United Church of God
Sermon Transcript — September 8, 2007
Good morning, everyone. It is good to be back. Last Sabbath we had a chance to spend the weekend in Akron, up for Lena Disman and Louis Van Ausdle's wedding. A lot of you know Lena from her three or four years here at ABC. It was a delight to see her get married, having known her for the last 15 years or so. It was also good to see some old friends in our old church area.
I want to introduce you today – in a few moments I'll ask for the lights to go down – I want to introduce you today to some new friends, to some of our brethren in a very poor and isolated part of the world, at least in the way that we would physically think of it. Last August when we were in South Africa for a ministerial conference I had a chance for the first time to meet Kimbani and Shirley Banda, and Gladstone and Alice Chonde, elders from Zambia and Malawi respectively. In the course of a number of long conversations they asked several times if I could ever come to visit the churches there. They said it had gone back to before the beginnings of United that they had a visitor from headquarters or the home office. A council member or two had come by at a Feast or two, but as far as having someone from the home office it goes back a decade and a half probably. And that the members felt somewhat isolated and lonely. So I promised at that time I would try to work on it and some months ago arranged to travel there this August.
In the course of being there we had a chance to go to several Sabbath services and Bible studies. We had a stopover in Johannesburg for one night and we had a Bible study there with 74 people. And in the course of the Bible studies and Sabbath I was able to meet 374 people in Zambia and 128 in Malawi. We traveled literally hundreds of miles in a little pickup truck, four of us, over roads good and bad, safe and dangerous, and it was quite interesting. Last year when I was speaking with Mr. Van Belkum in South Africa about this we were in South Africa but he said, if you can come and go to Zambia and Malawi, I will show you the real Africa. And the real Africa is a very interesting place.
If we can have the lights, I cannot show you the real Africa but I can show you some of our brethren who were there. This was really difficult to put together because out of hundreds of pictures I am trying to show some slides that lead into a sermon.
The first picture here is a picture of Shirley and Kambani Banda and their two sons. Kambani Banda is trained as a CPA. He went to school and worked in England some years back. Shirley speaks seven languages. Their daughter just completed her law degree at Cornell University in New York, a very well educated family. Kambani could be working elsewhere in Europe and be doing very well financially, but his heart is in serving the people of Zambia. And he does so by pastoring eight congregations in a nation the size of Texas. It is a huge area to serve people, and God has called some wonderful people scattered in many areas. His workload in the last year has doubled because of the great influx of members who have recently joined from our former association. He is very dedicated, he and his wife and their children, very highly respected I should say, as well.
This is a young people's choir that sang at the Bible study in Lusaka, some very wonderful young people. And what was noticeable everywhere you went people sang. And they sang beautifully. Multiple harmonies, complicated rhythms, syncopation. Just wonderful music. And I asked someone, how do you learn to sing? They said, oh, that is what we do at home. In the evenings we don't have television so we sit around as a family and we sing. And so from early on in childhood many of them grow up singing in their villages.
We had a meal afterward. These were some of the children. Mr. Van Belkum said this is a real feast for these families here. They were immensely enjoying their meal.
The next day Mr. Banda wanted to take us to visit some of the members in certain areas of Lusaka. He said, I want you to understand how some of our members live. The first home we went to this was the road that was going into their neighborhood. We took great care driving our car in as we went through ditches and ruts. You go through crowded streets. There are markets and throngs of people selling any and everything, many of them just striving to survive. We pulled up to the home of this lady, Rebecca Chipembele, and she was taking care of her granddaughter, Alice. She has been a widow for nine years. She has a little vegetable stand that you could see in the background where she sells a little food extra to make it, to get by in life. I took a picture of this. This is her livelihood. This is what she sells, some tomatoes, some dried fish, some eggs, some beans and peas, and from this makes a little bit of money. This is Rebecca and her granddaughter. We spent most of our time visiting about how she manages to get to church services. She has been to church for quite a number of years, a very small Spartan little home but a tremendous woman.
From there we went to visit another family, Lynos and Brenda Ngwenya, and their children, Nathan, Amos, and Leah, all of them with Biblical names. Their home consists of one room with a curtain separating the bedroom from the kitchen. He told us about how he goes to work by bicycle and how he transports his family to services by bicycle each week. You see sometimes four or five people on a bicycle going down the road, a woman with a baby strapped to her back, and one on her lap, sitting side straddle on the bike, and the husband peddling the bike, and another one sitting on the handlebars. They are making their way to church. A very fine family. You can tell by the smiles on their faces and their delight. It was an honor for us, we all thought, for us to be able to be in their homes and hear of their dedication to God's way, and how they are making it in life under very trying circumstances. You leave a home like this and you cannot help but think of dedication. Here is Mr. Ngwenya seeing us off and saying goodbye.
