Northside Church - Sydney
5 Things We Find Hard To Say Week 2: I Need Help
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Now friends, I think you'd agree, many of us find it hard to say, "I need help." Because we've got to admit in doing that, we may not have all the answers. It takes a fair degree of vulnerability and humility to say, "I need help." Prior to the availability of GPS systems, most men had a real difficulty in taking the advice of passengers within a vehicle offering maps and street directories to find a particular location. Guys felt in the main, we had a built-in kind of a GPS system, a blokey sort of a thing that we just knew. Many of us as a kid, it was just over this next rise, you know, it's around the corner, I'm up to sure of it, you know. We resisted, generally, guys, you with me, resisted the need to look at a map. Because that was a kind of, well, that's what ladies did. But guys, we're a little different, well, GPS's have saved all that sort of thing and now it's cool, just dial it in. If you happen to be blessed with one of course, I'm a poor person, I don't have one, but it doesn't work all that well. Beverly is my GPS. Hey, what about all, and this is of any, of any gender, those who get involved in do it yourself projects, you know, and you buy the boxes, you know, I hate buying anything in a box. Really hate that. But of course, most things that I came in a box from chairs to elaborate cabinets and they've had a smile and because he's helped me unpack a few boxes, helped, sorry Dave, unpack them for me, you know, and you spread all the bits around the floor, you know, and instructions, hello, you know, am I a handyman or what? And of course, pretty soon, you know, what happens is bits all over the floor. And then comes the moment of truth. Is that person prepared to say, Swallow Pride, and prepared to say, I need help. I'm just not making it with this little project. I would love to pass the microphone around the congregation this morning. I bet there are some doozies of examples among you like when that has sort of happened. Of course, a refusal to seek out help can take on a more sinister and a more serious look when people are unwilling to seek medical help because of the fear of what the doctor may find, and I've dealt with a lot of people like that over the years, or the married couple who refuse counseling to either help or save their marriage because, well, we should be able to work this out ourselves. There are more serious expressions of a failure to seek help. We do find it hard to say, I need help in a variety of settings. But friends, this morning I want to confine my remarks in the time I've got to our participation within the body of Christ, within the church family, and the need to be able to acknowledge we need help within this setting. I want to remind us of the need to acknowledge our interdependence on each other. That's what this is all about this morning. Our interdependence on each other, if the body is to move and to grow as it should, there's no room for smug self-sufficiency in the body of Christ. No room for an attitude that says, look, I'm pretty much here for my own personal agenda, and I don't really need body life, whatever that may be. I'm just here with my own little needs, and that's okay. I really don't need to become in any way part of the church, even though I appreciate many aspects of what's happening, but I don't need the kind of help it purports to offer. I'm getting bi-okay. When you're seeking, that's okay. When you're seeking to know the truth, that's fine. But once you join the body of Christ, once you become a member, once you become a committed Christian, there's no place for smug self-sufficiency at that level. It just doesn't work that way. It's going to apply to people who've been in the church for many, many years. They just don't see the need to become connected to God's people, to identify strongly with the missional goals and objectives of the church, to play their part in fulfilling the objectives. It's just always a bit of a fringe thing, a bit of a border thing. They're yet to say, I need what this church can provide. I need the help, the support, the nurture, the encouragement that these people have to offer. I need to cross that line, yet to say, I need the help that I can get here. The fringe, you know, this is a point we all must reach. We've all got to reach this point if we are to gain the wealth of blessing and enrichment and spiritual nurture that is available through the Holy Spirit within the life and witness of a local church, there's nothing like it. We've got to reach that point where we say, hey, I need the help that this church can give. You see, within the body of Christ, when we can say, I need help, we enable people. We enable people to do a lot of things to make us stronger and better equipped to face the struggles and the challenges of life as they come to us. For a start, we enable people to walk with us. That's the first thing. We enable people to walk with us. Our spiritual life is sometimes described in the Bible as a walk. It's often described as a walk, give me a couple of examples. Second John, chapter one verse six, listen to what it says. This is love that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you've heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love. When John continues this theme in the third letter, chapter one verse three, he says, it gave me great joy when some believers came and testified about your faithfulness to the truth, telling how you continue to walk in it. Our spiritual life is not just a sit down kind of experience, it's a journey. We have to be active, walking, if we are to move forward, if we are to grow. How much more enriching? How much more enriching is the experience if we are walking with others? Someone says, "What's wrong with walking alone?" I like to walk alone. I'm comfortable on my own. I get my own way when I walk alone. The problem, however, is taking that isolationist kind of stance when it comes to our spiritual journey, we don't fully learn what it means to be in relationship at that deep level. We don't fully come to know what it means to love and to be loved at that really deep level. One of the melancholy songs written by Simon and Garth Funkel back in the '60s, many Simon and Garth Funkel fans here this morning, oh, yes. One of the more melancholy songs they wrote was a song