Lifting our community

Bringing a lift to our Community

In Matthew 26, Jesus who is reaching the pinnacle of his ministry choses not have a big evangelistic rally for an prayer meeting…he goes to a party! The party is at Simon the Leper’s. He chooses to spend his time with those who were considered the outcasts of society.
As a side - imagine the practice of referring to people by their ailments:
Peter with Dandruff
Sharon with pimples
Alan with hemorrhoids

This was a mark of his ministry. He is on his way to an important feast and he ministers to a Samaritan women. He enters Jericho, a crowd gathers but he looks up a tree for the individual – Zaccheus

Lessons for us:

1. Consider the poor

Psalms 41:1 - 45:17 (NKJV)
Blessed is he who considers the poor; The LORD will deliver him in time of trouble. The LORD will preserve him and keep him alive, And he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. The LORD will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.

People may be poor in spirit, poor in health, poor in relationships. They may have poverty of heart, soul, or mind. Do we consider them? Do we consider the underprivileged, the needy, the hurting?


Christianity isn’t just about my relationship with God. It is just as much about others.

C. S Lewis said “The opposite of love is not hate it is indifference.”

How are you treating others?


2. Bring a lift

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a gospel that lifts the poor and needy. We want to lift people into the purposes and promises of God.

The outworking of our Christianity is to lift others.
Psalm 113:7

5 Who is like the LORD our God, the One who sits enthroned on high,
6 who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
8 he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people.
Here is a test of our attitude to the poor:
1. Judge them
2. Ignore
3. Sympathy
4. Charity - give to sallies
5. Help - regular commitment.
6. Take responsibility
7. Lift the poor



U.N determines poverty means:
the inability to afford to heat the home, buy clothing, bedding, soap and towels
the inability to pay for phone and transport
the inability to pay for participation in sport
the inability to pay for visits to the doctor and prescriptions
the inability to pay for education.
For 300,000 New Zealand children in poverty it is not possible to afford all these things.


Poverty means doing without
In a survey for the Wellington Anglican Diocese of 100 households living on benefits, Waldegrave & Stuart (1996) found:
• 77% had problems paying for food
• 64% went without meals
• 60% had problems paying for housing costs
• 17% were living in officially overcrowded housing
• 14% had no washing machine, 33% had no carpet, 9% no electric jug, 6% noheater
• 68% had been unable to pay their power bill by the due date in the last year
• 25% sold household items to pay bills
• 59% went without necessary clothes or shoes
• during the last 6 months at least one household member could not afford a doctor (43%), a dentist (53%) or a prescription (32%).


3. Be Religious

You don't have to be in the Christian circles long to hear the phrase, "It's not about religion, it's about a relationship." And while I agree, to an extent, it still seems like there's more depth to the Gospels than making your personal peace with God and taking it easy until the second coming.
The two greatest commandments—love God and love others—are connected in a mysterious and authentic way. We make our love for God complete by loving others, and we make our love for others complete by loving God. The two work together.

James 1: 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

That's where religion comes in, not the stuffy holier-than-thou, follow-the-rules religion, but the pure caring-for-widows-and-orphans kind (James 1). To complete the cycle of spiritual formation, we have to give tangible actions to religious beliefs. We have to get beyond the personal-relationship stuff to the doing-justice stuff.
We need to live a life of blessing to the poor.

How?

1. Ask Him to help you recognize the true worth in every person and situation; the diamond hidden in the coal and the cry for understanding behind the defiant glare.

2. Look for opportunity.
Bring someone to church
Give a meal
Help a senior or a family with babysitting
Food banks
There are real needs all around
Make opportunities – bake some cookies for your neighbour.

3. Make a commitment to be consistently active. It’s great to be available when tragedy strikes, but a useful religion is integrated into life on a regular basis.

4. Help those who can’t return the favour. Don’t look for any return favours—just help others because it’s the right thing to do. Help in secret or behind the scenes when possible. Become an obscurity. Real religion isn’t flashy; it’s subtle. That’s why James listed widows and orphans-they aren’t in a position to return the favour.

5. Speak out. Don’t expect everyone to understand your passion for justice, but don’t let it stop you. Be passionate about God and be passionate about people—all people. Religion isn't really about candles, ceremonies and rules; it's about acting out and becoming the hands of Christ in a poor and marginalized world.
Its about walking across the street and embracing a hurting world and acting out—no matter how small the gesture.