That night we went a two-hour drive from Lusaka to a town called Mumbwa. And then on the Sabbath we departed to visit churches in the Mumbwa provinces. They had combined services for the Kasumpa, Nalubanda, and Nalubanda North churches. But this was the road we traveled on. We had very little paved road. And then we drove for a long time. It took about two hours to go 40 miles. It was a very desolate area in many respects, in terms of the conditions upon which we were traveling. But again, you come into these villages and meet some very, very fine people. I took another picture of the road. That's another reason it is slow going. You see a rut that comes up to about your hubcaps, and you have to negotiate these the entire way through clouds of dust. I would mention on the way home that evening we noticed that in the two hour drive we passed two other vehicles coming our way. So there aren't many cars and we were in a very isolated area.
This was their old church building. Nothing left but ruins and a mud wall, but it had a thatched roof at one time. And this is their new church building that has been built. We have been in the process of building three new church halls for them. These would probably be counted as the nicest buildings anywhere in the regions in that area for members and nonmembers alike, just some very nice conditions for them to meet in. They were showing us around and they were very happy to have this building in order to meet. That is one of the congregations that was there.
We visited the village of a member, Jerrison Shacoonga, and his wife Nice and their seven children. And other members in the immediate area. They had just recently completed the cotton harvest. They had a good harvest of cotton and an excellent harvest of maize this year, two years in a row, and they are doing quite well in their agriculture programs.
I believe this lady is Jerrison's mother, if I am not mistaken. We visited her in a village and she was pounding with this mortar and pestle. She was pounding peanuts and maize in order to prepare for their evening meal.
Everywhere we went to church the members would line up and they gathered to meet us. They would be singing beautiful songs of welcome. This was a typical lineup of members as we arrived.
This is Morgan Kriedemann. He is the pastor in Johannesburg, South Africa, and he is also overseeing the work in Malawi. Mr. Van Belkum oversees in Zambia. He was in front of a member's home in which we went to have a little refreshment and to change clothes.
This was the choir at this congregation. Again, beautiful songs, lots of singing, and beautiful music that they made.
Afterward we had what we would call a potluck meal -- I don't think they call it that. But we gathered around and enjoyed a meal of lechwe, which is an African antelope, ground maize that is cooked, chicken, goat meat, vegetables. They were distributing the bowls for everyone. This is the table where they had the food set up. You might have seen a truck in the background. Later on that evening since it was combined services many members had ridden in this truck. Chairs were piled up in the back and I have no idea how many people were in that truck. They were just crammed in, children sitting on top of adults and children on children. They were being taken back to their villages. Delightful smiles, warm, vibrant, very loving people. And before we left they sang a song of farewell. So you get songs of welcome and songs of farewell. That is typical and it is very warm and gracious. Waving goodbye as we parted, hoping to be able to see each other again one day.
I had to take a picture of this. I put my computer bag in the back of the pickup truck, which had a cap on it as well, so it wasn't open. When we got back to the hotel what had been a black bag was now so covered with dust it was hardly recognizable. It took about a half hour to try to wipe it down and clean it out. But thankfully everything was protected inside. It was one very dusty ride.
The next day we went to an area called Mapoka. Along the way we picked up members. Again, the greeting line. We had 78 people there that day. This was the church hall in which we visited. Mud wall and thatched roof. This is inside the hall. It is a little dark there. You can't really see the little benches they were on. I would show you Mr. Van Belkum and Mr. Kriedemann. Mr. Kriedemann got the high chair and Mr. Van Belkum got the low-slung "comfort model” I guess it was. We were delighted to be in these facilities. People were crammed inside the hall, children sitting in the front, very mannerly, well behaved. Again, the choir gathered to sing.
Afterward we traveled a short distance of a few kilometers to visit some members in their homes. We visited this family of three sisters. Two of them are widows, the ones on either side. They are considered to be successful farmers. They farm their patch of land and they do well. The lady in the middle, Mary Chizavente, is a lady who has a withered leg from a disease when she was young. You will notice that she is on crutches. Mary walks five miles each way each Sabbath on crutches to go to church. I was thinking earlier, I could probably just shut it down right now and say there's your sermon. A remarkable woman who walks five miles every Sabbath one-way to go to church. On this particular Sabbath the truck was there and she was walking to get onto the truck to take us to visit her village. Just a remarkable sense of dedication and desire to learn God's way of life. This is the home in which the three ladies live. A little granddaughter is one of them that they are raising as well.
We returned to the village to have lunch. The ladies in the church were cooking the lunch on the outdoor fire. We ate indoors in the hut that provides for the kitchen area, and we had a very fine meal of skewed goat meat, guinea fowl, maize, and vegetables. This was another lady in the village, very, very poor people, hauling water in whatever devices they can muster every day. That is part of the work.
We went to another village not too far away as well. Here is a member and his wife and their little child. He is holding the United News. They carry their literature very, not proudly but just very happily. They devour the literature that they get from any source. The booklets, the United News. This is a fairly recent one and they had that in hand. Any news of the work they just strive to devour.
