God Helps Those Who Help Themselves

People’s awareness of or memory about what the writers of Scripture actually say is not generally headed in the right direction in our day.

If you asked the average person, “What was the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden that Adam and Eve ate?” what do you think the most common answer would be?

Most people say, “Apple.”

Actually, the writer of Scripture doesn’t say. He just says fruit.

Ask people how many wise men there were, the top answer would be, “Three.”

Again, the writers of Scripture don’t say. They do talk about three gifts (gold, frankincense, and myrrh). We don’t know how many wise men there were though.

My mom, who used to wash the bathroom floors on her hands and knees with bleach every day, even if we didn’t use that bathroom, used to love the saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” but it’s not in the Bible.

Gallup had a poll where a whole bunch of people thought the Epistles were the wives of the apostles.

Some people thought Jesus’ most famous talk was called the Sermon on the Mount because it was delivered on horseback.

Some people thought Noah was married to Joan of Arc. Not in the Bible.

Well we’re doing a series called, “Not in the Bible” about ideas or sayings or thoughts that get attributed to God but are not actually in the Bible and that God did not actually say.

The reason we’re doing this is — often it’s our wrong ideas about God, and his will, and his character, and the way he works that create stumbling blocks for our ability to trust him and love him.

A lot of people think the writers of Scripture say God will never give you more than you can handle, so they think being a Christian means your life will always be manageable, but the writers of Scripture never say that, and life will often give people things they can’t handle at all.

A lot of people think the writers of Scripture say money is the root of all evil, so they think the Bible is anti-money or they think if you have financial gifts or the ability to generate wealth you’re not really a deeply spiritual person, but that’s not what the writers of Scripture say about money.

Through this series, we’re going to get the chance to know God better in fresh ways so our faith in him can get stronger, and our love for him can grow deeper, and we’ll begin to obey him more naturally and more joyfully.

The statement we’re looking at today to kick it off is maybe the most erroneous quote often attributed to God.

The thought is this one: “God helps those who help themselves.”

When I was in graduate school, I was a youth pastor at a small baptist church, and one of our volunteers got into an argument with me about this saying, and I said to her, “Trust me. I’m in seminary studying the Bible. It’s not in the Bible,” but she knew it was in the Bible.

She actually made a sizeable bet with me, and she looked for days for a verse that is not there.

Then she tried to get out of paying the bet by saying the Bible says you can’t gamble, but I told her that verse isn’t in the Bible either, so we went double or nothing, and I got even more money from her.

This saying, “God helps those who help themselves,” actually goes back to one of Aesop’s fables.

In this fable, a man is driving a wagon, and it gets stuck in the mud, and he gets out and kneels down and prays to the gods to get it unstuck.

Hercules appears to him and tells him to get off his knees and put his shoulder to the wheel, and Aesop says that the moral is — the gods help those who help themselves.

That saying goes way back, but it’s not in the Bible.

It’s certainly true God does not call us to be passive.

God has given to each of us a mind and a body and a will, and he wants us to take initiative and take responsibility. That’s a good thing.

Faith in God does not mean I get a free pass from having to study for tests, or exercise in order to be healthy, or show up for work on time with a good attitude.

God will generally not do for you what he enables you to do yourself. God will generally not do for you what he enables you to do, but… but… our biggest problems in life are in precisely those areas where we cannot help ourselves.

Then, we find we have this strange resistance to asking for help.

Asking for help offends my pride. Asking for help makes me feel small or incompetent.

A great danger — and we’ve all been there — is if we don’t get help, what started out as a problem will turn into a crisis.

What started out as going over budget ends up in debt and shame.
What started out as a pattern of unresolved conflict ends up in divorce.
What started out as a bad habit becomes an addiction.
A problem with flirtation turns into an affair.
A problem with procrastination turns into unemployment.
A problem with sarcasm turns into a life where people don’t want to be my friend.

Here’s the truth about me. I need help. It’s a deep truth.

And I’ll tell you a little secret about you. You need help.

You can say that to somebody on your way out of church today. “You need help.”

Amazingly enough, from a human perspective, the whole story of the people of God and their great adventure together begins with the single word help.

We’re told this about the Israelites when they were oppressed in slavery in Egypt:

The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.

