This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Look, here is a passage that when I chose it back at Easter time, as we were working through our series, planning out a series in Luke, I thought, this will fit well for stewardship. And then earlier in the week, I thought, why did I choose this passage? Let's pray and ask the Lord's help as we look at it this morning. Heavenly Father. Father, we thank you as we already have this morning.

We thank you for all your good gifts to us, and we thank you now for your word. We thank you for your holy spirit. Please give us hearts to hear what you have to say to us. Help us to see the Lord Jesus and all he has done for us and to give ourselves to him. In grateful thanks, we ask for his namesake.

Amen. Amen. Well, my question for you this morning, ladies and gentlemen, is do you think of yourself as a needy person? Are you needy? Do you like to think of yourself in that way?

I expect probably not. Not many of us do. We don't want other people to think we are needy. It's not something we look for in friendship with others. Oh, is it?

We don't go out looking for people who are needy in our friendships. A girl doesn't take a young man home to meet her parents. And when they ask her what she sees in him, she says, well, he's very needy. When you filled in that job application form, perhaps many years ago, and they asked on the what do you bring to this role? You didn't write neediness.

I just need a job. None of us would dream of doing that. And maybe as we get older, well, maybe as we get older, we do need other people more than we once did, and perhaps we feel awkward about that. Well, we shouldn't. We really shouldn't, because the Bible says that being needy and dependent is a wonderful thing.

We depend on the Lord. We depend on one another. In a church family, we need one another, and that's a good and right thing. You know, in fact, we can't really be a Christian without being needy. It goes hand in hand with being a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we've seen over the last few weeks, as we've been looking at Luke's gospel, that everybody who has ever lived, you and me included, have a very great need. Matt showed us as he preached for us on Luke, chapter five, about the time when those men brought their friend to Jesus. Do you remember? The crowds were filling the house and they couldn't get through the door, so they went up on the roof, made a hole and lowered their friend down on a mat before Jesus and Matt reminded us that we live in a broken world. We have broken lives, broken families, perhaps broken bodies.

But more than that, we have a very serious need that our sins be forgiven, the sins that have broken our relationship with God. And it will take us to hell unless they're forgiveness. We need forgiveness. We need a saviour. We need somebody to put us right with God, to give us a new life and a new start.

And Luke's gospel has shown us that the reason that Jesus came into the world to die and to rise again was so that we might be forgiven, so that we might have new life. That's our need. And I think the challenge for us, however long we've been christians, and some will have been christians here longer than I've been alive. Our challenge. Thank you, Ian.

Our challenge is how do we keep needy? How do we keep nurturing that neediness, that dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ? It's a sign of maturity, you know, to be dependent, to grow in our dependence. Well, let's look at our passage. We're going to look at verse twelve.

That's where we began, verse twelve. Jesus is praying, and he prays because he depends on his father. He's a model for us in that he spends the whole night praying. Presumably he's asking for wisdom, because Jesus is about to choose his twelve apostles from all the crowds that have been following him. He is going to handpick a team of people who will be his spirit inspired messengers who preach the gospel and turn the world upside down.

So who does he pick? Well, we might expect him to pick the gifted ones, those with the best education, the biggest personalities, the movers and shakers. And sometimes the Lord does use those things, but they don't qualify anybody for service. So who does he choose? Well, look down at the list of names there in verse 14.

Very ordinary people. Very people with very humble backgrounds. Fishermen from nowhere in particular. Uneducated, unimpressive. Well, there's Matthew.

He must have had a bit of education, but he collaborated with the Romans. There's Simon, the zealot who probably tried to overthrow the roman occupation. There's Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor and handed Jesus over to the Romans. They're not exactly the dream team, are they? Those appointed to be the foundations of Christ's church for all time are, quite frankly, ordinary, needy people.

And that ought to tell us something about what God looks for in his church, in his people neediness, dependence on the Lord is an essential characteristic of a Christian. So we read on and we'll go fairly quickly because we haven't got a lot of time. But you see the crowds of people. He comes down the mountain, the crowds gather around him. Why?

To have their needs met. Verse 18. They came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured and the people all tried to touch him because power was coming out from him and healing them all.

Are you and I needy? Do we know that Jesus can meet our needs? Do we come to him day by day with our needs as these people did this morning? We're thinking about money. As I say, it's stewardship time and I just want to stop right now and thank you.

I want to thank those who have given over this last year to the life of this church family. I don't know who gives what. It's not my business, but some, I suspect, have given a great deal and some have given a lesser amount as much as they were able to. But it doesn't matter. The sum makes no difference.

We are grateful and I want to thank you in the Lord's name for those gifts and for that generosity. But you might say, what has money got to do with being spiritually needy? Why this passage today?

Well, Jesus says money has quite a lot to do with our sense of neediness. If we have resources to rely on, it can be quite hard to realise that we need to depend on God. There's nothing wrong with having money. There's nothing wrong with making money. There are rich christians in the Bible.

