FOR RICH EYES ONLY

If you're reading this on a computer, (even if it's at work) on your smartphone, tablet, notebook or laptop - YOU are richer than 98% of the world's population.  

That's right - you and I fall into the “richest 2% of the people in the world” category.

Here are two other things I suspect you may also say are true about yourself;

1. You don't believe what I just wrote, even laughing at the notion of me suggesting you're "rich."

2. You probably don't live like a rich person.

Today many of us think in order to be considered rich one must have mega-money, mega-sports cars, mega-mansions, etc… but in fact that way of thinking is perpetual.  

Just as a person with very little may believe if they had what you have they would be “rich”  -   someone with $50,000 in assets may think in order to be “rich” they would need to at least be a millionaire.   -   A person with $500,000 in wealth may think to be “rich” they would need to have at least 5 million dollars.  -  A person with 10 million dollars in assets might also think to be truly “rich” they would need to have at least 100 million dollars in wealth, and so forth, and so on.  We all have our own prejudiced view of what being "rich" means!  There's rich, then there's Lotto rich as they say!

The truth is, it doesn't matter if you’re sitting in a government-provided house, surviving on your monthly government check, eating soup from cans that you had to walk to the store to buy - you are still the absolute envy of the great majority of people in the world.    Here’s something to know; TODAY on our planet nearly 20,000 children under the age of 18 will die from a lack of food and/or proper medical treatment?  Tomorrow the count begins anew for another 20,000 young people that don’t deserve to die this way, yet all the while we live in the richest time in human existence.

Did you also know that in the 1970’s only 50% of  middle income families in American had air conditioning in their homes?  How about the fact that, 40% of them didn’t even own a microwave, and not all of them owned a colored television set,  and surprisingly only 30% of them had more than one car per household.  This is the MIDDLE-INCOME folks we’re talking about here, not the poor.  Today, if you or I have to suffer through a sweltering summer day with no air conditioning we would make the six o'clock news.

Now let’s look around our own homes and apartments, (a people who call ourselves poor), do we have all those things?  How many flat-screens do we see?  How much food is in that working fridge that has that  ice dispenser thingy right there on the front door instead of having to bust cubes loose from those tiny little plastic trays and chase them around the kitchen floor? What’s that in the driveway with four tires, (which may be partially bald, but they’re still holding air) and what’s that parked beside or behind it?  I could go on, and on, but you get the point!

As much as we become dissatisfied with the "stuff" we have, can you imagine if we could load it all up and drag it over to another country, and step off the plane or boat yelling to the crowd of onlookers, “Hey, who wants this piece of crap,(fill in the blank) ___________ whatever?   More than likely we would be immediately arrested by authorities for starting a full blown riot in their country as the crowd would began ripping and tearing at each other with vengeance just to get to our  yucky, discarded sofa, car, clothes, outdated boxes of mac and cheese, jewelry, old cellphones, lawnmowers etc...  

WE ARE INDEED RICH – so let’s come to grips with that!

Mark 10:17  - Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, (a young man, a ruler among the Jews who was very rich, a person of great dignity, and large substance) knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

18. So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

19. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

20. And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.”

21. Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.”

22. But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had a great many possessions.

23. Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”

24. And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!

25. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

26. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?”

27. But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

Did you see it?   Right there in verse 26 where it says; “And they (his disciples) were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?”   Now why would that be such a perplexing issue for them?  Let me ask you, have you ever considered any of these ragtag followers of Jesus to be rich?  NO, I suspect none of us have, even though some of them were rich compared to many others in their communities, and some of them came from rich families.    There were several rich people flowing in and out of the stories from the ministry of Jesus, some doing good with their riches and some wanting to hang onto them like the guy in the story we just read.  This was indeed an issue that hit close to home with the disciples, so when all of a sudden they're hearing this new teaching about how “riches” are a bad thing, (which wasn't what Jesus was saying), it scared them a bit.    What Jesus actually said to his disciples was this, how hard it is for those who trust in riches  to enter the kingdom of God!

