The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
00:00 The world is in complete chaos. The world is a rubble with no medication.
00:09 The rich live in this space station called Elissium where it is paradise.
00:16 In one of the most uh touching scenes in the movie, uh people from Earth take a
00:22 spaceship and basically gate crash Elissium. And this mother who has a
00:27 child who is terminally ill rushes to this very expensive looking bungalow
00:35 because inside all these bungalow they have this device that can heal people and she rushes there puts the kid in
00:40 there to hopefully can heal the kid. Now as in a lot of movies uh it is
00:48 always art imitating life. This is Elissium.
00:54 This is a housing scheme very near here. I built two bungalows here. So I know.
00:60 So if you're staying there, don't worry. So Elysium is the ultimate gated
01:05 community. Notice the similarity. That's not even a photo from overseas. That's from that's
01:11 from somewhere in Shalam. This is Aleppo after it has changed
01:17 hands multiple times and finally back to government hands. Not much different,
01:22 isn't it? And of course you have this this is science fiction.
01:29 This is fact. You don't need to gate crash elysium. You just need to gate crash Europe in a
01:36 boat and go across dry land with your kid.
01:43 You know we we rarely had a chance to talk about this and we we we are continuing on a series about money. Let
01:51 me just give you a little bit of statistics. They they say absolute poverty is down
01:58 to less than 10%. I did a lot of reading for this. Absolute poverty is taken at
02:03 US 190 per day. 1.1 billion people according to UNICEF
02:11 and World Bank live on US $1.90.
02:17 You take that 190, you shift it up 10 cents,
02:22 it's two billion people. And if you move it up a bit more, you
02:30 find actually we are going back to 18th century poverty. And one statistics says
02:36 it take us 100 years to get back to that. Did you know according to UNICEF
02:43 50% of the world's children 50%
02:49 live in poverty let me give you another extreme example
02:55 you take the whole wealth of the world according to Oxfam
03:01 you know how many people have the equivalent of the wealth of the world 85 people
03:08 85 Five people of the world's richest hold the combined income of the rest of
03:15 the world. Take something nearer. If you read Friday's son,
03:22 the four richest people in Indonesia, and all four made their money from
03:28 tobacco, hold the same income as 100 million
03:36 of Indonesia's poorest. In today's text, we read, "Woe to you
03:44 who are rich and blessings to the poor."
03:50 It is a very difficult thanks and something that I really struggled with.
03:56 Why? Because if you take a take a sweep among us here
04:02 with the exception of a very small percentage and you take 190 US as your baseline all
04:09 of you here are millionaires you know you all of you here are very very rich
04:15 so we really want to look at this topic it's a very big topic people write treaties I I started reading this weeks
04:22 ago it's so difficult but we we rarely had a chance to look at is and today I
04:27 want to talk about how losing your wealth can glorify God. This is you know
04:34 series of money and I really hope that you know that we we we able to take this in. Now I want to give you a bit of
04:40 background on the uh the gospel of Luke. And Luke was Luke wrote two books. Some
04:46 people think he's a doctor. We're not sure. And he wrote it to Frank called Theophilus. He wrote Luke which is one
04:52 of the most worthy gospels. There a lot of words in it. And he wrote the book of Acts. Now I just give you some verses
04:59 here and I I'm not going to go through there. But what is a common theme throughout
05:04 all of this is money. Luke has a lot to say about money.
05:11 He doesn't care about whether you're rich or you're poor, you're middle class. Luke is very concerned on what
05:18 you do with your money. In fact, I did a Google search on poverty and riches and
05:24 what wow you will be surprised the amount of verses the Bible has to say
05:29 about this. So for a lot of us middle class stroke upper middle class what you
05:36 do with your money is of paramount importance. It reflects your
05:41 Christianity. It reflects if me and you are disciples of Jesus Christ. And what
05:48 we do today is that we look at this chapter but we're going to navigate some other chapters because a lot of words
05:53 are tied together. So I want to give you three points. money and the cost of
05:59 disciplehip, money and knowing the poor and the most hardest. Money and loving your enemies.
06:08 Now, uh, Sister Moren just read and we had one of the most very fascinating uh,
06:14 tables comparisons in in the Bible and we're going to concentrate on this. He
06:19 gives two groups. He attaches blessings to one. He puts a war. The Greek word
06:26 actually is pity on the other. And you look at that like hello. Who wants to be
06:32 poor? Who wants to be hungry? Who wants to grieve? Who wants to be hated, insulted, excluded? That's a blessing.
