Helping Other People | ANDY STANLEY

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I love what we're gonna talk about today it's a very core message for me personally just because I think of what I've experienced in life and the opportunities have had that are similar to many of the opportunities that you've had to travel around the world to see what God is doing around the world and the thing that's so exciting to me about all this is that what we do it be rich really is at the heart of Christianity because at the heart of Christianity is this idea that God became one of us and dwelt among us that God became one of us and dwelt among us John the gospel writer John Matthew Mark Luke John he wrote one of the Gospels he wrote some letters that were later circulated around with first century Christians John who believed in Jesus then he disbelieved and then he wasn't sure what to believe and then he became a believer once again after the resurrection and he went out to kept talking about Jesus so much so that the Roman Empire got tired of it and under emperor Domitian he was eventually arrested and exiled to the Isle of paten escape atmos where he had even more time to think about what he believed John said this after spending time with Jesus looking back he's an old man he's an old man he's outlived probably all the other apostles he's outlived most of his friends he's sitting on the Isle of Patmos and he's thinking back over his time with Jesus and this was his conclusion after spending three or three and a half years with Jesus he broke this he said in the word became flesh and dwelt among us this was his way of saying that God took on human form and dwelt among him years after the fact he still absolutely convinced that his friend Jesus was more than a friend he was more than a rabbi he was more than a teacher he was more than a good man that he was in fact sent from God and was in some mystical way the unique son of God but why why would God come and spend time in this world why would God become one of us Jesus actually answered that question I'm in John chapter 17 Oh John actually overheard Jesus praying and he wrote down part of this prayer and jesus prayed this he said father he said I have he's at the end of his ministry I have glorified or explained or magnified you were reflected you well I have glorified you on the earth and then check this out having accomplished the work which you've given me to do and typically when we think about what Jesus came to do we think about Jesus coming to pay for the sin of all mankind which was certainly a big part of what he did but Jesus said at this point at this junction before I go to the cross I have already glorified you on the earth and I have accomplished the work which you've given me to do it was his way of saying I came to explain you to mankind I've done everything I can to make you so personable so here so present I've accomplished that part of what I've done but Jesus came Jesus came and this is such an incredible thought that Jesus came to take the guesswork out of God that Jesus didn't claim to have the best explanation of God Jesus claimed to be the best explanation of God he didn't simply come to teach the ways of God at one point one of his closest followers toward the end said Jesus just show us the father I mean you keep talking about the father you illustrate the father but show us the Father and Jesus smiled and said Philip why do you think I'm here you I am as close as you will ever get to understanding the father if you seen me this is as close as you'll ever get to seeing what God is like but in demonstrating what God was like Jesus did something else that blew the first-century folks Minds he demonstrated and he Illustrated whom God liked and this was shocking this was absolutely shocking to people in the first century it was certainly shocking to even his own people the Jewish people in Judea and Galilee in the first century so in fact if you're not a Christian or you used to be a Christian or that the whole church thing kind of bothered you and you're here because somebody invited you here you're watching because you don't know why you're watching you just decided to watch or you're staying over with friends and they say if you spend the day with us we have to go to church or or watched church if you don't hear anything else I say I would just like for this to sit in your mind for a while because this is something that I think many of us miss the notions like God is love you've heard that before notions like God loves everybody you've heard that before you may even believe that you may be a general theist you're not an atheist you're not agnostic you just don't really know but you believe if there's a God certainly God is some sort of loving God or perhaps you've seen a bumper sticker that says everybody matters to God you need to know and understand all three of these ideas are uniquely Christian ideas that Jesus introduced these ideas to the world that the Greek and Roman gods didn't love anybody the Greek and Roman gods toyed with people the Greek Greek and Roman gods did not care for people and consequently they didn't require anyone to care so when Jesus introduced this idea that God is a God who loves everybody and he doesn't just love Jewish people he loves those outside the Jewish world this was a brand-new idea and to compound the confusion for first century people and to send to show you the extraordinary contrast Jesus was to his culture you have to understand something about a slave culture in the Roman Empire there were more slaves than there were Roman citizens all over the world all over the world slavery was an assumption it was not a social issue it was an assumption the economy derived benefit from slavery slavery was here to stay and in a slave