Beyond Blessed
No Help
I. Introduction
It was a day that rattled the entertainment industry and many fans. On October 28, 2023, Matthew Perry, who was best known for his role in Friends as the character Chandler, was found unresponsive in his hot tub and was pronounced dead at 4:17pm at the age of 54. Almost one year to the date, November 1st, 2022, Matthew Perry released a book that chronicled his battle with alcohol and drugs which resulted in 15 stays in rehab, 7 million dollars spent on trying to get sober and several near-death experiences. In his book he writes this statement, "Julia Roberts is my girlfriend. I just bought my dream house - it looks across the whole city! I'm making a million dollars a week - I win right? I'd had it all. But it was all a trick. Nothing was going to fix this. Maybe it was because I was always trying to fill a spiritual hole with a material thing."
Matthew Perry by all accounts, including mine and yours, would be considered blessed. He had everything that we call the American Dream. Fame. Acceptance. Love. Riches. Property. He had the world by the tail and came face to face with the fact that you can have everything you ever dreamed of having, live what others think is a blessed life, be rich beyond imagination and still end up bankrupt. It forces us to come to grips with the question posed by Jesus in Matthew 8:36 . . . What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? So, our determination of blessing can't be solely attached or ascribed to the material. In a series about being blessed we want to focus our attention on finances. Money, money, money and as we have learned money was certainly addressed by Jesus. But we must also realize that although money is valuable and important it isn’t the most valuable and important asset we have in life. In fact, we can be rich financially and not be beyond blessed. Therefore, there must be some other or at least some additional elements or things that must be addressed that determine whether we are living beyond blessed.
To that end I want to take you to a familiar passage in the Old Testament and then an equally familiar piece of the New Testament that may seem odd when talking about the subject of being beyond blessed. The New Testament passage has been used to combat making excuses. It has been used by preachers, including myself, to address desire. All legitimate and needed focuses and certainly subjects to which the text speaks. However, I think I have some insight that I haven't really seen before that may help us in the journey towards living the life more abundant that Jesus promised us. If nothing else it, may present to us the litmus test to determine whether we are simply blessed or have graduated to the higher level of beyond blessed.
II. Text
Genesis 2:18 (TLB)?And the Lord God said, “It isn’t good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs.”
John 5:1-9 (CEV)
Later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for another Jewish festival. In the city near the sheep gate was a pool with five porches, and its name in Hebrew was Bethesda. Many sick, blind, lame, and paralyzed people were lying close to the pool. Beside the pool was a man who had been sick for 38 years. When Jesus saw the man and realized that he had been crippled for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” The man answered, “Sir, I don't have anyone to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up. I try to get in, but someone else always gets there first.” Jesus told him, “Pick up your mat and walk!” Right then the man was healed. He picked up his mat and started walking around. The day on which this happened was a Sabbath.
III. Environment
This account may very well give us the insight needed to discover how to live beyond blessed. I think it is crucial to stop just a moment and think about the environment or backdrop of this account. The man who Jesus encounters in this account isn't by himself. The text states that there were many sick laying in this covered area. The man's response to Jesus' question about his desire to be well gives us valuable and needed insight into the environment in this place. When the water was troubled, which indicated that healing was available, this place turned into a madhouse. It was Black Friday on steroids. It was a UFC, WWE Royal Rumble, 2022 street riot all rolled into one. Everyone was trying to get into the water first. Fists flying. Clothes grabbing. Tripping. Pushing. Shoving. Eye poking. It was a no holds barred. You are the 3rd monkey on the ark and its beginning to rain kind of fight. This was the environment. We know this because the man's response was, "I don't have any help. I try to get in, but others beat me to it every time." When I reread that account, it dawned on me. Someone was being blessed when the waters were troubled. Someone who was sick, lame, blind was being set free and delivered. They were blessed. But the truth is the chaos and competition of that environment also reveals to me what is required to get to the beyond blessed level.
You don’t get to beyond blessed alone.
Jesus asks, "Do you want to be healed?" The man responds, "I have no one to help me." He wasn't by himself, but he was alone. What if your healing is held up because you have not invested the time and energy necessary to develop and secure relationships that help you to wholeness? Some of us are paralyzed for years because we are relationally bankrupt. We find ourselves where David did when he proclaimed, "No man cared for my soul!" To live beyond blessed we must build relationships now that will be crucial for us in the years to come to find healing. We want to dismiss this man's response as an excuse, but we must also recognize the reality of his statement. He had no one that cared about his healing as much or more than they cared about getting their own healing, blessing, or answer. There was literally a fight to get theirs. I am pulling you back so that I can get mine.