06:39 That's not a blessing, man. You see all these cars with stickers out there. I am blessed. Do you think they mean this?
06:46 What is the favorite verse among a lot of Christians? I know your plans to prosper me. Jeremiah,
06:53 enlarge my my property. The prayer of Jabz and huh poverty hello I mean doesn't
07:02 make sense. So let's let's look at something again. I'll give you another verse which is found in Luke 16 and
07:09 again is about the parable of the the shrood manager and again it's about money and the context is the Pharisees
07:17 love money and they sneered at Jesus that the storyteller they love money and they say this fellow talking nonsense
07:24 and Jesus says what is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight
07:34 now we all want money. Who doesn't want money? We all want to be healthy. And I
07:39 I I understand especially you're struggling with illness. Who wants to grief? Who wants to be insulted? None of
07:46 us want it. You you do that. Then then there's some you have pride. They call this the gospel of of of poverty.
07:52 Francis of CC. There was a old Franciscan order that did it. That's not what the Bible is saying. None of us
07:58 want it. But the fact is when you chase the same thing the world chases that means you
08:04 see you're no different from the world. So the first thing God tells us is that
08:09 there are two kingdoms. You know there's a kingdom of this world and there's a
08:14 kingdom of God. And that's why we look at the comparison. The first thing he
08:19 says very similar to the sermon on the kingdom means you take on the qualities
08:25 of the king. It's as simple as that. If you are CEO of the company, the way you are will rub
08:33 off on your company. If you're very organized, your company very organized. You're very lateral, very very very
08:40 don't know like that, like that. The company also be like that. So the values of the king goes into the kingdom and
08:47 these are the values of the king being imparted. And basically what uh Jesus is
08:53 saying when he looks at this huge crowd they come and they want to see we want to be healed. We come here the Messiah.
09:00 And he's saying blessings in the kingdom of God are in total contrast to the
09:06 blessings in the kingdom of man. This is very important. Again remember he's not asking you to be
09:13 poor. He's not asking you to be sick. Not asking you to go hungry. What does he mean? Uh, I got this off the the web.
09:23 You can read it for yourself. Uh, rich person bragging about his holiday in
09:30 Maldives. I mean, we've seen this before, right? I
09:35 mean, those of you in social media groups, I mean, all of us have rich friends. I have a particularly rich
09:40 friend who made a lot of money. He will post about his Tom Ford clothes. anyone
09:46 would buy a new car, he'll post and said, you know, what color should I buy? And he'll post pictures of his
09:51 gastronomical, I don't know, this kind of food. He'll show us the 12 list of all the restaurants he's been to, how he spent
09:58 $1,000 for wine tasting. He will gradually graduate
10:04 uh to the women he slept with. And although he's married,
10:09 he tell you how to sleep with a woman. Uh, you first must take her to a five-star Michelin Michelin I what they
10:17 call it. I'm not very well not very defi so I don't know this things. Fivestar
10:22 Michelin restaurant then uh you must do wine tasting then uh get a personal
10:29 villa in Bali and then the rest is unprintable.
10:34 What is it telling you? He's telling you money buys you a lot of things. And Jesus is saying if you are like that
10:41 you're the most pied person on earth. You're the most tragic person on earth.
10:47 Why? You see there is this teaching going around uh
10:52 called prosperity. And I I don't want to take I made a vow this year not to run other pastors down. I made a vow so I'm
10:59 not going to name names. But some people tell you you are destined to reign. No
11:04 names. that you're destined, you're called to enjoy wealth. I read that book and I
11:11 read his followup very carefully because I didn't want to be accused of of of saying wrong things. And the argument is
11:18 you're called to enjoy wealth. You're called to enjoy health. The argument is this. God is a good God. What kind of
11:27 God wishes the his children to be sick and to be poor? Is a very compelling
11:34 argument. And you sit down with some of them, they will they be very convicted. I had an argument with long talk your
11:40 pastor of this some time ago. He say you as a father you don't want your children to be poor. You don't want your children
11:46 to be sick. So is God. I agree. But remember we live in a fallen world. You
11:53 see what I want to suggest to you. The opposite of prosperity is not poverty.
11:59 This is the classic argument they all use. Always remember this. The opposite
12:06 of prosperity is not poverty. The opposite of prosperity is idolatry.
12:17 Because the moment this becomes your god,
12:23 when this happens to you, you will crumble.
12:30 Just look at photos of Aleppo before the war. Just look at your middle class life
12:37 before suddenly you discovered you had cancer. Just look at your boringly predictable
12:45 life before a lawsuit came to you. Just look at your
12:51 very normal every Sunday come to church life before
12:56 your wife fought for divorce. You see where we go with this? And any person who can take any of this
13:05 and come out stronger is blessed.