called "I Am A Rock." Anybody remember that? Oh, yes. Even if you're young, your parents would have told you about this. I never understood this song. I never understood what motivated them to write it. But then in preparation for this week and wondering if this song might fit into the message, I sort of came to realize this is about a guy who's been rejected by a girl. He's been told, "I don't love you. I don't want you." No wonder I had trouble identifying with it in my early years. Oh, boy, sorry, something caught there. Look, we should have got -- Bill Watson, we should have got Bill on the guitar here because somebody could have sung this, you know, a winter's day in a deep and dark December. "I'm alone, gazing from my window to the streets below in a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. I am a rock. I am an island. I built walls of fortress deep and mighty that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship. Friendship causes pain. It's laughter and it's loving. I disdain. I am a rock. I am an island. Here's a part. Don't talk of love, but I've heard the words before. It's sleeping in my memory. I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved, I never would have cried. I am a rock. I am an island. And it finishes rather poignantly and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries. They don't all rush to iTunes. You'll kind of melt the sight, you know, so just like take a steadily before you all go rush and get that one. But I mean, there's the classic isolationist position, right? You know, I don't need anybody. I'm okay, but it's a sad situation. There's an old Zambian proverb, which I've adapted slightly. When you walk alone, you walk fast, but when you walk together, you walk far. And that's pretty true, isn't it? I mean, the Christian walk, our life in Christ, it's not a 100-meter dash. It's a lifelong marathon, and it's imperative we acknowledge our need of help and support from fellow travelers on the road. When we do that, we enable people to work with us, as well as walk with us. Ecclesiastes 4, verse 9, two people are better than one because together they can work more effectively. Now, if there's any organization in the world that should shine in this area, in this area of interdependence and mutual cooperation, it's the Church of Jesus Christ because we're described in the Bible as a body, you know, a body with all the parts moving properly. And when the body is moving as it should, I mean, it's a living organism, a living organism. It's made up of many parts. And when each part is functioning as it should, beautiful things happen. Amazing outcomes are achieved. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, and verse 14, listen to this, for the body itself is not made up only of one part, but of many parts. If the foot were to say, because I'm not a hand, I don't need to belong to the body, that would not keep it from being a part of the body. And if the ear would have saved because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, that would not keep it from being part of the body. And so on, it goes on and said, look, we all need each other. We're all parts of the single body and for the body to achieve all that it's meant to achieve, we've got to work in synergy and in synchronization. The friends, the fact is, we need each other. We need each other in the service, the work of Christ. I need the help. I need help from you to be the best pastor I can be, really. And you need the help that I and the other leaders can give to be the best follower of Jesus you can be. That's the way it works. I have always set as one of my core values in ministry, the provision of an environment, of a setting where there's just strong unity and solidarity and strong independence so we can all grow as we're meant to grow. It's always been a primary aim of mine, here's something else. When we get to a point of saying I need help, we enable people to watch with us. Well, more to the point, we enable them to watch out for us. Paul to the Philippians, chapter 2, verse 4, look at this, I love this verse. Look out for one another's interest, not just for your own. That's fantastic. Look out for one another's interest, not just for your own. Bevan and I live in a very quiet street in North Ride. It's ironic that, you know, Sydney being the bustling city it is as it is, this location where we live is the quietest place we have ever lived in our lives. You can hear our pin drop at night. So we're always very security conscious and our immediate neighbors whom we've come to know reasonably well over the 13 years, the ones opposite that side and the ones next door. People travel so much, it's incredible, and we do our own share of travel. And so we're always getting in touch with each other either by email or across the street or through a little note in the letterbox to say, look, watch out, please, for our house. We're going away for X amount of time, you watch the junk mail, watch for lights, watch for anything weird that might be happening. And it's just a beautiful part of our sort of own independent neighborhood watch system. But friends, here's a much, much more important area for people to watch out for, and that's your spiritual health and my spiritual health. The closeness of our relationship to Jesus, the effectiveness of our prayer and devotional life. Do you have people to watch out for you? I mean, why do we place such a priority at Northside and connection groups? Why do we try to foster relationships where people have the confidence to say, you know what, I kind of, I need a bit of help at the moment. I'm struggling in this area of my Christian life. I need help. Why do we emphasize these things? I'll tell you why. We want to increasingly develop a culture of mutual love, support and encouragement. And above all, authenticity, authenticity, where it's okay to say I need help. It's okay to say, I'm not so, I'm not traveling so well in my work at the moment. I'm not traveling so well in my marriage. I'm not traveling so well in, in life in general at the moment. Friends, I would struggle, and I think some of you would too, I would struggle in a church where having summoned the courage to say, I need help to be then told, well, you shouldn't be feeling this way, or if you were closer to Jesus, you wouldn't have this problem. You know, I think I'd really struggle in a church if that was the answers I