So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. (Exodus 2:23-25)

God did not say, “Hey! Get organized! Hey! Show some initiative! Hey! Put your shoulder to the wheel. I’ll help people who help themselves.”

God just helped.

Who does God help?

Well, God helps people who ask for help.
God helps people who are needy.
God helps people who are weak.
God helps people who are scared.
God helps people who are in way over their heads.
God helps people who can’t help themselves.

Now, to be clear, God helps other people too. God loves to help so much that sometimes he shows up and gives help for no reason at all.

Jesus said one of the signature characteristics of his Father is that he makes the sun to shine on both good people and bad people. He sends the rain to fall for both the just and the unjust.

One of the favorite words in the Bible to describe God is help. — “O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.”

Mostly… mostly… being the kind of person God will help means being a person who is willing to pray and who is actually devoted to prayer.

God helps those who pray because those who pray are asking for help and looking for help and hoping for help.

What we’re really called to in the Bible on this issue, rather than self-help (God helps those who help themselves) is prayer, a life of prayer, a heart of prayer, and an attitude of prayer.

Now, I don’t know where you are on the prayer deal. Maybe you’ve been disappointed by prayer. You cried out to God for something that really mattered to you, and nothing happened, or maybe you feel guilty about prayer.

A lot of people put prayer in this category as one of those things I know I ought to do more of but I don’t do enough of it, and I don’t seem to find the time, and I just feel guilty.

Then, I kind of avoid it, and it gets worse.

Maybe you feel confused about prayer. You hear other people tell stories about amazing answers to prayer or feeling deep intimacy with God, but when you pray, your mind starts to wander, and pretty soon you’re thinking about grocery shopping or a Netflix show.

Maybe, if you’re really honest about it, and this is a good place to be honest, you don’t believe in prayer.

Maybe the idea of talking to an invisible, supernatural being doesn’t make sense to you.

Or you think prayer doesn’t really change anything (God already knows what he’s going to do).

Or maybe prayer is the great joy of your heart. Maybe you have known secret moments of peace in times of trouble, of courage in situations that would normally produce great fear, of strength and control in situations where normally you would make terrible choices and you can’t even put into words your gratitude for those moments of prayer.

Wherever you are on the prayer deal, there’s a story in the Old Testament of one of the first times God taught his people about the power of prayer, so I want to look at that in this message.

God had delivered Israel from the Egyptians after they first cried out for help.

They were in the desert. They were on their way to the Promised Land.

Then, we’re told quite out of the blue they were attacked by a group of people called the Amalekites.

Their whole existence, their calling not just as a nation but as a people who were blessed in order to be a blessing to the whole world — they had a mission. All of that is in threat, and they don’t know why, and Moses calls his number-two man — Joshua — in for a strategy session.

We’re told Moses was the one man in all of Israel who had been raised in the Pharaoh’s courts, and this means he would have had military training. He would have been schooled in military strategy, so Joshua would wait for some great battle plan, but we’re not told of anything like that.

Moses said to Joshua:

Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands. (Exodus 17:9)

We’re not told what Joshua thought of this plan.

If I were Joshua and I went to a strategy session like that, I think I would have expected a little more strategy. I might have expected that our leader, Moses, would be right down there with us in the middle of the fight, but he has another plan.

The morning dawns, and Moses climbs up this hill.

He goes there with his brother and another man named Hur.

Hur was the son of a leader named Caleb. It’s thought that the name Hur means liberty, which would be very relevant to this story of liberated slaves.

But when I first read it, his name sounded to me like something out of an Abbott and Costello “Who’s on first?” routine.

“Aaron, get Hur to come with.”
“You want her? I thought you wanted him?”
“I do want him.”
“Who is him?”
“I just told you. Hur.”

Anyway, I digress.

Moses needs Aaron and Hur for an important reason.

Moses goes up on the hill. He raises his arms toward heaven and toward God. It’s quite amazing.

The text doesn’t tell us a single word he prayed. In fact, the text doesn’t even have the word prayer in it.

Remember, there were no books about prayer written back in those days. The first books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, and so on) were not even written yet.

