THE P.E.A.C.E. Plan
A – Aid the Poor and the Sick
Selected Texts
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.
Proverbs 31:8-9
She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
Proverbs 31:20
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.
Proverbs 3:27
I. Knowing the Poor: Our Problem
• An estimated 963 million people in the world go hungry (U.N.).
• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes — one child every five seconds.
• In 2006, about 9.7 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday.
• The U.N. Development Program estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world’s poorest people could be met for an additional $13 billion a year. Animal lovers in the United States and Europe spend more than that on pet food each year. (http://www.bread.org/).
• Human trafficking is the world’s third largest criminal enterprise, after drugs and weapons (U.S. Department of State).
• Worldwide, there are nearly two million children in the commercial sex trade (UNICEF). There are an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 children, women and men trafficked across international borders annually. (U.S.D.S.)
• Approximately 80 percent of human trafficking victims are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. (U.S.D.S.) The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of $32 billion. (U.N.) Sex trafficking is an engine of the global AIDS epidemic. (U.S.D.S.) – See also www.ijm.org
If your child were included in these statistics…
- Where would you expect help to come from?
- What would give you hope?
- Would you expect people from around the world to come to your family’s aid? Why or why not?
- Why do you think that people hear statistics like this, are broken over hearing these things, yet still never do anything in response?
An Economic Situation: Penniless (Prov. 31:20)
A Social Condition: Oppressed
Do not rob the poor, because he is poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate.
Prov. 22:22
Like a roaring lion or charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
Prov. 28:15
There are those whose teeth are swords whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.
Prov. 30:14
A Physical Condition: Hurting (Matt. 25:36)
A Spiritual Condition: Hopeless (Isaiah 61:1-3)
II. Loving the Poor: Our Responsibility
We must show generosity to those who are penniless.
- Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor (Prov. 14:21).
- Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord (Prov. 19:17).
We must act justly for the oppressed.
A righteous man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not know such knowledge.
Prov. 29:7
- We must care for the hurting (Acts 3:1-10).
- We must share the Gospel with the hopeless (Matt. 9:35-38; 10:7-8).
III. Identifying with the Poor: Our Need
Care for the poor will not happen, as it should, until we understand that:
We are all made in God’s image.
The rich and the poor meet together; the LORD is the maker of them all.
Prov. 22:2
The poor man and the oppressor meet together; the LORD gives light to the eyes of both.
Prov. 29:13
We are all in spiritual poverty.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall see God.
Matt. 5:3
We all desperately need the Messiah – Luke 4:17-21
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19