Acts 6:1-6 - ”Organized Help” - Benevolent Sunday

The Old Testament lesson this morning is

from Deuteronomy 10:es 12-18.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord reg

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 bribes.

He executes justice for the fatherless

and the widow and loves the sojourer

giving him food and

clothing. The New Testament

lesson is from the book of Acts chapter

Acts 6:1–7

6 verses 1-7.

Now in these days when the disciples

were increasing in number, a complaint

by the Helenists arose against the

Hebrews because their widows were being

neglected in the daily

distribution. And the twel summoned the

full number of the disciples and said,

"It is not right that we should give up

preaching the word of God to serve

tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out

from among you seven men of good repute,

full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom

we will appoint to this

duty. But we will devote ourselves to

prayer and to the ministry of the word.

And what they said pleased the whole

gathering. And they chose Stephen, a man

full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,

and Philillip and Procarus and Nicanor

and Teeman and Peas and Nico a procelite

of

Antioch. These they set before the

apostles, and they prayed and laid their

hands on

them. And the word of God continued to

increase. And the number of the

disciples multiplied greatly in

Jerusalem. And a great many of the

priests became obedient to the faith.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be

to God.

So today I'm uh what we've decided to do

is we haven't had a full-on I don't know

for years anyways in this church what's

called a deacon set a set of deacons or

a benevolent fund. There was always a

fund that was kind of there and just you

guys know what that means. That means a

a fund for people in the community who

have needs for short-term or long-term.

and and that's largely for a lot of

reasons historically, but we feel very

compelled as a session to do that. So

today we're going to talk about what

that is and and what we need. So I'll

tell a little story to tell you how

these things can happen. When I was 24

years old, I was working in a correction

correctional facility over in um

Victoria called uh uh Wilkinson Road

Jail. And at that place, I had uh I had

a brand new Jeep Ram, which you do when

you get your first jobs. You buy an

overpriced vehicle because that's all

you think is the coolest thing ever. And

you regret it the next 5 years of

payments. Then you then you go out and

you get rent and you have all of these

things going. And I don't know if you

were anything like me at that age, but I

I lived right up to the end of my

paycheck and I was barely making it

then. and everything was going great and

I was attending a church and it was

quite wonderful and all of these

wonderful things were going on and then

there was an

election. You see the problem with

elections is elections have

consequences and in this particular

election the party that had won had

decided they were going to cut back on

government

spending. And so they decided to cut

back on the guys that were the lowest in

the jail and make the other older guys

work more. So they said, "Emmery, we can

give you one shift a week and the rest

of it on EI. Can I tell you something

about

EI? You don't get rich on that."

And so I had my one shift a week and I

had my EI and pretty soon I was at about

60% takehome of what I had before. Now

here's the problem. You say, "Emmyry,

why don't you go get another job?" I was

young. I should have been able to except

the jail had made it very clear that if

I did go get another job, you could no

longer work for us. So their only

ambition they had was to make sure I

stayed at home.

Well, what hap what do you think

happened by about the second third month

of me not having that regular income? I

started getting phone calls from some

very not nice people called debt

collectors. Have you met them? They're

they're really not nice people. And I

was really naive and I was getting these

phone calls and what had happened was

for that 3month period I was in great

stress. I'll tell you what, I learned to

like ramen

noodles. You ever have

those? Cuz that was all I could afford

and it was stressful and it was

awful. And for that time I was in need.

Now I have been blessed my life. So I'm

not but for that time I felt that stress

and if you've never been in that stress

let me tell you it's an awful feeling.

It's an awful feeling to know you can't

do anything about your situation during

that time.

Now the question was what would I do?

Now I was too proud. I want to be fair.

I was at a church and maybe they would

have helped me. I I don't blame them. I

was too proud to go and ask for help.

Right? But what do we do when those

situations happen in our

church? Do we say suck it up, buttercup?

