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Skip Heitzig: Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven." You know what that means? Blessed—oh, how happy—is the man or woman who realizes they are broke, they are bankrupt before God. They are impoverished spiritually. They have nothing with which to merit God's goodness and salvation. God can only help those who know they can't help themselves.

So, we've answered two questions: Where did it originate? Is there any truth to it? We would say, yes, there's some truth to it. But let me ask you a third question, and I'll end with this. I'm not ending like anytime in the near minutes, but I will end with this. What does the Bible say?

What does the Bible say? We turn to Romans chapter five and we read one verse. Let's read it again, but all the way now down to verse 10. For when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

In that paragraph, we have a description of God's help. In fact, we have a fourfold description of God's help. The first part of that description is this: God's help is motivated by love. Verse six says we were without strength; Christ died for the ungodly. But verse eight says God demonstrates His own love.

I begin there because God's help is laid on the foundation of God's love. It is God's love for us that prompts God's help to us. Now, I say this because you'd be surprised how many people don't know that God loves them. In fact, they think God is actually against them.

One church consultant wrote, "More people than you might guess are sure that God is mostly unhappy with them, endlessly frustrated by their flaws, and He couldn't possibly like them very much, much less love them."

That was Skip Heitzig many years ago. Somebody said, "Skip, God loves you," and I thought, "Loves me? I don't even think He likes me. The kind of life I was living, I didn't get my heart around the statement that God loves me."

I just thought God is up there in heaven waiting for my next flaw, my next stumble, my next failure so He can pounce on me. A lot of us think that way. He's going to prove His disdain for us by sending us an illness or not letting us get that parking space in front of the store, whatever you might think it would be.

The truth is, God loves you. And the basis of God's help is the foundation called the love of God. You know, the Bible says God is love. And the reason He treats you the way He treats you to help you is because He is love. That's His character.

Now, you'll notice what Paul does here in these verses. He is comparing human love and divine love. If a guy's really noble, somebody might dare to die for that person. But God demonstrates His love for us, not when we were noble or loved Him back, but when we were still ungodly sinners, He died for us.

So if you compare human love with divine love, you'll discover this: Human love is object-oriented; divine love is subject-oriented. Human love loves based on the attractiveness of the object, the quality of the object. That object or that person loves me back. I commit love because of that reason. It is object-oriented.

God's love is not object-oriented; it is subject-oriented. God loves not because we're lovable. He died and loves the ungodly, the sinner. So when we were unlovable, it is based not on us; it is based completely on Him. It is because God is love. So God's help is motivated by love.

A second aspect of God's help: God's help is activated by our need. Now, go back to verse six. "When we were still..." the two words that follow are "without strength." What that means is when we were helpless.

In fact, the J.B. Phillips translation puts it this way: "When we were powerless to help ourselves." Compare that with the statement: "God helps those who help themselves." No. When we were powerless to help ourselves, incapable of helping ourselves.

Now you go, "What do you mean we're incapable of helping ourselves? Are we really that bad off? Are you saying the Bible says we're that bad off?" Well, let me put it to you this way. Maybe this description will help.

In Ephesians two, Paul says this: "And you He has made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world." Interesting that he wrote it that way. You were dead, but you were walking. You're the walking dead.

There's dead people all over this earth walking around, driving their cars. That should explain a lot of their driving behavior. They're dead. You were dead. So let's take a tour of the cemetery, shall we?

But first, on the way to the cemetery, we need to stop by Walgreens to pick up a prescription so we can help these poor people in the cemetery. That's a ridiculous thought because the people in the cemetery aren't sick; they're dead. They're incapable of response. They're incapable of resurrecting themselves.

So you were dead. We have a need when we were helpless, when we were without strength. You remember, of course, when Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus and was going to raise him from the dead. So He says, "Take me to the tomb." He goes to the tomb, and then He says, "Roll away the stone."

And Lazarus's sister immediately objected and said, "Lord, he's been in the tomb for four days." And I love the King James in this: "By now he stinketh." Isn't that great? "By now he stinketh."

Jesus said, "Roll the stone away." And you know the story. He raised him back to life. Now, can you imagine if when the stone was rolled away, Jesus yelled into the tomb, "Now, Lazarus, you know that God helps those who help themselves. I need you to get this thing started. I'll do the rest. You take the first step, and then I'll raise you up. At least wiggle your toes a little bit, and then I'll take it from there."

