Who Do You Carry? by Captain Kelly
Durant 3-17-13
1. Mark 2:1 And again
he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the
house.2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no
room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the
word unto them.3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which
was borne of four.4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press,
they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let
down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.5 When Jesus saw their faith, he
said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
2. There is the anecdote of one young man carrying another
boy on his back as they walk down the road. And a friend beside them asked the
one who was carrying the boy, “isn’t that he heavy? Don’t you get tired?” His reply was, “He
‘aint heavy, he’s my brother”. When you love someone, when they are family, you
really don’t feel the weight of carrying them. It all is in the good attitude
of doing good to others, you don’t feel it.
3. Last week we had an amazing time learning from the
sessions of Pastor Mike Slater. He wrote a very good and interesting book, as
you can see here, called the Stretcher; Beginning healing and hope to a broken
& hurting world. Why a stretcher? We read it in the verses of today. There
was a man who could not walk so in order for him to beg, they would carry him
out on his stretcher every day. In the verses it mentioned he had 4 friends,
verse 3.
The friends that have got your back, the friends that take
you get help, the ones that carry you, these are the ones doing a stretcher
ministry. Being on a Stretcher is a reality for a many people and some of you
here may feel paralyzed from all your personal difficult situations!
4. The big day came when Jesus was in town that his friends took
him to where Jesus was preaching in a small house and they let him down on a
stretcher through the roof so he could get to Jesus. There must have been 4 men
or more helping lower him down inside through the hole. Imagine all the work
they did, carrying him up to the roof, then they were all digging a hole in the
roof. Then they had to work together to lower him inside without dropping him.
All of us are going to have pain in life, all of us get laid
up at some time or another to the point we need help. I want you to close your
eyes and imagine that right now you are on a stretcher. You are at a point you
can do nothing on your own. Someone(s) has to carry you to and from your house.
Someone is going to do many errands for you, taking you here and there,
preparing your food, etc. Open your eyes, who do you see there? How many are
there? One? Two? Or Four?
5. Do you even see 2 or 3 people? If you do you are very
blessed! Many people in the world don’t even have one person to help them when
they are down and out! This is the issue I want to address today, who can carry
you? Who has been there for you in the past? And right now?
Let’s go back to the healing to the cripple man, Jesus told
him he was made whole due to his faith. When you want something from God, a
healing or a help, you have to do the unconventional, you must be radical and
humble and accept help, and you must have the conviction God will do it. Making
a hole in a roof was creating damage that they would have to fix later. But one
thing is real, you and I need others in our times of crisis to do what no one
else will do.
6. Let’s look at the issue of getting help; most people are
not even willing to be helped! Do you know of people right now that
symbolically are on a stretcher and yet they will not tell anyone? You may ask
people: How are you? I’m alright? How are you? I’m fine. You and I often may have a health
issue, a kid in trouble, a bill to pay but to save face each one says they are
alright!? This is wrong and no opening of roofs and getting healed will get
done this way. This is pride and God cannot work through those unwilling to be
humbled.
It’s like a kid that Pastor Slater told a story about that he
saw drowning at the beach. He just happened to see the kid was fighting for his
life in the water, but he did not cry out for help! He went and saved him and
pulled him to the beach. Recovering on the beach he asked the young man, why
didn’t you cry out, help me, I’m drowning? The guy mumbled that he was too
embarrassed in front of his friends to look weak like he was drowning!? He
almost died and would have died and yet he had no intention of trying to get
help! This example is reality.
7. So what gets in our way of being able to help one another?
Why are you silent? I know some of you here have a lot of heavy issues in your
personal life but you suffer in silence. Why? Is it fear? It is the fear of
being honest, the fear of rejection or non-acceptance, or the foolishness of
pride, or is it the guilt of faithlessness. God put us in a Christian family
for a purpose, to love one another and to share each other’s burdens.
Here is an idea of how you can overcome these things that
prevent you from connecting to get help. Right now get out some paper and write
down 3 of each of the following, one in each column. Friends & Issues (Name and their need) How Can I build trust? This means, how can you help another who see
needs help?
8. Now here is a more difficult one. Write down… My
Issues How can I build trust? This means you being able to being humble and
you trust your needs with another person so they can help you. This takes faith
and humility!
