Help for the Helpless
August 20, 2017 Morning Service
Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK
Rick Boyne
Message Point: Jesus gives help for those who are helpless.
Focus Passage: John 5:1-9
Supplemental Passage: Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the LORD has helped us." (1 Samuel 7:12 NASB)
Introduction: "God helps those who help themselves." Biblical? Not at all. The saying comes from the English political theorist Algernon Sidney, later widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac. God is in the business of helping those who CANNOT help themselves. This saying is, however, a really good way to avoid helping someone who needs help. “They won’t even help themselves!” It might be that the help they need is not money, or gasoline, or food. Those could simply the be SYMPTOMS of the real need.
I. Bad Situation
a. Paralyzed and left alone
b. Watches the stirring of the water
c. Sees others jump in before him
d. Everyone there is desperate for healing
e. FOR 38 YEARS!!!!!
II. Helpless to help himself
a. Can’t stand or move more quickly
b. No one will take turns. Everyone KNOWS he’s been there a long time.
c. He see’s hope; but it is out of his reach
III. Jesus changes everything
a. What about the whole “God will never give you more than you can handle” deal?
i. God never said that. He did say He’d never allow more temptation than what you could resist (in I Corinthians 10:13), but He never said that about life, or sickness or any other trial.
b. Jesus commands his healing by speaking
c. We continue to have the Words of Jesus (the Bible)
d. Sometimes He helps with truth; sometimes He helps by using us to help people.
Application/Invitation: If we continue to say that “God only helps those who help themselves,” then why do we have disaster relief? Why do we have orphanages and nursing homes? Why do we have hospitals, ambulances, fire departments, police departments? Why do WE have the Food Pantry Ministry? Why do we have a bus ministry?
Err on the side of love and grace.
If it is you who are in the so-called helpless situation, know that you simply are not without help. Jesus is your help and strength. Ask for wisdom; ask for strength, then apply the often “taken out of context” verse, Philippians 3:14, where Paul exclaims, “He can do all things through Christ Who gives him strength.”