Of course not. Lazarus was dead. He was without help or without hope, and Jesus raised him back up. God's help is activated by need. Isaiah 25:4: "I love this verse. You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm and a shade from the heat."

So God's help is motivated by love. It is activated by need. Here's a third aspect: God's help is demonstrated by sacrifice. Okay, you say God loves me and that God wants to help me because I'm helpless. What is God willing to do for me?

Paul answers that in verse six: "In due time, Christ died for the ungodly." And in verse eight: "God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." You see, this is love.

Love to be true love must be willing to give, must be willing to sacrifice. Love by nature cannot be inactive, cannot be passive. So what's the most famous verse in all of the New Testament? In all the Bible? John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." That's love. That's active love. Love is a verb, as they say.

Paul believed this; that was his own personal testimony. Galatians 2:20, this is what he said: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Love is demonstrated by sacrifice.

By the way, this is the reason many of our marriages are failing. What happens in a relationship and the reason it deteriorates over time into just a formal legal relationship is because the couple, the people in the marriage, are not giving anymore. They're not giving much time, they're not really giving real energy to it, they're not really giving much care to it. They're just existing. It takes sacrifice, continual giving.

Guest (Female): You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Every day, the generosity of friends like you helps reach more people with God's word, changing lives through clear, practical Bible teaching.

And this month, we want to thank you with a powerful and inspiring resource from Skip's wife, Lenya Heitzig. It's her book, Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds.

This remarkable book tells the true story of how God took Lenya's heartbreak over suffering children in war-torn regions and turned it into a global movement of compassion, melting down bullets to build playgrounds and bring hope where it's needed most.

Request your copy of Reload Love when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com/offer. Now, let's return to today's teaching.

Skip Heitzig: You may remember that great movie The Lion King, put out a few years ago. Mufasa, the king, the Lion King, said a very profound thing in the movie. He said, "Son, some search only for what they can take. A true king searches for what he can give."

He made that statement minutes before he sacrificed his own life to save the life of his son. Well, likewise, a few months before Jesus died on the cross and gave His life, the true king said, "No one takes My life from Me. I lay it down of Myself. I'm volunteering for the sacrifice. Nobody's going to kill Me, nobody's going to murder Me. I am offering My life for them." God's help is demonstrated by sacrifice.

And then fourth, the fourth description of God's help in this little paragraph is God's help is animated by Christ. Animated by Christ. Go down to verse nine. "Much more then..." Now just stop there. I want you to get the impact of what he is writing.

He just said God loves you so much He's willing to help you when you're helpless by sacrificing His Son on a cross. Now for most of us, that would be enough. That's the pinnacle of everything, the cross. But he continues: "Much more then."

I suppose if this were a commercial on television and God were hosting it, He would say, "I am willing, folks, to do for you what you can't do for yourselves. My Son will die so that you might live. But wait, there's more!"

And that's what Paul is saying. But wait, there's more. Much more then. And here it is. This is perhaps the most profound part of it all: "Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

In other words, as good as it is to realize that Jesus died for you on the cross, realize this: That wasn't the end of God's help; that's just the beginning. That's just the start. And here in these two verses, Paul is arguing from greater to lesser.

So let me rephrase it for you. Let me put it to you this way. This is what he is saying: If the dying Jesus can save us, surely the living Jesus will sustain us. Or to put it another way, if God can bring a sinner to heaven, then He can keep a saint while on the earth.

Or to put it even another way, if your sin couldn't keep you from His love before you are saved, do you think your sin could keep His love away after you are saved? Much more then. If Christ helped us by His death, then He can certainly help us by His resurrected life.

All of that to say this: Whatever God starts, He finishes. He started a work at the cross. He had you in mind. There was a day in your life where you responded to that. That was the beginning. Much more then. Christ is alive. He is still helping the helpless. He is still helping the helpless.

He who has begun a good work in you, wrote Paul, will complete it until the day of Christ. See, the cross was just the beginning. Much more then. The help continues even now.

Back in December of 2012, so this is almost 12 years now, a man was driving in Plano, Texas on the expressway. His name is Hayden Carlo and his registration had expired. A policeman pulled him over.

Window got rolled down, police always ask for two things: license, registration. Gave him his driver's license, but the registration showed that it had not been paid. It had expired.

Well, the driver Hayden Carlo explained to the police officer that he had recently lost his job and he had to make a decision: "Do I feed my children or do I register my car? I opted to feed my children. That's why I'm overdue."

