Initiate meaningful conversation with your family no matter how long the commute with Joe White's age appropriate short talks on scripture, parenting, culture, and community.
Episodes
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
Thursday Jun 20, 2019
"Cast out a few crumbs and you'll get back the whole world every time."
Family Discussion:
- How can you and your family clean out the closet, clean out the savings, clean out the cupboard for the poor of this world?
- What would be the response to Christians who gave like that, and why is giving some deeply satisfying?
- Why are the people with blue arm bands like the boy at that table, the happiest people on Earth?
Transcription:
00:04 Today I want to tell you about a boy with a blue arm band, I know I'll never forget as long as I live. We're in Second Corinthians chapter 8 verse 1-5. Check this out, this is awesome. "And now brothers," Paul writes, "we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy in their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity, for I testified that they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability entirely on their own. They urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in the service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord. And then to us in keeping with God's will."
01:03 It was at our summer sports camp, our teenage summer sports camp, that we wanted to put an imprint on the guys' minds that they would never forget. And so as the teenage boys enter the dining hall, and we'd been training in athletics all morning long, we were starving to death we thought, but we gave a 12 boys blue arm bands and then we gave the other half of the kids black arm bands and the last half a white armband. When we came into the dining hall, the blue arm bands represented America. And it was a table that was just lavished with food. The black arm bands represented many countries in the world that are not starving to death, but are starving. And they had beans and rice on the tables. And then the white arm bands where the third world countries, they had nothing on their tables. No instructions were given. Everybody was free to do as they pleased.
01:54 Well, the American table had steaks and fried chicken and vegetables and mashed potatoes and gravy and dessert. It was just heaping over with food. You know, I remember watching a lot of the athletes just eat all they could, the whole meal on the American table. Then I remember a few athletes on the American table filling their plate full and then sharing the leftovers with some of the third world people. But then I remember one guy in a blue arm band, and as soon as he saw all that he had and how little everybody else had, he took everything he had and he began to share it with kids all over the dining hall. That night at supper I think that boy had the greatest meal of his life.
02:43 Just off the coast of Florida, there's a little island that I love. It's called Haiti, and 2 million kids are over there starving to death. Can you imagine what would happen if the United States of America, if every person in the United States had the attitude of the boy with the Blue Armband, those kids in Haiti would be lavished every single meal. And here is the question today. How can you and your family clean out the closet, clean out the savings, clean out the cupboard for the poor of this world? And then check this out. What would be the response to Christians who gave like that, and why is giving some deeply satisfying? Why are the people with blue arm bands like the boy at that table, the happiest people on Earth? And the lifeline for the day is this: cast out a few crumbs and you'll get back the whole world every time.