This was in their living room. They had a good crop of maize and these are bags of maize that they stored in their living room. It was a small, tiny room but they stored it there to wait for the market prices to make it a good time to ship.
We traveled to northern Zambia to an area called Kitwe in the Copperbelt region. Zambia has one of the largest copper deposits in the world. It is unfortunate that it doesn't benefit people more than it does. But in that area Derrick and Cherry Pringle who used to live in Zimbabwe, and then South Africa, have now moved to Zambia. They have an electric fencing company and out of this office that their business runs they also run the office for the church. This is Kambani Banda and Andre van Belkum looking at the literature displays. This is Cherry Pringle on the right. She manages the office.
The next day we went to the Mufulira congregation, about an hour away, and met 78 people there. We kept stopping to pick up members along the way. I kept turning around and trying to get a head count and after awhile I lost count. I couldn't see all of them. They said anywhere from 18-23 usually ride inside the little van that they had. A van that is probably an eight-passenger van they will pack 18-20-25 people in there. Here is inside the church, singing a song of welcome. This is Derrick Pringle leading songs. Mrs. Pringle distributing candy to the children afterward, just delightful, beautiful little children. This is the group that had gathered in this location for that day's Bible study. Here are some of the children, three lovely teenage girls. This man is originally from Mozambique. He was holding up the Portuguese version of United News. I guess Mr. DeCampos will be here in the afternoon. I wanted to be sure he saw that. A man in Zambia, displaced from Mozambique, speaks Portuguese and has that there. Again, some of the members.
We go back to Lusaka. I am showing this picture for a special reason. We finish our trip in Zambia. We are getting ready to fly to Malawi. I went to the restroom and I came out. Mr. Van Belkum and Mr.Kriedemann said, there's somebody we want you to meet. We were standing here and we looked up and there was a man sitting in the waiting area reading a Good News magazine. They went up to him and found out who he was, and I went up to him. He was an airport worker. He was on his break. Somebody else, another airport worker, had given him the Good News and he was reading it for the first time. The first time he had ever seen one. I sat down beside him and I introduced myself. I showed him my passport and then opened up to the inside of the magazine. I said, I represent the church here in this country that is publishing this. We are so delighted that you have it in hand, that you are reading it. Well, he was amazed. I was amazed. You know, it's one thing to have a lot of statistics. You can hear statistics all day long about x number of thousands of magazines go here and there. But all it takes is to see one person and put a face with it and see it in the hand of somebody reading for the first time, the very first time. I thought, maybe this is an old issue. If you look at it, it was the July/August issue from this year. I looked on the back and there was a mailing label on it and it was sent to a subscriber in Indiana. Then immediately the question is how did it go to a subscriber in Indiana and end up in Lusaka, Zambia. Did somebody read it and send it to relatives? Was it a tourist who dropped it off and left it there? How does it get there? I don't know. But it was a Good News magazine that came from the printers to Indiana, ends up in Lusaka in the hands of an airport employee who passes it on to somebody else, and that is typical of literature. Things get passed on. That is how the church has grown there over the years. We didn't have television and radio. But it is word of mouth, passing on to one and another. And he was enthralled with what he was reading. We took a picture and who knows, maybe someday he will be telling the story of how he came into the church and go back to somebody passed on a Good News to him. A remarkable occasion though and a remarkable event on this trip.
In Malawi we had services in this clinic. This is Mr. Chonde's clinic. The picture previously was taken from about the spot where this young man is in the white shirt. When you turn around and face the other way this is what you see when you leave the clinic. That is a store. That is a little store somebody is running. They had some little chunks of sugar cane that they were selling. A very poor area, very impoverished, but inside there were some 71 people crowded into this room singing songs to God. Beautiful children. A few pictures of some of the members there. Mr. Van Belkum and one of the members, one of the young adults. One of the ladies with a baby strapped to her back. This is a family. Here this same family was leaving services to walk back to their home. It was quite a walk they had, just a very nice, well-behaved family, very, very mannerly.
We drove the next day to Blantyre. It was a five-hour drive. I took this picture because this is typical of what you see on the highways in Zambia and Malawi and many parts of Africa. Many people walking. The highways, everywhere you go people are walking by the sides of the roads.
This was in a hotel in Blantyre where they arranged to have services, some of the members there. The choir singing. Again some members.
I want to end the slides with this particular slide. This was a picture of a wall hanging on the wall of a member's home that we visited. I was struck by this. This was hanging on their living room wall. A drawing of the Bible and the saying at the top, What shall I give back in return to God? Their daily reminder. That picture illustrated to me their wealth, a wealth in spirit and a wealth in attitude, and that leads into the theme that I wanted to speak about today.