Anyway, back to my point here - Throughout our lives when we've heard the verses shown above in sermons or in Sunday-school lessons I’m betting you, like me, never thought this issue was directly related to YOU. I thought Jesus was talking about the Bill Gates, Warrant Buffets, Ted Turner’s, of his time, not someone like the average Joe, barely scrapping by paycheck to paycheck.  But, WHAT IF Jesus was actually talking about rich people just like me and you?  Haven’t we already agreed it’s true, we’re “rich” by comparison to the other 98% of the world’s people, so surely we're to be included in that conversation.  What would have to change in our lives to get to a point where we’re willing to let go of all our STUFF in order to (verse 21) pick up our crosses daily and follow Him?   I think for some of us it’s not as much about getting rid of our stuff, as it is about making it available for His purpose, His glory, His kingdom.   I think we all have things in our lives, (if we’re pushed hard enough) we would have to admit are “excesses” that could be used to help others who are less fortunate.  They would even see great value in the same things we probably would never even miss.

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One of the reasons I fell in love with Quest Community Church in Lexington, KY even though I've only visited there a handful of times over the past ten years is because of the “shoe" story.   What the heck is a shoe story you might ask!  Well it's this!  But let me first say, this is just my version of the story which I readily admit may not be very accurate in detail, as its been several years since I read and heard it, (and I have a terrible memory sometimes) yet the account you’re about to read is absolutely true in substance.

As I recall, it all came about as a response to a movement of Holy Spirit during a church service.  For whatever reason God had laid it on Pastor Pete Hise’s heart  about how there were so many people in the world (still in our modern day of excess) that went barefoot every day, all year long simply because they didn't have a single pair of shoes to wear.  Now this had absolutely nothing to do with the sermon series he was in the middle of at the time, so he kind of did like some of us do, he put it to the rear of his mind for another day, and another situation.  

Yet, at some point on this particular day he couldn't keep ignoring this “shoe” issue any longer, as it kept distracting him from his sermon.   Finally he paused for a brief time and without notice abruptly changed the conversation and started talking about the shoe issue that's prevalent throughout much of the world. Then he went a step further and took off his own shoes and placed them at the front of the stage area, vowing he was giving them away to someone shoe-less in the world that needed them so much more than he did.  The crowd was left speechless but very moved by what they had just heard and seen from their pastor.  No one came to church that day expecting to hear about the shoe-less people of the world, but now that they had...

What happened next is what sets off a big lump in my throat, the people in the congregation started taking off the shoes they had worn to church and took them to the front and laid them by their pastor’s shoes.     No one knew to plan for this event so they didn't wear their old high school days, worn out Chuck Taylor hi-tops – NO, here laid fancy cowboy boots worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars (as this church is centered in the middle of the nation's richly-filled thoroughbred horse industry), and new stilettos also worth hundreds, people’s favorite sandals, and tennis shoes, the most comfortable and stylish shoes they owned, their best Sunday-go-to-meeting shoes, and even a couple of pairs of the latest version, and most expensive Air Jordans.  

Yet, not another word was spoken throughout the service while the front area of the church was slowly filled with shoes of every make, size, color, and designer tag.  The congregation humbly and silently returned to their seats, then proceeded out the door and to their cars - barefooted in the middle of a Kentucky winter.     

This was the day Quest Community Church found its true identity as a church, and its work in the area of benevolence and having a servant's heart for the needy in their city and throughout the world has grown tremendously ever since. 

 -

You still think you’re not rich?  Take a look in your closet and count the pairs of shoes you have.  If it’s like mine, it’s pretty embarrassing!  From a distance they look a lot like a couple of widow's mites to me.

Recorded in an ancient Jewish teaching is this: The Holy One said, “Open for me a door as big as a needle's eye and I will open for you a door through which may enter great tents and many camels.”

In other words, God only needs a non-believer, partial-believer, or a life-long pew sitter like some of us, to open up just a small crack in our armor and He will come pouring in and set up room for an oasis of riches.  God only needs to get his foot in the door, so to speak to make a change in the heart of a rich person that allows them/us to be able to ultimately pass through the proverbial eye of the needle.  Who knows, it may be something as simple as taking your shoes off.   I pray all of us will allow God to do the work in our lives that He so greatly desires, and in turn He will make us truly RICH. 

 27. But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

doug