13:11 And anyone who can take all of this and remain through the storm
13:19 is the most blessed person on the face of this earth.
13:26 Because no matter what you say, the prosperity gospel is highly logical because you're not going to stop if a
13:31 tsunami hits the country. You think what if a tsunami comes going? I know that's a Christian and not going to hit him.
13:37 You think cancer comes going to statistics don't even show that
13:42 it's a false gospel. You live in a broken world
13:48 and you are blessed when your faith is so strong you can take yourself through
13:55 this. And how can we take ourselves through this? Well, we sang a great song just now.
14:05 Inda cowangis
14:12 I want to take my headphone because I I I Googled it just now again. Sorry
14:18 because it's such great lyrics that you know. Let me read it to you again.
14:42 And the song is correct because when you're so in love with God, when you
14:48 found a treasure which is so valuable,
14:53 when bad things happen, you are blessed because you can go through it. You see,
15:00 following Jesus isn't cheap. And today,
15:05 middle class Christianity has to see other Christians who are so poor
15:12 and yet so joyful, who don't have the privilege of going to Globe Cafe and eat and then complain $2.
15:23 Not saying anything, but you all argue about very hot. Why no air con?
15:30 Why they sell tickets? So expensive one and they sit on benches with no nice
15:39 hall and no nice music and they are joyful.
15:47 Why? Let's up the stakes. There are others
15:53 and there are there are right now in this time we we need to appreciate this in countries where or in families where
16:00 to be a Christian will cost you. In the same way, if you're a Jew at that
16:07 time and you became a Christian, they'll kick you out of the synagogue. And there
16:13 are people in our midst who if you become a Christian, the family will disown you and they will say, "I have
16:20 found a treasure so much higher." And that's why we understand later on when Jesus said
16:27 therefore you know with your father and mother you you will find a treasure so big
16:33 that some it will cost you and if you cannot experience this or
16:41 cannot internalize this then our question is are we following
16:49 Jesus or are we really following
16:54 Whatever God in our mind is, we we could think is Jesus because we hope he keeps
17:00 us in our middle class, predictable, uneventful life. It's a very important
17:07 point as you look at the state of the world. He says on later on in Luke 14, "And
17:15 anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." I want
17:23 to give a example which I struggle with. I'm an architect.
17:29 The construction world let me tell you you all know swims in corruption. It is
17:36 the air we breathe. Few months ago Christian project manager
17:42 someone called me. Hey Arnold must be very careful what I say. This
17:47 authority wants 300,000 to cin the thing. Is it a fair while?
17:53 There's even a fair while for corruption and I have to go call up my contractor.
17:59 Wait,
18:06 you don't understand. Don't know. Not important. The tone you get it
18:13 boss. You ask him 200 can or not. Okay. Okay. 250.
18:19 250 law dinner we can do magic for you
18:24 bully magic bully and big envelope after
18:29 mana make all this meaningless small talk thank you brother
18:37 I I want to say something I speak in a few churches and I I this is something because I can say my hands are clean I'm
18:44 my whole life I never given a s never taken but I'm I covertly part of a
18:49 system that does that. And I want to say something especially if you are a industry captain. I say this a brother
18:56 not as a speaker. After people say speaker try to tell you off. You know one day I spoke in another church and
19:02 this very famous developer came up to me who the dto. He asked me about his struggles. My first impression here I
19:09 better go get some work better. I said no prayed as a brother.
19:17 Then I realized one thing he was of all my years I never had any industry
19:22 captain come up to me to pray over this matter
19:27 why you don't need to pray for me you can pray with pastor Bobi or pastor Rama
19:33 but a lot of industry captains don't think you need to pray you know what they say they say that's the way it is
19:41 well let me tell you when is that's the way it is that's why 1% of the rich make 99% poor because
19:49 corruption goes all the way down. The biggest thing that affects the poor is corruption.
19:55 So every time you let a land dealer go through because you have to c him somebody
20:01 or because your factory needed a permit and you got to to ma and do something or
20:06 you let someone do magic for you so that your GST is less you are making the 99% poorer
20:16 and when we all get up there we will be accountable for this and
20:22 God's God's God's conviction to ask is how much are you and I prepared to be
20:29 poorer from a small little thing when they catch you on the highway for speeding
20:35 and they want you to settle for $50. You see anybody to clearing your factory
20:41 permit and they want 50,000 to doing something else that save you
20:46 half a million to complaining about three billion that goes missing. What's
20:52 the difference? So it starts with us and it's a very difficult call and the way to be able to
21:00 get through this is to remember again the song we just sang.
