Wordeed 4, Broken A Broken World Needs the Christian to Live Simply

Scripture: Matthew 23:23,24 (also see 10:9); Jeremiah 9:23-24

- Every 6 seconds a child dies from malnutrition. That's 600 children every hour, over 14,000 children every day, and over 5 1/4 million children every year.

- Over 1 billion (1,000,000,000) people are forced to live in utter poverty on less than a dollar a day.  Even in the poorest countries, a dollar a day cannot provide for one person, let alone a family.

- Of those billion, a whopping 73% are either living through civil war or have already lived through one and have had deeply scarring personal experiences of the brutality of civil war.

- 1% of the world's adult population possesses 40% of the global assets and the world's three richest people possess greater assets than the world's 48 poorest countries.

- Nearly 100,000,000 (100 million) people each year are forced into poverty because of health care costs.

- Unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices, without concern for the futures of those who must live off the land, continue to abuse God's creation and contribute to a variety of social injustices like the ones I just listed.

- Corruption is a large source of these problems and we, in the West, are quick to blame and point our fingers at the leaders of the poorest countries in the world, when what we ought to be doing is taking a look in the mirror.

- What does God have to say about all this?  Not surprisingly, the wholeness of integrity is what concerns Jesus in the face of brokenness and injustice.

- "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!" (Matthew 23: 23-24, ESV)

- The Pharisees did not just tithe from their main crops and herds as commanded by the law, but even their herbs and spices because they believed that unless food was tithed that it was not ritually clean and therefore not lawful to eat.

- Jesus did not condemn this habit. What he condemned was their lack of concern for others.

- Jesus condemned their lack of concern for "the weightier matters of the law" namely justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

- This statement directly reflects Jesus' earlier comment about the Greatest Commandments which Matthew records in chapter 22.

-  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."

- Justice and mercy are a reflection of love for others and faithfulness reflects love for God.

- Jesus accused the Pharisees of neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness because God is a God of justice, mercy, and faithfulness and in so doing the Pharisees sinned against the very heart of God.

- Because they neglected the "weightier matters of the law," Jesus said that the Pharisees were making great efforts to strain the unclean gnats out of whatever they were drinking while at the same time swallowing the largest unclean thing in Palestine a camel.

- The statistics we heard concerning poverty about hunger, violence, disparity (i.e., the unequal distribution of wealth), inadequate health care, corruption, bad governance and the environment at the beginning of today's message can all be impacted for good by God's people who are seeking to carry out justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

- The Pharisees were caught up in all the self important little details that made them look good to themselves and better than everyone else, but they left behind what was most important.

- James tells us exactly what he thinks of that kind of religion: Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. (Jas. 1:26-27, MSG)

- Now I realize that James originally wrote here about orphans and widows, but his point was that they represent those society has rejected. Orphans and widows without a family were the homeless and the loveless.

- I think it's about time that we in the church a long hard look in the mirror at ourselves in order to evaluate just how much like the Pharisees we really are.

- How much time, energy and resources do we spend on ourselves versus the underprivileged and poverty stricken?

- Are we ready to stop our self important navel-gazing and start reaching out to those in need?

- If we are ready to turn the tables on the modern day Pharisaic attitudes that have crept up on us, then there as much we can do to promote justice, mercy and faithfulness today.

- One thing we can do is take part in The Sharing Way's annual appeal, Good Food, Healthy Change.

* - "In our modern world we need to recognize that programs that address hunger issues need to do two things:

1. Provide adequate food supplies when the needs are critical without distinction of race, gender, politics or religion.

2. Assist families and communities to become food secure through agriculture production and employment opportunities.

There are some wonderful examples of integral mission of local churches in Canada who are helping their brothers and sisters in the developing world.

•The financial contributions of many Canadian Baptist churches in

2011 allowed CBM to provide food aid to Somali families in refugee camps in Kenya.

• Highland Baptist Church in Kitchener sponsored a dryland agriculture training centre in India through CBM. Canadian volunteers were sent to work on the property.

• New Life Baptist Church in Duncan supported an urban microcredit program in Bolivia that helped families to increase income through small business operations.

• Canadian Baptist women's groups raised funds for women who had been victims of sexual violence in Congo. A significant portion of the budget provided loans for women to start small businesses in order to improve family nutrition.

• New Minas Baptist Church and Port Williams Baptist Church in Nova Scotia sent research agronomists from their congregations to Rwanda and Kenya to provide technical support for CBM programs.

• Lorne Park Baptist Church in Mississauga, Westview Baptist Church in Calgary and Brownfield Baptist Church annually partner in a grain project that raises approximately $50,000 for CBM's account at the Canadian Food Grains Bank."

- Now, I'm certain that some of you are thinking that neither you, personally, nor we, as a church, have the money for such things.

- But I'm going to let you in on a little secret, it might be shocking it might be hard to hear, but we all need to be aware of it, so here it goes:

- We spend our money on our priorities.

- If we don't think we have the money to make a difference in global poverty, it's because we haven't made the poor a priority.

- Honestly, it's really that simple.

- We need to allow the good news about Jesus Christ to change our priorities.

- After hearing a sermon on Matthew 10:9 which simply states, “Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts,” St. Francis of Assisi took a vow of poverty.

- Now, I'm not saying any of us have to take a vow of poverty, but we do need to carefully examine our lives and begin to live more simply by prioritizing our spending habits with the aim of helping the poor and not being mastered by money and impulse shopping.

- Simplicity is one of the disciplines of the spiritual life that we need to rediscover if we are going to help the poor and the needy, the sick and the lame.

- A commitment to living simply will enable us to gain control over our money rather than our money controlling us.

- I believe this is critically important for our whole lives before God because, as Jesus said, you cannot serve both God and money.

- Simplicity frees us from the grip our finances have over us bringing wholeness and also frees us to help others to become whole, which is what integral mission is really all about.

- I want to strongly encourage you to sit down this week and take a long hard look at your budget and your spending habits and start eliminating some things you can live without, simplify.

- Simplicity empowers us to show justice, mercy, and faithfulness to a broken world.