don’t just care about the physical needs of the poor; we also care about the spiritual needs. If you look over the 20+ ministries that we partner with in the inner city, like I said, some of which we have birthed and some of which we just hold hands with, they all seek to minister holistically, body and soul. We have a great concern for the spiritual needs of people. There is a passage of scripture that I have always kind of marveled at when I have read it. As a pastor and as a student and as one who has studied the New Testament and the Greek and the Old Testament and the Hebrew and have gone through all of the seminary courses that pastors go through, I know the variety of interpretations that are out there regarding John chapter six. In John 6:22-39 you have this discourse, a sermon by Jesus delivered in Galilee near the Sea of Tiberius, right after Jesus had fed the 5,000. That is the beginning of John six, the feeding of the 5,000. You know the story of how the multitudes came, 5000 men, perhaps 10,000 men, women, and children. This was a huge congregation, 10,000 people gathered on the shores and up the mountainsides of the Sea of Tiberius.
Jesus observes and the disciples observe that they came but they didn’t bring food. So, “How are we going to feed them?” There is a little boy there with a lunch with five barley loaves and two fish. Simon Peter’s brother Andrew, observes, “What is this one little lunch amongst 10,000 people?” Jesus, by the power that is his as Son of God, works this incomprehensible miracle that is virtually the act of creation itself. He takes this boy’s lunch, and he feeds this massive multitude of 10,000. When they are done feasting there are twelve baskets of fish and chips leftover. You know that story.
The people are understandably impressed. They are not just impressed, they are like, “Wow! This guy can really take care of us. We don’t even need to work anymore. We can just hang out with him. The food is there at his command.” They follow him around the lake. Here is Jesus and he still has maybe 10,000 people, maybe more, following him. He looks out and he sees the multitude, and you wonder, how does his mind work as he sees this vast crowd? What does he think? Does he think, “Man, I could have the biggest church in Galilee”? Is that his thought? Does he think, “Think of the synagogue! And I could be the rabbi”? Does he think like that? Of course, the answer is no.
What he realizes is that they have all followed him for physical provision. He gave them physical food. They don’t care about their own souls. Jesus gives them a sermon; for most of them it is the first sermon they ever heard. Churches could be a lot bigger if there weren’t any sermons. He opened up his mouth and gave this discourse, the John six discourse. It has some strange stuff in it. “Truly I say to you, unless you eat my flesh and you drink my blood you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.” That is kind of creepy. You have got to think that there were people in the crowd thinking, “Oh, man. This is kind of tough to listen to.” “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not inherit the kingdom.” They began to dissipate. People began to leave. This is how to shrink a church. That often happens when people preach. People were offended and they just started leaving.
Pretty soon they have all left. They just wanted a miracle maker. They just wanted food. They just wanted the physical stuff; they didn’t want the spiritual stuff. They didn’t want to dig deep and try to understand. All that is left is the twelve. Jesus looks at the twelve and says, “Are you going to leave me too?” Peter says, “Where else can we go?” Not exactly a high endorsement. Then Peter says, “You have the words of life.”
Today you can pick up commentaries on John six. What did Jesus mean, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven”? What does that mean? There are three views, you find out, in the scholarly community. One is that he simply meant that I am food for your soul. I am the bread of life. I am water for life. I am manna from heaven. I alone can feed and sustain your soul. Certainly, that is part of the message. We go into the inner city in all of these ministries, and we know that he is the bread of life, we know he is the water of life, we know that he is the only source of provision for the soul. So we go with his word. His word is life.
The second interpretation of this sermon is that he is saying, “You have got to worship me.” To understand this interpretation of the sermon you have to understand the culture and the time. It was a Hellenized world; even the region of Galilee was part of the Hellenized world. You can travel through Galilee and through the region of the Decapolis and you can see cities that are Roman and Greek and you can see temples everywhere. This is true in the Holy Land, and it is true throughout the geographical land space of the ancient Roman Empire. Temples were everywhere, and in every temple people worshiped. What did people do when they worshiped? They ate the flesh and drank the blood of the god they worshiped. That is what they did. Are you aware of that? How did they do that? They brought a sacrifice. They offered the animal on the altar. One-third of the animal was burned. One-third of the animal was given to the temple priests for livelihood. Then one-third was taken by the worshipers and eaten. They believed that by eating that third that had been dedicated to the god they were taking the god within themselves, taking the god’s flesh, taking the god’s blood. It was their worship.
There are many scholars that think this is where Jesus is going because it was a Hellenized world and he is basically saying, “You can’t just eat the food that I am giving you, you have got to worship me.” Maybe he was saying that. However, I would submit to you that I doubt that Galilean Judaism was so Hellenized that that crowd would have instantly thought of those temple worships. We do believe in worshiping Jesus, and when we go into the inner city, we do worship him. We do invite all to worship him. We invite young men, young women, moms, and dads; we invite folks to worship Christ and to be truly indwelt by Christ.