How many of us have surrounded ourselves with people who care more about themselves than they care about us? Think about the kind of people he was surrounded by - selfish, self-centered, stingy, self- serving. Think about the result of this. This produced isolation which gave birth to prolonged paralysis. What if he had had someone in year 1 who would have assisted him, then there would have been no need to lay in that place 38 years. He loses 38 years of his best life simply because everyone around him was more concerned about their own blessing more than they were concerned about getting a blessing to someone else.
How many years of your life have been lost because you haven't developed relationships that help you? Who you got that’s got you? Who you got that prefers you over themselves? Too many of us have no help! Who you got that can pull you into the pool instead of away from the pool? Who will fight others to get you in first? Who will get you to blessing when you can’t get it for yourself (who are your four)? Who is picking you up when you can’t pick yourself up?
You might be here today and like this man say, "I have no help". The good news is Jesus can help when no one else will. However, that doesn’t mean we should not work on securing helpful relationships.
I need to remind you today that the "alone" issue that we all suffer with and in existed before sin. In Genesis 2, God declares that it isn't good for man to be alone. That statement was made in the middle of Utopia and perfection. That statement was made pre-fall, before sin. We spend a lot of time talking about, thinking about, and trying to deal with our sin problem as we should. But too few of us will talk about, admit, acknowledge, or do anything to fix our "alone problem" that existed before our sin problem. So, we lay in a place of brokenness year after year when our solution could be found in relationship. You don’t get to beyond blessed alone. This man's physical brokenness was an outward manifestation of relational brokenness. What is a manifestation of your relational brokenness? Depression? Addiction? Anger? You can be blessed financially and not be beyond blessed if you are bankrupt relationally.
You don't get to beyond blessed by battling.
Too many of us think if they get theirs, then I can’t get mine, so we compete instead of compliment or cooperate. We treat blessing like a competition. This reveals that we have embraced a scarcity mindset which is a lie. We say that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, that His grace is sufficient and that we are healed by His stripes, but we act like there is a limited supply or that it is first come first served. We must come to understand and behave with the understanding that our God has enough to bless someone else and still bless us. If we don’t know that, then we will in here trying to be first instead of in here being a friend. We can't graduate to beyond blessed if God is only big enough to bless one person. If we think that, then we battle for blessings. Beyond blessed is when I recognize God's sufficiency and then recognize that I have a part in making that sufficiency available to others. How many people around you have lost years of their life because you haven't graduated to the beyond blessed understanding that you are called to help them get blessed?
You can’t move to beyond blessed until you move beyond beating someone else to blessing and living in the knowledge that God will do for me what I make happen for others. How many of us are more concerned about being first than we are about being a friend? Beyond blessed means I learn to pull others into their blessing. It is taking the position of the 4 friends who carried their broken friend to Jesus. Didn't they have needs too? It is the lesson taught by Elijah when he encounters the widow who is about to use her last bit of oil and flour to make bread for her and her son so that they can eat and die. In 1 Kings 17:13, Elijah says make a loaf of bread for me first and then make it for you and your son and the oil won’t run dry. If she had operated like the folks did at the pool, she and her son would have starved to death. If we get the order right by doing for others first, then we get to beyond blessed. Beyond blessed is when you live in a sustained blessing. It isn't necessarily having more it is having what you already have go further than you thought possible. The woman's response of obedience produces a relationship with Elijah that sustains her and goes fixes more than her financial issues. The day came when finances couldn’t fix the problem she had. When her son dies it wasn't oil and flour that fixed the problem it was the relationship established with someone who was able to bring this woman back to beyond blessed by bringing her son back to life. All the oil and flour in the world would not be an adequate substitute for that blessing.
Beyond blessed is found when we are willing to give up mine so that you can get yours. The water is troubled let me help you get in. Beyond blessed is when we are willing to pray more about the person's needs next to us more than we pray about our own. Beyond blessed is found when I will go without to make sure you have what you need. Beyond blessed is when we find ourselves surrounded by folks who refuse to battle for their blessing and instead battle for someone else to be blessed. I am beyond blessed when I find myself surrounded by folks who want my blessing for me more than they want that miracle for themselves. I will know I have graduated to beyond blessed when I give up my miracle if I can get you to yours. Competition and jealousy die in that kind of space.
Does our church look like the pool of Bethesda crowd? Do you show up here battling for your blessing or battling to get someone else to their blessing? Is the only need on your mind this morning yours or the person's need three rows up. I want us to become a place where no one can ever say "I had no one to put me in the pool."
If we are going to fight, let's fight to be the ones who get to pull others in while the waters are troubled!
Bankruptcy financially impacts you for 7 years having no one to help can destroy you for the rest of your life.