I wish I had time to give you a slide show of all the members that we took pictures of, and some of their stories. But you cannot help but come back with a lot of impressions. Mr. Van Belkum told me several months ago – he said the members here do not believe you are coming. Up until the week before he wrote an email and said, they still do not believe you are coming. I wrote back and said why? He said the question they ask is, why would he come to see us? Why would he come to see us? They know they are poor. They know they have nothing physically to give, in a way. And it was a question in some ways that was bothersome because you hate to see people who feel that way. And even when getting there people ask the question, we are so glad you came but why would you come? Why would you take time to come see us? And after awhile I would begin telling people in the Bible study the reason why it is inspiring to come and see you is when I look out upon this group here, or that group there, I am seeing a miracle. It is a miracle for God to open minds and call people and for them to respond to him. And when you think of where God has done this in these places that are isolated – you are going down a dirt road and then you turn off onto a one track road, and you go four or five miles back in here and all of a sudden there is a little village. And it is a village comprised of three or four families that are in the Church of God. They are getting the same literature we have, and they are going to church on the same days, they keep the same holy days, they believe the same things, and they are dedicated to serving God. That is a miracle of God's work and God's calling, how it came to be. Whether it is there or in the jungles of Peru, or Brazil, or wherever you go, anytime God opens a mind and converts people, that is unnatural to the human state. It is a miraculous calling. God is a God who says I have placed each one in the body as it pleases me. He has placed people all over this world in all sorts of circumstances. And every one of these people God is preparing. I told them why we come to visit is because this helps us stay cohesive, it helps us stay bonded. We are a little flock. We are always going to be a little flock, and to be able to stay cohesively together is so important. To have the bond of perfection which Paul identified as a love for one another is so critically important to keep that, to help everyone we can to honor them, respect them, to understand them, what they are going through, their needs, to keep them in our prayers, our consciousness, and vice versa, is tremendously important. I consider it a blessing.
When you see these pictures if you had a chance to look at all of them it would only add to probably what jumped out at you already. When you see the pictures what jumps out at you is the poverty in which these brethren live. But I tell you this, when you see the people what jumps out at you is the wealth, the wealth. What I mean by that is that I found myself on the course of this trip praying a little differently. You cannot help but see people in their conditions and sometimes pray more than just a prayer of God, help your people all over the world, but you start zeroing in on some of these people you have seen and you cry out to God, please help them. They need help. But at other times in thinking about it, meeting them, and talking with them I also found myself praying, God, please help us, please help US where we are. In some ways you find yourself praying, help us be like them, in many respects. Because there is a wealth in some ways that they have.
I thought about trying to give you some of the statistics that are out here on poverty. I am not going to do that. You can find them very easily. They are all over the place. Simply put, it's depressing. It starts to wear you down after a couple of weeks if you are not used to it. If you travel for a couple of weeks the poverty starts to wear you down, just seeing it every day. There is a cloud that hangs over. But when you are there you also get mixed feelings when you are around the church members.
In 2001 we had our first exposure to the developing world when we went to the Philippines. There were several reasons I had a cause to be there three times within the space of a year. After the first time I came back and spoke to the church in Sacramento and the introduction to the sermon my opening comment was "we just met the church at Smyrna.” What was meant by that was the statement made in Revelation 2:9 when addressing the seven churches of Revelation, the church at Smyrna God said this, I know your works, your tribulation, and your poverty but you are rich. Is that a contradictory statement? How can somebody live in poverty and be rich? God was simply in that statement redefining a value statement. He was telling us how he values wealth and how he defines wealth. What he told that church next was not particularly reassuring and encouraging. Because he told the church at Smyrna , I know your works, your tribulation and poverty, but you are rich. Then he went on to tell them in verse 10, do not fear any of these things you are about to suffer. They were already a suffering people. He said not to be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful (here's the next encouraging statement for this church) be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life. He was almost telling this group of people, that Smyrna church, life is hard and now it's going to get worse.
We have brethren living in parts of the world where life is hard and it could get worse. We have people who live in similar hardships today, people God has called to be lights to the world. And to be lights to the church as well. Life is hard, and there is little promise of change.
On MSN this morning on their website there was a report that said millions of people are fleeing Zimbabwe because the government of Zimbabwe now has about three days of food left. They just confirmed what three weeks ago a man and his wife named Mike Lucarotti who came over from Zimbabwe for the Bible study in Zambia told us. They said, you go into the grocery store in Zambia and the shelves are full, you have all sorts of food. He said in Zimbabwe there is nothing on the shelves. Nothing. It has gone from bad to worse. We have members there. And in many other areas. Joel Meeker went to the Congo. He left Tuesday night and is probably in the Congo right now, swinging through Africa to visit members before the Feast. Some of these places are tough. At least Zambia and Malawi are known for being a peaceful and gentle people. And they are. It is relatively safe there. Other members not only have poverty, they have danger in which they live. They are there. We can assist them. We can help. But we cannot give them what we have. There is just no way.