There is a third interpretation, which I believe is the most likely. Indeed, most scholars think it is most likely that Jesus is preaching prophetically. Figuratively, spiritually, and prophetically he is speaking. He is looking into the future, into the cross. He knows and he foreknows that he will die. He knows and he foreknows that he will offer his body for the sin of the world, that his body will be broken and his blood will be shed. He looks into the future and he sees it already. He knows he is going to the cross for the sin of the world. He also knows he will institute forever the Holy Sacrament of Communion. He will ask his people forever to remember the cross through the bread and the cup, through his body broken and his blood shed. He is basically saying to them, prophetically, “Unless you receive me, unless you put the cross at the center of your life, unless you put me at the center of your life, unless you receive me as your savior from sin and accept my atonement on the cross, and unless you commit yourself to my body and partake of the sacrament of communion and remember my body broken and my blood shed forever, unless you do these things, you are not a part of the kingdom of heaven.”
It’s an amazing prophetic message. Understand that as you go into the inner city, we say this too: we hold hands with five inner-city churches. They are our partners in ministry. There is the Agape Christian Church with Bob Woolfolk. What a friend Bob is to us. What a great pastor. There is the Anchor of Hope with Ken Roberts. Many of us have known Ken for years and years. What a gentle soul. What a loving shepherd. What a wonderful ministry at the Anchor of Hope. As we go into the inner city, each of these churches are partners with us. We have His Love Fellowship where the pastor is Phil Abeyta, and many of you know and love Phil. What a great ministry he has. There is New Life in Christ with Jack LaPietra. Jack is one of my best friends and he is the pastor of New Life in Christ Church. What a wonderful church.
There is Scum of the Earth. I know that is a strange title for a church, but we partner with them. How many of you have heard of Scum of the Earth Church? See, a lot of you have. They are our partners in the inner city. We hold hands with them. Mike Sares is the pastor of Scum of the Earth. What a great guy. What a gifted guy. He has written a book called Pure Scum. It is a great book. Truly, at his church, people have become pure through the imputed righteousness of Jesus. These are wonderful ministry partners. They all worship Christ. They all view Christ as the Bread of Life. They all serve the sacrament of holy communion and focus on the cross and the atonement. We partner in the inner city with these ministries. We don’t just give handouts to people; we care about body and soul. We need you in all of these ministries.
We need volunteers in all of these different ministries. We have Whiz Kids and Save Our Youth mentoring and tutoring ministries in the inner city. Gene and I just had lunch on Monday with Jack LaPietra at New Life in Christ Church and Luis Villarreal, who is the head of Save Our Youth. I saw Don Reeverts out in the atrium this morning. He heads the Whiz Kids ministry, and through Whiz Kids and Save Our Youth we seek to mentor and come alongside those who are brokenhearted, those who are soul-sick and even those who are lost souls. And we come with the love of Jesus.
I have a couple of letters that Luis sent me from kids that could be potentially mentored by you. One of them is from this kid named Dreshawn. Dreshawn has written this. I will read it to you:
“My life started out normal. One event changed my life forever. As a little three-year-old, I witnessed my real father shoot my stepdad. I didn’t know he was my real father until eleven years later when he got out of jail. Up until I was five years old, I thought my brothers and me had the same dad. I found out about my real dad when I asked my mom why my brothers and me had different last names. I looked for answers from the time when I was five until when I was eleven. When I finally talked to my real dad after he was released from jail, my dad told me that he robbed and he assaulted people but my mom would not talk about this. I was feeling bad for years that my dad could not see me grow up. My dad told me that he was heartbroken when he heard that he would have to leave me for years and years. My mom never told me about my dad’s feelings for me. The thought that my dad could be gone so long without seeing me, without knowing anything about my whole life, this hurt me. If I never asked my mom why my brother and I had different last names, I wouldn’t know.
“These events have changed my life. I want to make something of myself. I want to go to college. I would like to study computer science or maybe car engineering. As a back-up plan, I could study to be a lawyer in case all else fails. I want to make my grandparents happy in heaven to see me make something of myself.”
He needs a mentor. He needs a tutor. That is why we have Whiz Kids and Save Our Youth. That is why we train you. That is why we prepare you. That is why we are all in it together. We need hundreds of you. It is an amazing opportunity and an amazing privilege. It is the call of Christ. We have the Ministry Fair out in the atrium today and you can see all of the ministries there. Just go in there. They are serving tacos; you will at least like that. There are so many ministries there. Maybe one or two of them will touch your heart and you will be able to carve out a little time to serve Jesus in this way. This is huge. It is body and soul. It is your move. It is the poor. It is your move. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.