Sharing Is Caring: Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help, & Don’t Be Afraid To Offer Help
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(3) Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, (4) not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (5) In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.’ (Philippians 2:3-5)
Often, we think of church as ‘church’, and that outside of church as ‘outside church’. The people we fellowship with on Sunday and at Life Group or Bible Study sessions are often the ones we may not hang out with or see on a daily basis. We have groups of people we see regularly that we don’t go to church with and those social circles don’t intermix.
The people we see at the restaurants we frequent, the cashier we know by name in our local grocery store, or perhaps the person that comes to do weekly or monthly yard work or does monthly deliveries may not be in our church’s fellowship circle, and our conversations, though we may ask those people for prayer requests and attempt to witness to them, usually are more geared primarily to what service they are providing.
Nevertheless, we understand that, outside the church walls, we are to provide the Gospel message of Jesus, the promise of Salvation of John 3:16, to those who are not in church and may not know about Jesus and His sacrifice for them. Though we may primarily discuss the business at hand we have for those we have helping us in our secular needs, we (should) take the time and effort to perform the Great Commission task of sharing the message of Christ to them.
In opposite fashion, we also typically primarily talk ‘church’ to those we associate inside church. Though we may have some sidebars or one-on-one conversations with each other in times before or after church services, Life Group, or Bible study, we primarily talk of matters on Scriptures and Spirituality, and we should as this is the time and place to do so. Even if we discuss items of a personal nature, like medical issues or financial headaches, in the church environment we talk of these things from the Spiritual perspective, asking for prayer or advice from a Biblical address; and again, this is proper and we should.
However, we all have knowledge and experiences that are outside normal ‘church’ topics and discussions, the ‘secular’ things we all encounter in life but things we don’t always feel comfortable bringing up in church, not anything shameful but due to the subject not being considered Biblical or Spiritual. We may have a need regarding car repair or a home improvement, but we don’t bring it up in fellowship as ‘it’s not church-related’.
The Apostle Paul, in Philippians 2, provides that we are to share with each other our burdens and take on others’ trouble to provide help, as Jesus does. While it is true He takes on these burdens from the Spiritual perspective, Jesus also worked to take the physical burdens when He could, some of those needs were not Spiritual in the true sense of the word. Jesus helped pick food from fields, cooked fish on the shore for Peter and the others fishing on the sea, and though not recorded in the Bible, likely shared in the chores the Apostles would need to perform in the background during Jesus’ three-year ministry.
In Acts 6, we find the Apostles became overwhelmed with the requests of the widows who were Faithful, yet had needs like obtaining food (back in the 1st century A.D., there were no grocery stores or home delivery services to phone in orders as we have today) and likely some chores that their husbands handled easily but physically they could not do. The appointment of the first Deacons to take care of these needs is an example of the church going beyond simply fulfilling the needs of the Spirit but also the needs of the physical we all face.
It is not just for us to respond when someone asks for help, but we should also be proactive and provide when we see a need. This can be providing physical assistance, such as helping someone put up hurricane shelters over their windows, or simply providing knowledge and expertise to those who may not know the proper way to accomplish a task.
From a secular perspective, we all have skills we’ve acquired over the years. Some, like Jesus, have carpentry skills while others know plumbing or electrical work. Others may know how to weld, while some know how to sew. While we don’t want to take advantage of those who use these skills for their livelihood, it’s okay to ask for advice on how to accomplish a task, to ensure it is done properly and safely. Sharing our secular knowledge and skills is part of the Fellowship in the body of Christ.
As stated, while we should not take advantage of someone’s skills and knowledge, we also should not ignore the legitimate need to help others, and we should not be so proud to provide help, as much as we should not be so prideful as to not ask for help. We all have times in our lives when an extra hand can get us over the hump, and even a little bit of assistance early on may forestall a bigger problem that will require much more help later on. Sometimes, helping push or pull a fellow church member’s car out of the ditch on a Sunday, before or after services, may be repaid when you need that ride to the airport in the future.
Being in Christian fellowship extends beyond sharing Biblical knowledge, but sharing knowledge with each other that is beneficial to handling the day-to-day issues we come across in our lives.
