Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves?
Texts: Galatians 4:21-5:1
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT
June 25, 2023
Have you heard the saying that “God helps those who help themselves”? You won’t find it in the Bible. It isn’t in the Bible.
There was a national poll taken that revealed that eight in ten Americans think this is in the Bible. Half of the respondents thought that this is a major message in Scripture.
Where did this phrase even come from? Apparently, there was a saying in ancient Greece that went “the gods help those who help themselves.” In the 1600’s an English politician wrote a book on government and turned the quote into, “God helps those who help themselves.” But most people think Ben Franklin came up with this. He wrote, “God helps those who help themselves” when he published his Poor Richard’s Almanac in 1757.
So the phrase has been around a while. But it is not in the Bible. Is it even a biblical idea? The answer is “no.”
I think Galatians 4 kind of gets at this. Paul had never heard such a line, but in essence he is trying to make the point that it is incorrect to think God will only help us if we hold up our end of the bargain. Now, to get what he is saying is a little convoluted. This is a difficult passage to understand. First, we have to go back to the Old Testament and the story of Abraham.
Paul takes the Old Testament account of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and makes an allegory out of it. He uses the story to show it has a hidden meaning. It’s not easy to get so let me try to walk us through this. Paul takes Genesis 21 and tells a story of two women. The two women Paul speaks of are Sarah and Hagar. These two women represent two different ways of living in relationship with God.
First, the back story. The Lord promised Abraham that he would bless him and that from Abraham would come a great nation. For this to happen, he promised that Abraham and Sarah, who were old and childless, would indeed have a son.
Abraham and Sarah waited. And they waited. And when nothing was happening Sarah took matters into her own hands. And she told Abraham to take her slave-girl Hagar as his wife and have a child with her. Sarah figured God probably needed her help. Sarah thought that this is how they would finally have a child and what God had promised would move along. God will help them if they help themselves.
Abraham, inexplicably and for reasons that are not discussed in the story, went along with this. When Hagar conceived it says, she looked down on Sarah and “despised” her. Hagar thought she was better than Sarah.
This set Sarah off. In her anger she sends Hagar away. The Lord appears to Hagar, tells her to return to her mistress and serve her, and that he will work for her. Hagar goes back and bears a son for Abraham who is named Ishmael.
Soon after this Sarah herself did conceive and gave birth to Isaac, as the Lord had promised.
One day when Isaac was older, Abraham was giving a feast in honor of this child of the promise named Isaac, and Sarah saw Ishmael and Isaac playing together, and Ishmael mocking her son. This again set off Sarah and she demanded that Abraham send away Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. The whole situation becomes a hot mess.
And one of the stains on the story of Abraham and Sarah is the poor way that Hagar is treated. Hagar is used, treated unjustly, and abandoned. And there are other parts of this event that we could talk about.
But the main point for us to get as background to what Paul writes is that the birth of Isaac to Sarah was a result of the word of promise from the Lord. The Lord made a promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a son and from him would come a great people. And God kept that promise.
The birth of Ishmael to Hagar, a woman who was a slave, was the result of force and lack of trust in what God said would happen.
Paul wants those who hear and read his words to understand the difference between the way of Sarah and the way of Hagar. Here’s Paul’s main point: In essence the two births show two ways of being in relationship with God. One way is God helps those who help themselves. God holds one end, we hold the other, and we have to live up to our end. The other way is to live in a covenant with God that is one of promise and of grace.
One way is about human ability, resources, and values. The other way is to be children of promise and born of the Spirit.
Ishmael was the result of Abraham and Sarah trying to do things under their own wisdom and power by using Hagar. Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands. Ishmael was the result of them trying to get God to help them through helping themselves.
Isaac, on the other hand, was the result of promise. He was the result of trust in God’s work and accepting what God had said.
No, God doesn’t help those who help themselves. God helps those who trust him. God helps those who allow him to lead their lives. God helps those who let his Holy Spirit reign. God helps those who surrender their independence to him. That is what it means to live by grace.
Now, does this mean we just don’t do anything and God does it all? Living by grace does not mean a life of inactivity. This is not about asking God for help and expecting God to do everything Himself. If you need a job then pray to the Lord for a job. But then you have to actively look for a job. Yes, God has the ability to just drop one in your lap but that isn’t too likely. Searching for opportunities, filling our applications, and going to interviews need to happen. We use the strength, intelligence, and sense that God has given us.
Our efforts matter in showing God’s love to a world that needs to know his love. In the book of Ephesians Paul writes that while we are saved by grace and this is not of our own doing, he then says that we are created for good works in Christ Jesus.[1] We are to love. We are to pray. We are to serve. We are to give. But that is all a response to the gracious work of God in our lives.
I like what the late philosopher and Christian Dallas Willard once said, “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.”
Yes, there is a part for us to play in what God is doing in our lives and world. Our efforts matter in God’s dealing with us, but they don’t earn his acceptance or love of us. Plus, sometimes our efforts aren’t so hot.
Sometimes there are arguments about grace vs. works. Especially living in an area dominated by the LDS religion where works are essential to have God’s favor. To say we live by grace doesn’t mean works don’t count. But our relationship with God is not based on our works.
I have a spiritual hunch that a lot of my faith accomplishments are the result of God’s grace more than my efforts. I preach a sermon that really touches someone’s life. Was it my eloquence or God’s work in setting up that person’s heart to hear it. And God’s Spirit giving me what needed to be said. It’s grace.