Now you might think that the police officer should excuse it, let him go. Okay, I get it. However, he is an officer of the law and justice is demanded. So what did that police officer do? He wrote him a citation.

Now, before you think, "What a bad police officer," Hayden Carlo the driver was devastated as the police officer walked away. He's holding the envelope with a citation in it, but he looked down in the envelope. Not only was there the ticket that was issued, but a $100 bill to cover it.

He paid the price. At the cross, Jesus wrote us the ticket, and then He paid it. You see, He wrote us the ticket. He said death is what you deserve. Let me take it for you. Let me die in your place. Yes, a ticket must be issued, but I will pay for it.

But I would even add to that and say He did even more than that. He keeps offering help. He registered the car! Now let me put all this together in a nutshell as we close. In terms of salvation, we are utterly helpless.

We are all infected with sin. Romans 3:23: "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." And as a result of that sin, we are all under condemnation. The Bible says in Romans six, "The wages of sin is death."

Moreover, there is nothing we can do on our own to fix that problem because the Bible once again says, Isaiah 64:6, "We are all unclean, and all of our righteousness is as filthy rags."

But God helps the helpless. Jesus paid the ticket, paid the penalty we're incapable of paying, and He continues to provide help because the Christ who died for us is the Christ who is resurrected, and by His life, He keeps giving help to the helpless.

And I love that, I didn't even talk about it yet, but look at verse six. When did all this happen? It says there's a time signature there: "In due time." At the right time. We might even say just in the nick of time.

Years ago, there was a man named James Harrison from Australia called the "Man with the Golden Arm." That was his moniker. They called him that. You can Google that, by the way—not now please, but later on.

James Harrison, Man with the Golden Arm, was a blood donor from Australia. And the reason he was a blood donor is they discovered that his blood had an unusual plasma composition that contained the cure for a disease that was ravaging that continent of Australia called Rhesus disease.

So he donated blood. Not one time. He donated blood over 1,000 times. Get this: He donated blood once a week for 60 straight years until he died. And in giving that much blood, he was able to save the lives of 2.4 million Australian babies.

James Harrison was born in Australia and gave his blood at the right time to those who were helpless. He gave his blood. I don't know where you stand today in your relationship with God, but I have a hunch that for some of you, this is just the right time.

This is the right time. It's the right time for you to make a commitment to Christ or, if you've wandered away from Him, to come back to Him, to settle it. Everything you've tried up to this point has not produced.

And I want you to hear this: No matter what you have done, no matter how bad it is, no matter what choices you have made, no matter how many steps you've taken away from God, you need to know it's only one step back.

You don't have to make a pilgrimage somewhere or say a whole bunch of prayers first and then you get a special commission or indulgence. No, it's just one step back. You just turn to Him. You just ask Him.

Do you remember in the New Testament—and if you don't, I'll cue you in—Jesus gave a parable. He said two men went up to the temple to pray. How many of you remember that parable? He said two men went up to the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. And Jesus said the Pharisee stood in the temple and he prayed and this is what he said: "God, I thank You that I am not like other people." And he started talking about how awesome he was. "I give my money to the poor, I fast twice a week."

You know, he's just bragging himself up. "I thank You that I'm not like others, or especially like that tax collector." And then Jesus said, "But the tax collector didn't even feel he was worthy enough to lift his eyes toward heaven," which is the typical posture of prayer. You look up and you pray often open-eyed, praying to heaven.

He felt so unworthy he kept his head bowed, beat on his breast, and said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner." Jesus said that man went away justified. Not the Pharisee, not the religious dude who said, "I'm good, I'm awesome, I'm not like other people," but the one who said, "Have mercy on me, the sinner."

You know, it's simple as that: God have mercy on me, save me. Most of you have done that. Most of you remember when you did that. But some of you have not done that. So we often, not always, but often give people an opportunity to do that. To simply turn to Him, to commit their lives to Him, to ask God to forgive them, to give them a new start, a reset, to enter into a relationship with Him.

Guest (Female): Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share God's word around the world, bringing truth and hope to people who need Jesus.

And this month, we'll send you Lenya Heitzig's powerful book, Reload Love: Transforming Bullets to Beauty and Battlegrounds to Playgrounds, as our thank you for your gift. This inspiring story shows how God can turn bullets into beauty and how love can transform even the most broken places into beacons of hope. Give now at connectwithskip.com/offer or call 800-922-1888. We'll see you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.