Dennis Gladden: Without Strength
Broken resolutions are a constant reminder of your condition: You haven’t kept them because you can’t. You, too, are without strength.
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We are several weeks into the new year, and I have a question. How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions?
Thumbs up? So so? Maybe you have given up making resolutions because it is depressing to keep breaking them. You’re not alone.
We are so bad at following through that soon after New Year’s a writer offered this solution.
“We need policy—carbon taxes, subsidies, public information campaigns—to support behavior change.” Her focus was on the climate, but she made a general conclusion: “Governments should not shy away from nudging people to behave…. After all, sometimes we all need help to do the right thing.” [1
We do need help to do the right thing, but there is a better solution than taxes and government programs. Let’s look at two things about resolutions:
What ruins them?
What is the remedy?
Two men in the Bible will help answer the questions. The first is in John 5:1-9.
Four things about this man stand out.
He is not alone.
A feast of the Jews is going on. If this is one of the three annual feasts, then Jerusalem is filled with families who have left their homes and villages to gather and rejoice in Jehovah.
The pool of Bethesda is famous for its healing waters, and there is a "great multitude" of people who need healing.
In general, they are all sick with varying symptoms. The underlying cause is this: They are without strength.
He is desperately alone. "I have no one to put me in the pool." He is surrounded by all of these people, and not one will help. Where is his family? Has he no friends? Others at the pool are out for themselves: "If I help you, then I won't get in..."
This man may not be stepped on, but everyone steps over him. He is ignored and overlooked. He is desperately alone.
Even where he is mocks him.
He is in the holy city of Jerusalem, the city God chose for Himself. Someone might ask him, “What has God done for you lately?”
We find him at the pool of Bethesda, which means House of Kindness, or Mercy. From what we know, it has been a long time, maybe 38 years, since anyone has been kind to this man. He has been harmed by life, hurt by others, and confined. I think this man would find it hard to agree with King David, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."
Despite all of this, he is resolute. He is as close to help as he can get. He has received no particular kindness or mercy, but he doesn't leave. Though he never gets to the water, he stays nearby. He waits, and watches, and wants to get better.
In short, this man is in distress. Thirty-eight years—13,870 days—have come and gone and nothing has changed. The word distress occurs often in the Bible and has the meaning of a tight spot; hemmed in; cramped. This man is squeezed between desire and despair.
Desire: He wants to be first to the water. He wants to be well. He doesn't want to stay as he is. His very presence in the House of Mercy is a prayer, "Have mercy on me."
Despair: He is resolved to get into the pool, but here is what ruins his resolution: he is without strength. He has no more strength to get better than he does to get up and walk out.
The second man: The Apostle Paul
Paul is different. He is up and coming. He was advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries (Galatians 1:14).
Paul is vibrant. He gets around—born in Tarsus (south-central Turkey), he has traveled around Israel and even into Syria and Arabia.
He is zealous and has a burning passion for God. He studied with Israel's best scholars. If the man at the pool could not rely on his body, Paul told the Philippians he had every reason to have confidence in his (Philippians 4:3-6).
But there is another side to Paul. For all he had going for him, he cries out in his letter to the Romans, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24). He endured a deep personal trial.
Paul goes on to explain it.
"I don't understand what I am doing. There are good things I want to do, but I don't. And there are things I hate, yet I do them anyway. There is a law in my head that says, "Do this" but another in my body that fights it. I am a captive in my own body."
"I can't endure this. I am miserable. I am wretched. Who can deliver me?"
Paul is in distress. Like the man at the pool, he is between a rock and a hard place. He is squeezed between desire and despair.
Desire: He wants to do the right things, but finds himself doing the opposite. In spite of all he has going for him, he is going nowhere.
Despair: He is resolved, but he can't keep his resolution. When he looks inside, he finds "evil is present with me." He cannot be the good man he determines to be, in spite of his sincerity.
Here is what ruined his resolution: Paul was also without strength. He had no more ability to improve himself than the man at the pool to get up and walk away.
So, it is lack of strength that ruins our resolutions.
What is the remedy?
The answer was the same for both Paul and the man at the well: Jesus came. The Psalmist expressed it this way: “The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation” (Psalm 118:14).
Jesus came to the feast in Jerusalem. Jesus came to the Pool of Bethesda and the five porches where any number of sick were waiting for the angel to stir the water. Jesus—the Son of God and greater than any angel—came to this particular porch, to this man.
He hadn't invited Jesus. He didn't call out like so many others, "Son of David, have mercy on me." He didn't ask for help and had given up expecting mercy. But help and mercy came in Jesus. When this man was without strength, Jesus came. And Jesus commanded him to do the impossible: "Get up and walk."
Jesus granted the desire of his heart and his despair vanished. I can hear the words of the Psalm washing over him. "When I was without strength, Jesus came. When I could not walk, Jesus spoke. I once was lame, but now I leap! The Lord is my strength! He has become my salvation."
In a similar way, Paul was striving with all his might in his zeal for God when Jesus came. Jesus came to a particular road on the way to Damascus. He came to a man on a mission who didn't want to be interrupted.
Paul wasn't looking for Jesus. He wasn't looking for mercy but was determined to dispense judgment. But Jesus came and answered his deep, inner cry, "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me?"
Jesus came.
This is the remedy for our ruined resolutions: Jesus comes, and we revive.
When the man at the pool was without strength, Jesus came, and healed him. The man did what he had wanted, but couldn’t, for 38 years. All because of Jesus.
When Paul was without strength and wretched, Jesus came. And Paul arose from that encounter and said to whoever would listen, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10).
Now, you may be discouraged about the resolutions you have made and haven’t kept. Resolutions you made, not necessarily this new year, but long ago.
And you are also distressed—in a tight spot, squeezed between your desire to be better and your despair when you don’t achieve it.
Broken resolutions are a constant reminder of your condition: You haven’t kept them because you can’t. You, too, are without strength.
Hear the good news from someone else who was in your position. Paul wrote, “when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6).
When we—you and me—when we were without strength, Jesus came. Jesus died for us.
Jesus became like us. In the grave, He was without strength, but His Father came, and raised Him up. Jesus became like us in our weakness so that we might become like Him in His resurrection—raised up by the power of God to new life.
Hear Paul’s prayer for us: “I do not cease to mention you in my prayers … that you may know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19).
When your broken resolutions mock you, remember Paul’s prayer. Jesus was in the tomb, without strength, when the power of God raised Him, and in Christ this same power extends to us.
You will know God answered your prayer when you say with the psalmist, “The LORD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”
-Dennis
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