But when you visit with them you have mixed feelings. Poverty can be grinding and it affects you emotionally. It makes you angry when you come to understand why it exists. And it is not hard to understand it. There are many excellent books and research. It basically comes back to government and corruption. Africa is one of the richest continents in the world, but it is corrupt. And there are changes there that cannot be just rooted out without something drastic. But again I will come back to the point that many was the time on this trip where I thought, there are elements of what you have that we need. There are things you have that we need, that we have lost in the wealth of the western world. Both poverty and wealth have their challenges. They have their upside and their downside. We need to monitor our view of wealth and poverty and make sure our standards and our values are the same as God's because both can be seen through different spiritual lenses, physically and spiritually.
I'll give you an example. A few years ago, it was the second time I was in the Philippines, at church one of the members said, would you come to our home for a barbecue this evening? I was glad to do it. They have three little houses on one lot. The man and his wife and two of their children who are adults. And one other child was planning to build another house on it. And they shared a little common courtyard in the middle. The barbecue was an aluminum foil pan like we would cook a turkey in. They spread some charcoal in the bottom and had some little pieces of chicken on skewers and set those on top and they were cooking these chicken pieces. It was quite delicious. A lot of fruit, a lot of rice and veggies, plenty to eat. It was a very fine evening. Toward the end of the meal one of the men went inside and he rolled out the little television they had and a karaoke machine. They explained to me, we don't have much money – and they don't. The next year one gentleman who was an elder came over for the general conference and they stopped by our home in Sacramento. I took them to an Imax theater. After we left he said -- that is the first time in 10 years I have been to a movie. We can't afford to go to movies. So this Saturday night he explained, we saved all of our resources among the families and we bought a karaoke machine. He said this is what we do on Saturday nights. I sat there and watched everything unfold. They hooked it up and had the CDs with the karaoke music. Grandpa started it off. He is sitting there in a little metal folding chair with a grandchild on each lap. He picks out a Frank Sinatra song, I forget what it was, and he is singing away to Frank Sinatra. New York, New York, or something like that. Singing at the top of his lungs, and having a wonderful time with his two little grandbabies. Then somebody else took the mike in hand, I think one of the little kids, and his wife, and then somebody else got it. Sometimes it would be a solo and sometimes three or four people. And sometimes everybody together. The people were lined up, picking their music, and patiently waiting for the next song. And for three hours that evening they did nothing but sing songs, and they laughed and visited. The teenagers were embarrassed to sing in front of me, and I was embarrassed to sing in front of them. They kept saying, you have got to sing. Finally, one of them came up and said, you're from California. You should sing Hotel California. But the evening was remarkable in many ways. As time went on we began talking about this. They said, this is what we do on Saturday nights. There were 15 or 17 family members there. Family and extended family. They said, we always have people over and we sing. I thought about that for a long time. I thought, I wonder how many times it has happened after church I have seen kids, I have had my own kids come up after church. Dad, can you give me 20 bucks? We are going to go to the movie. Or we are going to go drive go carts. And I thought, I know of a lot of families and the idea of the kids in those families having a sing along on a Saturday night would not be in their top ten list of activities necessarily. I also thought, I wonder how many families could have used that sort of thing over the years growing up. Family togetherness. They have no Social Security. They have no welfare programs, no safety nets. Families have to take care of their own. That is a bad condition in many ways in terms of the poverty. It is a good condition in many ways in terms of responsibility toward one another. I watched that activity, and I thought about that – who is richer? The family who has no cares financially but has all sorts of family problems, or the family in poverty who is bound closer together. It depends on how we measure wealth.
The next year at the Feast we were at a site where there was very little money, very few automobiles. There was no place to go for members. They had to make their own entertainment. We got out one day and played ball with a broomstick and an old ratty tennis ball. We played baseball with the kids out there. You wouldn't have any kids anywhere in the world who had all the money in the world who laughed any harder than these kids. Their laughter was just as right from their belly. They were just having a great time too.
We walked around the site of the grounds one day at this feast site and there was a group of members sitting in chairs. It was in the early evening. There was a bare light bulb hanging down from a wire. They said, oh, come join us! Please sit down. We have been here talking about the sermons and the kingdom of God all afternoon. How rich is that? Feast of Tabernacles. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, so we talk about the kingdom of God. They were reviewing things, what they had heard. Who is richer? There was one family in the Philippines out of Davao who lived 50 km from church, 30 miles roughly. They couldn't get to church. They can't go to church. Because for one person to ride the bus to go to church, that is an entire day's wages. To ride the bus for one person. I don't know how much money you make, but you can figure out how much you make and what that averages. What if it cost me a day's wage every week just to get here? It's a different world.
When you look at a world like Malawi and realize it is the eighth poorest country on earth, and the average income is $2 a day, how could we survive? How do they survive? And yet you hear about how they read their booklets, magazines, study their Bibles daily. One member told me, I have been learning English by reading all of the church's literature. I have a dictionary and I get the United News. I read it and if there is a word I don't know I look it up. That is how I am learning English. By reading the Bible, learning the Bible. They study daily, they read. Who is richer?
