Dharius Daniels - 5 Types of People You Can't Help

So, I want to talk about this subject during our time together: five types of people you can’t help. One of the words that can be used to describe the nature and work of God is «help.» Helping is not just what God does; a helper is who God is. It is inherent in His identity. He can’t help but help; His mere presence is the presence of help. He doesn’t have to do anything; He just has to be somewhere, and wherever He is, help is there. As a matter of fact, David, who slew Goliath, writes in the Psalms that our God is a very present help in times of trouble. You and I don’t have to depend on history and His activity in the past to give us assurance for the future. In other words, God isn’t someone who just helped us in the past and is committed to helping us in the future; God is helping you right now. Whatever He is doing, it’s to help us, and whatever He is not doing is also to help us. So if He’s doing something, He’s helping me, and if He’s doing nothing, He’s helping me anyway. All things will work together for my good because if He’s with me, He’s helping me. I’ve got a question: is there anybody here or watching me online who knows He’s a helper, that He has helped you, and you’re saying in your soul that He’s a helper? That’s your stability and spirituality because He’s a helper. The weapons that formed against you shall not, cannot, prosper because He’s a helper. We are made in God’s image and likeness. This doesn’t mean that we are everything He is; there are some attributes that, in theological terms, are incommunicable. There are some things that make God, God, and us, us, but we have inherited some aspects of His identity, and we are instinctively helpers. If I were to simply summarize, everybody’s purpose in life is to, in some way, help someone else. If we are going to carry out this sacred duty, it is imperative that we embrace a reality communicated here in the Gospel of Matthew. Our ability to help people is not just determined by our willingness; it is equally affected by people’s openness. In order for people to be helped, we must be more than able; they must also be open. Jesus puts it this way when He speaks through John in the Book of Revelation. He says in Revelation 3:20: «Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.» Notice what Jesus says: He says, «I’m knocking on the door of a person’s heart,» but their openness determines whether or not we have intimacy. Their openness determines my effectiveness because it is not the anointing that determines whether or not someone is helped; it’s their openness. You can give everybody everything, but openness is vital. Oh, this is interesting; it is sobering and disconcerting because all of us are impacted by rejection in different ways. But when you are rejected by those you are attempting to help, it can produce a different kind of infection because it means you find yourself in situations where you have to sit on the sidelines silently and watch people you love suffer when they don’t have to. You watch people who have the ability to live in certain ways and on certain levels live lives beneath their potential. Oh, that can be disorienting; it can be frustrating; it can be a different kind of discouragement. If we don’t handle that rejection properly, we will take it personally, and when we take it personally, their rejection produces an infection called bitterness. There’s a way you can throw yourself into the life of someone else, and when they reject it and refuse it, that can cause you to adopt a protective posture in your heart that makes you callous and indifferent, leading you to adopt philosophies such as, «I will never do for anybody else what I did for them.» See, that bitterness can become a barrier to God using us to help other people in the future because of what someone else did in the past. I’m trying to discern, because I know where service is; man, this is true service right here. All forms of service are real, but this is real on another level. I’m trying to see if there’s anyone honest enough to admit that being rejected by people you know you can help produces a different degree of frustration. Because you’re looking at people saying, «You don’t have to live like this,» and it’s killing me to see you kill yourself. I feel helpless; I feel hopeless; I feel limited. I’ve done all I know how to do, and if you’ve found yourself in that season or situation, Jesus has some words for you. They are the words He had for His disciples, His apprentices, in Matthew chapter 10. They are finishing their theological residency; they have been working with Him and learning from Him. He gathers them, huddles with them, and prepares them for some field education. He gets ready to send them out into certain villages and towns to help people and to do ministry, and before He does this, He prepares them. First of all, He gives them power—that’s ability, assistance, and authorization. Just because someone has the ability doesn’t mean they have been authorized. And He not only gives them power, He gives them, watch this, a plan.