Some people

would. Do we say well go get another job

and forget that job? Do we do we just

ignore it and say, "Well, if you have

enough faith, the Lord will give you

more

money." I don't think the Lord talks

about it at all like

that. And I spent many hours after that

studying what this means. And I think

there's a perfect story about

this that I think we can tell. And that

is the one in Acts where we've got the

widows who were

starving. And the church has dealt with

a real issue. How do we deal with the

emories of the congregation? The widows

are like me at that time. They just

don't have anything and they're

desperate. So, let's look at it. But

first, let's

pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for

your amazing grace to

us. Thank you that you have poured

yourself upon us. We pray that you'll

open our eyes and our ears so that we

may know you better in Jesus' name.

Amen. Just a quick background here to

help you understand. There were two

groups. They were all Jewish. The church

starts off it's all Jewish. There's no

Gentiles at this time. Okay? And the two

groups represent the Jews that had lived

and had grown up and had based their

lives around Jerusalem. And they were

called the Hebraic Jews.

Okay. And then there are the Jews that

lived in the Roman Empire throughout the

whole Roman Empire all the way from

Spain to Egypt. And these people, many

of them didn't even speak Hebrew. And

they were known as the Helenists because

they were had lived in the culture of

the Greek, the Greek Romans, where of

course Helen of Troy comes from and the

Helenist movement. And these two groups

would meet once a year where do you

remember Passover Jerusalem? Everyone

would come from around the whole world

and they would come on Passover because

they were waiting for their Messiah to

come. And when they got there, the Jews

that were from Jerusalem or we'll call

them the Hebrew Jews hated the Hellenist

Jews. They thought they were dirty. They

hung out with the wrong crowd. Can you

believe it? They even had denominations

back

then and humanity. But we're don't

worry, we're better than

that. And this absolute hatred often

left the Hellenist Jews starving even

though the Torah, their law, their Bible

had told them to take care of the

widows. You did a great job of reading

that today where he says basically

circumcise your heart and take care of

the widows. And why the widows? Why are

they so

important? Well, because they're not

like widows today. Most widows today,

most are

seniors. Most widows today can get a

check at least. Well, at least they can

get some sort of coverage. Most widows

in antiquity were under

30. Why was

that? Violence and war took their

husbands. Often there was famine and

disease.

Many of the widows in the ancient world

were considered, it was not surprising

to see them under 35. It was often a

surprise and I have to always tell this

story because it was one of my favorite.

I was teaching a Bible study. I think my

mother-in-law was actually there. And in

this particular text, it said, "And to

the widows," Paul says in this

particular text we were studying, "do

not let your loins burn with

passion." Of course, he's speaking to

widows in their 20s. Well, my widows

were all in their 80s and one of them

popped up and said, "Emmyry, I haven't

had to worry about that for 30

years." The world was very different and

widows not only had did not live long,

they were women, so they were secondass.

I'm sorry. And the third problem was

that often the families who might take

them back saw them as

cursed because they lived in a world

where if bad things happened to you, you

were cursed. It was often shaming to

bring them back. So what would widows

have to do? Often if you read about it,

they would become temple prostitutes out

of necessity. It was very

sad. But there were people obviously who

actually followed the law. And they

weren't in Jerusalem. They were outside

of Jerusalem. and they would try and

feed the

widows. And this is the group that we're

going to run into today. Now, these

priests would go around their local

synagogues and get enough for two meals

a day for widows. Now, they didn't cover

them housing, so I don't know how that

got dealt with, but these Jews were

dealing with it. And a lot of them have

all of a sudden become followers of

Jesus. Remember, they're all Jews at

this time. And now, these follower of

Jesus, we found out, have grown and

grown and grown and grown. This is weeks

after. And there's a bunch of Jews there

that are both helanized and Hebrews. Why

are there a bunch of Jews that are from

the helanized world and the Hebrew

world? Because when was Jesus

resurrected?

Passover, right? When did I just say

they all showed

up? Passover. So, the reason there's a

ton of these people is because they were

there. All of Israel were there to see

it. And a lot of these people who lived

all the way from Spain through are there

and now they're following Jesus. And now

the disciples have a

problem. They've got a bunch of people

following them because of this Jesus

Christ. And they don't know what to do.

