Now that our church is meeting closer to downtown in Kaimuki, we will be much more aware of the needs around us (there are plenty of needs in East Oahu, it’s just that people there are better at hiding them!). Over the next year, we will be pursuing some major new ministry initiatives to care for the poor and oppressed  in Honolulu, starting with the homeless neighbors our community groups have been building relationships with over the past year.

Yesterday, I preached out of 2 Corinthians 8, where Paul challenges us to be generous toward those in need. But why should we care about poor people? Because it’s our duty? Because it’s tradition?

I offered five biblical reasons why Christians should proactively and sacrificially care for needy people:

1. Because God himself loves the poor.
In James 2, it tells us not to ignore the poor people in our church and show preference toward rich people just because we might gain something from them. And the reason James gives us is this: ”Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?”

God disproportionately calls poor people to faith. He values the people everyone else tries to ignore.

2. Because Jesus modeled life among the poor.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8, “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” He went from spiritual riches to rags so we could go from rags to spiritual riches. That’s a model for us to embody.

3. Because God demands justice for the oppressed.
If you read the Old Testament prophets, they say two things over and over again: stop doing evil, and start caring for needy people.

• Isaiah 1: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.”
• Jeremiah 7: “If you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.”

4. Because physical poverty reminds us of our spiritual poverty
You can see this in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It was probably a sermon he preached many different times in many different places, and he tweaked it a little bit each time he preached it. And so we have 2 different versions recorded: one in Matthew 5 and one in Luke 6.

In Matthew’s version Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But in Luke he simply says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” In Matthew, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” In Luke, it’s just, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”

There’s a parallel between physical and spiritual need, so being around people who are physically poor and needy and dependent on the generosity of others is going to remind us that we’re spiritually poor and needy, and dependent on the generosity of God and his grace.

I think that’s why Jesus commands us in Luke 14, “When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” That’s because their presence will remind us that we’re spiritually poor, and crippled, and lame, and blind. When God invites us to feast at his table it’s not because of anything we’ve done, and it’s not because we have anything we can repay him with.

5. Because it proves your godly grief
In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul tells us that there are times when grief is a good thing. When we see our sin, and we’re grieved by it to the point of repenting and turning back to God, that’s godly grief (as opposed to worldly grief, which is when we grieve the consequences of our sin and change nothing). When we experience godly grief, then Paul says we’ll have a zeal and a longing for holiness that will result in visible fruit in our lives.

And the first example of this kind of fruit is what Paul mentions in chapter 8: compassion for the needy and oppressed.