culture in a slave culture a slave culture devalues everyone and here's what we don't think about a slave culture devalues everyone because everyone everyone is one string of bad luck away from slavery if a nation invite invited invaded your tribe if a group of people invaded your town your hometown you could become a slave if your husband died ladies you could become a slave if you were injured and we're no longer able to work you could become a slave if you couldn't pay your debts you could become a slave everybody in the first century everybody in the early century everybody in ancient times was potentially somebody's property nobody had intrinsic value nobody had inherent value everybody had economic value and that was it and when Jesus showed up even in that Jewish culture the temple system had devolved to the point or even the religious leaders played to their own version of karma and a caste system that they use their laws their Jewish laws to keep women and sinners Samaritans and shepherds and lepers and the lame in their place always reminding the populace that God favoured the powerful that God favoured the wealthy that God favored those who had the resources to force their way into society that God primarily favored prosperous healthy men and that poverty and illness were sign of God's disfavor that if you were sick it's because God was punishing you or perhaps your parents did something and God was punishing your parents by punishing you but if you were rich and prosperous clearly you had the favor of God and in a culture like that and a culture that was depicted primarily with slavery and enslavement the whole idea of compassion was completely unnecessary because in that world people got what they deserve and poor people were getting what they deserve and the sick people were getting what they deserve and the rich people were getting what they deserved and then along came the rabbi from Galilee and everywhere he went he elevated every body's dignity that he taught in such a way that you began to get the impression that compassion was an expression of strength not weakness and to do for someone who could never ever repay you back and do for you was a sign of virtue and that being meek did not mean being weak and that people had inscribed people had an intrinsic people had inherent value they were valuable just because they were human that they weren't just did just have this ascribed value based on their economic Worth or their ability to produce in society Jesus would elevate the status of women ladies I've said this before every woman should follow Jesus whether you believe he's the son of God or not just because of what he did for women in the first century in the first century Jesus gave women dignity in such a way it didn't even fit with the Jewish or the Greek or the Roman culture it was unbelievable he gave stat dignity to the poor to the sick and then he would stun his audience over and over and over with his teaching these are the stories that were most familiar with that he made a Samaritan a hero over a priest and a Levite that in the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus did something for the entire world that we've still not recovered from Jesus redefined neighbor that for Jewish people much like sometimes American people are people who look like you or people in your community a neighbor is someone who's like you and Jesus said no that's not what a neighbor is in the kingdom of God in the kingdom of God and neighbor is anyone who has a need that you can meet the Jesus told the story of the trilogy of lost things and in this trilogy he basically explains to us into the world into his immediate audience that God doesn't view sinners as someone to chase down and punish that God view sinners is someone to chase down and recapture their attention that God goes after sinners not to pay them back but to win them back and Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says not only are you not to hate your enemies but God views your enemies even those you hate the most in such a way that you have permission and have been invited to pray for them and to look for opportunities to do good for your enemies which introduce the idea of doing good for people who would never ever do good for you I'm telling you my friends this was absolutely absolutely unheard of and then one day Jesus is standing at the temple he walk into the temple and he says to his guys stop right here stop right here watch this and they stand back in the shadows and they watched a long line of people come by and put an offering in their big barrel that they gave money to to support the temple and a small bent-over woman comes by and she slowly puts her hand over the edge and the ledge and she dropped something and you can't even hear it hit the bottom and she walks away and Jesus said did you see that that woman is rich in the kingdom of heaven but that was nothing that was nothing what he taught was nothing compared to what he did if you want to know what someone means by what they say watch what they do if you want to know what someone means by what they say watch what they do Jesus interactions with people were so completely unorthodox in Jesus time in the first century cleanliness was literally next to godliness the more holy you were the more clean you stay Jesus turned it all upside down and he said dirty hands dirty hands holy heart dirty hands holy heart dirty is the new holy his interactions were so over so unorthodox he stopped and had a conversation with a Samaritan woman Jewish men did not speak to Samaritan women but he didn't stop there he said something we read we go by this so quickly we can't imagine the implications for this woman he said I want you to drop your Samaritan bucket into your Samaritan well and I want you to