The actual words of it go like

this. I don't think it's going to turn

for me,

Larry.

Larry, I need

slide. Thank

you. There you go. Oh, there we go.

Now in those in these days when the

disciples were increasing in number a

complaint by the hellists so these are

the ones that are on the outside arose

against the Hebrews because their widows

were being neglected in the daily

distribution. This was that two meal

thing I told you about. And so what's

going on here is the Hebrews who always

thought themselves better were saying

we're or that or the argument was the

grumbling is the actual word in Greek.

Think of think of the Passover. The

grumbling was that this Hebrew ladies

were getting fed while the Hellenists

were not. Okay, that's the basic part

slide.

And the 12 summoned the full number of

disciples and said, "It is not right

that we should give up preaching the

word of God and serve tables." Who are

the

12? How many tribes were there in

Israel?

You think he's saying something

here? This is true

Israel. Okay. And he said to the full

number of disciples, "It is not right

that we should give up preaching the

word of God to serve tables." It sounds

like he's slighting serving tables by

preaching the word, doesn't it? But

here's the point that they're making

right

there. We're not a social service

industry. Our main goal is to see

people's souls

saved. That's their main goal, to bring

spiritual life. That was what the

disciples were saying. So, does that

mean then we don't take care of the

poor? Well, by no means. Just because

the the scripture being preached is

important.

Slide. Therefore, brothers, pick up from

among you. How many

men? Do you guys remember that number in

Revelation? What does it mean?

Complete. Perfect. Oh, I love this.

People actually listen once in a

while. Seven men of good perpute. They

want the right amount of people to help.

And they notice they're good. Full of

good repute. In other words, they're not

tricksters. Full of the spirit and

wisdom. What a combination. Now the

spirit's in the church, right? It never

was before Pentecost. This is post

Pentecost. They want somebody who's full

of God's presence. That's what the

spirit really means. Full of God's

presence and wisdom means and the wisdom

to know how to deal with a situation

like this. and we whom we will appoint

to this duty. So the disciples who are

the people of Israel, they're going to

now get these people who are going to

know be full of God and they're going to

be full of how to do it right wisdom and

they will anoint them

slide. But we will devote ourselves to

prayer and to the ministry of the world,

which is we're going to find out really

important. So they're not going to sit

there and serve tables because they are

serving tables of a different bread,

aren't

they? What do we call the word of God?

The bread that we eat. Think of the

temptation. All right.

Slide. And what they said pleased the

whole gathering. And they chose Stephen,

a man full of faith, of the Holy Spirit.

Why did they start off with Steven, by

the way? Do you ever think of this?

Guess what's going to happen to him

right after

this? Yeah, he got

stoned. So, if we do pick uh um if we do

pick deacons, just don't be the first

name that gets

picked. And Philillip and Proorosa and

the rest of them.

But the last one stands out the most to

me. A protoolite of Antioch. Not only

did they pick these guys whom, by the

way, I'm going to tell you the craziest

part. Remember it was the Helenists that

were complaining that the Hebrews were

getting the food. Well, the whole church

got together and you know how they

solved it? Every one of those names up

there are Hellenist Jews.

The Hebrews were breaking down their

hatred and trusted the Hellenist Jews to

distribute the food. That is

gospel. Not only that, he ends with a

proatite out of

Antioch. This

slide now in these days the disciples

were increasing in number. I come. Whoa,

where am I?

Back. I need to go the other way.

there can't these they set before the

apostles and they prayed and laid hands

on them. So then what happens is they

come together and the disciples come

together but they take the food and they

take these men men of wisdom who are

going to feed the the the people and

they lay their hands upon them and they

send them out to do exactly this so that

so

that the word can be

preached. Now why is this an important

story? Number one, it shows that God is

going to work on hearts and hearts need

to be worked

on. And what he's done is he's breaking

down the barriers between the Hel

Henistics and the Hebrews. Number two,

the word of God is very important. And

number three, and most

importantly, in my opinion, most

importantly, the people are going to be

fed right and there's going to be

justice.

