Motivation
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:
12 “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, 13 and to keep the commandments and
statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you
today for your good? 14 Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens,
the earth with all that is in it. 15 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. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart,
and be no longer stubborn. 17 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. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the
widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were
sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall
fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and
hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He
is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying
things that your eyes have seen. 22 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:
17 “You shall not pervert
the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's
garment in pledge, 18 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.
19 “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. 20 When you beat your olive trees, you
shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless,
and the widow. 21 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. 22 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
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?
Resources:
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