21:28 You do it. You know, and and and God will honor you. He will honor you because that's what it
21:35 says. Blessed is that day and leap for joy
21:41 because great is your reward in heaven for that is how the fathers treated the
21:48 prophets. Of course, some people then say, "Hey, I don't do all of that. I'm not in that line. I Bible never say cannot be rich m
21:56 so I can be godly and rich." And in fact, here's argument number two. If you have no money, you cannot help the poor.
22:03 But I want to go on two verses. Number one is found in what U brother Michael
22:08 brought us last week. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And notice the order is important.
22:15 It doesn't say where your heart is, there your treasure is. There your treasure is your heart is also meaning
22:22 your treasure reveals your heart. And later on he says how hard it is for the
22:28 rich to enter the kingdom of God. Now why does he say that? Because it's it's as simple as this. And it's indictment
22:35 also on me. If you're too used to a nice, comfortable, predictable Christian
22:41 life, every Sunday come listen a little bit, give a bit of money, you're free, go help out a little bit. And the next
22:47 20 years, you chart your Christian life as that way.
22:53 That is your security. That is your idol. Because you are no longer
22:58 dependent on God. You say it with your words. But you're dependent on your upper
23:06 middle class life. You see the story is really reinforced
23:11 in the parable of the rich man. And and and Masimo is going to take us through this. But look at the words he says
23:18 here. He says, "Son," and this is when the rich man goes to hell in this
23:23 parable. "Remember in your lifetime you receive your good things while Lazarus received bad things. And now he's
23:30 comforted here and you in agony." Notice it's the same here. Verse 26 says, "Woe
23:35 to you wellfed now you will go hungry and earlier on blessed are you hunger
23:41 now you'll be satisfied." Luke is almost paraphrasing this blessings of war into
23:47 the parable. It's almost word for word and more interestingly you notice the
23:52 poor person who everybody doesn't care here again is that reverse order is
23:58 named as Lazarus. The rich man could be any rich guy.
24:04 It's the first time in a parable a name is picked up. You don't even get it in the prodigal son. And when God finally
24:11 names a person in a parable, surprise surprise, is a beggar.
24:18 Doesn't it shows you the values of the king in the kingdom of God?
24:24 For God seeks out the poorest of the poor and God knows them by name. What is the
24:33 ultimate sin of the rich man? And you read the the the text with him and
24:39 Abraham. Abraham basically tells you look you had the prophets even you send angels to your people to to your brother
24:47 sister not going to listen. You see the rich man's main problem besides his lack
24:52 of compassion for the poor is he had become his own god.
24:58 How did he become his own god? Because he was rich. That's it. And Craig Bloomber puts it
25:04 this way. No ungodly poor people are ever exalted as models for emulation.
25:11 No godly rich people who are generous and compassionate in the use of the wealth are ever condemned. So we stop
25:17 there. God is not asking you all you to give away your money and become poor. So you should be very happy for that. But
25:23 here's why he's saying you know the rich are not necessary wicked and this is very important but frequent surplus
25:31 goods have led people to imagine that their material resources can secure
25:38 their futures. So they ignore God from whom alone comes any true security. So
25:44 this morning for all us upper income people, it goes beyond the fact that you are
25:51 generous and church people are generally very generous. They very quick to write a check.
25:56 I want to go into that in a while. But here's something we all should take home.
26:02 And I want to suggest you and I go back and pray about it this week. It a simple question. Is your security in God alone
26:14 or is it in your upper middle class life because that is the most subtle idol of
26:19 all. Take that to think about today bit depressing sorry some days you
26:27 have to do that and there will be some good news at the end. So hang on now we go into more depressing first before we
26:34 get happy. Next point, money and knowing the poor. This is a great table. It is
26:40 the is is KL Marx Ba versus the politariat table. It is it is every
26:47 social economic great divide. Why? Because the way the text says they they
26:53 are not only vertically separated, they're horizontally linked. I put in normal English so you understand. You're
26:58 either financially disadvantaged or finally empowered. You're deprived of basic needs. You're hungry or you have
27:05 abundant choices. Your life of discontentment or you're self-actualized. Notice all rich people
27:12 after all do charity. They all do charity because they want to be significant and be purpose. Poor people
27:18 don't care. They just want to feed their stomachs. And then you are socially excluded on the other table. You become
27:24 a dto or tans or whatever it is. Now why why does Jesus do this? Because he's not
27:32 giving you eight different groups of people. He's only giving two, you know.