So when I'm thinking about a text like

this, I think

slide that the first thing I need to say

to you before we go any further is that

this church and I do take serious the

centrality of the

word. Now why is that so important?

Well, I'm going to give you a little

history lesson about the mainline

churches in North America.

Many many you guys know what a mainline

denomination

is. Anglican,

Presbyterian, United, Lutheran,

etc. They made one mistake. They made

the right call in one way. They said,

"We need to help the poor and the

homeless and the weak. We need to deal

with people who are marginalized." They

did all of that. All of those things are

good things. But you know what they

forgot to do?

They forgot to preach the

word. They forgot to preach. Why are we

doing this? And these churches got

together day after day after day and

they would sit there and hang out. But

ultimately there was no gospel. So

pretty soon fewer and fewer people came

even though they were doing the works

because there wasn't the power of the

spirit through the story of

Jesus. They forgot why they were doing

it. And then they were pretty much doing

it just because they wanted to look like

good people. Next thing you know, all

their magazines, all of it ever was was

social justice, social justice, social

justice. And you know what's happened to

our churches, my

friends? Nobody wants to hang out in

them. Because without the word of God,

you don't get the transformative

reality. Because we are not just needing

food of our physical body. Jesus says we

need a word of God for our

soul.

Right? And when they forgot that and I

can tell you one thing, it will be a

lesson that will always be learned here.

We will never give up the word of God

here because it is the foundation of

everything that's happened historically

for the church. If there's ever

something good in the church

historically, it's because of the word

of God's been preached.

Luther, the guy who changed the

reformation. What does he give credit

for? The whole reformation. He says, "I

simply preached, taught, preached, wrote

God's word. Otherwise, I did nothing.

The word of God did it all." You see

that Martin Luther says the whole

reformation did not come because we went

out and fed a bunch of people. He said

we preached the word and people got fed.

So the word will never stop being

preached. We must never stop taking

serious because we need that word to

challenge us or we will start giving out

of our arrogance rather than

humility. John Calvin said this. I'm

bringing out all the old

boys. Papa John we call him here.

Whenever we find the word of God surely

preached and heard and the sacraments

administered or correctly according to

the institution of Christ there, it is

not to be doubted. It is a church of

God. If you don't have the word

preached, well, you don't have a church.

Calvin

says, you know where Calvin and Luther

got all of their ideas

from? The ancient

fathers. All of them. They didn't come

up with this stuff. They rediscovered

the fathers. So, not only does if

Calvin's right, if you're not preaching

the word, if you're just doing the

stuff, you're not even a church

anyways and don't expect anything. And

Paul himself showed the importance of

the preached word. And this is why these

guys said we can't just go. It's not

that the tables were less than the

preached word, but if you start doing

the tables, which is wonderful, you lose

the wonderful aspect of life's change

through the preached word. And what does

he say to those

Romans? How then will they call on him

in whom they have not believed? How will

they not to how are they to believe in

him whom they've never heard? And how

are they to hear without someone

proclaiming the word of God?

So I promise you here we're going to

talk about that whole part of social

justice and giving, but this church and

the session here believes it. And darn

it, I wish the Preserian church in

Canada

did. We will preach the word and it will

be

center. Sorry, I get

excited. And then faith can happen

because then you can encounter that God.

can learn who it is and you can have

that relationship with God. But it

doesn't end there. And here's where I'll

be critical of some of my other friends

in the church where all it is is about a

spiritual experience. All it is is to

get the right ideas. All it is, my

friends,

biblically, Christianity is not just

sitting there on a cloud saying m all

day thinking high thoughts.

And I've been in churches where it's the

personal experience or it's the the

cognitive word of God and nobody does

anything. I'm going to tell you my

friends, that's not

Christianity. James was writing years

later, right after this, James, the

brother of Jesus, remember him? and he's

writing and it's funny because he's

dealing with a church which isn't doing

very well with the poor. And do you

remember the famous section because it

gets so many people getting mad about

it.

