Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: Today on Richard Ellis Talks. One of the toughest things in a husband and wife relationship, men in general are problem solvers. We have such a hard time, and I say we, when there is a problem, what do men usually want to do? Let's solve the problem. You know what? Sometimes you can't solve the problem. There is no answer. It's not going to go away. You're not going to fix it.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else, where he shares the life-changing message of the gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun. We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction.

Now, if you're not able to stick around with us for all of today's talk, you can always listen to, download, and even share this entire message with a friend right from our website, richardellistalks.com. So, let's jump right in with today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "With A Little Help From My Friends." Maybe you've been alive long enough to know that there was a song on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band back in 1967 that came out. But it's a fascinating song. One of the things I appreciate about the Beatles especially, if somebody had had enough sense to, instead of protest and picket them, to witness to them, maybe the world would be a different place.

But sometimes you can find out what people are feeling by listening to the songs that they write or that they listen to, and it'll tell you a lot about where they are in their life and in their walk and their experience. "What would you think if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song, and I'll try not to sing out of key. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends. Oh, I get high with a little help from my friends. Oh, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends."

"What do I do when my love is away? Does it worry you to be alone? How do I feel by the end of a day? Are you sad because you're on your own?" Then another verse he says, "Do you need anybody? I need somebody to love. Could it be anybody? I want somebody to love." There's another song out there, "Why Can't We Be Friends?" maybe you're old enough to remember that one by the band War.

But there are songs about friends. There are TV shows about friends. We have people, whether you know it or not or believe it or not, who show up at church even, and it's really not to find God. They figure it's a good place to pick up chicks, short-term friendship maybe, long-term friendship. Their mom said if you need to find a wife or a husband, church is not a bad place. So some people come for that reason.

We're going to look at it. Maybe it's a pursuit to have relationships with each other. Maybe it's a pursuit to have a relationship with God. Maybe it's both. Before we even read the scriptures, let me tell you where some of this is coming from today. We have people in our church, part of the reason we like to have a big space, a large room, is that there are some people who come to church and they go literally and sit alone somewhere because they want some anonymity.

They want some aloneness. They don't want people around them. When it's time to move around and say hello to people, they may say to themselves, some people literally slip in here at the last minute, maybe listen to the message, and the second there is a prayer, they're out of here. They don't want contact. They're trying to sort things out personally between them and God and see if there are some answers before they dive in the pool of some relationships in a church like this.

On the flip side of that, some people come and sit down by themselves in a church. The simple stuff like this. They sit and we think, well, I got to give that person their space. It's very difficult to know. But we have people who come and sit and sit so long by themselves that eventually they give up and leave because they can't even find anybody to sit with them.

I'll ask them, find out later, and say, well, what happened? Where'd you go? He said, you know, I just get tired of sitting by myself. Now, it just means we need to be aware of each other. You say, well, I come and I know it's a church for all and we've got all kinds of people and I'm okay with poor people being here and rich people being here and other races and that's all well and good.

But you know, I look over there and I see that person and they don't sit in my section because I sit over here every Sunday or over here. Some of you all are territorial. I've seen you moving people. You're in my seat. Will you please get out of my seat? I can't worship God over there. You've got to get out of my seat.

We get territorial. But if you look across the room and before you come in a room like this, or whether it's here or a Bible study, wherever you go, you kind of say, God, you know what, my life doesn't belong to me anymore. I'm going to look around this room and I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, if you're a Christian, you've got God living in you, say, show me if there's somebody today that I'm missing completely.

I'm going to have to get out of my comfort zone. I'm going to have to walk over and say, hey, you know what, we've been in this room, I've noticed you here. I just came to say hello. Is anybody sitting here? And you sit by somebody different. Let's start in Genesis chapter 2 and move through this.

Genesis 2:18, and it just starts out this simple. And the Lord God said, after God had created everything, the moon, the stars, the billions of planets, just the whole universe, then the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. It was not good for Adam to be by himself.

Part of what I'm going to talk to you about today is this. If having a relationship with God is a personal thing, which it is, but if it's just about you and God, you don't need to come back here. You don't need to go to any more Bible studies. Because if we really don't need each other, why are we wasting so much time gathering here and in homes and for picnics and things?

