What To Do When You Are Stuck
The title of my message today is “WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE STUCK.”
Please turn to the Book of John, Chapter 5:1-9
Now if you are stuck today in any area of your life, God wants to help you move out of this. Maybe you feel you are stuck in a marriage where there is no love. Maybe you feel you are stuck spiritually. Maybe you feel like you’re stuck financially. You may just feel like you’re stuck on a particular level of life you should have been over a long time ago, but that just hasn’t happened . . . and you feel stuck.
We are going to look at a couple of individuals today who were stuck, but who got released. We are going to see what we can learn from them. The first story we are going to look at is in John 5:1-9,
• This man had been in his condition for 38 years. He was stuck. The Bible said Jesus saw him and knew he had been in this condition for a long time. I am sure this wasn’t just a supernatural revelation on the part of Jesus. Most likely, anyone observing this man would have known that he had been in this physical condition for many years. He had been stuck. But as we continue reading the story, this man got unstuck. What can we learn from his story?
Number One: You really have to want it.
• Jesus asked this man a very interesting question in verse 6: Do you want to be made well? What kind of a question was that? The man was at the pool, wasn’t he? Only sick people went to the pool so they could be made well when the angel came and stirred up the water. Wasn’t it obvious that he wanted to be made well?.
• I have a question for you today: Do you want to be made well ? Or you have been so used to the situation that you’re been through, that discouraged you?
EXAMPLES :
I recently visited a certain region of the country. I got off the plane and some friends picked me up. As we were driving through the town, I noticed a horrible smell. Nobody else said anything, yet the smell never went away. After ten minutes, I decided to ask about this smell.
My friends said, “Oh, we’re used to that.” There was a particular industry in town that had created a smell in the air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They said, “It’s just normal to us.
We don’t even think about it.” They had become accustomed to this smell. Everyone in town was accustomed to it. They had just learned to live with it.
Some people have learned to live with a smell in their marriage. Others have learned to live with a smell in some other area of their life. Without realizing it, it has become an accepted norm to them. If you want to get unstuck, you have to re-fire your desire. You have to shake off complacency. If you have to, draw a line in the sand and say, “Enough is enough! I am not going to stay stuck at this level, anymore. Things are going to change.”
Number Two: Stop shifting the blame and quit making excuses.
After Jesus asked the sick man, “Do you want to be made well?” He answered Him by saying, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.’” In other words, he said “My being stuck is someone else’s fault. I have no man to put me in. I am stuck here because others have not come through for me. When the water is stirred up, someone steps in before me.” Bottom-line, the sick man was saying, “It’s not my fault. I am this way because of what others have not done for me. It is not my fault that I have been stuck in this condition.”
Let us do away with excuses and pointing the finger. Let us do away with blaming others. This will never lend itself to you getting unstuck. On the contrary, it may just cause you to get stuck deeper.
You don’t have to stay stuck. But as long as you’re pointing the finger at somebody else, you’re going to stay stuck.
Number Three: You must obey what the Lord tells you to do.
In verse 8, Jesus said to the man, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” What the Lord commands you may make sense to you or it may not make sense to you. However, more than likely, you will have to abandon your thoughts and plans in order to accept His plans.
This man was looking for three things: First, he was looking for a man to lift him up into the pool. Then he was waiting for an angel to come, and finally for the water to be stirred. These were things he thought he needed in order to be healed. However, Jesus had an entirely different plan. Jesus’ plan required that this man put aside how things had been done in the past. Jesus instructed the man to get up. Although it did not make sense to the man, he had to respond to Jesus’ words in order to get unstuck. What has the Lord said to you? Have you obeyed His voice or have you reasoned yourself out of it? Here are your choices: Either remain stuck or obey. That’s it.
Some of you need to realize that God’s plan to break you free and get you unstuck is not even in the same ball park with your plan. You are going to need to make a choice:
Abandon your ways and your thoughts and accept His, because you cannot have two plans in one time.
What was the last thing you remember that God told you to do? Have you done it? God looks for obedience.
There are three ways that God will make His guidance known to you.
Number One: God speaks to us through His Word.
And when something is clear to us in the Bible, we just need to do it. You don’t even need to pray about it. You just need to obey. Now you’re not going to find a chapter and verse that says you’re supposed to move to Kalimantan. You are going to have to determine that through prayer and through other means. However, the Bible is very clear on many things. There are wonderful instructions in the Bible on being a good spouse, on parenting, on how to respond when being mistreated or persecuted, etc. The Bible contains instructions on many, many subjects. When God is clear about something in His word, you just need to obey it. God speaks to us through His word.
Number Two: God speaks to us through the Holy Spirit
Romans 8:14 – RHEMA WORD
Number Three: God speaks to us through other people
However the Lord speaks to us, here is the bottom line: If you are stuck and you want to get unstuck, here is what you need to do:
Conclusion:
If we want to get breakthrough from our situation
NUMBER ONE: Listen and obey. Hear His voice,
NUMBER TWO : Do what He says.
