“The poor and the helpless have fled to you and have been safe in times of trouble. You give them shelter from storms and shade from the burning heat…” Isaiah 25:4 GNT

“It’s ok for the Christian to feel helpless, but never hopeless.” Charles Stanley

Helpless: “Unable to help oneself; impossible to control one’s circumstances.”

Hope: ‘The anticipation of something good. The confident expectation of God’s faithfulness.”

“Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath,” John 5:1-9 NIV

How Do The Helpless Move To Being Hopeful?

• Reject self-reliance (Vs. 5-6)

• Reject self-pity (Vs.7)

How does Jesus help us when we are helpless? (Vs.8)

• “Get up” – Jesus challenges us to do the very thing we cannot do for ourselves

• “Take up your mat”- Jesus removed the temptation to go back

• “Walk”- Jesus expected continued success