Side By Side: Intro-1

Why This Book?

Almost 60 times in the new testament the word for “one another” is used to show us what our faith family should look like.

The church is the bride of Christ to reflect him and his kingdom way of life to a watching world

The church was never designed to be a place where we parachute in, get entertained, or check off socially accepted religion and leave until next week

We exist as a new creation, other world focused, outpost of hope those closest to us

We also exist to be The primary means of the lived out Gospel in each others lives

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Introduction: Side by Side: Needy and Needed

Along the way we will find that God is pleased to use ordinary people, ordinary conversations, and extraordinary and wise love to do most of the heavy lifting in his kingdom.

Parenting is hard, marriage is hard, evangelism is hard, hospitality is hard, relationships are hard, pain is hard, funerals are hard, lonliness is hard, singlesness is hard, joys need shared, excitement, fear, anxiety, hoplessness, all need shared

This is why we have one another

We have one another so that in all of life under the sun we spur each other on to contend for the Gospel in all these things

We need help

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Introduction: Side by Side: Needy and Needed

The help we need goes beyond things like getting our house painted or finding a good mechanic. It’s deeper than that. We need help for our souls

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Introduction: Side by Side: Needy and Needed

We spend a lot of time hiding our neediness because we are afraid of what people will think. Speaking personally, on most days I am happy to give help and reluctant to ask for it. For me, being needy is a sign of weakness, and, given a choice, I prefer to appear strong or at least competent.

Yet weakness—or neediness—is a valuable asset in God’s community. Jesus introduced a new era in which weakness is the new strength. Anything that reminds us that we are dependent on God and other people is a good thing

Questions For Us

How would you rate yourself in asking God in your neediness?

On a scale from 1-10 needing him with a day in front of you?

A conversation? A need? Do you know how needy you are before him and live like it?

Second: How do you rate your self on your need for others?

How do you let them in and communicate to them the specific needs you have?

This will lead us to living this out with the lost around around

A lived out witness is the way to reach the lost around us as more and more apathy if not antagonism toward the Gospel surrounds us

No one even knows what we are talking about when we say they are a sinner who needs Jesus....but they do long for truth, beauty, goodness, hope, and meaning in the same busted up life we live in

Imagine the lost trying to peer into a faith family living out the Gospel in search of hope

What will they see when they look at Monaghan?

It starts with us doing life together, doing intentional gospel good for one another, seeing the faith we claim costing us something

The faith family is God’s Plan A, for showing the flesh and blood gospel to each other and to the lost and dying world

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Introduction: Side by Side: Needy and Needed

It’s the perfect system. If God used only experts and people of renown, some could boast in their own wisdom, but God’s way of doing things is not the same as our way. We ordinary people have been given power and wisdom through the Holy Spirit and are called to love others (John 13:34). From this beginning, we are compelled to move toward others rather than stay away.

Think about the Parenting Book: The most impactful times when we got close knit was when someone would cry, share the struggle, share a joy or a win, it’s in those moments when we showed our neediness that we got to step in and be a church.

We saw glimpses

We need to learn how to make those glimpses the norm…because that is what God made the church to be

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Part 1: We Are Needy

Your neediness qualifies you to help others. Your neediness, offered well to someone else, can even be one of the great gifts you give to your church. You will inspire others to ask for help.

Life is Hard: Chapter 1

It is not complaining to admit life is hard- it is just a true statement

Even Jesus told us it would not be easy so Welch lists several things that are troubles we all know in life

He gives this XRay to help give us a lens into this and help us with the Psalms to identify and give language to our life

It is important to identify what the hardship is. To say what it is. To identify what we feel because of it for out own health

“The hard things of life are important to God, and if they are important to God, they are important to us, and we will labor to put them into speech.” (Page 18)

Self awareness gives us the ability to share our specifics with God, our spouse, our kids, other friends, and our church

I know too there is this really dumb “men don’t get in touch with their feelings thing”

This isn’t a men are from venus women are from mars marriage seminar so lets fight the ignorant stigma’s and lead well as men in emotional intelligence

I have worked to know what i feel and why because for me it is can be a matter of life or death…but i also have a tattoo sleeve and can harvest and process out a buck by myself so ....

Life Organized:

We can identify to each other where we are having our life hit by hardship or victories

This is Us and our world

The first is US…the rest are our circumstances that surround us

STOP AND THINK: What are the circumstances that shape your life, what would you write down in these circles that are good and hard?