Think of it this way: The Lord wants to do a work in your
life and in others but you have got to identify the issues and see what is up
to the Lord and see what is up to you. Some people let issues go on year after
year, some people even die young because of no resolving issues!
9. Each problem has main issues and secondary issues. For
example in what we read today, the main issue is the man is crippled, he cannot
walk. Can you or I fix that? No! But what was secondary was how to get him to
Jesus. The secondary issue was, who would carry him and lift him on the roof,
who would cut the hole, and who would lower him inside? In other words, God
will do his part but He expects us to do our part. You cannot just pray, you
must act as well!
Another of the most classic examples of this is Jesus raising
Lazarus from the dead. He asked the disciples to follow him there back to Judea
where the chief priests wanted to kill him. Then in front of the tomb he told
Martha & Mary and all of them there to roll away the stone. The main issue
was Lazarus’ death, you and I could do nothing about that, but the secondary
issue was to get the tomb open for the miracle to happen, and that was
something your average strong person was able to do. God wants us to show our
faith and do our part.
John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and
the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:26
And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
10. How can we apply all of this that we are learning today?
Think of it this way. A certain couple here may have an issue, let’s take for
example an issue of marriage problems. It may be something that not everyone
should know, but the few who know are the stretcher bearers. The main issue
that you cannot fix is the disagreements, the separation in the spirit that
they have. It is God’s work to bring restoration and healing. The Holy Spirit
can heal not just physically but relationally as well, but God does expect us
to do our part to help.
So what could you or I do? How do we help with the secondary
part? You could put them on your prayer list! Always, prayer comes first. Then one
of you could write them a postcard and tell them that you are praying for them and
deliver it to them. And to make a better difference, a few of you might offer
to take their kids out for an ice cream cone at McDonald’s so the couple would
have some alone time to talk about the issues they have been avoiding.
11. The idea is God will follow through on His part but He
seems to always want to see you and I doing our part. Almost always our part
implies other people, other stretcher bearers, being involved like a team to
work with God to make it happen. God is relational; He wants not just the
defenseless needy person involved, but also another group of people helping as
well in the ministry part. With God it is either: get healed and ministered to,
or you get out and minister!
Why are there so many examples of this pattern in the New
Testament with Jesus? I think it is because God wants to help everyone get rid
of their pride, and their fears of thinking about what others think, that
stubborn self confidence that we can do it alone. Faith to receive implies being humble and
willing to be bold to trust God. Faith, humbleness, holiness, God wants you to
work on gaining these attributes or you are worthless being faithless, &
proud.
12. Here is the issue when you are needy, are you going to
humble yourself and ask God and someone else to help you? Are you going to also
ask God for the miracle and then do what you need to do to get yourself in a
position so that He can do the work?
Also think about this; I know your culture and it is the same
with all others that when you do a favor, then you expect the other person to
pay you back one day when you need it, right? It is the law of ‘you reap what
you sew’ and “do unto others’.
13. We are all Christian brothers and sister but obviously
some are closer than others. This give and take may work sometimes, but not
always and you should just help and give without expectations since all we do
is for the Lord anyway. But there is the reality of, who can you count on?
Have you invested in a friend or a relative lately that will
be there for you and you there for them? Have you gone to the hospital some
nights with them? Hopefully, they too will visit you when you have to be in the
hospital or in your bed, as well!
14. Don’t expect certain people to just automatically be
there because you think it is their job to be there. Each of you (and I am
included) needs to be cultivating friendships and if you give love and service
to others, it will come back to you. Many times it might be some brother or
sister that you least expect that has the most time to help you. Why was Jesus
close to the family of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus? You do recall how Mary
listened and Martha served. These are people who opened their homes to Him. In
one of the few times in the Bible where we see that Jesus wept, it was for
Lazarus. They gave love and they got love back!
We need close friendships and family that are going to be
there when we need them. We need people who are close to us who will carry us,
and pray for us. You need to be a person of action as well serving others in
all ways possible.
15. Remember Proverbs 18:24 A man that hath friends must shew
himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
So today, for prayer, for carrying you when you are on a
stretcher, are you doing it for others now? We will start a stretcher ministry
here. Our prayers will no longer be just prayers but motives to get us involved
in your life so we can support you. Exciting right? Let’s pray…
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