A scary thought is that my heart's default mode is no different than the Pharisees' who Jesus had nothing but harsh words for. He discussed this broken condition first when he talked about eating "clean and unclean" food ..
“What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” Mark 7:20-23
Jesus added to this in Luke 11 where he said in verses 34-36...
"Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”
Putting these two thoughts together and applying it to me it is saying that I could live a life in this unclean world without it defiling me and give the proper response to the corrupt society around me by letting the darkness out and letting the light of Christ in me have full reign. How that might play out is to watch a gay pride march and respond with love rather than disgust. I might get persecuted for sharing the gospel and respond with "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." It would make me weep for people's souls rather than pray God's judgment on them. And here's a thought... I could go to Hooters for the wings! Haha. I could use social media as my prayer list.
If you think of your heart or soul having a chest with a lock and key that is jam packed with darkness like the things listed in Mark 7, and you want to clean the junk in the trunk (mind check), how do you get it out and replace it with the light of the Holy Spirit? What if I told you there is a passage in Luke that gives us the key to unlock the chest? Pretty exciting - right? Hold on because it isn't what you would think...
"...the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you." Luke 11:39-41
The inside of the cup filled with the Mark 7 wickedness can all be let out and cleaned by being generous to the poor. Let's examine 8 reasons why this is the key to unlocking the chest and we can take a trip through Luke 12 and find most of them.
1. Takes your mind off self - let's face it, we are all self centered. It's probably the most difficult part of our sin nature to get rid of and it's the first thing that demonstrates we have a sin nature in an infant. "Mine!", says the toddler. Luke 12:15-21 demonstrates this...
The Parable of the Rich Fool
“The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “I have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Notice the 12 times he uses the personal pronoun and in response to this, God treats him in like manner 5 times. When we give to the poor we are saying, "This money isn't mine, I'm managing it for God." Not only that but it makes us a servant too putting us on even footing with everyone and you could argue subservient to others. What a way to cure self - centeredness!
2. Takes focus off Kingdom of Earth and puts on Kingdom of Heaven - Notice how the parable ends; "rich toward God". Giving to the poor is akin to depositing your money in Heaven's banks. Look at verse 33...
"Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys"
The faith chapter in Hebrews 11 time after time commends our heroes for living for the future and not the present. From Moses who forsook the fame, power, treasures of Egypt and rather identified with the oppressed Israelites to Abraham who left comfort to live in a tent and go to who knows where. Of all the great things Joseph did, what's he praised for? Wanting his bones buried in the promised land! Want to get rid of some greed, envy, arrogance and folly? Send your treasures on ahead of you to heaven by giving them away to the poor and living modestly down here.
3. Teaches a life of faith - If you give "your" money away to the poor, you have to trust God for your needs. Remember when the 72 got sent out they were told not to bring a bag, clothes, food, money along? Jesus was training them in trusting Him to meet their needs. Look at verses 22-31...
Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock."
As the lottery approaches $650 million today I often think, "God, if you'd let me win that I could do some amazing things around here for the poor" and then I think His response would be, "If you'd trust Me enough to give Me your substantial retirement fund, we could build a pretty amazing homeless shelter and pay to have it staffed for some time." God doesn't want your excess - well, actually He does, but He wants enough to cause you to have to trust Him. He is just as much interested in you as He is in the poor.
4. Teaches a life of moderation - In the above passage, Jesus mentions clothes, food, beauty, and work. How many pairs of shoes or suits do we really need? Wouldn't my BMI be better served by giving that food away? Why am I working 80 hours a week? To increase my net worth and retirement fund? I can take my botox money and do some pretty nice things for the rescue ministry. When you consider that 1.2 billion people on the earth try to survive on $1.00 a day, we should be ashamed of our excesses.
5. Removes anxiety - When you have a lot stored up and you are mentally resting on that for your life security, there is a whole lot of time, energy, stress, worry, anxiety caused by following the market, cyber security, elections, taxes, inflation, recession, etc. I highlighted the number of times worry appears in the above passage to prove my point. And to further prove the point check out verse 33...
"Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys"
That's what they worried about back in the day - thieves, moth, and rust.
6. Teaches community - You might say, "OK, I do worry about losing my 'nest egg' but I'd worry a whole lot more if I didn't have one." I get that. I'm with you. If you scroll up you can see I made the word flock blue. What is a flock? It implies a whole herd of sheep. In the early community of believers we saw in Acts that they shared everything - no one lacked. In Mark 10:29,30, Jesus replies to the disciples...
... “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life"
What is He saying? I think He is saying that when we become Children of God we join a common family with pooled resources. Wouldn't it be cool to go on vacation and contact a believer there and say"Hey, can I use your house for a week and you can use mine." Or, "I need some new tires and I gave all my money away", and ala "It's a Wonderful Life", money comes flowing from every direction. I truly believe that this is the way it is supposed to be.
7. Teaches a life of imminency - When you are living for the distant future on earth there is no urgency. You are looking for Jesus to come back and you want Him to find you "about His business". When you are living day to day , you are living urgently or in the moment. Look further in Luke 12...
..." But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware..." Luke 12:45,46
8. Teaches grace- in a parallel passage in Luke 17 we read...
“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
When we experience God's grace we realize that we were that poor beggar too in need of spiritual food and Jesus, out of His riches became poor for us. How dare we treat others without grace.
Do you really want to get rid of all the filth you/we have stored up on the inside? Open up the chest and let it out by not just giving but giving generously and sometimes painfully. See if God doesn't fill it up with grace, faith, hope, humility, peace, and love both for believers and unbelievers alike.