In Matthew 26 there was an interesting occasion for Christ and the disciples. Matthew 26:6. And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table.8 But when His disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, "Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor.”
Now John's account in John 12 is very interesting because it shows that the spokesman for the group was Judas. And John adds the statement in his account that this was not because he cared for the poor but because he was a thief and kept the moneybox and used to take what was in it. But under the pretext of you could take care of the poor. Apparently according to Matthew the disciples got caught up in this. But that is not my main point. In verse 10, Jesus when he was aware of it said, why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a good work for me. Verse 11. For you have the poor with you always, but me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant oil on my body she did it for my burial. For assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.
This woman had something in her mind that the rest did not have. It was a memorial of the woman. He said, wherever this gospel is preached it will be a memorial to this lady. But there was also in addition to the memorial a lesson in it for everyone. Verse 11. For you have the poor with you always, but me you do not have always.
Christ is making a point. Those who are rich are those who have him with them. That is why the real measurement of wealth will always be, what is our relationship with God? What is our relationship with Jesus Christ? How rich is that? The point is very simple when it comes to the spiritual basis. We are all…every one of us was in spiritual poverty before God called us. If you want to look at everything spiritually, we were all spiritually impoverished. We were spiritually poor when God called us. And now everybody is spiritually speaking trying to climb out of that spiritual condition of being impoverished. We are trying to become richer in the things of God's spirit.
Let's go to James 2:5. This is what levels the playing field among all people. This world is a world of inequity and Christ is making a point. You will always have the poor with you and there are lots of reasons you always have the poor with you. And you will always have some wealthy with you and there are many reasons why that is. But what levels the playing field is the spiritual condition of humanity. In James 2:5 James wrote , Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world (what does that mean? It can't be physically only. God has chosen some very poor people, but I look around this room today and the poorest person in this room, I have not idea who it is, but the poorest person in this room is rich beyond belief compared to most of the people we visited in Zambia and Malawi. Unbelievably rich. They showed me the new bathroom at the feast site they have. A brick wall. Two to three hundred people share this one bathroom. They were very happy because it is not a squat hole anymore. They have a ceramic toilet, and now you can sit on that ceramic toilet. Mr. Van Belkum said about two years ago, my wife is going to be so happy to come to the feast this year. They will stay in a tent, and there's nowhere to go and nothing to do except play some games, have some dances, talk, fellowship, study, and be together. In some ways even though it is physically very difficult, very hard, in some ways they are going to have a rich, rich feast in many, many ways.
So, James 2, Has God not chosen the poor of this world -- the fact of the matter is, every person he has ever called was spiritually poor, we were spiritually destitute. In fact, we were spiritually dying. Now, though, we have an opportunity to become rich. Because he goes on to say, Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? We are going to be measured by standards that are spiritual. He mentions two here. Faith and loving God. The degree of wealth that we have in those areas becomes one of God's great treasures. So how do we view and measure wealth and poverty? God is very clear in his assessment. There is a lot said in the Bible. There are reasons for poverty in the Bible. God holds some people accountable for their laziness. But he said some people are in conditions that they can't help. And he says there are good ways to manage wealth. Wealth can be a wonderful blessing, or wealth can be a curse. Both can be blessings or curses depending on how we deal with it. God is very clear with what he emphasizes.
You go home and look up blessings and look up riches and look up poor and some of these words that are related. Start putting some of these scriptures together and it becomes a very interesting study and a picture begins to emerge very quickly about God's view of things. First of all, God promises blessings throughout the Bible. To anybody who follows me God says I will bless you. And some of these blessings are very appealing to humans. If you go back to the Old Testament, what God told Israel, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 30, we call these the blessings and cursings chapters, and so they are. Those aren't the only places though. And so the thought is very clear in the instructions God gave Israel. Follow me and life will be so much better. And he lists in those places very specific, tangible, real blessings to the people that would come. God says, I will do this and you will have a wonderfully blessed life physically. He says it is there for the taking. But there is a condition. Throughout all of those verses you find this word if. And if is what connects us to our relationship with God. God says follow me, honor me, obey me, and I will do these things for you. I will take care of you. And as you read the Old Testament one of the lessons of the Old Testament history is the story of people who are either blessed or cursed for following God or not following him. And oftentimes just richly physically blessed.
You come to the time of Christ and he said something one day that is widely quoted and viewed in the light of blessings. That is in John 10:10 when he said, I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. You can read that and say, wow, what was good in the Old Testament is now getting better. He says it is going to be even better from now on. So let's see what he has to say. What did he mean? Well, just as the Old Testament talks about blessings, so does the New Testament. But as you start studying and comparing what is in the New Testament you see a shift in emphasis. You see something changes in the New Testament. One example is in Matthew 5 where he went on a discourse about blessings. There is a discourse in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 30 about blessings, and there is a discourse in Matthew 5 about blessings.
