Do you ever feel like John, Paul, Ringo, and George, also known as the Rock ’N’ Roll band, The Beatles, who sing,

“Help, you know I need someone, help;” 

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down;

Help me get my feet back on the ground;

Won’t you please, please help me.”

I know you often feel like this.

So, what do you need help with right now?

Maybe you need help because you feel stuck in your life.

Maybe you need help because you don’t know how to get out of  the place that you find yourself currently.

In Five Finger Death Punch’s song, The Wrong Side of Hell, they sing of needing the help of direction for their life when they passionately call out,

“Arms wide open; I stand alone;

I’m no hero; and I’m not made of stone;

Right or wrong; I can hardly tell;

I’m on the wrong side of Heaven; and the righteous side of Hell.”

Do you ever feel like that?  Like you don’t know where you belong? Like you feel out of place?  Like you just need someone to help you by telling you where you fit in?

We all make our way through life whispering under our breath, or calling out in our head, “Lord, Help Me!” 

For people of faith, this is a sign that they believe God in Heaven is alive and active, listening to their pleas for help and is always ready to swoop in and come to their aid in their moment of need.

The interesting thing is that many who do not have faith in God will also often be heard using the phrase, “Lord, Help Me!,” as well.

Whenever this phrase, “Lord, Help Me!,” is uttered, it is a confession that life is hard and we can’t get through our day in our own strength.

On May 27th, 2021, Timothy Harrison arrived at the local Waffle House to start another shift. But at some point, his routine was punctured by a pointed question from a coworker: “Why are you here today?”

It was common knowledge that Harrison’s school Woodlawn High was holding its commencement ceremony at a location across town. Manager Cedric Hampton chimed in, “That’s when I said why aren’t you going to graduation?” And he said ‘I don’t want to miss work.’ So, I was like, you’re going!”

Harrison eventually admitted that he showed up for work as usual because he didn’t have a ride. By that point, the Waffle House team was ready to spring into action. Co-worker Shantana Blevins asked, “What do we need to do?”

As it turns out, there was plenty to do, but they all banded together to get it done. Members of the team assisted in buying Harrison appropriate dress clothes, procuring the cap and gown, and transporting him to the ceremony. Hampton said his assistant manager even came in on her day off to mind the store, just so the rest of the crew could help their newest 18-year-old employee on his big day. His co-worker said they made it to the venue just in time for Harrison to participate.

The new graduate reflected on the experience, “I had people want to see me succeed, so it kind made me excited. When I put on clothes, that was a different feeling … I don’t even know the words. A million dollars? It was the best feeling.” And if that weren’t enough, once news of his big day spread, he was met with a full scholarship to Lawson State Community College.

After being part of Harrison’s story, co-worker Shantana Blevins reflected on her role in the rescue effort. “You never know who you can touch or who you can influence with one simple gesture.”¹

Left alone, Timothy, the Waffle House employee, could not move forward in his life.  With his limited resources, he could not get to his own High School graduation, never mind having the funds to purchase appropriate clothing which also included his cap and gown for his walk across the stage to accept his diploma.  If transportation and clothing wasn’t within his monetary means, attending college sure wasn’t on the radar for Timothy.

But, one simple gesture changed this student’s life and set him up for future success.  

The help that was provided by Timothy’s co-workers opened up a whole new world of possibilities for him. 

In this morning’s text, Jesus recognizes that his disciples, those that follow him and will keep sharing the good news of God’s grace after He is gone, need help.

Let’s hear about the one gesture of help that Jesus recognizes his followers will need to change their life and set them up for future success.

In John 14:15–21, the disciple John, who wrote this biography of Jesus, records this piece of a conversation for us:

Jesus says:

[15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

[18] “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (ESV)

This morning, we enter back into the conversation that we heard part of last week.

We enter back into the conversation that is being had around the dinner table during The Last Supper.

It is in this conversation that Jesus has been addressing the worries and concerns that the disciples began to have after hearing from Jesus’ own mouth that in a short period of time, he would no longer be with them.  Jesus directly told them that one of them there that evening would sell him out to the Roman government who would arrest him and lock him away.  Jesus also indirectly told them that the result of that betrayal, arrest, and imprisonment would be his death.  