Not all will apply but some will

THE BODY (Evident signs of a fallen creation)

FOR ME: So for me the mental side is always a reality. I am Bi Polar type 2 and it is a battle i am always aware of that is exhausting and defeating some times for Morgan as much as me

It could be awaiting a scan or diagnosis

It could be Benji blowing out a hammy at softball whatever it is

OUR RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships are where we find the best and worst of life. (PG 19)

Kids, family, church members, etc

Whether or not we like it, we need people, but they can make life difficult. (PG 19)

OUR WORK

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Our Work

Work includes the job we have or would like to have, the futility of some work, and the money we earn. Money, in particular, can have a significant influence on our lives. Both poverty and riches leave us vulnerable. Poverty suggests that God is not with us, so we trust in ourselves, and riches suggest that we have what we need, so we trust in our money. Work and money shape our lives more than we know

FOR ME: We are in an in between and it is hard we have alot of unknown and it is hard. We need help and prayer and people walking with us

Spiritual Beings

To me this is where Christian community changes everything

We apply the gospel. We apply our worldview to our lives and in the lives of others

In speaking of the enemies of our souls Welch says “their primary weapons are lies, half-truths, and temptations, tactics that are much more powerful than any physical affliction.” (Page 20)

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love Spiritual Beings and the World

they create a chorus of voices that quietly yet powerfully speak against the character of God and announce that sin is just fine. You can hear the world especially in our culture’s chorus about sexual license. This means that we are, indeed, vulnerable people who need God’s power and protection (e.g., Eph. 6:10–12).

This is a-lot to handle

I am always so cautious of these waters because it always spirals into ghost stories or times the microwave kept shutting off and 3pm or something

Here is the reality. All of creation has rebelled against God. We have an enemy of our souls

The world, ourselves, and our enemy and his squad

Where we need each other is right in this spot

We have to be the ones to be able to voice what we are battling…a thought for example

We have to be able to step into each others lives when we share these things and speak biblical, gospel centered theologically sound truth to lies, whole truth to half truths, better affections than a temptation promises, and knowledge to sin patterns.

Before you say “theology is for pastors” it is a lie

You are all doing theology

The question is , Are you going to love the lord with mind and do it well…or not

I feel like God is not here? You step in to that lie against the character of God and remind me of who he is, what he has promised, why i am here, etc.

Those answers are theology

This is where we need each other and need to be there for each other...

God

Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love The Triune God and His Kingdom

He is by no means a bystander, off on the side, silently observing our troubles—though we could easily think such things. Instead, he created all things, so he owns all things.

I am reminded of when i was a kid. I hated to be away from my parents and when i was at my grandma’s shed lay down with me at night and sing what a friend we have in Jesus…all our sins and griefs to bare”

We have the ONE who knows and infinitely cares and IS doing something about it

Look with me at Psalm 3

Save Me, O My God

3 A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

1  O Lord, how many are my foes!

Many are rising against me;

2  many are saying of my soul,

“There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

3  But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,

my glory, and the lifter of my head.

4  I cried aloud to the Lord,

and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

5  I lay down and slept;

I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.

6  I will not be afraid of many thousands of people

who have set themselves against me all around.

7  Arise, O Lord!

Save me, O my God!

For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;

you break the teeth of the wicked.

8  Salvation belongs to the Lord;

your blessing be on your people! Selah

David is overwhelmed with incredible emotion, relationship, mental health, definite Job issues (his son wanted to kill him and take his job)

In all of this look at verse 4....

4  I cried aloud to the Lord,

and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

Despite all of this David knew God has done something..no matter how this ended…God was not absent or uninvolved

At the holy hill blood was shed to make a way to the presence of God

The altar was covered in the blood of sacrafice

For me i pray this Psalm often. I always remind myself whatever it is i feel i cannot say God has not done anything

I can look to the holy hill 2000 years ago and know he answered me there

This is what it means to help each other we need this truth

“This part of the book begins with a simple sketch of who we are. From there, it will help you understand, admit, and practice your own neediness.”(p. 15)

Discussion and Response

1) There are a lot of hard things coming at you. What are the top three? You could also take one from each of the categories that surround each one of us.

2) Take time to speak your hard things to the Lord-who-hears.