Maybe Moses, like a lot of people, felt reluctant to pray in public out loud. Earlier Moses had said that he was slow of speech and slow of tongue, so maybe no audible words came out of him.

Maybe Moses felt awkward or silly or useless with all of those men fighting.

But prayer is not about coming up with impressive-sounding words; it’s about the heart.

It’s primarily about the one we pray to.

What we pray matters much less than who we pray to.

This is a single act of the will expressed by his body. “Help!”

The most amazing thing happened.

Help came. Power came. Power from God, power for the battle on earth.

It was like an electric current flowed in him and through him and beyond him, and the men fought like men who were inspired. They couldn’t be stopped. They couldn’t be defeated. A bunch of ex-slaves — it was amazing!

Then, Moses grows weary, and his arms are tired, and he can’t keep holding them up.

And when they come down, something happens to the spirit of the soldiers on the field — they begin to lose the battle.

So Moses raises his hands back up, and the tide turns yet again. Israel begins to prevail again.

And it dawns on Moses and maybe on Aaron and Hur and Joshua — that when Moses reaches up to the heavens in prayer power is released, and the battle is no longer merely a matter of flesh and blood. There is another power. There is another force. There is another kingdom at work. There is an unseen reality in the battle.

God is giving his people a physical picture of a much deeper spiritual reality.

We are not made to live on our own power. You and I are not made to live that way. We are made to live in dependence on God.

Over time, this discovery gets deepened and elaborated on over and over in the Bible supremely through Jesus, and it spreads to people, and it still goes on.

An alcoholic named Bill W. lives in stubborn pride year after year after year, and his battle is with the bottle, and the enemy is killing him.

Finally, he hits bottom. He realizes he is hopeless, and he lifts his arms toward heaven and prays that single word, “Help,” and the battle for sobriety that he could never win
begins to turn as long as he and millions of others live one day at a time with hands lifted up, saying, “Help me, God! Help me! I can’t do this! My life is unmanageable. I have an enemy I’ll never beat. God, help me! Help me! Help me!”

Through that surrender comes victory.

You see, this is the invitation for you today. In your work, in your home, in your relationship, in your addiction, or in your confusion, or with your diagnosis, or in your loss, or in your fear, there is a battle going on.

Everyone you see is facing a battle.

We’re not meant to battle alone.

Now, what will keep me from asking for help generally is pride and self-sufficiency.

When Kathy and I got married, one of us was way more emotionally immature and relationally challenged than they knew, and worse, this person was too proud and stubborn to admit they needed help, and worse, this person was me.

Ironically, I was getting a graduate degree to go into ministry because I believed people need help. All people need help. But not me.

The first step toward healing was very, very humbling for me. It was to just admit, “I need help. I do not have this intimacy thing, this marriage thing, or this love thing figured out. I don’t know what to do. I can’t help myself. I withhold. I withdraw. I can’t help myself.”

I went to a human counselor, and I went to a divine counselor.

By the way, very often God chooses human means to give us divine help. I had to learn to lift up my hands and ask for help. And I’m still learning this.

There are, I think, two great truths, and if I can get them embedded in my mind, they’ll help me to more and more habitually raise my hands in prayer.

I kind of associate them with two arms going up.

The first great truth is:

God is able.

Our God is able.

How able is God? Well, according to the writers of Scripture, he is exceedingly able.

He is able to speak the universe into being, to say, “Let there be light,” and there is light.
He is able to bring the plagues that will change the heart of a pharaoh.
When the Red Sea needed to be parted for Israel to walk through, God was able to part it.
When manna was needed to feed the people, God was able to bring it.
When a storm threatened the lives of his disciples, God was able to still it.
God was able to rescue Daniel from a lions’ den.
God was able to deliver three young men from a fiery furnace.
He was able to take five loaves and two fish and feed a crowd of thousands of people.
He was able to make a priest silent.
Able to make a donkey speak.
Able to make the lame walk and the blind see.
Able to make a leper clean.
And able to make a dead man live.

If we’re going to use the word God at all, we have to understand this is not poetic language. There is simply no other way to conceive of such a being that we call God.

Paul says that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. It’s like he loaded us up with one thought after another.