So, when all is said and done, Jesus would no longer be physically present with them any longer.

This caused fear, anxiety, worry, and concern, or, trouble, as Jesus called it last week, for the men sitting at the table with him who have followed him, lived with him, worked with him, and learned about God’s grace, mercy, and love from him.

What would they now do with their lives?  Who was going to lead them and guide them from that day forward?  All that they found comfort in was going to be stripped away from them.

In this morning’s text, we see and hear Jesus telling his disciples that he knows their concerns, their worries, their problems, their troubles, and their weaknesses.

And, after recognizing those things, Jesus acts in pure grace, as He always does, and promises to help them to sort out those things so that they can have the knowledge, wisdom, peace and strength that they need to get through every single day of their lives.

So, what help do the disciples need?

Well, according to Jesus’ trustworthy assessment of the situation, the disciples had many needs focused around their faith and future.

The disciples need help loving Jesus;

The disciples need help keeping God’s commandments, or, in other words, God’s standards for life and love;

The disciples need help discerning the truth of God from lies of the world;

The disciples need help knowing God the Father in Heaven and seeing him at work in their lives and in the world around them;

The disciples need help becoming a member of God’s eternal family in His Kingdom of Heaven;

And, the disciples need help in order to be loved by God and reconciled to Him today, tomorrow, and forever.

Well, as Jesus always does, He speaks good news to the disciples that evening.

Jesus tells the disciples that even though He wouldn’t be present with them physically any longer, He would still be with them, every single day of their lives, or, to use Jesus’ own word, He would be with them forever.

How would Jesus be with forever?

Jesus would be living with them forever by coming to them and living with them and in them in the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

This is how Jesus fulfills his promise in Matthew 28.20,

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Martin Luther referred to the Holy Spirit as the alter christus. 

Alter Christus means “another Christ.”

So, you don’t have some sort of subpar helper to go with you on your life’s journey, you actually have Jesus Christ himself, God the Son, living with you and traveling with you and helping you wherever you go.

Jesus tells them that he would fulfill his promise to them by being with them spiritually.

And, what would Jesus do for them?

Jesus would do the same exact thing that He did for them while He was physically present with them—Jesus would always lead them to The Truth.

Jesus, in the person of the Holy Spirit, would teach them and guide them and reveal to them that they are great sinners but God is an even greater Savior.  

Jesus, in the person of the Spirit would reveal to them their disobedience to God’s commandments and Jesus would strengthen them to live their lives in obedience to God’s commandments.

We know that this is the ultimate good news that Jesus wanted to live his followers with in this morning’s text because it books ends this part of their conversation.

At the beginning Jesus says,

[15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And, at the end Jesus says,

[21] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

However, Jesus knows that the human heart, when left alone, is incapable of both knowing the commandments of God and following the commandments of God.

Jesus notes this in The Gospel of Mark when He recognizes that:

[20] … “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. [21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. [23] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23, ESV)

But, this corrupted and incapacitated human heart isn’t a new story, God, the Father in Heaven, makes the inability to do what is right, according to His standards for life and love, clear from the moment of humanity’s Fall.

In Genesis 6:5, we hear:

[5] The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (ESV)

And, in Genesis 8:21, God points out that:

“…for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (ESV)

As Josh White, musician and author, writes in his newest book, Stumbling Toward Eternity: Losing & Finding Ourselves in the Cross of Jesus, 

“The challenge before us is the fact that the default setting of the human heart is to push back agains anything that threatens our autonomy.”²

And, God’s commandments threaten our autonomy because in the commandments, God is telling us what we can and cannot do.

So, corrupted by sin since from the moment of conception, we are unable to follow God’s commandments because we will always default to disobedience to God in favor of thinking we know a better way.

But, God, in His great love for you and for me, does not let our sin stop us from loving him and listening to Him.

God comes to you in the person of Jesus Christ to forgive your self-centered sin through Jesus death, and to give you the righteousness you need by crediting Jesus’ perfect life to account so that you can be reconciled to God in Heaven forever.

And, then, God gives you Jesus to stay with you and live with you, through His Holy Spirit, to empower you and strengthen you to love Him and listen to Him and do what He commands every single second of every single day.