So we turn to Matthew 5:2. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, (there's a blessing) For they shall inherit the earth. A lot of these things you start saying, when is this going to happen? The kingdom of heaven, being comforted, how? Inheriting the earth, when? 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. With what? Food overflowing? You know, brethren, there are members in some parts of the world…the same places two years ago we had to ship grain to feed our members because they were starving due to the famine and drought that had set in. Two good bumper crops now, but they are well aware that things tend to go in cycles over there. There have been times when they haven't been filled physically without the help of other members in neighboring countries. They got it. God saw to it that their needs were taken care of, but they were surviving. They weren't thriving. So what does it mean, hunger and thirst after righteousness and they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
You see blessings promised but the shift in emphasis is different. You say, wait a minute! What about what we read in Deuteronomy and Leviticus? What about my crops, the evil beasts, the armies that are going to be sent running, help, full bellies, safe cities, all of these things. Something is different here. When you compare the blessings promised in the Old Testament with what is written here, Christ hardly said anything about physical . Hardly anything. And it is that way throughout the New Testament. That is probably not very thrilling to a carnally minded person.
Now does that mean Christ is not interested in our physical welfare and physically blessing his people? Not at all. He does not take away the idea of physical blessings in the New Testament but he adds a dimension in the New. He is adding something different and emphasizing something different that is very important to have as a concept of the way we look at life. He redefines the value of blessings. He redefines the standard of wealth and teaches us his view.
In chapter 6, the same sermon, in verse 19 he says this. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Then we have to ask, what is that? What are treasures in heaven? What is he talking about that says this is what lasts, nobody can take it from you. Nobody can steal it. It cannot be destroyed. It will not erode. What is treasure in heaven? What does God treasure? What does God look at and say, now this is valuable! Verse 25 . "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
One of the interesting sociological studies of the western world is to look at the evolving standards and values of our culture and see how in the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years and see how our thinking has changed, and to answer that last question is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing . In certain cultures you think that is what is valued and emphasized, isn't it? We have a social and a moral poverty today that food and style are so highly valued that even doctors and social workers and parents worry and debate about the emotional, and mental, and physical results of a value system that values these things…appearance, youth, money, intelligence, things that are valued by a prosperous culture.
He says, Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin. As far as worrying about clothing, I had an interesting question for Mr. Banda. After we went to several of these churches I saw people dressed in the best they had. I got to go into one house and change clothes and their closet was open. Their closet was a rope with a few things hanging on it, four or five outfits. They were wearing their Sabbath outfit. Their one Sabbath outfit was what they were wearing. And I asked him, is this a cultural issue where people dress the best they can because it is a big gathering, there is a visitor coming in. Is it a cultural thing or do they dress this way out of respect for God and the Sabbath? It is respect for God and the Sabbath! For these people this is their appearance before God, and they are going to put on the best they have every day even if it is the same thing every week. It may have a shirt, as you might have seen the lady in the choir it said Motorola over the front of it, but that is her best beautiful outfit. It is part of their thinking. Their sense is that clothing is not about the label that is on me, now how it is going to appear to other people, but this is my best for God. That's a good thing to worry about in terms of clothing, a good principle. But on the other hand, you can do the research. Some of our values in prosperous countries of the world are skewed. I saw statistics some time back that said how much money the western world spends on cosmetics. It would be enough to basically eradicate the lack of education for children throughout the sub Sahara. It is amazing. But values are different.
So in verse 29 he says, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? We are introduced here to something that God values highly, and that is faith. We will see more of this momentarily.
31 "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' In other words, these are not the values, these are not the greatest issues in life. For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Again, here is the level playing field in the sight of God. He is looking for those who are rich in their desire for his kingdom and rich in pursuing his righteousness. Rich in the fruits of the righteousness of his spirit.
So who does God consider rich? How do we view it? I mention faith. Let's go to where we were in the sermonette this morning, to 1 Peter 1. Very interesting emphasis on the principle of joy, and that's another standard of measuring wealth. When God looks at our lives and he says, do we have that fruit of the spirit of joy, how valuable is that? Both to us and God. 1 Peter 1:3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you. There are a lot of people in the church who have nothing to inherit in this life. Very little that they are going to inherit. And for some of them this means maybe more than to those who have much. To you who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, (that is for everybody, no matter what our condition is – everybody who has this focus that they are looking toward the kingdom of God and that inheritance and they are being kept by God in faith, in this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. Some members over there talked about their trials. I said, you must understand. Everybody in the church has trials. There are just different types of trials. We don't have your type of trials over here so much, but we do have other trials. I know people in the church who are going through a trial right now of losing their homes because of the current economic problems. That is a trial. Health. Families. There are all sorts of trials. Everybody goes through trials, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, and it comes for awhile. Verse 7, that the genuineness of your faith, real true faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes (notice what God says. Right here God says gold doesn't mean a lot to me. He says in Haggai, the gold is mine and the silver is mine. God has the mineral rights, you might say, to everything on the earth. It is all his. He just lets us use it and play with it, but it is all his. But how much faith does God see in you? How valuable is it for God to see people who have faith? What does that mean to him? When he sees people who have faith, people who are really seeking his kingdom, seeking his righteousness, how rare is that? How rare is that in the sight of God? So when we read verse 7, that the genuineness of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ is revealed, when it comes time for him to talk with us about our lives, the rewards, and what he wants us to do. I don't know how it will work exactly, but as we see the examples of God's people gathered from the four winds from all over the world, I think God is going to take some people and say, your faith is something that I honor and is glorified and is praiseworthy. It is going to be a time of understanding completely the values of God. Faith is a rare commodity. So is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, self-control. All of these fruits of the spirit of God are things that God says these things are precious in my sight. These things are precious in my sight and this is what we need.
