My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
Questions:
What is the scriptural motivation for mercy and social justice?
What things prevent you from being merciful?
Reading:
We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you —see that you excel in this act of grace also.
— 2 Corinthians 8:1-7
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
— 1 John 3:16,17
The Gospel is commanding. It takes dominion in our lives. It is a force that changes our hearts and our minds, conforming us into the image of Christ. We preach the Gospel, because God has ordained the preaching of the Gospel as a means of His grace. And he has established that His Gospel will be preached through those in the church. That is us. But even though God has ordained this, it is not mechanical. John doesn’t just say, we obey and do what is right. John says that we love. We love God and we love to preach the Gospel. So where does this love come from?
John lays out the heart of the believer and where our motivation comes from to minister to the poor – the work of Christ in our own lives . . . . He states, “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” We know love, because He first loved us. When we get this, when we get the depths of Jesus’ love for us, our hearts will be moved to know and to love others. John demonstrates an integral connection between being loved by God and walking in the truth of the Gospel and the outward expression of the Gospel’s work in loving others. Our motivation for ministry to the poor comes from the security of the redemption we have in work of Christ.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Paul talks about the church in Macedonia. This church was going through “a severe test of affliction” and “extreme poverty”. They had very little and were in need themselves. But in the midst of this desperate state, they gave to the poor in Jerusalem. And they didn’t give out of legalism, but in “their abundance of joy” their giving “overflowed in a wealth of generosity”. Paul writes that they were so passionate about giving, that they were “begging [Paul and those with him] earnestly for the favor of taking part. . . .” Where did this church get their motivation? . . . Paul writes, “they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” Their motivation was from surrendering their lives to Jesus Christ.
In Deuteronomy 10, God points to His work as the motivation for the Israelites to love others:
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”
Also in Deuteronomy 17:
“You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.”
God’s love for Israel was their motivation to love others, the fact that He loved them first, that He chose them, and He had been mighty with them. “He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.” The work of God in their own lives and understanding the depths of it, that he took them as sojourners and rescued them was their motivation to love the sojourner in their own land. The people of Israel were to love well with open hands, because they were loved well with open hands. And likewise we love those without the Gospel, because we were brought out of slavery to sin into this great salvation.
But God has done so much more in the Gospel, than He did for Israel. He is our God, who has done a mighty and powerful work in us. We have been brought into the true Kingdom of God. And His work in us is far greater and full of more glory than the work He did with the nation of Israel. For He has circumcised our hearts when we could not circumcised our own hearts, turning our stubborn hearts of stone into flesh. He has completed the demands of the Law in our lives. Jesus completed this at the cross and as we come close to the cross, we are changed. At the cross, we are “sweetly broken”. I like the words of Jeremy Riddle’s song,
Sweetly Broken –
At the cross you beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees
And I am
Lost for words so lost in love
I am sweetly broken holy surrender
Paul wrote of the Macedonians, “ they gave themselves first to the Lord . . . .” This is the beauty of the Gospel. As we are beckoned to Christ, we are “sweetly broken” and able to walk in “holy surrender”. It is no longer a work. It is trusting in the work of Christ, having faith in His work, laying all that we are down, and allowing His work to change us. In the Gospel, God boldly works in us through sanctification, with all certainty and determination to continue to grow in our hearts love for others. This is why John states that loving others must happen if we are in the Gospel. He says this because the Gospel is not weak, the work of Jesus is not weak, but certain to work love into our hearts. So this love that we have growing in our hearts for others is a work of God and not our own. And God is not thwarted . . . .
This fact gives me much encouragement, when I don’t feel capable of evangelizing or loving others or even don’t feel like loving others. God is at work in me and He will accomplish it, because it is about His work, not mine. And even when I have those times I don’t want to love others, I know He is at work in me.
Here is the deal; we are motivated not through looking at ourselves and working to muster up a love in ourselves. We are motivated, because He first loved us. He loves us! Do you get that? Let me repeat that. He loves us! He loves us so much that He brings us into His love for others. God has chosen the Gospel as the means for this love to be made manifest. And as we come to trust the Gospel, not just that He saves us from God’s wrath, but that God also brings us into His Kingdom and conforms us into the image of Christ; we will discover that love is growing in our hearts. We don’t look to ourselves; we come and look to Christ, believing in His work.
What I mean is that He loves us so much, that we don’t have to muster up love for other people, all we have to do is come to Him. And when we come to God, He will take us up in His arms. We are His handiwork and as we lay our bodies as living sacrifices in His loving and intimate hands, he will carefully mold us into that love. And the work He does in us is faithful and sure.
Our motivation comes from understanding with more clarity the severity and intense sweetness of the gospel, the severity of the gospel for those who do not believe and are enemies of Christ, just as we were once enemies of God and the sweetness of being delivered from that state into this glorious Kingdom of love. Ministering to the others comes out of a deep seated understanding of the riches Christ lavished on us when we were undeserving and deserved His severity. And we step out in these truths knowing it is not about whether or not we fail, because God’s work does not fail and He has determined to do a good work in us, because He loves us. When we understand what Christ has done for us, we will have the freedom to give our lives to others and in “[our] abundance of joy and [our] extreme poverty have [an overflow] in a wealth of generosity.” As we give ourselves to Christ first, we too will, “[beg God] earnestly for the favor of taking part” in loving others.
Is this not grand! Oh, how vast the grace of God toward us, that He brings us in to participate in His great Cosmic story of Grace! That He allows us to love others and to be vessels for the proclamation of the Gospel. We get to participate in this awe inspiring story, because He loves us. . . because he loves us. God uses us as instruments to proclaim the Gospel to the world. And this is evangelism – being caught up in this grand story.
This is the power of the Gospel as it sanctifies our hearts and conforms us into the image of Christ. The more we see the magnificence and grandeur of what God has done for us and grow in our understanding of the Gospel in our own lives, the more passion we will have as God takes us into His story and uses us to reach out to others.
And realize, yes, this is something we do as individuals in our everyday lives, but this is not something we do as individuals. We do this together as a church. The church is to work together in ministering to the poor, each person contributing their gifts and skills to the work of the Gospel in a very practical way. And we motivate each other in this. We are motivated to speaking the Gospel to the world as we as a church speak the Gospel to one another. We speak the Gospel to each other, just as the cherubim cry out to each other “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts”
Scripture reading:
Read these verses and discuss what they mean to you and in regards to ministering to the poor.
Acts 20:42
But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Questions:
How do we know love?
How do we know love for others?
When God spoke to Israel about how to treat foreigners and sojourners in the land, as motivation He told them to remember that they were foreigners in Egypt. Also Jesus while preaching would say that because we are forgiven, we should forgive others. How does this apply to our motivation for helping the poor? How does motivating us to remember the Gospel , motivate us in ministering to the poor?
What is the scriptural motivation for ministering to the poor?
Do you believe God can use you? What does this say about your belief in the Gospel and His love for you?
God made a way across the sea for the Israelites, when there was no way? How does this apply for this?
How can you encourage each other as a church, community group, family to be caught up in the Cosmic Story and minister to the poor?