But if you dont have to worry where your next meal is coming from, if you can meet your own daily needs and dont need to pray about them, it can be easy to forget the Lord cant it? To depend on him day by day. So how do we nurture a sense of neediness? Thats our question today.

Lets look at verse 20. Jesus said, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the son of Mandev, rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

Now I think there are two dangers that we can fall into two traps as we read these verses. One is to think that Jesus is only talking about money here, only talking about the financially rich and the financially poor. And he's saying, blessed are the poor, as if God has a preference for the poor, as if God prefers the poor simply because they're poor. Well, we know that that cannot be the case because of the way verse 20 begins. Who's he talking to in verse 20, looking at his disciples, he said, blessed are the poor.

Jesus isn't just making a general statement about poor people in this world. He is talking to his followers. He is saying, blessed are you followers of mine who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But if one mistake is to think Jesus is only talking about money, being financially rich or poor, the other mistake is to think that Jesus is saying nothing at all about money, about our wealth or poverty.

Again, I just want to stop, pause, and say, look, there may be some here who are very comfortable indeed, but there may be others who are struggling, struggling to pay the bills and to put food on the table day by day. I don't know, but I just wanted to remind you that if you are in a difficult situation at the moment, we have some funds in the church. We have a church wardens have a discretionary fund, and there's a small fund in our general fund, in our budget. So if it would be helpful to have a quiet conversation, please do. Please let me know.

Have a word with me or with the church wardens. We want to be a family to one another. But compared with the rest of the world, we are, all of us, among the richest. I suspect that many of us will have a computer in our pockets, a phone. We have clothes on our backs.

We have running water from the taps. We have food on our table. We are among the wealthiest 1% of this world. So these are words to us this morning.

Opposition to Jesus is growing in these chapters of Luke's gospel and opposition to Jesus followers, too. And around the world today, most christians will be poor, hungry, hated, excluded, insulted. And not just because they come from humble backgrounds. They will be all those things because they are decided to follow Jesus. Their families will reject them and turn them out.

They will go hungry. They will be poor, excluded, and be insulted because of the son of man. That's what Jesus says, because of their allegiance to him. Two or three years ago, I visited India, and I met a man who told me how his mother became a Christian. And what happened when she became a Christian.

She came home from church one day, having been converted, and she found all her possessions thrown out on a bonfire by the side of the road by her husband, who was a hindu, the father. Without them knowing it, the father had sold their house and another family was in the process of moving in. Gathering up all she could, the wife took my friend and his brothers and sisters to a neighbourhood and they spent the first night in a cowshed. He told me, he said, I saw my mother kneel down on the dirt floor of the cow shed and she started singing. I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back. The world behind me, the cross before me. No turning back. No turning back.

Well, many christians around the world today will be in that situation. Jesus says, because of verse 26, because of the son of man, they are poor, because they are following Jesus. And that title, the son of man, is a title from the Old Testament, from Daniel, chapter seven. It's a title of Jesus, the end times ruler, the one with all authority in heaven and earth, of all power, who will step back into this world one day and turn it the right way up again. And because of their faith in him, because they are looking forward to that day, many will go hungry now, but one day they will be full.

One day they will be satisfied. They may weep now, Jesus says, but one day they will laugh. They may be hated and excluded, but one day they will get their reward, Jesus says, because I will come back and make sure they do. They know that they are needy. Following Christ has left them in great need.

But what's now won't last forever. Jesus promises it.

So here's our how do we stay needy? How do you and I stay dependent on the Lord? Especially if we have money in the bank, food in our cupboards, clothes on our backs, pensions, family comforts all around us. How do we make sure that we stay? Keep that attitude of neediness ourselves?

Well, I think one important way of doing that is to take to heart Jesus warnings in what he says next. So have a look down with me at verse 24.

Jesus goes on, but woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. Now again, who's Jesus talking to?

See, instinctively, I suspect we might think, well, he's not talking to us, he's talking to the rich. Instinctively, we think of the people in the next financial bracket above us.

I say the non doms, but the non doms are many brackets above me. But we think it's the rich. I'm not rich, but it's the rich he's talking to. But Jesus isn't just talking to the rich. Verse 20 we've seen.

He's talking to his followers. He's talking to us, to you and me.

These rich that he describes, they laugh. They laugh at all the good things they have. It's the laughter of scorn. It's the laughter that feels very pleased with itself, a little bit superior for having made it in life, for being a success in the eyes of the world, because the eyes of the world matter very much to these people. They care what other people think about them.

It matters that people speak well of them. Verse 26. They want to be liked. So perhaps they keep the news of Jesus and his kingdom to themselves, but they stand in the line of the false prophets. Jesus says, those who say, peace, peace when there is no peace, it's a warning, isn't it, to us not to live like the rich, even though we may be rich.