Um what good is that? Also, faith by

itself, it does not have works, it's

dead. Have you heard

that? That's a very controversial thing

because I thought we were saved by grace

alone. How can you say it's not dead if

we don't do our work? Well, here's what

Paul means. He doesn't

mean that you're not

saved. What he's saying, and this is cuz

he preaches the word, is if you do

nothing with your faith, the faith

practically has no

life. It's dead. Now, what a lot of

people don't realize when they hear that

is it's actually written in context of

something that's not happening. Listen

to his words here.

Now, what good is it, my brothers, if

someone says he has faith but does not

have

works? Can that faith save him? If a

brother or sister is poorly clothed or

lacking in daily food, and one of you

says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed

and filled," without giving them the

things the body needs needed for the

body. What good is that? He says, you

see, he makes this statement in light of

they're not doing anything to help the

people that

need. That's when he says, so also faith

by itself, if it does not have these

actions of caring for others, is

dead. You might say, "Oh, that's just

James pistol of

straw." But I got trouble for you then.

I remember there was a parable by a guy

named Jesus. You remember

him? It's a joke. Holy

church is named after him.

Um, and he tells that parable and it's

that one about the goats, remember the

sheep and the goats. And he gets to that

point and they were asking all those

questions and remember he he condemns

the goats and he tells them why. And

then he blesses the sheep. Remember

that. And what does he say? Sounds very

similar to what James is actually

saying. When the son of man comes in his

glory and all the angels with him, then

they will sit on his glorious throne.

Before him he will be gathered all the

nations from where he separate people

one from another as a shepherd separates

the sheep from the goats. And he will

place and he will place on the sheep on

the right and the goats on the left.

Then the king will say to those on the

night, "Come, you who are blessed by the

father and inherit the kingdom prepared

for you before the world, the foundation

of the world." This sounds like

salvation, doesn't

it? And then what does he say? What's

the

why? For I was hungry and you gave me

food. I was thirsty and you gave me

drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed

me. I was naked and you clothed me. I

was sick and you visited me. I was in

prison and you came to

me. Paul and Jesus and James are all the

same. What they're saying is salvation

is by grace through faith. But my

friends, it is not just that. The word

of God properly preached will tell you,

my friends, that if you want to truly

see yourself and judge yourself, ask

yourself and

myself, do we ever

give? Do we ever offer something to

someone in need?

Tim Keller said, "If you have been

siding the goods of this world by God

and you don't share them with others, it

isn't just stinginess, it's

injustice." Powerful

stuff. So now you're going to say, "Oh,

Emry, thanks for the

guilt. Hey, my mother was great at it. I

learned a few things.

But I want you to understand who he's

speaking to. He's speaking to the

community, not to the

individuals. In both cases, he's

challenging us. What are we going to do

with those around us? Notice when Jesus

says to the littlest of these of mine,

he's talking about his

followers. He's not saying you can feed

the whole world. He's saying you take

care of those in your midst in that

section. So instead of making you feel

guilty, I want to tell you also that

there's great

promise that when we do this thing, we

show that our faith is real and then we

are part of the people that he says

congratulations. But we also need to

realize that giving isn't just it. And

that's what happened in this act story.

You remember what they said when they

asked for the people to lead this?

They're full of, do you remember? Spirit

and

wisdom. In Wall-E, we had spent many a

year. Do you guys know Wall-E? But you

know, some of you are new. Wall-ally was

the poorest neighborhood in BC. I

ministered there for 15 years. We had

some incredible needs and we learned

some really difficult lessons and we

wanted to help finally. We didn't at

first because we were an old

Presbyterian church, but we slowly got

involved in the community. And we

realized one thing, you just don't throw

money at

people because they take that and they

go and destroy their

bodies. Soon we realized you can't even

give off Safeway cards. We thought that

would be the answer because they sold

the Safeway cards in the parking lot of

Safeway. Pretty soon we had to figure

out how to do this and we made the

mistakes. Have you guys ever heard the

story about the guys that say, "I need

to take a bus because my grandma's dying

in Calgary and here, can you give me 300

bucks?" Don't do that. They never do. I

did actually challenge a guy cuz it

happened so many times. I hopped him in

my car. We were halfway to the bus

station. He started laughing. He said,

"How about five

bucks?" You see, there are users,

too, but there are really those in need,

isn't there? That's why he said wisdom

and

spirit people who look at it and look at

it through Christian lens and says how

can we most use this to help this person

become more

Christlike. That's called

disciplehip. Jesus in fact said to us, I

send you out as sheep in amongst the

wolves. So be shrewd as serpents and

innocent as doves. That's what he means.

