Love People More Than Money

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We are at Deuteronomy chapter 15 verses 7 through 11. We're gonna be talking about the principle of generosity to the poor so being Generous to the poor. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word You have coffee it's warm not hot I brewed it during homeschool time Oh, that's enough. That's enough. That's enough. You little lush.
You want to pray? You want me to pray? OK, Lord, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the blessing of being able to read your word. Please help us to actually listen. Pay attention. and that your Holy Spirit would teach us how we're to live in Jesus's name. Amen.
All right. So we're at Deuteronomy chapter 15, beginning verse seven. If there is among you a poor man of your brethren with any of your gates in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother. but you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need, whatever he needs. Beware, lest there be a wicked thought in your heart saying, the seventh year, the year of release is at hand, and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the Lord against you, and it becomes sin among you. you shall surely give to him and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him because for this thing the lord your god will bless you in all your works and in all to which you put your hand for the poor will never cease from the land therefore i command you saying you shall open open your hand wide to your brother to your poor and your needy in your land Alright, so what do you think that was about? Okay, yeah, so All right. So this is an ancient Israel. Moses is preaching to them a law and he's telling them that if they are to lend out money, right, they're not to look at the seventh year because on the seventh year, every seven years, all the debts were forgiven.
And so there might be some people get stingy and think, oh, I can't lend to him because I'm not going to make enough money. I'm not going to I'm not going to be able to actually collect on this. And so the Lord's saying, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're always going to have needy people. And you're going to need people who are going to need things. Oh, so oh, oh, I'm on the line. I put out there. I haven't.
Yeah, if you if you're saving up to pay for something in your day goes away. Well, yes, but right. Would it be wrong for you to not pay your debt if you thought, ah, seventh year's coming? I just won't pay because he has to forgive me on the seventh year. No, you should still try. Yeah. Right. So so it's on both of them, but especially for those who have the money and are lending the Lord saying, no, no, no, you're to love your brethren. Right. Somebody comes to you.
Be generous. Love people more than money. Yeah, right, so it would be that would be wrong for the poor person but here it's more worried about the rich person who's got the money Who sees his brother in need any? Hardens his heart and he says oh, no. I'm not going to care for you Well, this is more about the rich person's heart than about the poor person's heart. Right. So the rich, the whole point of this is that they're not to love the money more than the other person. Right now.
Can, could the rich person maybe get themselves in a problem if they are lending out or giving more money than they should? Right? Like if daddy gets, I mean, compared to the world standards, we're rich, right? So daddy gets all sorts of people asking, please give us money. Please give us money. Please give us money.
Like one person even said, can you please pay for my son to go to school? But you know how much it was going to cost for them to go to that private school? As much as I spend for the year for all five of you to be homeschooled. Well, four of you right now, And so if I paid for his son's school, what would I not be able to do?
Yeah, right. And if a man won't provide for his own family, he's worse than a nonbeliever. And so we have to be wise, we have to love the poor, we have to care for them. We're not to harden our heart or to be generous, but we're also to take care of our own family, too. Do you think that's a hard balance? Oh, yeah, it's a hard balance. It's very difficult.
But what would happen if I didn't go to school? Um, that would be bad. There are laws that say you must go to school. What are you going to do? Well, we would figure out a way to do it. That would be a very sad, sad day. So I don't have to go to school?
No, there's also public schools in our nation, and so you might have to go to a public school. Yeah, that's what the laws say. Yeah, school's important. Is public schools free? Well, nothing in life is free, so taxpayers pay for public schools, normally through property taxes. So if you own a house or you own land, the government says because you own this house, you have to pay a certain amount of money. Why? Because that's how they pay for the schools.
Mm hmm. The people do the school does No, because somebody's paying the taxes Well, if you own a house you pay the taxes And if and if you rent a house Then you're paying your rent in the and the landlord who owns a house has to pay those taxes Then no matter what you're paying for it What if you're not what if you don't have a house or anything? If you're homeless, well, then I don't know how you would go to school.
Maybe you would. I don't know. But somebody is paying for it, whether it's by debt or something. But now we're getting into a way far away thing. Right. But the point is, right. What are we to love more? God, people, money. God, and if it's between people and money, what are we to love? People, people. So what do you think this passage is about? I think it's a fact now that you can't love more money than people. okay so that's kind of so i would say technically what it's about is they're to lend even knowing the sabbath year is coming but the calling is love people more than money right the best verse to summarize this in my bible i have underlined verse 11 see this because jesus said this for the poor you will never for the poor will never cease from the land therefore i command you saying you shall open your hand wide to your brother to your poor and your needy in your land.
All right. Ready to pray? Okay. Would you like to pray or would you like me to pray? You can? Okay, go ahead. Amen. Amen. Well, may the Lord God himself who has been gracious to you, When you were poor in righteousness, needy of salvation, He opened His hand to you, redeemed you by the blood of Jesus Christ, and has given you eternal life. I'll see you next time. Bye!