God is able to do what we ask.
Not just that, but he is able to do all that we ask.
Not just that, but he is able to do more than all we ask.
Not just that, but he is able to do more than all we ask or imagine.
Not just that, but he is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

How able is God?

He is very able. He is exceedingly able, and his arm has not lost any of its strength. He has not lost his capacity to speak and have it be so.

God is able, and I have to have trust in that, at least enough to turn to him.

God is able.

The second great truth is:

God is willing.

God could be a very strong being, but if God does not have a caring heart and a listening ear, I don’t want to hold my hands up to heaven all day.

God is willing. He’s not just able; he’s willing to hear, willing to notice, willing to love, and willing to act.

How willing?

Very willing.

The writers of Scripture say he’s willing enough to count the hairs on your head.
And keep every one of your tears in a bottle.
Willing to hear the groans of his people.
And the blood that cries out from the ground of every single victim.
Willing to suffer like a lovesick father waiting for his prodigal child to come home.
And willing enough to become like one of us.

This is the doctrine of incarnation that we just celebrated at Christmas — that in Jesus God became flesh — and part of what that means is God learned firsthand what it’s like to need help. God learned that.

When Jesus was a little boy, he would say this word to Mary. “Help! Help me, Mommy!”

It’s one of the first words a child learns. “Help me get dressed. Help me eat my food.”

How amazing that God humbled himself in Jesus (the maker of the universe asking for help to tie the laces of his sandals)!

If a parent lives long enough, things change, and they end up asking their children for help. “Help me get dressed. Help me eat my food.”

We are born needing help, and we die needing help.

And in between we can fool ourselves into thinking we don’t need help, but all it takes is a little age, a little health problem, a little blood vessel that doesn’t work just right, or a little email from work saying that job is no longer ours, and we remember that word. “Help!”

In the end, Jesus (God in the flesh) could not even carry his cross by himself, and a man named Simon from Cyrene had to carry it for him.

The story of Jesus ends as it begins with a God who somehow knows what it is to be weak and small and unable and needing help. That’s our God.

He is so willing. He has such a generous heart. God is not frustrated or impatient. God is not weak or disinterested.

God is waiting right now, so where do you most need help from God?

God, give me strength to face this crisis.
God, give me wisdom to know how to parent.
God, give me peace in the midst of this storm.
God, give me the ability to overcome my anger and resentment and bitterness.
God, take away my fear. It’s killing me, and I can’t make it go away.
God, give me your help to be able to cope at work.
God, I need your patience to be able to dwell in the midst of this problem.
God, I haven’t lived in joy for a long, long time.

God is able, and God is willing, and God helps people who can’t help themselves.

Now, maybe like Moses, you need help from someone else. Maybe your arms are getting pretty tired.

There have been times in my life when I have felt so deeply burdened that I’ve had to say to a friend, “I don’t even know how to pray right now. I feel like my heart is so downcast I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. Would you pray for me? Would you stand in that gap for me?”

And they have said, “Yeah, of course, I will do that.”

Then, they are like Aaron for me. They are like Hur for me. Those are sacred moments, and we get to do that for each other.

It’s an amazing picture this story shows us of life in the kingdom of God where God hears and God cares.

God is able, and God is willing, and he sends his power, and there’s a battle that looks like it’s being carried on in human flesh, but the real battle is not down on the field.

The real battle is up on the mountain with a man named Moses, but Moses gets too tired. Moses gets too weary, so he has a couple of friends who come alongside of him, and they hold up the hands that don’t have the strength to hold up themselves.

And somehow in the midst of that weakness and brokenness and neediness, the power of God gets unleashed that never would through human self-sufficiency and strength
and ego alone.

That’s us. That’s the reality in which we live. That’s life in the kingdom of God.

Maybe you need to ask someone, “Would you be my Aaron? Would you be my Hur? Would you hold up my hands because they’re kind of tired right now? Would you support me in prayer because my heart is breaking right now?”

I’m asking all of us to put away any self-sufficiency, any stubbornness, any resistance, and any pride.

Lift those hands toward heaven, because God is able, and God is willing.

We’re going to close our time today by praying this simple prayer of help to God.

I’m going to ask that you bow your heads and close your eyes.

And I’d like to ask every one of us to ask our God for the help that only God can give, because God helps those who cannot help themselves.