Realize this world is not just a thing

where everyone's innocently going to

come and ask

you and you must decide how you're going

to give that but we must give

nonetheless. and a mature church. By the

time I was done the 15 years, we had put

together a deacons committee and they

were so wonderful because they had

learned to discern and we said to the

people, "Come be part of our community."

And a couple of them even got saved

instead of us just giving them a check

so they could

leave. And we had great moments where we

would have people give on a deacon

Sunday and we would be able to provide

food and clothing for the truly

needy. And guess what? Nobody else knew

because we had given it to the church.

The church took the money, gave it out,

and I was the only one that knew cuz I

got a letter later saying, "Thank God

you did that. My kids didn't have boots

to walk to

school. Don't let your left hand know

what your right hand is

giving." And we were able to do that

because there was a group of

us. It's too much for one person, I

promise you.

And then pretty soon we realized that we

needed food from this neighborhood for

the immigrants who couldn't quite finish

the paycheck and the food bank had given

them up. So we ended up with a food

cupboard and all kinds of creative

things came. But what it drew was

disciplehip and we had an opportunity to

talk to them about Jesus. The word of

God never

stopped. See the pro point I'm going to

say is we are needing something here. We

need to start taking this serious. I'm

going to tell you right now, there are

people here that will have

needs and you won't know it. And I thank

God you

won't. But they we as a church need to

be there to

help. We need to take serious that if a

person comes and says, "I'm cold," we

say, "Well, don't I hope you get warm

later." That's what James is talking

about. that if somebody really needs

food and they're in our community or

needs something else, I remember one

person couldn't get a job because they

didn't have glasses, we bought them

glasses, they got a job. Guess what?

They're amazing people and they started

giving to the church. Doesn't always

happen that

way, but we provided and we became a

witness to the

world. So, we need

deacons. You know what a deacon is?

means

servant. It means someone who's willing

to come along under the church like

those seven and see the needs and the

needs are going to be very different in

our culture than they were then. We live

in a socialist culture where many things

are provided but there's a lot of things

that slip through the back cracks and we

need people who have a heart for this to

be honest with you. Jim's going to lead

it. And what a deacon does is he comes

in and he walks alongside people like I

would have been when I was broke and

said, "How can we get you through that?

How can we walk with you through

it?" And we need the money to help pay

for it, to be honest,

too. So, we're going to be asking you to

do two things today.

Number one, consider putting a little

money

aside for our our benevolent fund.

Unlike any other fund you give

to,

100% 100% goes to the people in need.

There is no administration

fees. We promise you

that. Number

two, we need people who have a heart for

this, that will have wisdom and spirit

that will discern how to do this. And

they're called deacons. They're called

servants. Pray about it if it's you or

if it's not, if you can think of someone

else because we're starting this thing

out. But I believe very

firmly, I've believed this for a long

time, that when we give in secret as a

community, God blesses it because he

gives in

secret, doesn't

he? He's always given to us and he

doesn't come up and say, "Ha, you owe me

one." He just keeps giving to us.

For those who serve well as deacons gain

a good standing for themselves and also

great confidence in the faith in Christ

Jesus. It truly is an honorable

call. It truly

is an amazing thing you can do if you

choose to do

it. I would highly recommend you

prayerfully consider

it. Now Jim's going to come up and he's

going to talk to you about practically

what we're doing here at Mountain View

and then I'll end us with a

call. Thank you, Emry. That

was as usual very

insightful. And

um I'm not sure what to do with that uh

reference to Stephen

um because I was uh appointed to this

duty. Uh my hand went up in a session

meeting one day.

