Giving to the Needy

(A sermon resource created by David Nixon)

“Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors
God.” Proverbs 14:31 NIV

I don’t know where you might have learned kindness to the poor. For me, it started in seminary in an independent study in Contemporary Social Ethics with Dr. J. Kenneth Grider. One of my assignments was to do research for a book he was writing called Poor Like Me.

I observed in Emergency Room on a Friday night. Then I was asked to stay overnight in a rescue mission. On Christmas break, I arranged with the Director of the Miami Rescue Mission and member of Miami Central Church, to stay overnight and experience the sights, sounds, tastes, and treatment, Miami’s homeless received.

Or maybe it was my first visit to Haiti in 1978. When my wife and I saw firsthand the hunger and poverty, it prompted giving to the Haiti Hot Lunch program and continued for 35 yrs.

1. Kindness to the poor and needy at home and abroad. Consider these Scriptures:

“Rescue the weak and the needy…” Psalm 82:4 NLT

“He lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump.” Psalm 113:7 NLT

In 2010, I visited Nicaragua and learned of the vision a schoolteacher in Managua to plant a church just beyond the garbage dump in El Timal.

She rode on a motorcycle on weekends digging out a church just
outside of the garbage dump to people who foraged the dump to eke out a living.

After a Chapel Factory was built on the site of the old seminary grounds in Rivas, El Timal became the site of the second chapel
to be built with funds provided by the Longacre Foundation.

We discovered the truth of John Holmes words when he said, “There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”

Since devastating earthquake in 2010, I’ve been Haiti fourteen times. I’ve seen God inspire compassion that resulted in over three-quarters of a million dollars for the poor and needy Haitian people. Surely
some wonder, what motivates people to give?

2. We are motivated to give out of gratitude holding nothing back!

In multiple passages, the Bible challenges us to give to the poor. God notices acts of kindness, especially to the poor. In Acts 10, an angel appears to Cornelius and calls him by name—answers, “What is it, Lord?” “Your prayers and your compassionate acts are like a memorial offering to God.”

Heaven notices. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us not to sound the trumpet when we give, but to give without fanfare. Just quietly give to the poor in secret (Matt. 6:4) and “Your Father who sees what you do in secret
will reward you.”

In Psalm 112:3,9, the psalmist talks about the godly: “3They themselves will be wealthy, and their good deeds will last forever.”“9They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good will have influence and honor.”

How has His grace pushed you to be generous the poor?

We are motivated to give out of gratitude
holding nothing back! Give out of gratitude or don’t give at all.

When two little neighbor boys found out my brother was going to Haiti, they emptied their piggy banks and brought $100 with the note.

What would happen in our lives if we asked needy people, “How can
we serve you?” rather than, “How can you help me?” What if we shifted from “us” to “them,” practiced in countless acts of compassion all over the world? We just might discover that we are enabled to achieve things far beyond anything we could ask or imagine!

I can’t say for certain whether this was the moment when my brother got a vision for The Living Waters Project, but I am certain that this was the moment for our pastor. He made an altar out of a wood pile,
and there the Lord told him to help the St. Marc Pont Ambour church fulfill its dream.

Acts of compassion are about obeying the Spirit’s promptings.

At times I know I’ve missed them. Not this time. Three teams
later, and we now have a growing church of exceeding 700 Nazarenes.

Even if we’re not wealthy, God calls us at times, to radical acts of compassion and kindness. I’ve had some of these myself, but this message is not about me. The closer we are to God, the more sensitive to His still small voice we become. If we learn to obey His promptings, we often find ourselves in the middle
of miracles.

Are you looking and listening?  If you are, God “will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you.”

3. Keep your eyes wide open to opportunities to render selfless service to Christ and the Kingdom.

On one our trips to Gros-Morne, Haiti, we noticed the schoolchildren’s shoes. We went back home and decided to have a “Soles for Souls” thrust at our NMI Convention. Our goal was 850 pairs of new shoes
and socks. The Southern Florida District Nazarenes brought in over 1,200 pairs!