27:37 Meaning if you're rich, you have what we call capital. You have seed capital that can take that
27:45 wealth and grow you to become a person which is respected. You can crowdfund.
27:51 You can angel fund. You can network. You can send your schools, your kids to the
27:57 best schools, to IGSCE, to IB. You can eat organic food.
28:04 The poor eat whatever's on the table. They cannot afford to eat your walnut, which is good for your brains or wolf
28:12 berry, lowfat milk.
28:18 They don't have the technology to assess to see what is the best education
28:23 systems. They don't have any of that. The poor don't sit down and say I need to be
28:29 significant. I have so much money now. I'm going to build a foundation yayasan analy
28:36 so that when I die they remember me. The poor don't think about that. you need to
28:42 really take this back because he's putting it and he's saying when you're rich that capital brings a lot of things
28:50 and when you're poor he starts off from physical poverty
28:56 to a emotional state which is about grieving to a social condition. You
29:01 notice how it goes is from poor hungry grieving and then insulted. So you start
29:09 off from a physical condition that leads you to a soldier condition. This is very
29:14 very profound and for Jesus to say this thousands years ago is something every
29:20 poverty social model picks up. They call this a very simple is a technical term
29:26 poverty is multi-edimensional and I want to take 10 minutes for us to
29:32 understand this because we rarely have a chance to speak about this in upper middle incl
29:39 first we look at the rich even spiggle is 24 years old he owns
29:46 spark you know what his net worth is US 4.4 4 billion.
29:53 David Cop sold Tumblr to Yahoo. Bad mistake for US 1.1 billion and they are
30:01 26. You see, we have to be very aware of this. You are unprecedented times. Never
30:07 in history have 20 year olds made billions of dollars because of technology advancement,
30:15 social media, globalization, and tax reforms. The rich
30:20 get really rich while the poor get very poor. I went through this before. Now,
30:26 what are we saying? I'm giving you a few verses to look at. Again, you don't have to memorize this. I've highlighted it.
30:34 What what is the Bible telling us? And what is this text telling us when it moves from poverty to social exclusion?
30:42 It means it's not just money, you know. It means the poor are denied many things
30:48 to get them out of poverty. They are trapped in it. The system works against
30:55 them. If you're rich, you can manipulate the bank, manipulate the tax, manipulate
31:01 many things and explode your wealth. You're poor.
31:07 The police don't even give you a t. I didn't say any. Better stop there. Let
31:14 me give you an example. When we look at this, there was a book written by Gary Hogan and and I want to
31:20 thank uh brother Vincent Lo. He he gave me this link. He's a Christian and this book was so powerful. Uh Pastor Timothy
31:27 Keller wrote a forward to it. He runs a an NGO called International Justice
31:34 Mission. He called what happens to the poor the locust effect. Meaning when the locust swam they swam you and they
31:41 overwhelm you. meaning there is root causes for poverty. His hypothesis is
31:47 violence. But here's another word is what the Bible just called just now. It means injustice.
31:54 So here to all us upper middle class Christian is beyond writing a check is
31:59 about injustice. I want us to feel this because we rarely like to detach ourselves from this. Now why do we need
32:05 to talk about this? Because we are all in elysium. We are all hovering up there and we don't care. Let me use a strong
32:12 word. We don't give a damn what happens down there. So we have to calm down to earth a bit.
32:17 Now he gave one simple example. He talked about America of all places. It's
32:22 really frightening. You can go and watch this TED talk. I I heard this and he recorded the conversation. There was
32:28 this woman who called this uh county in America, you know, and she was from a very poor part of the the the state of
32:35 Oregon where there was no police protection. She called because this man
32:40 was trying to get into the house, was banging on the door. So she called 911. She says, "He's trying to come in.
32:48 Can you save me?" You know what the police told her? "We have police cuts.
32:54 Cannot send anybody over." And you could hear the conversation. It's frightening. She's almost begging, "What do you want
33:01 me to do?" And you know what the police operator tells him? says, "If he assaults you, can you ask him to go
33:06 away?" I actually heard it. It was one of the most frightening conversations I heard
33:12 because she didn't know what to say. And true enough, he enters, rapes her,
33:18 hits her, and chokes her. Why? Because
33:24 she was poor. because she couldn't live in a gated
33:31 community. This is something we don't feel. And and and how Gary Hower talks about poverty
33:39 leads to eviction, it leads to slavery, it leads to
33:44 exploitation, it leads to desperation. And this morning we asked ourel upper
33:52 middleclass Christians living in Elyssium what is our response?