allow me to place that bucket to my lips and drink from it this blew all of her categories this was so socially abnormal this was so unorthodox Jesus would not only heal sick people he would touch them in that day and age religious people never touched sick people because sick people were cursed by God and why would a religious holy person touch a sick person and Jesus not only touched them not only embraced them not only touch their sores and their eyes and their skin the most amazing thing happened as a revelation that the kingdom of God had come not only when Jesus touched people did he not get sick they got well and then he would visit the most unusual people not only did he invite Matthew the tax gatherer the embarrassment to his family to his tribe to his whole nation especially to his family not only did he invite Matthew to follow him he said Matthew I want you to follow me and we're gonna go to your house and I'm sure his disciples were thinking you may go but we're not going it's bad enough you've talked to him it's bad enough you've asked him to follow us but we're not gonna go into his cootie infected center infected hum we're not gonna eat his food we're not going to touch his utensils and we're not gonna eat anything that was prepared in his kitchen and Jesus said yes we are and they went and they a meal with Matthew and then one day he looked up in a tree and there was the little short Zacchaeus that the tax gatherer he said Zacchaeus come down I'm going to your house too and Peter's like see we keep doing this we keep going to tax gatherers house there goes our reputation there goes our ceremonial and cleanliness no wonder the Pharisees and the Sadducees don't want to be around us we hang around with all the wrong people and Jesus says you don't understand something new has happened this is a new age this is a new era something new has come God is demonstrating what God is like and how God views people and God elevates the dignity of every single person because he does not look at people through the lens of economics he looks at people through the lens of having been made and fashioned in His image one day a Centurion Centurion a reminder that the Jews were cursed by God and under God's judgment because Rome was in town a Centurion comes to Jesus and asked for a favor and I'm sure once again his disciples are like surely you are not going to do a Centurion a favor and jesus healed his servant that Jesus went out of his way Jesus went out of his way Jesus went out of his way to declare the value of the very people that society had branded as having no value and when Jesus left this planet his disciples his earliest followers they got it I'm telling you they got it in fact the very first problem in the history of the church was they couldn't get Peter and John and Andrew the guys who had spent so much time with Jesus they could not get those guys to stop taking care of widows they could not stop them from making sure everybody had enough food to eat and finally they said to them look this is Acts chapter 6 look guys okay we appreciate the fact that you don't think you're better than the rest of us you don't think you don't trying to get all uppity you're not you know not trying to pretend like you're too good to do anything but we really need you to preach and teach you or eyewitnesses of the Ministry of Jesus can we please get somebody else to wait on tables so you can teach and they had to pry their hands open from serving people that needed to be served why because after three and a half years with Jesus after watching him and experiencing him washing their dirty feet and taking away all of their excuses they got it and after the resurrection the church got it as well in fact no strings attached no strings attached compassion and generosity became the hallmark of the first century church this is one of the most amazing untold stories in history that the early church actually believed that they had eternal life and because they believed that they had eternal life they did not fear death and when plagues would ravage their villages and towns and everyone would head for a different place to be safe the Christians history tells us would stay back and take care of the poor and take care of those who could not leave town under their own power and in many cases would perish right along with friends and neighbors and strangers in the first century it was not illegal for parents that had a baby that they didn't want to keep to take the baby to the edge of the forest or down by the river and expose that baby in fact that was the term they used terminology they would expose their children this was not illegal and the Roman Empire it was not illegal because essentially parents were not killing their children they were leaving their children to their fate that's what they would say we are leaving our child our baby to the fate to the fates into their personal fate and so if fate would have it that that child survives so be it but if that child suffers or is eaten by an animal or freezes in the night our rolls into the river or is carried off by someone with evil intentions so be it it was their fate this was not illegal and you know what that Christians did in the Roman Empire the Gentile Christians who understood Jesus command to treat people the way that you've been treated by your father through Jesus but they understood it's not the Ten Commandments anymore it's not do unto others as you would have them do unto you it's bigger than that it's love others as God through Christ has loved you they got it and it was the Christians that would go down to the river and to the edge of the forest and take these little babies and bring them home even though they barely had enough to eat themselves even though their homes were so small and they