We visit someone in the hospital. Jesus spoke about visiting the sick. God gave us the strength and his Spirit put it in our heart. Grace.
Paul says Hagar and Sarah represent two covenants. (Remember this is an allegory.) A covenant is not a contract. Contracts are about two people holding up their end of the deal. A covenant is a relationship. Christian faith is not a contract. It is a covenant.
God covenants with his people. If we don’t hold up our end of the deal – and many times we don’t – God is still faithful. This is a result of his grace in Jesus Christ. God is committed in faithfulness to continuing his relationship with us despite our sin.
Abraham and Sarah thought they would help God along. They messed things up pretty well. It wasn’t what God wanted them to do. But it didn’t change God’s favor for them.
The very essence of the gospel is that God helps those who cannot help themselves. Christians believe that we cannot save ourselves from the brokenness and alienation from God that we call sin. We are constantly in need of saving, which is why we call Jesus, “Savior.” There is a theological word for God’s willingness to help those who cannot help themselves: we call it GRACE.[2]
Paul uses the words “free” or “freedom” seven times in this passage. To live by grace is freedom.
The late pastor Eugene Peterson pointed out that the story of these two women is “a story about the freedom that comes when we trust God to be in control and the loss of freedom that results when we attempt to take control ourselves.”[3]
Ishmael was the result of Abraham and Sarah’s impatience. They were trying to do God’s work for him. And so they forced the issue by having Abraham take Hagar as his wife. But Isaac resulted from God’s own work in God’s own time.
Abraham’s biggest mistake was that he used Hagar to get what he thought God wanted for him. The beauty of Abraham’s life was what God did for him apart from his agenda or whatever plans Abraham put into action.[4]
Our Scripture reading today began with Paul asking the Galatians, “You say that you want to live by the law. Well, do you even hear what the law is saying?”[5] The law is us doing the work and humans trying to maintain control. But freedom is living by the promise and grace of God.
It’s the difference between living by what we can do for ourselves or trusting God. It’s the difference between a life of self-reliance or a life of faith.
We are tempted all the time to keep control. We manipulate and force circumstances to make sure things turn out the way we think they should or according to what we desire. We would much rather be in the driver’s seat than allow God to be there. That’s a kind of slavery to ourselves. It is a slavery to our efforts and better know-how.
We can force our way, or wait patiently on the Lord. We can do what we think we know to be best, or we can trust God for what is best.
So Paul exhorts the Christians of Galatia by saying, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”[6]
The image in Paul’s mind is of an ox bowed down by a heavy yoke, unable to stand, struggling and faltering. But once the ox is freed from that yoke he is able to get his footing and stand firm.
The Greek word literally means to not be loaded down with something. Living legalistically, thinking that the way to relate to God is through lots of religious rules, becomes a kind of “harness of slavery”.[7] The more we think our goodness and what we do for God makes us right with him, the stronger the yoke becomes around our neck.
It plays out in our lives like this: If we live trusting our own religious efforts, when life goes wrong we become angry at God because he didn’t uphold his end of the deal. The deal in our minds is if I do what God wants me to do then he has to treat me well and make life good for me.
An example might be, “Hey, I’ve gone to church every Sunday this month – how could things be going wrong for me?” Or we get angry at ourselves for not doing enough to secure God’s favor. If we had only done more God wouldn’t be laying this hard thing on us.
If we live by grace then when struggles come we feel them but we ultimately rest in the knowledge that God loves us and will ultimately work out his purposes. We also consider that it may also be his way of growing us to have a greater dependence in him. So we are free from anger. We are free from having to try harder.
If we live under that yoke of law then when we stumble we beat ourselves up and go to grandiose efforts to try harder. We try to make it up to God. Guilt can increase.
If we live by grace then when we sin we own it, confess it and rest in the work of Christ. We take confidence that he forgives us in his love, grace and mercy. We are free from guilt.
Under the law when we are hurt by someone else we find it hard to forgive because we take ourself so seriously and become threatened. We are confident in our own goodness and rightness. Living by grace we are willing to forgive because we are aware of the grace we have received from God. We are free from vengeance, having to strike back or allowing the hurt to define us.
Someone said that grace is about hearing the music, not just listening for errors. Grace is the ability to live not in fear of mistakes but in the knowledge that no mistake can hold a candle to the love of God that draws us home.
Every Sunday we take time to confess our failings. Maybe what we really need to confess isn’t our sin as much as our attitude of thinking our failings are more powerful than God’s grace.[8]
Paul writes to stand firm in the promises of God. Stand firm in the life of the Spirit. Where do we stand? In our best efforts so that God will eventually help us? Or in the freedom of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ?
Prayer: God, lead me to rely on your plan and your will for my life. Too often I find myself thinking that my own plans for my life are better than yours, and I lack the patience to wait for what you plan to give me in due time. Help me to leave the old system behind, where I work for my own glory and try to please you with the things I do. Let me live in a way that honors you for the work you have done in me, and help me to accept the grace that you have given as I seek to be more like your Son Jesus.
Amen.
[1] Ephesians 2
[2] Adam Hamilton, from “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves??”
[3] Traveling Light, Modern Meditations on St. Paul’s Letter of Freedom, p.130
[4] Ibid, p.131
[5] V. 21
[6] 5:1
[7] The Message
[8] Between Noon & Three: Romance, Law & the Outrage of Grace