33:58 And I I found this in Jonathan Edwards and he was fantastic you know written
34:04 centuries ago and and Jonathan Edwards says this look
34:09 every human being has a moral conscience. You don't need to be Christian and our moral conscience whether you're
34:16 Christian or not when we see a poor person we will give money because we feel sorry
34:22 but he says for a Christian right you go beyond a moral conscience and there are very noble non-Christians out there who
34:30 do work to rescue women from slave from sex trades who help drug addicts a lot
34:36 of my Buddhist friends are very kind people put Christians to shame shame.
34:42 But what Jonathan Edwards is that says that you go beyond moral conscience and he's called this the gospel rule.
34:51 He said this that if really God is
34:57 and that he is your everything and you are so in love with God. Not only it
35:03 helps you go through difficult times, it will shape you to be so compassionate to
35:10 what we just described. You're not just going to say, "I'm going to sit there and write a check."
35:18 He's saying the gospel evidence of your life is how you're compassionate to the
35:24 poor. And that's why Luke says so much about helping the poor and the Bible says so much about it. And if we don't
35:31 really respond to this, you cannot say the gospel is centered to your life. That's just intellectual theology. Now
35:39 he gives three areas which I found very profound. And he said the cornerstone to
35:46 helping the poor is knowing the poor from a position of grace. I found that
35:54 very profound. So it's grace in helping the poor financially, grace helping the
35:59 poor personally and grace helping the poor emotionally. Let me just break down a little bit.
36:06 Social media now people like to talk about everything. Open the door for someone also must go and brag now. And
36:13 this again is what Luke picks up. He says if you lend to those who you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?
36:20 Even sinners lend to sinners expecting repayment in pool. In those days they had patronage. That means you scratch my
36:26 back, I scratch your back. Now what the Bible is saying is this. No
36:32 matter how kind you are to the poor, there is a measure of self-interest
36:39 is very unconscious. It's either because you were so corrupt in your life, you felt so bad about it,
36:46 you thought you better give more charity. Correct or not? Or it makes you feel better about yourself. See, I did
36:52 so much charity. That's why people do charity, like to have big photos. They like to they like to, you know, we like
36:59 to tell everybody about it. I mean, look, I'm guilty of it. I I I been to prison twice, not as not because I was
37:06 sentenced there, but I've been to prison twice to share the prisoners. And there was a time in my life I like to tell
37:12 everybody I'm a prison volunteer. My name is registered Sunai Bulo. Hello. Going twice to prison doesn't make me a
37:19 prison volunteer. But I like everyone to say, "Wow, you've been to prison. Wow, you're so nice. You know, you're so
37:25 noble. You know, you see, you see, we have that inherent need to brag about
37:31 it." So the first thing that grace tells us is that God is unmmerited favor. I
37:39 didn't deserve it. So when I give, there is no credit to me. I should give. I
37:46 give willingly because God gave. And because God gave with grace, I give
37:55 and I don't need my left hand to know what my right hand is saying as brother Sat is saying. That's one. Number two,
38:02 and he picks this up in Luke 14. Notice again, same words at Luke 6. You notice
38:08 is about cannot repay. But this time he repackages it in a parable. And he says
38:15 when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
38:21 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you'll be repaid at
38:26 the resurrection of the righteous. Let's take this verse literally.
38:35 Raise up your hand. When was the last time the lame, the crippled, and the
38:42 blind came to your house for dinner?
38:48 I didn't I cannot raise my hand. You You see where we're going with this?
38:53 You You see it's not so easy, isn't it? Because we are in Elyssium.
38:59 I want to tell you one story and this one I struggled with and and I have evidence on this.
39:05 Sometime last year, a young girl came up to me asking for prayer here in this church, right at that spot.
39:12 She came from a home, a shelter home, and she brought a boyfriend with with
39:17 her, much older guy. I still remembered it. I sat here. One sister here knows
39:23 it. My wife knows this. And she told me her father had been abusing her. So, I don't know what to say. So, grab this
39:30 sister. Come sit down with me. So she tells me how she was brought up in a shelter very poor and when she was old
39:36 enough the shelter sent her back to her home and her father repeatedly abused her. So she ran away from the home and
39:41 then the boyfriend stepped in and the boyfriend told me how the boyfriend is protecting her and the boyfriend is doing this and we all pray took down the
39:48 numbers as I drove out and my wife would attest
39:54 to this and I think the Chinese congregation will attest to this. You know in front there three or four they look like pine trees.