would raise these children as their own why because this was what they understood Jesus to have commanded his followers to do this is what they felt like Christianity should represent in culture and interestingly enough one hundred two hundred two hundred thirty years later Constantine converts to Christianity Christianity is no longer a persecuted religion a few years after that Christianity becomes the religion of the Empire and one of the first laws that wasn't but that was passed one of the first things that changed is they made exposure of babies a capital offense why because of the teaching of Jesus this is why I don't understand I I do understand but I don't understand why everyone why everyone would not consider becoming a follower of Jesus and it goes beyond that it goes beyond the first century the teaching of Jesus the teachings of Jesus they have shaped the conscience of our nation the reason you think you should be fair is not because you're a Christian the reason you think you should be fair and treat people justly it's not because you are inherently a good person either it's because our culture the conscience of our nation and the conscience of our culture has been shaped by the teachings of the New Testament that Republicans and Democrats debate they debate and they bait a debate and they disagree on how to best legislate or to how to create and pass laws that are best for people they disagree about what's best for people but for the most part nobody in our nation and none of our nation's leaders are against what's best for people that in general we believe that what's best for a person is what's best that what's best for a child is what's best that's what's best for a woman is what's best that what's best for the poor is what's best that our culture understands the dignity of the individual that is not natural that is a leftover it is a shadow it is a shade of the teaching of Jesus that's impacted our culture and so the church's role today in our generation the church's role all over the world the church's role in the community in my community is to remind the world through our personal behavior and through our corporate behavior that red yellow black or white everybody is precious in the sight of God and while we may be criticized for what we believe and that's not going to change we should be famous for our compassion and generosity because this is the pattern our Savior left us now my assumption is that you look for opportunities to live this out all year long or you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't have come at the invitation of a friend this isn't a new idea in fact as you listen to this you think yes yes yes that's the kind of person I am that's the first kind of person I want to be so all of us are trying to live this out the best that we can but once a year once a year we come together to do something big and bold and the name of Jesus something so big and so bold that our communities take notice and we're not doing it for personal attention we're doing it to be have an opportunity to say to our community of course we would be generous of course we would be compassionate of course we would help you do what you're doing so well in our communities this is what our Savior has commanded us to do and we call it be rich an extravaganza of generosity now if you're part of the network churches that are participating and be rich this season we're so glad that you joined us and right now your lead pastor or your senior pastor is gonna come and explain what your church has in store for your community okay back to us this is this is pretty cool okay now this is really cool okay don't let me lose you okay bucket Church you know a north pointer biter look up here this this is so cool the reason I had to do that is check this out sixty-four churches all over the country are participating right now and be rich in that gray yeah so they took the first half of everything I just said and then they came up and they're gonna personalize it for their communities over sixteen states okay four different countries are participating and be rich this season this it represents a hundred and fifteen thousand people are gonna receive the same challenge that you received today and we're gonna help over three hundred nonprofits all over our country and all over the world in the last ten years especially if you haven't been here before I want you to know this in the last in the last ten years this is our 11th year but in the last ten years you have served over two hundred seventy three thousand hours over two hundred seventy three thousand hours in these incredible nonprofits these fabulous nonprofits around the country and you've given over twenty nine million dollars in that fund fabulous so again if you're new be rich is a month-long generosity campaign where we come together to remind ourselves and to remind our communities that everybody matters to God whether God matters to them or not and the reason the reason we call this be rich it's a little bit misleading but we like that the reason we call it be rich is because of something the Apostle Paul in the first century wrote to his protege or this person that he was mentoring this kid he was mentoring named Timothy and he wrote him several letters and two of those letters were were have survived antiquity and ended up in the New Testament first and second Timothy they're called and in one of these letters the Apostle Paul says something so fascinating to Timothy we took it as the marching orders for be rich here's here's what he said to Timothy he said command those because Timothy's planting churches and going back around you know with Paul and you know coming in or long behind him to speak to these churches Paul planted tell those who are rich in this present world tell the