Um I don't I don't think there's a lot

of rocks or stones on the property. So

hopefully uh

yeah, I may want to lead, but uh like

Henry said, it's going to take a lot of

us to do this. So anyway, I would like

to

um just talk to you quickly about the

the Mountain View Church benevolence

ministry. And a lot of this material

comes from the book. I'm not sure if you

can see all that, but uh it's called

helping without hurting. I think that's

what Emmery was alluding to is how can

we help those in need

um with and preserve their dignity and

somehow lead them to Christ.

Now, is this going to work for me

or we need the next slide,

please? Oh, there it

is. What is benevolence? It's an old

English word that includes the ideas of

grace,

kindness, giving, and

mercy. A benevolence ministry might also

be called a mercy ministry, compassion

ministry.

poverty

alleviation or as Emory was pointing out

this morning a diagonal which is a big

word kind of almost as long as the word

Presbyterian

uh deacons

ministry. The gospel teaches the

priesthood of all believers and we are

all called as members of the body of

Christ and as bearers of the image of

Jesus Christ to love and good works.

This ministry is one way that we can

help each other bear his image more

effectively and

overcome barriers. Um many people have

social

barriers, emotional barriers,

um mental to name a few and of course

financial barriers to to bear the image

of Christ and to be able to provide for

their

families. There are many reasons for

poverty and it is important to properly

diagnose them.

to not just treat the symptoms but help

each other discover and deal with the

underlying issues. If we get the

diagnosis wrong, we could end up doing

more harm than good. Think of a doctor

with a patient. He's got

um a disease uh let's say cancer, but

he's diagnosed it as a ingrown toenail.

You know, imagine the trouble.

So, um, we want to get the diagnosis

right. We want to walk alongside people

and and,

um, really help discover the underlying

issues here.

Sorry. So, in in North America, we tend

to think of poverty in terms of

materialism. That's kind of the way

we're wired because we live in such a

materialistic culture. We define poverty

as the lack of material

goods such as money, food, clothing, and

shelter. And of course, the gospel and

many of the things that we read this

morning uh allude to food, shelter,

clothing, the distribution for the

widows. But there's there could be more

to it than that.

We think that by simply giving things to

lowincome people, money to pay the

electrical bill, toys and turkeys at

Christmas, warm clothes for the winter,

we have solved the

problem. It may be that all we have done

is treat the symptoms and may not have

really helped the person with the real

problems they're facing.

God is a relational being and we are

made in his image. We too are created

for

relationships. In the following slide,

we'll look at some of the main areas

where we have relationships. We'll look

at how we relate to

God, how we relate to ourselves, to

others, and to the rest of creation. So

this slide of course giving credit to

the people that wrote that book. It's

the Chomemer's Chomemer's uh

society and you can talk to me later

about uh some really good resource

material here. So you see in the center

I couldn't quite get this right but in

the center is is you the self and how do

we relate to God self

creation and others and then outside of

that we're interacting all the time with

economic

systems with social systems with the

church religious systems

and politics so I mean lately it feels

like we've been bombarded by all these

How do we um as image bearsers of God

function in the midst of all this

chaos? A word of caution though um you

may find a new realization of your own

brokenness and poverty even though you

may not be materially poor. So it's not

all about

materialism. Uh we're all broken. We may

feel like we've arrived and we're

reaching down to others. That is not the

gospel. The gospel is realizing that

we're all broken and we all need the

benevolence of Jesus Christ.

It may become a journey together with

others to admit our shared need of the

benevolence of our Lord Jesus Christ and

find ways to break out of misconceptions

of what poverty really is, what the root

causes of it may be, and how to find

biblical ways to alleviate it in our

lives.

We will learn how to develop without

hurting the dignity and selfworth of

others and to distinguish the different

levels of help that might be required.

Think of it as

triage.

Um somebody with an immediate need uh

and maybe it's legitimate. They have to

uh pay the rent or they're going to get

kicked out on the street tomorrow. They

need relief almost instantaneous relief.

uh it may be rehabilitation or

development. So there's there's

different

levels. It becomes a process not so much

of administering handouts but a

relational process of learning from each

other how best to be set free from

pride, self-centeredness and the god god

complex in ourselves and the tendency in

those who we're trying to help to let

others fix their problems while they

just sit back and let it happen.