40:02 I saw him hitting her. He kicked her like this. Then he hit her
40:09 on her head. First time I seen a man hit a woman of all things in FBC church grounds. Then
40:16 he pushed her into the car. So my wife being my wife very well is
40:22 tell him off. He must have wives around. So I stopped the car and I told him off. I asked him, "What are you doing?" He
40:27 couldn't see me in the car. He yelled at me and he threatened me. He gone in the car. He walked off.
40:34 That incident left a real impact on me. And uh her name has been on my fridge.
40:44 And every week I pray. You see what God is saying is this. You know,
40:52 you and I don't understand that kind of life.
40:60 You get it? We all got problems. Cancer, lawsuit,
41:07 but you and I don't understand what's it like to be in a living hell.
41:18 And Jonathan Edwards says, "Giving money is not enough. You need to know people
41:24 personally and they will cost you as much as it
41:31 costs Christ. So here's a challenge to all of us and I tried this few years
41:37 ago. I challenge all of us to find one person whom you think you can care for
41:44 and he should be from a marginally disadvantaged group. And I challenge you
41:51 to care for that person for one year. Always remember this, love is a
41:58 commandment. And it's why the last one comes up to really do that. Jonathan Edwards says
42:05 you need to know the poor emotionally and he used a Galatians 6 text about
42:11 carrying another brother's burdens. He says when our neighbor is on difficulty he is afflicted and we ought to have
42:18 such a spirit of love to him to be afflicted with him in affliction you need to feel it
42:24 and the Latin word compassion compassion comes from Latin word compassio
42:31 do you know the meaning of compassio it means to suffer with
42:38 because if you don't feel it you cannot help a We are like elysium where we throw down
42:45 some goods to the poor. But I challenge you to do that because that is what the
42:51 gospel tells us to do. Here's a simple example. In uh 10 years ago, a lot of
42:59 Dalits became Muslim and Christians and Christianity today had a big article
43:04 about how the Dalits who were facing uh discrimination for Hindus became Christians.
43:11 Five years later, BBC carried an article, Dali Christians renounced Christianity and became Hindus. Why?
43:17 Because when the Dalits were buried, they are not even allowed to in the same graveyard that other Christians.
43:25 You can tell where the Dalits are. The where the grass literally doesn't grow green. That's where they bury them.
43:31 So charity at a distance is is just your moral conscience. Charity with the
43:36 gospel is relational. is relational to people whom the world
43:43 rejects but God knows by name and God says Lazarus
43:49 that is our call let me end with this I know this morning is a bit heavy and I want to give some joy at the end but
43:56 let's go through this and let me give you the beginning of it you see this is the sermon on the plane and what's quite
44:01 interesting at the end of the sermon of the plane when all these people come he says power was coming from him and
44:07 healing them all wow healing really everybody comes and he talks about the
44:12 poor. Hello. What's that got to do with power? But that's precisely it. Remember
44:19 in the kingdom of God, everything is reversed. You know, you see to God, power is not just demonstrated in
44:26 healing and miraculous demonstrations of the supernatural.
44:32 the most incredible sense of power. What he's trying to tell us in the text is
44:39 extraordinary love. Love for God that's so deep that when
44:46 poverty hits you, hunger hits you, insults hit you, you go through
44:53 extraordinary love that's so deep that when you see the marginalized,
44:59 you go and help and know them. And now he raises it to the hardest bar of all
45:06 extraordinary love. So deep. You love your enemies.
45:12 But this is the hardest. Very hard to do. But let us just try to go through this a bit.
45:18 You see you can all talk about enemies. Let's talk about someone who really understood it. And Gracia Vanham was
45:26 from New T Mission for one year. She was helped by the Abu Sai. One year
45:32 along the way, I saw the documentary how they tortured the psychologically the husband put them into poverty. You know
45:40 they love to do this. These are people who epimonize epitomize your enemy to
45:46 the max and he said two things which are very profound. I thought this was the first thing people in today's world will
45:54 not pay attention to Christians because we can explain our theology in crystal
46:00 clear terms and in today's message they will not esteem us because we give to
46:06 charity or maintain a positive outlook life and tell everyone we are victorious. What will impress them is
46:13 genuine love in our hearts. So here's the base and there is no greater love
46:19 than to love your enemies because that shows the sincerity of it. Now here's
46:25 the other thing which ties with Luke 6 because she understood what it was to be
46:30 poor to be hungry to be grieving and to be insulted for
46:36 one year and after that the husband dies. And she says this we learned that the fruit of the spirit could not be
46:42 drumed out by ourselves. We couldn't force joyfulness or loving action or a
46:48 peaceful mind. The Holy Spirit had to grow these things within us.