You don’t have to climb the proverbial ladder to God (which even if you wanted to, you couldn’t because of sin). God comes to you in the persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to carry you up that ladder to Himself, strengthening you every second to face the challenges of your day that attempt to pull you off the path that leads eternal life in God’s Kingdom.

Throughout the Bible, we are told over and over again that “the Spirit is…the means by which God empowers individuals to do his will.”³

We have many examples of God, by His Spirit, living with and empowering people to do His will.

One of those examples is in Isaiah 61:1 which tells of how God works by His Spirit to lead, guide, and work through those who have faith in him.

In this text, we hear:

[1] The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor;

he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 

The Good News Network, which began in 1997 as an antidote to the barrage of negativity experienced in the main stream media and is still active today online, reported the following story in January of 2022:

A 71-year-old Swedish man was in his driveway shoveling snow in the Swedish city of Trollhättan, when he suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. Normally, you have about ten minutes to get help in such a situation and ambulance response times are often too long to save the life of the patient. Typically, only ten percent of people survive sudden cardiac arrest.

Luckily, a telephone call was immediately placed requesting emergency services and the man lived in a region that had partnered with Everdrone’s innovative life-saving program. Everdrones deliver an automated external defibrillator (AED) to the scene. The amount of time from the alarm until the AED was safely delivered at the doorstep of the incident address was just over three minutes.

Even more fortuitous, a doctor happened to be driving by and stopped to see if he could help. Dr. Mustafa Ali said, “I was on my way to work at the local hospital when I looked out the car window and saw a man collapsed in his driveway and I immediately rushed to help. The man had no pulse, so I started doing CPR while asking another bystander to call the Swedish emergency number. Just minutes later, I saw something flying above my head. It was a drone with a defibrillator!”

After the initial treatment on site, the ambulance arrived, the patient was rushed to the hospital. “This is a truly revolutionary technology that needs to be implemented all over,” said the patient who now has made a full recovery and returned home. “If it wasn’t for the drone I probably wouldn’t be here.”

The company behind the drone pilot project says it’s the first time in medical history that a drone has played a crucial part in saving a life during a cardiac arrest. The drone carries an ultralight defibrillator, which can be used by any bystander.

Life is hard, especially when you are trying to be obedient to God’s standards for life and love, or, in other words, think, speak, and act, exactly like God.

You quickly come to the conclusion, when hearing God’s commands, that you cannot ever do this by your own strength.

You need help loving Jesus;

You need help keeping God’s commandments, or, in other words, God’s standards for life and love;

You need help discerning the truth of God from lies of the world;

You need help knowing God the Father in Heaven and seeing him at work in your life and in the world around you;

You need help becoming a member of God’s eternal family in His Kingdom of Heaven;

And, you need help in order to be loved by God and reconciled to Him today, tomorrow, and forever.

Jesus comes down from Heaven, in the person of the Holy Spirit, to provide you with the life saving help that you need—the strength to follow God’s commands, and the forgiveness you need when you stumble and mess up, so that you can be loved by God the Father in Heaven because you are credited with loving Jesus the Son perfectly in every way.

You belong in God’s arms in His place, the Kingdom of Heaven.

And, Jesus comes to tell you that’s where you fit in because He has done all of the work needed to get you there.

Through the one gesture of giving you the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus sets you up for future success with the strength to know the truth, follow His commands, and find yourself loved by God the Father eternally.

I leave you with this exhortation from the apostle Paul written to the 1st Century Christian Church gathered in the city of Galatia:

[16] But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. [17] For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, [20] idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [21] envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. [24] And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

[25] If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:16–25,ESV)

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Pastor Fred Scragg

May 21, 2023

Footnotes

¹Ronnie Koenig and Janhvi Bhojwani, “Waffle House employees band together to help co-worker attend his graduation,” Yahoo News (6-6-21)

²Josh White, Stumbling Toward Eternity: Losing & Finding Ourselves in the Cross of Jesus (Colorado Springs: Multomah, 2023), 29.

³Josh White, Stumbling Toward Eternity: Losing & Finding Ourselves in the Cross of Jesus (Colorado Springs: Multomah, 2023).