was being given. I've been exposed to church life at all levels, in all settings. And I know, I know for all my years in ministry, that serious, unexpected problems are prevalent in all churches, irrespective of the image they may try to present. There are no churches, because people are people, and life's a struggle. Everybody is a core value here, being honest with each other, and keeping it all real. The final point I want to share today, yes, it's hard to say I need help, but when we do so, within the body of Christ, we enable people to weep with us. Now, of course, it's linked to the last point, but it also speaks of the depth. The depth we can go to in our support of each other within the body of Christ. The church that's known for its acceptance, its tolerance, its unconditional love is the setting where people can receive help and reassurance in a time of crisis like no other. I've proved this over the years. I've mixed in many wide circles. If you're in need, if a crisis hits, and you want support and love and real help at a deep level, you better be near a church of Jesus Christ. It's exhibiting harmony and love and unconditional love. I'm not just saying any church. I'm saying a church that majors in these areas, if you're near that sort of body, you're in a good place if you're experiencing a crisis, because here we're dealing with matters of the heart and the soul. Here we're dealing matters about life and about eternity, in a world of specialization gone mad where individuals and groups tend to focus on specific issues to the exclusion of all others. Here in the church of Jesus Christ, we speak into every conceivable area of human need. None is excluded. Do we refer people to specialist counselors? Of course we do. Of course we do, but the range of emotional, relational and pastoral issues we deal with here in any given week is breathtaking. It really is. Even in our ministry time at the end of the service, when people come and pray, the range of topics, it's huge, it's a way it's meant to be it. That by the way is a huge part of our ministry under this heading of acknowledging we all need help and praise God over the years will become a lot freer at Northside in responding to that opportunity. That's how we're hoping it will continue. It's like Paul says to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 12, 26, if one part of the body suffers, all other parts suffer with it. If one part is praised, all share in its happiness. If you check Michael Thomas' "Thought for the Week" on the back of this week's church paper, he picks up when that Galatians passage, bare one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Also the Romans passage rejoice when one part rejoices, we all rejoice when one part weeps we all weep, it's a biblical principle. And friends I know the testimony of so many in this church family, your testimony is this, that if the church hadn't been there to weep when you wept, you may not have got through what you got through. Am I right? I know that's the story of many of you. It's my story in all my years in church life, if the people of God hadn't been there to weep when I wept. I would not be in anywhere near the emotional shape that I'd like to think I am in. It's just one of those beautiful things you find when you're mixing with God's people when all else, when all is in place in terms of love and acceptance, I can't emphasize that enough. Well what a week, what a week to be talking about the difficulty, the difficulty of saying I need help. What a week to be talking about that topic. In Natalie Wood at 87 years of age was found in a Surrey Hills flat, believed to have been dead for eight years. Can you get your head around that, I really find that hard, that's a struggle in a city. What do one of her relatives say in the paper this week, she didn't want any help of any kind. He's not going to do or wouldn't answer, even when they knew she was okay. An extreme case, of course. Other factors would have led to this, of course. But certainly, an incident that adds weight to the second on the list of things we find difficult to say I need help, I need other people, I need to be part of a community. In closing, two very relevant verses from, drawn from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 1 and verses 11 and 12, what a note to finish on this morning. Look at this everyone. "For I want very much to see you," he says to the Roman Christians, "in order to share a spiritual blessing with you, to make you strong." What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by your faith. That's where it's at. That's where it's at in the community we call the body of Christ. How important is it to increase our ability and our willingness to say I need help? Well, our relationship with God through Christ depends on it. We come to Christ initially saying, "I can't do this, I need to save you." That's the starting point and throughout the rest of our Christian journey, it's God I need you on a daily basis, life's too tough, life's to struggle and I don't have all the resources but I know you do and I want to tap into your resources. You see, friends, it's like this. God can't put anything into a closed hand. He needs those hands to be open before He can place anything in them. He goes through life with the closed hands, the isolationist, "Well, don't touch me." You're not going to get all that He can give. We are increasingly trying to develop a church culture here where people have hands and hearts wide open, wide open, it's very impressive, shall we? Well, Heavenly Father, we thank You that a man all those years ago was persistent in His approach to Jesus saying, "I need help. I need the special touch that only you can give Jesus." And Father, in this church's family, we're acknowledging this morning we all need that special touch, whether it's for healing, whether it's for help of any kind. And we get that help mainly through the interconnectedness we have with each other, because you work through your body, your family, the church in remarkable ways, and some of us are here to testify to that today. May all of us increasingly see our part within this body and see the importance of being able to say, "I need help. I can't do this on my own. I need to reach out. Thank You, Lord, that You meet us more than halfway when we have that as our prayer desire through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]