46:55 So let me end with this short thing. I think there are some of you here who have got a lot of hurt with some people.
47:01 They may not be your enemies, but they're not somebody you will go and give a hug and kiss to. And a lot of
47:07 times when you have problems with people, a lot of it got to do with money. And we had a wonderful story I think
47:14 from brother Mikuel who told us about his grace towards his brother. There
47:19 could be some of you here who are quite estranged from your relatives because of money
47:25 or from a business partner because of this. I understand this because I'm involved
47:31 in some of this. And when this happens your hate is so deep you cannot see it and it's time to sue. And Hebrews says
47:38 this you suffered along with those in prison. That's again about what Jonathan Edward says afflicting and joyfully
47:46 accepted the confiscation of property and here is cow young inda because you
47:51 knew that you yourself had a better and lasting possession
47:58 when when when you when you have somebody who hurt you what's the first thing that happens your very simple you
48:05 think of that person who hurt you the first thing is the feelings come up we we feel So, you know, we want to do
48:12 that. And so, what the Bible is telling us, he's trying to tell us extraordinary
48:18 love comes out when you can overcome that. I want to give you three simple ways of doing it. Again, taken from
48:24 Jonathan Edwards. Number one, pray.
48:30 Without prayer, you cannot do anything. You pray. Then number two,
48:37 you take time to understand them. You take time to understand your relative who robbed you of your property.
48:45 You take time to understand the other guy whom you're involved in a lawsuit with. You take time the guy who stabbed
48:52 you back in the office and you know who who who didn't let you advance your
48:57 career. Why? Because what the text is saying is this. He says, "Love your
49:02 enemies, do good to them, and lend to them." Why lend to them? Because the enemy is also a human being who needed
49:10 money. We see this because early on he says that you know give to them the tunn
49:16 also. You know if someone takes your cloak do not stop him from taking your tunn. He's trying to tell you that your
49:23 your enemy is also possibly a father or a mother. He also has children. He's
49:33 also a human being. He's a sinner like you. He has needs. And if you can go
49:40 past that, your love is so powerful. It is as the healing Jesus did on the
49:46 sermon of the plane. Now that's a hard call for all of us, isn't it? So I don't
49:52 want this morning to sermonize us. I want us to take this home if you have that problem and just pray and maybe let
49:60 us pray for you. And if you can take a small step to overcome this, wow, that's
50:06 extraordinary love. And lastly, he says at the end, have
50:12 some wisdom. Ask if giving your possession will make them see God's ordinary love because sometimes giving
50:20 it away just makes them exploit you. So God is not saying that you necessarily
50:25 give it to everybody. Sometimes you don't. I want to end by going back to this and
50:31 I want to give you a riddle. This is very simple so all of you will get it.
50:36 Who was rich but for our sake became poor?
50:42 Who had no place to rest his head? Foxes had holes, birds as nest, he had no
50:49 place to rest his head. Who was called the man of sorrows
50:55 and who humbled himself upon death on a cross? Simple riddle.
51:02 Who? Who? Let me let me take it a bit. Jesus was
51:10 born in a manger. When he was circumcised, he gave two doors. That's a circumcision for poor
51:16 people. He had no fixed assets, no shares in the bank, no property.
51:24 He didn't even have his own transport. When he entered Jerusalem, he had to borrow a donkey.
51:30 And when he died, he didn't even have his own tomb.
51:35 Some rich person had to bury him. That is the king of the kingdom
51:45 and his values should be our values and this morning in this heart message he
51:52 challenges us to that. Shall we pray?
51:58 Lord God, we there are days where some messages are
52:05 meant to be uplifting and powerful,
52:10 but there are days where you just hit us so hard
52:17 and we recognize that we are upper middle class. A lot of us are retired.
52:24 We don't know what it's like to live on US 190 a day. this morning. Lord, if we say the gospel
52:31 is centered to our lives, may it be so.
52:36 May we may we treasure it so much that we can go through poverty if you call us
52:43 for it. And may we treasure this so much that
52:52 that we give out that grace to the poor out there.
52:57 And for those of us who've been hurt, who are in lawsuits, who have been stabbed in the back,
53:04 teach us to look at those who hurt us and see them as people also.
53:11 And if they need need, let us show extraordinary love and give it for these
53:19 are the values of the king of the kingdom of God. And we say this
53:25 in Jesus name. Amen.