Just don't come back. You're wasting your time. Because it's just about me and God. Some people, when you talk to them about religion or God, they say, well, you know what, I really don't want to talk about that, it's a very personal thing. It is a personal thing. But if it's as personal as it's supposed to be and you really get it, you will find yourself gathering with other people with whom it is very personal as well.

Now, it is a scary thing to gather. The more you gather, and the more you speak, and the more you become a friend to someone else, and be a friend to someone else, the more vulnerable you're going to have to get. Your stuff is going to come out and their stuff is going to come out. Somebody's going to say something rude and mean, and we're going to have to apologize, and we're going to have to be friends, not dysfunctional, but meaningful, real friends.

Somebody's going to know your dirty laundry and ask you some questions about how you're living and where you're going and what you're doing because they care, they're not just being nosy. You say, well, I don't want people in my life. You cannot do God, you cannot do Christ, you cannot do Christianity, the Holy Spirit, without getting your fingers in somebody else's life.

It just doesn't work without this. God starts the whole thing out, and Adam is the only created being by himself, no one like him, and God said, this isn't good for him to be alone. I'm going to make him a helper comparable to him. He makes Eve and figures it out where the two of them together could multiply and replenish the earth, and here we are as a result of those two and their getting together, so to speak.

Turn to Job chapter 2. Basically the first couple of chapters, first chapter, some of the second, Job loses everything. He is a millionaire just many times over, cattle, sheep, and in one day loses everything he has. He loses all of his sons and daughters, all of his family except for his wife, and she's telling him to curse God and die. It's not a good time in Job's life.

He is a godly man, and the reason all this happened to him is that God chose him because of who he was and how he lived and how faithful he was to God and God to him. The whole book basically is about Job after the catastrophe and his interaction with three friends. Now, they were not great, I mean they were great friends, but they were screwed up too a little bit, and this thing gets really messy.

They assume things, and this goes back and forth, Job to God and Job to these friends. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt at least in the beginning, in Job chapter 2, verse 11. "Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; for they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, to comfort him."

He had three friends, three great friends, and they stayed a long time and had much conversation. But these guys heard about what happened to Job, communicated with each other and said, we are going to go sit with him. We're going to mourn with him and comfort him. Look what happens in verse 12. "And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they came together to go see Job, and there was Job standing or wherever he was, and they looked up from a distance and knew it was Job but didn't know it was Job."

He was so messed up. He was covered from head to toe with boils, just impossible to look upon even. "They raised their eyes from afar and did not recognize him, and they lifted their voices and wept, and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven." They hurt when Job hurt. When somebody is your friend and you're in trouble, they're in trouble.

When you rejoice, they rejoice. When you weep, they weep. You want to know who your friends are? Lose a family member and look who's around you at that time. When you cry, look who cries with you. When you're sick and in pain, look who's sick and in pain with you and is right there as though it were them. They tore their clothes. They lifted their voices and they wept. You know what it means to weep? It's not just sniffling. It is weeping. They were in pain for their friend who was in pain.

Look at verse 13. What do you do? "So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great." Now did they do it perfectly later? No. But did they start out right? Yes. The three buddies said, we've got to go see our friend Job, he's in trouble.

When they saw him, they realized how much trouble. They cried out and they wept. They realized there was nothing to say, nothing to do but to sit down, and for seven days and seven nights they sat with their buddy. They sat with their friend and grieved with him. He had lost all of his children, everything he owned, all of his possessions, his cattle, his camels, his sheep. Everything.

What do you say? One of the toughest things in a husband and wife relationship, men in general are problem solvers. We have such a hard time, and I say we, when there is a problem, what do men usually want to do? Let's solve the problem. You know what? Sometimes you can't solve the problem. There is no answer. It's not going to go away. You're not going to fix it.

There are a lot of churches on the planet that are completely screwed up. You go to church and maybe it's a big circus and a big party and it's very entertaining and you go in and it's just mush. People are friendly and have parties and you sift through that and you go, yeah, but where's God in this? I don't need a party, I don't need a circus, I need a relationship with God and with some other people.