rich people he said tell the people who are rich to do good in - here's our phrase to be rich he says tell the rich people to be rich since you're rich you should be rich and they're like we are rich he's going oh you're not being rich you just are rich there's a difference between R and B I don't want you to just be are rich I want you to be rich and I want you to be rich in good deeds in other words don't expect everybody else to do it to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and to be willing to share and so every year I remind us that we're rich and the reason you don't feel rich is because you don't have any margin that's your fault not God it's okay if you spend 101 percent of what comes in you will never feel wealthy you will always feel stressed and as your income goes up and your spending goes up you'll feel just the same and you'll think to yourself I've never made so much money in my life why am I so smart rest out financially it's because you're not very good at being rich and we want to help you with that you know there's a third of the world's population come on a third of the world's population lives on $2 a day or less so just imagine you with all your financial trouble and your student loans and your car payment and your rent that's too high and you've you know you're making payments on your phone now okay so you are now transported into a village where people are making living two dollars a day or less and you have a translator and your assignment is to explain your financial pressure to this group and they look at you like you're crazy because we're crazy we are so bad at being rich and Paul this is so direct he says tell the rich people I have a special message for the rich people get better at being rich and you get better at being rich by being generous like a rich person serving like a rich person leveraging your opportunities and leveraging your resources for the sake of other people and the reason we know that rich people aren't all that good at being rich and perhaps some of you fall into that category is because as a person's income goes up the percentage that they give away goes down and you if that's your situation whether you're a Christian or not Church person or not whether you ever come back or not ever watch again on that or not you should be a little bit embarrassed by that as your income increases the percentage that you give away should increase that's what it means to be good at being rich so the Apostle Paul says tell those who are rich in this present world to do good to be rich and good deeds and to be generous and willing to share so once a year we come together and we all practice being rich because you may not be rich but one day you might be we want you to be good at being rich so we all practice what it looks like to be rich and so what we've done is we've partnered with rather than compete we have partnered with some of the most fabulous nonprofit organizations in your community years ago we decided instead of having our own pant food pantry and closed you know closet and all that sort of stuff let's just find the organizations that are knocking it out of the park and let's go to those organizations and say how can we help so these are what we call our intersect partners we have 26 intersect partners and we work with these nonprofits all year long not simply in be rich season and these intersect partners do things like this they address issues of food insecurity you know for those of you who've never been hungry when you see here the word hunger you think about a moment but the issue with food is not being hungry the issue with food is even when you have a meal the insecurity of wondering when your next meal will arrive and where it will come from this is an extraordinary extraordinary thing and it certainly shouldn't be a part of anybody's experience in the United States of America so we're addressing working with some organizations that address food insecurity foster care medical care housing and education in addition we have several partners internationally that we work with all year long through global X and here's how the whole thing works there are three components to our be rich campaign there's a give component a serve component and a love component give serve and love and today to kick it off as always we're gonna focus on this right here give so for the past several months for the past several months our incredible staff at all of our campuses all over the city have gone to our intersect partners and we've asked them these two questions are these this two-part question what would make a big difference for you we asked our intersect partners these nonprofits doing all this great work what would make a big difference for you and what would help you make a big difference and so they give us their wish list their dreams their goals hey if we had money we would do this if we had an opportunity to do this if we were better resourced we would do that we would hire these people so we say dream big and give us your goals and then we come to you once a year and say let's help these incredible organizations knock it out of the park now with be rich there is never a dollar goal there's not a dollar goal we're not trying to reach a certain amount of money our goal is 100 percent participation 100 percent participation which means we want everybody watching listening in the room close to the room in the neighborhood to participate with us we're asking you to give we're asking a hundred percent of you to give which is different than asking you to give a hundred percent just okay yes so we're asking a hundred percent of you to give and then and here's the magic and here's the beauty and here's the promise and then we give one hundred percent of it away we don't cover our staff costs we