Let's discover how to live in community

and truly minister the love and grace of

our Lord Jesus Christ to each

other. So how can I get

involved? We were looking to develop a

team of people who could help in the

following ways. So of course as Emry

mentioned deacons this is an ordained

position by the presbyter to uh you know

we form the nucleus of the team provide

spiritual leadership and counsel and

develop the philosophy and policies of

the ministry. How do we walk in the

spirit and uh act in wisdom to to do

this together?

uh we there'll be need for

administrators if you uh have that gift

of administrations. Uh we're going to

have we're thinking of intake forms so

we don't just um like we want to get to

know the people so we may have a list of

a questionnaire so that we can really

get to the underlying

problems. Uh there's uh existing

community services uh maybe just put a

list together of where we can send

people. We don't have to do everything.

And I think Emry mentioned the homeless

situation. You know, there's there's

really some big problems out there. How

can we in the spirit wisely

uh go in a direction and

uh do this

together and then we track the progress

of people that we're trying to help. Uh

you might want to be a mentor or another

word is a champion. come alongside

others to walk together out of the grip

of material poverty through building

relationships with people, prayer and

counseling. Uh financial overseers help

oversee financial aid, raise funds, and

determine the best use of the

benevolence fund. These are just some

ideas. Nothing has been formed yet.

Helpers assist with material aid to

organize the collection and distribution

of the the articles of clothing,

furniture,

money. So, prayerfully consider whether

this is the

direction that the Lord may be leading

you. Thank

you. Thanks,

Jim. So, this is a new thing. It's going

to be a process, but we have had I just

want to let you guys know, we have had

people here since you've been here, mo

many of you, and there are moments where

they don't have enough to eat. We need

to be and have this. This is an

important ministry, guys. Prayerfully

consider if you

would maybe giving. We need to build up

a trust here.

And the way you can do that is ways to

give e transfer. You put finance at

mountainview

clona.ca. All there will be a note

section and just put in benevolence

fund. I tried that myself. It does

work. Pre-authorized debit. You can can

you do that

with you can. Okay. Talk to Mike about

that because I don't know how.

Mount Mountain Mount Mountain Mount

Mountain Mount View Colona give online

and this page will come up. I'm very

proud of myself cuz I'm getting so good

at this stuff. And you'll see that on

this page where you give there's that

little box on the the left that says

general fund. Can you see that?

Oh, okay. Yeah, you're you're left. My

right.

Um, you hit on that and it will take you

down to a benevolence and you just have

to hit on that. Okay, I'm very proud of

this cuz I did this all

myself and in the back afterwards,

Christina will be running the square,

which is just you can put your Visa or

can you do debit card stuff there? debit

card, whatever you want, and you can do

that. Or, of course, there are plates in

the back if you're from the

1960s. And uh I'm joking pre if you're

from precoid reality and they and you

can put checks or cash in there and just

make sure you let us know that it's to

the benevolent fund. All right. The

second call I want to make is is exactly

as

important. I want you to go home and

pray. We need deacons. We need people

who are gifted in this area, who love

the weak and the broken, who have a

heart for it and are wise. And maybe

it's not you, but maybe you think, "Boy,

that Emmery would be the right guy." I'm

not. I used me as an an Don't come and

say my name. I'd be terrible at

this. Pick somebody. And if you know

somebody who's just shown compassion to

the needy, please let us know so that we

can come together and put together our

deacons committee. All right, let's

pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that

you have given us so much, that you have

poured yourself upon

us, and that you have made us a people

that follow you.

We pray by your

grace that you will help

us. Help us to meet the needs of those

around us. Help us to have those people.

May may you bring those people forward

who need have those temporary needs so

we can

help. And Lord, we do this because we

want to look like you and you gave

everything for us.

We ask you to raise up those and that

they'll be faithful to their call to

help serve in this

ministry in Jesus'

name. Amen.