Excerpts from A Secret Church Sermon: Today, over a billion people live and die in desperate poverty and live on less than a dollar a day. Just to give you a little glimpse, that’s 700 million in slums, 500 million on the verge of starvation, 93 million beggars, 200 million children exploited for labor. We say poverty, desperate poverty, what is poverty? What does that represent? Lack of food and water. Over a billion people on the planet today who do not have access to safe drinking water. Illiteracy, huge illiteracy rates in places like India and Africa. Inadequate medical care, disease. You’ve got a disease like AIDS, there are 6,000 people who die every day in Africa of AIDS alone. And then you’ve got easily curable disease and sickness. There are millions of people this year who will die of diarrhea. They will die from it. Brain damage. It’s one of the most devastating pictures of poverty in the world, permanent brain damage. Most of your brain development, 80 percent of it happens in the first two years of your life, and if that is not provided for, enough protein and nutrients, then your brain is deformed for the rest of your life. Over a billion people in desperate poverty, close to two billion others living on less than $2.00 a day. That’s close to half the world living on what you and I would pay for French fries for lunch. It gets worse. According to UNICEF, 26,000 children will die today due to either starvation or preventable disease, a disease like diarrhea or pneumonia or malaria, 26,000. I mean, think about that. 26,000 Joshuas and Calebs, our two sons. If this were true in our community then every child 18 years or younger in our county would be dead within a few days. .... I – we are not inconvenienced by this extreme poverty because those stricken by it are not only poor, they are powerless; literally, millions of them dying quietly in relative obscurity. And here is the danger. We can comfortably ignore them in our affluence and pretend like they don’t even exist. And this was the scary thing for me. I can lead in a church and my life, my family, and I can be successful in the church, in our church culture, and all the while turn a deaf ear to the unreached and starving. I can lead in a church and be successful in a church, but here was the question. Can I believe the gospel and turn a deaf ear to those who are unreached and starving? And the answer to that question is absolutely not. It is impossible to truly believe in the gospel of Christ and turn a deaf ear to those who’ve never heard of Him or those who are starving outside our doorstep. It’s what James 2 is all about. Gospel faith works. Particularly when you consider the reality of wealth, according to the World Bank, follow this, incoming, low income people in the world, percentage of people in the world that make $825.00 or less, 37 percent, a year. $825.00 a year or less, 37 percent. Next, lower middle income, up to $3,000.00 plus, 38 percent. So that’s about 5 billion people right there living on less than $3,000.00 a year. Now, you’re in the upper middle class of the world, up to about $10,000.00, that’s 9 percent, and then the highest incomes in the world, $10,000.00 or more, 16 percent. It’s interesting, if you just kind of get in your mind maybe your salary. If you keep taking the salary higher, you make $25,000.00 a year, you’re in the top 10 percent of the world’s wealthiest people. You make $50,000.00 a year, you’re in the top 1 percent of the world’s wealthiest people, $50,000.00 a year. Average annual American Christian household income, $42,409.00, $42,409.00. That is in the top 2 and a half percent of the richest people in the world. But statistics don’t change us, Scripture changes us. And so I want us to see the reality of the world, and see Scripture in light of the reality of the world. This Word speaks across cultures and gives truth upon which to make those kinds of decisions across cultures. It’s true; God’s Word on money is thorough. Over 2,300 verses. Are we willing to hear the Word, even if it convicts us, are we willing to hear it? Are we willing to obey the Word, even if it costs us? Are we willing to obey the Word even if it goes against everything our culture says? Are we willing to obey the Word even if it goes against everything our affluent religious neighbors say? A follower of Christ says, “I want to hear what the Word of God says, and I will obey it.” By His grace and the power that He provides, I will obey it. We’re willing to obey it, even if it costs us. We want to experience spiritual transformation. I picked this topic because it’s huge. It’s huge for us, in a world of prosperity surrounded by a world of poverty. We need to see these things. I’ve picked this topic because this prosperity theology is a theology that is being exported for American Christians and American churches all over the world and is deceiving people all over the world and damaging the spread of the gospel to the ends of the Earth, because in the end, it is no gospel at all. Taking the pure gospel and replacing it with an idolatry of possessions and pursuit of worldly prosperity. That is damning souls here in materialistic America and it’s exported to damn souls in other places. And so we need to address this. We’re going to look at the gospel, because we’ve got to see everything in light of the gospel; then we’re going to look at the gospel and possessions. The gospel is the good news, the just and gracious God of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent His Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to bear His wrath against sin on the cross and then show His power over sin in the resurrection, so that all who have faith in Him will be reconciled to God forever. First, the character of God. The gospel starts with the glory of God. Second, the sinfulness of man. Sufficiency of Christ, third. God, man, Christ, necessity of faith. That’s how we respond to the gospel, and then the urgency of eternity. The character of God, sinfulness of man, sufficiency of Christ, necessity of faith, urgency of eternity. -David Platt radical.net/media/schurch/view/369/secret-church-the-gospel-possessions-and-prosperity-part-1?filter=series
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 16:14:01 +0000
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