don't cover our time cost you give it we put it together we divide it up among these incredible organizations and then we give it away in here is the best news of all after doing this for ten years there still has not been a price increase or any kind of increase due to inflation all we're asking everyone to do is to give a one-time gift today all together of 3995 that's right that's all we're asking and here's the thing 39.95 now you have spent 39.95 on things you do not know where it is anymore we're gonna give you an opportunity to spend or give 39.95 and we're not only going to know where it goes throughout the year we're gonna tell you where it went this is 39.95 you cannot lose because you cannot lose money that you give away and I'll tell you something else you never miss money bet you give away if all of us participate at the 39.95 level we will today raise 2.1 million dollars which will cover fifty-seven projects real quick here's some of the stuff that we're gonna do this year we're gonna fund staff positions for local nonprofits people who give the nonprofit's do not like to give to pay the bills they like to give since such a way that their month their money goes straight to the people that are being served which is understandable but we're gonna help these organizations fill some staffing positions that help them do a better job and we're gonna find some coaching and training for nonprofit staff we're gonna this is great we're gonna find some emergency here we're gonna find emergency assistance to prevent homelessness some couple of organizations to do a fabulous job with that we're gonna fund job training for some homeless veterans I know that's near and dear to some of your heart we're gonna fund health and nutrition initiatives we're gonna find some children on skis we're gonna find children at risk programs for title one schools we're gonna find local foster care initiatives then we're gonna fund health and nutrition and initiatives and in addition we've got to clean water projects and Ethiopia and I think in Honduras that we're going to do internationally so there's there's a whole bunch of projects the big buckets these are the big categories that we're investing in this year through be rich be rich if you've been here before you know this this is how you put the fun back in funding and because our staff is then such a great job doing their homework with these incredible organizations your your donations your gifts today they will be game changers for our partners and they are life changers for the people they serve so today I would love for us to do this in one day we can do this I would love for all of you to give 3995 you can give more at a zero some of you could add two zeros I promise here's the deal because you always overdo it so in addition to the two point 1 million dollars worth of projects we have a bunch of other projects we would love to fund if you over subscribe our be rich participation initiative here's the last thing and if you're not a Jesus follower if you're not a Christian if you're not a Christian I promise you I promise you if I heard your story I probably wouldn't be a Christian either so I I understand why you don't believe I really do and I'm not I'm not faulting you for that but here's what I want you to hear perhaps you've never heard it before Jesus could not have been clearer that our devotion to God is to be demonstrated and authenticated through arc through our compassion and our love for others that our devotion that God wasn't to be demonstrated through songs and sermons alone or even through our personal prayers that our devotion to God was to be manifested to be demonstrated and authenticated they're our personal generosity to other people and that's what be rich is all about as we come together to do what we believe Jesus commanded us to do so as you leave here's what you're going to see out in the lobby and all of our churches you're gonna see two color balloons there's green balloons and a red balloons if you have cash or cheque who has either but you might have cash or cheque okay that's fine if you'll go to the green balloons they will take a check and they will take your cash if you have a credit card or a debit card you go to the red balloon you can use your credit card your debit card we've got lots of people helping we will make this quick or you can sit right where you are and for those of you who are watching online this is super important for you you can right now just go to be rich org be rich org be rich org you can choose your campus and make sure your donation goes specifically to your campus to help with the project that your specific campus is involved with so however you do it we would love for you to participate so let's all go be rich let's give the next week we'll talk about serving with Jeff Foxworthy and then the final week week after that we're gonna talk about loving with Bob Gough but let's show our communities unless you're the people in our communities that our religion is not limited to sermons and songs that our our religion is an expression of God's love toward us when he sent his son to die for us and to give his very best so on your mark this is a benediction on your mark get set let's go be rich and we'll see you next week have a great week [Applause]

Channel: North Point Community Church

Views: 19,088

Rating: 4.6717949 out of 5

Keywords: North Point Community Church, North Point, NorthPoint, North Point Atlanta, Andy Stanley, AndyStanley, Andy Stanley church, Andy Stanley message, Andy Stanley sermons, North Point church, NPCC, North Point youtube, Andy Stanley YouTube, berich, be rich, How to be rich, how to be generous, generosity, giveservelove

Id: 4UN4ftzVY60

Length: 35min 26sec (2126 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 05 2017