Of course it sounds foolish to say that God saves those who are limping around so badly they can't save themselves. But that is the gospel in its unadulterated form. God does help us when we are beyond the help of others and beyond helping ourselves.

We Christians tend to get things all backwards. We glorify -- in our churches -- the good, hardworking, sober, decent people who work and worship in our midst. But if we really want to glorify God, we should focus instead on a few of the broken-down, washed-out, ineffectual human beings who were barely able to limp around when God touched them and who, for them, are now leaping around.

This is what church is about, isn't it? It's what the church of Jesus was about -- all those poor vagabond followers He gathered around Him. It's what the church at Corinth was about, if we can tell anything from Paul's letters to them.

The church is a fellowship of those who have limped in, or been carried in, so God can bless them. It is not a society of the perfect and the well-rounded. It is like one of those wards you see in a World War I hospital movie, filled with the walking wounded and the desperately dying.

This is what makes our fellowship in the church special. It is not based on our merit. It is based on God's merit. We only limp in here in order to leap out, in order to hear the Master say, "Take up your mat and walk, because you can do it now."

I wish we could have an old-fashioned testimonial hour and let people all over this sanctuary tell how they limped in and have been leaping about since.

Here would be a woman saying, "I came here when I was feeling rotten about myself because of a broken marriage and troubles with my children. I was as low as I could get. But something happened here, and I began the road to a new life. Compared to the way I was then, I am leaping around today!"

Here would be a man confessing, "I started going to church again when I had lost my job and didn't know where I was going to turn. I found the faith here to go back out there and try again, and to keep trying until things began to go the other way for me. I don't leap very high today, but it's a lot better than it was back then."

Here would be a young person saying, "I only began to get serious about religion when I was feeling bad about myself and confused about my future. What I found here taught me a lot about who I am in the plan of God and what I want to do with my life. I still limp around occasionally, but I know what can make me leap now. I really feel good about myself."

You see what I mean. I know it would be that way, because I talk with a lot of you and know your stories. And it isn't any different here than it is in any other church.

I talked by phone recently with a woman I met in another state several years ago. She was telling me about the valley of despair she had been through. There had been a divorce. One of her children had died. She had been on the point of bankruptcy in a small business she owned. Talk about limping! She was barely able to hold her head up!

"I didn't think I could make it," she said. "Every day seemed darker than the one before it. Then, just as I hit bottom and thought nothing would ever get any better and I might as well end my life, God gave me the gift of prayer. Praying led me back to church. Then everything started to turn around for me. I met a sweet man and got married. My business was saved. Now life is good and I am well, and I am so thankful!"

I have one more thought.

The man in the story, who had been lame for thirty-eight years, had obviously been visiting the pool of Bethzatha for some time. Maybe not for the entire thirty-eight years. But neither was he a stranger to the pool.

Some of you have been coming to this church for a long time, but you have never gotten into the water either. You have been watching other people limp in and leap out, but you haven't been able to get in for yourself.

Maybe it's time you said a little prayer of trust to God and turned your situation over to Him. You could say, "God, I've been limping around here for a long time and I haven't gotten any better. Won't you please touch my life and help me to start leaping?"