I was reading a little while ago, one of the old Puritans, a man called Jeremiah Burrows, sounds like a puritan name, doesn't it? And he was answering the question of why God often allows the wicked to have very comfortable lives. He said, the rich are never likely to have any other comfort but what they have right now. God has enough time later to make sin bitter to them, and therefore, he doesn't care if they have their pleasures and enjoy their delights. In other words, enjoy it while it lasts.

The Lord says, what is 70 or 80 years? It's all going to be taken away. So if we are rich, how do we live as the poor? How do we have the attitude of the poor and not of the rich that Jesus describes?

Well, you can have very little money and be just as proud and as independent as the rich that Jesus describes here. Or you can have a lot of money, but live day by day with the attitude of the poor, trusting the Lord and depending on him. Blessings for the poor, woes to the rich. It's not inevitable, but it must be common enough for the Lord to make that connection.

So how do we make sure we live as dependent followers of the Lord? It comes down to our hearts. It comes down to our hearts. Here are some suggestions. Let's help one another remember that Jesus is coming back.

Because I think in the busyness of our lives, day to day, looking after children and grandchildren, simply getting through the next week with all its appointments and so on, it's easy to forget that. And when we meet together as we do on a Sunday and perhaps in our connect groups we remind each other that this life that we're engaged in day by day. That's not it. It's not all there is.

Matt Porter, our curate. Matt and I were taking a service at the crematorium the other day and I phoned ahead and asked if they could take us behind the scenes to see what goes on in the crematorium. I thought it would be good training for a curate and it's been many years since I had a look myself. What goes on behind the curtain? Well, folks, it's pretty sobering.

It's pretty sobering stuff. What happens there is. It happens with great dignity and care. That was very evident, but it is quite sobering. Ecclesiastes says, if you want to be wise, go to a funeral.

It does put things in perspective. Remember this life that we see, that we are engaged in. All its freneticism now is not all there is. It's going to end and Jesus is coming back. We need to remind one another.

What else? How do we live with the dependence of the poor that Jesus describes? Well, we thank God for all that he gives us. The attitude of gratitude, as it's called from time to time. Count your blessings, as my grandmother would say, count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Do you remember that old hymn? I'm grateful for Mike leading us in our prayers and for such a concentration on Thanksgiving this morning, remembering all that God gives us. It's a good habit to be in, isn't it? When your head hits the pillow at night to look back. What can I thank the Lord for today?

Those habits change our hearts, giving thanks for our food. I said this at the 930 service. Saying grace is such a basic habit, isn't it? But I wonder if we sometimes forget it. Thank you, Lord, for this food that you've given us.

Habits shape us. Reading the Bible and praying. We don't just need physical food, we need spiritual food. We depend on the Lord for our life day by day. He says that in the Bible we need his word and we need to be helping one another to pray, perhaps our children and grandchildren as well.

Giving our money sacrificially.

Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If we are investing in his kingdom, then our hearts will be more tuned to the king. Financial planning is a good thing, but if you find yourself mentally totting it up and mentally spending it, mentally thinking what you could do with it for yourself, then give a big chunk of it away.

Giving that doesn't make any difference to our lifestyle, won't make any difference to our hearts.

Giving that doesn't make any difference to our lifestyle, won't make any difference to our hearts. And Jesus said, where your treasure is, they're your heart will be. Also, financial advisers always advise long term planning, don't they? We don't want to be short term planners, short sighted, only looking at the next few years. We want to be long term planners investing in what lasts for a very long time.

If you don't give regularly yet, then maybe use this stewardship season to pray about it and to start have a look at the pack. Do you give already? Well then let's review it. Circumstances change, don't they? Some might be able to give more, some may need to give less.

But let's pray and come back next week to dedicate ourselves and all that we have to the Lord. So we're thinking about depending on Christ. Nurturing, neediness, I'm calling it. But what is the power of a life lived like that? What difference does it make?

I think I shared once before the story of that godly woman from India. Because of Jesus, because she followed Christ, she lived without the support of her husband. She carried her cross. And following Christ she led 30 other families in her village to the Lord during her lifetime. And when she died, her son told me 3000 people gathered to give thanks for her at her funeral.

After years of estrangement, her husband also appeared at the funeral. And when it was all over, seeing the crowds and hearing all these testimonies one after another that people had given of his wife, he stood up and he said, if this is the Jesus that my wife followed, then I want to follow him too. And he became a Christian. At his wife's funeral, he was her last convert. Isn't that a wonderful thing?

The power of a life depending on the Lord. The Lord can do amazing things when we know that we need him and we rely on him. So let's ask him now that we might do that more and more as a church, as individuals. And let's start this week. Lord Jesus Christ, we do thank you for all that you have given to us and all that you give us day by day.

Most of it we don't even know notice. But we pray that you would please grow in each of us a sense of gratitude and dependence.

We pray for our life and needs as a church family too, for all that we do and all that we want to do. And we ask that through our giving, you would meet those needs and grow your kingdom so that when you return, we will rejoice in all that you've done and all that we were part of. And to you be all the glory and the praise, now and forever. Amen. Amen.

Amen.