Pascal Permis, our Haitian Coordinator, lives in Indiantown, Florida, and on one of his multiple trips to Haiti, he noticed a little girl in Carreau Daty, born with a cleft pallet and terribly disfigured. He said to
himself, “I can do something about that and gave the $150 so that she might have surgery.”

Little girl Pascal had givne $$ for Cleft Palate surgery. Beautiful!

On our first trip to Haiti in 2010, three weeks after the Earthquake, we met a little boy named Ruud LaPointe, whose mother died while holding his hand. Rescuers had to amputate most of his arm to free him. He was at a Children’s Rescue Center huddled in a tent with seventeen children orphaned by the earthquake. God prompted Pascal to adopt the little boy and is paying for all his expenses as if he were his own.

Ruud Lapointe with Pascal Permis

His eyes were open and he saw a need God prompted him to meet.

A woman named Darlene in Irving, Texas, told me she wanted her NMI group to help some needy children at the school nearest the church.

She got an appointment with the principal to explain what the
people wanted to do. Abruptly, the principal cut her off, “We don’t have any needy children.”

After a pause, she covered her eyes and said, “Actually, we do but I choose not to see them.”

None is so blind as those who cover their eyes to the needy all around them. Giving to the needy is about having eyes wide open. Not like the robbers in the parable of the Good Samaritan who lived by the
motto, “What’s yours is mine and I’ll take it.”

And I’m sure it’s not being like the priest and Levite who walked by on the other side choosing to live by the motto, “What’s mine is mine and I’ll keep it!”

When we give ourselves away, we live like the Good Samaritan because he lived by the motto, “What’s mine is thine and I’ll share it.”

When you know that two-thirds of the Haitian people do not have access to clean water, it might prompt you to dig clean water wells! One well can service a community of 1,500 people. Who could have ever imagined that since 2014, The Living Waters Project has completed 118 community wells or  and built 25 churches?

4. Are you will to share what God has entrusted to you?

There is extreme poverty at an off-the-beaten path at community known as Mare-Briole, Haiti.

The Living Waters Project was able to build them the church of their dreams. The  Church grew from 300 under the trees to a congregation of four hundred fifty. Then came Hurricane Matthew. The roof on Church
was destroyed along with the pastor’s home. The pastor’s mule was killed. For a time, his people were living in tents. Food was scarce.

        Hurricane Matthieu

Pastor Leonese Heruerse walked 42 miles to see us and tell us of their needs. We sent he and his brother on their way with emergency funds and a promise to help them rebuild.

It was in a little place called Baie d’Orange that we met Pastor Leonese, his wife and 12 children. Seeing no evidence of food other than wooden bowl with a pestle leaning against the side and partially filled with maize, we knew we had to help.

I went back to the church I was serving as interim pastor and raised $5,000 in one Sunday for relief. It took some doing, but the first two thousand dollars in emergency relief food arrived on Christmas Eve 2015, which the pastor shared with the entire poverty-stricken community.

Then came Hurricane Matthew. The roof of the church was heavily damaged. Community crops were destroyed. The first of its kind Agricultural Project was underway there but smashed by the
storm. Four people died when a wall collapsed. Twenty-two people were living in the pastor’s storm-damaged house.

The devastation left by Hurricane Matthew was almost indescribable. The important La Digue bridge linking Port-au-Prince to Haiti’s southern peninsula collapsed in Hurricane Matthew flooding.

Crossing the river is a dangerous task which many have undertaken since the bridge collapse. All of this weighed heavy on my heart as I spoke at a Faith Promise Convention. My message was on radical generosity.

The Lord prompted me to place on the altar as a first respondent to the giving challenge the expense reimbursement and honorarium check the pastor had handed me before the service.

A week later, I preached one sermon at our Belen Hispanic church in the heart of a Guatemalan community. They gave me a thousand-dollar love offering. It pays to obey the Spirit’s promptings! In less than five weeks, I received back four or five times what I’d given.

You can’t outgive God even if you try! So, keep your eyes and ears open. Be alert to needy people He may put in your pathway and give to the least of these.