I think if we did an exercise, if we all went home and sat down and said, what do I really need to be blessed? What do I really need to be blessed? I think after giving it some thought we would come up with issues that are issues that are God's spiritual things. Spiritual things are what we need. Physical things are nice, but it is the spiritual that comes back to be a real source of blessings in every case.
Make no mistake. Just because certain church members are in poverty doesn't mean they are automatically spiritually rich. There are poor people who are poor spiritually too. Everybody has their human nature that has to be fought. Everybody. But it is just an example, the physical life and physical conditions we find ourselves in make us stop and think about the spiritual. And it is the spiritual arena in which God is looking to measure our wealth. That is where our real battles are won and where they are lost is in the spiritual arena. If there is a poverty of relationship to God, that will be a miserably poor person regardless of physical situation. God is very clear about spiritual values in the war we wage. He says, understand, true poverty is not a lack of money. True poverty is not a lack of things. And neither is true wealth, and excess of money or excess of things. True poverty is lack of spiritual maturity. It is the lack of spiritual vision. It is the lack of insight. True poverty is blindness.
In the same section of verse where I read earlier about the church at Smyrna he talked about another church that said, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. He said, They don't even realize they are poor and miserable and blind and naked. It is a spiritual issue, spiritual impoverishment. That can be anybody in any physical condition. And the spiritually rich can be anybody in any physical condition.
There are basically four dimensions of wealth and poverty.
• It is possible to be spiritually rich and physically poor. I had a person tell me one time, he said, we had a lot of love in our family, we were very close, but we were so poor the depression came and went and we didn't even know it. That's true for a lot of people. But the love they had in their family, and the surviving, he said, we were rich as a family. Spiritually rich, you would say.
• It is possible to be spiritually poor and physically rich. That is very deceptive. Christ in the parables talked about how the deceitfulness of riches chokes the word. The word that somebody has, the word of God, the deceitfulness of riches can choke the word in a material culture that values wealth the morally and spiritually weak are going to fall quickly. One member told one of our ministers a few years ago, I think it was Mr. Meeker in Rwanda , who said we don't fear the tribulation. We have been living it. They live in it. Yet you wonder when it comes upon the western world, how will we survive.
• It is possible to be both spiritually poor and physically poor. You see this a lot of times where you have crime, you have immorality, and the actions of the spiritually poor and the physically poor combined just lead to more crime and immorality and it gets worse.
• It is also possible to be both spiritually rich and physically rich. It is possible but it is a challenge. Paul said, I have learned in whatever state I am in to be content. I have learned both to abound and to suffer need, to be hungry and to be filled.
The Bible directs instruction to us about how to appropriately handle our blessings spiritually. How to deal with them physically, mentally, and spiritually so we keep our lives in a spiritual balance. It all gets back and hinges on seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
One of the members in Malawi wrote a note to me. He said at the bottom of the note, for all of the effort in the 12 million populated Malawi to survive, there hangs one solution and that is the kingdom of God. They know that. They know we live in a world where there is no solution to our problems but the kingdom of God. And they know it is going to come. That is the poverty in just one small nation that is among many. And it is so staggering you don't know where to turn, where to even begin to turn things around. It is so complicated, so multifaceted, that it is humanly incomprehensible. What they are in that tiny country is magnified onto billions of people around the world. It is truly going to take the return of Christ to instill the hearts and to instill the right government of God. It will come, but in the meantime God has called people. He has called some wonderful people, some dedicated people. People who give their lives. As we saw in that slide, they have the attitude, what shall I give in return to God? People who consider themselves richly blessed. There are people of God whom he has called in the great challenge of poverty, but many of them are spiritually rich. But we must also understand that the wealthiest nations of the world are very poor today too. Spiritually speaking, the western world is becoming more and more poor spiritually. Impoverished. And it too creates its own threat for the people of God. But the people of God can survive in whatever state they find themselves if they are all on the same page, if they value the same things. There will come a time when the physical conditions in which God's people have lived will become a moot point. When we are changed wherever we live physically will mean nothing to us. It will mean a moot point from then on. It won't matter. What will matter at that time, what will matter to every single person no matter where they live, what will matter to every single person is this question, was I rich in the things of God?