There are other churches you can go to, and everything that is preached is doctrinally sound. Every Bible study you go to, there's no question it's the word of God. You come and you go, and you come and you go, and you sit in those small groups and you listen and you learn truth. You get up and you walk out.

But somewhere in the mix, in the midst of all this stuff, you want to sit in a room not and just hear truth. You want to live truth with people that you know and that know you. When you get in trouble, they know you're in trouble. When they're in trouble, you know it. You pick up the phone. Where are you? I'm coming to see how you're doing. Do I even know you? Do you know me?

That's what draws people back. If they have a relationship with God, they're growing there and they have relationships with other people. Where if they're not there, they're missed. If you don't show up here for a few weeks, does anybody even know it? Does that bother you? Does it bother us? If somehow you slip through the cracks.

At some point, it's got to get beyond study and religion and these things. It's got to get personal. It's got to get interpersonal. It's got to be connective, as we see happens with these guys in the Bible. Turn to Proverbs chapter 17, verse 17. It says, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." You want to know what a friend is? It's somebody that loves at all times.

Proverbs 27:6, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." When you know someone, and I have a few people in my life that if they sit down with me and say, you know what, sit down, I got something to tell you. If I have a relationship, a friendship where I know I love them and they love me and my best interest is in their heart, I'll listen.

It's not just being critical for critical's sake. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. It may be painful, it may be hurtful, but it's necessary. Proverbs 14:20, jump back a few pages. "The poor man is hated even by his neighbor, but the rich has many friends." Now this is not the kind of friends I'm talking about today.

The poor man is hated even by his own neighbor, but the rich man has many friends. You got money, you got friends. Look at the story in Luke 15 of the prodigal son, the lost son. As long as he had cash, he was rolling. Everybody was with him. But when he fell on hard times and ended up in a pigpen somewhere, all those quote-unquote friends were gone.

One of the toughest things for people who become Christians is that they start realizing their friends, once they find out this commitment, this decision you've made, they start pulling away. They're like, well you're some whacko and religious nut and you don't want to have fun anymore. You don't go drinking and partying and won't sleep with me anymore. They don't come out and say, I'm not your friend anymore. They just disappear.

So the flip side of that is we say to new Christians, you need to find some godly friends, some Christian friends, some people to be a positive influence. They say, okay, who's going to be my friend now? They're still in that stage where they're a little messed up. They're a little bit in the old world, the new world. They're getting it. They're screwing up. They're doing stupid things.

We can go, well, you know, I'm already way down the road. I don't have time for people like that. These people are still, they need someone else. Where are we at? Ecclesiastes 4:7, "Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun. There is one alone without companion. He has neither son nor brother, yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches."

"But he never asks, for whom do I toil and deprive myself of good? This also is vanity and a grave misfortune." Someone alone, working alone. Sometimes people work and say, well, I'm doing all this for a reason. I'll leave it to my family, my kids. There's a reason for accumulating this stuff, possibly. But he describes here someone who doesn't even have that. They don't even ask the question, for whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?

Verse 9, "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor." Sometimes it's okay to be in business by yourself. But you know what? Sooner or later, I talk to people who are in business and they just say, you know what, I don't want to do this by myself. It's partnership. There's something about being in the game, and when you're down, somebody else is up, and you go through the battles together and share the victories together.

Simply put, he says, two are better than one. They have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls. Now, guys, this is not just about this right here. This is about your life. There are men in this room who struggle with issues. Women in this room who struggle with life stuff.

When you go down, you go down alone. Why do you think AA is so huge? And the sponsors and the relationships. And if you choose to get involved and stay involved, there are people there who help you stick to the program. Now we're not AA, this is a church, but we ought to be outdoing AA hands down when it comes to relationships and sticking together.

Because people do go down, they fall. And he says, woe to him who is alone when he falls. Why? "For he has no one to help him up." Now there are two sides to this. And I described people who come and sit alone. There's a side that you come into a place like this and you sit alone. You're going to have to take a deep breath and say, you know what, God, I'm not comfortable with this. I'm not this kind of person.

But I'm going to have to take some initiative and show myself friendly and jump out there. It doesn't feel safe, and it's uncomfortable, but I'm going to try. It's us a little bit moving your way and you moving our way, and we meet in the middle somewhere sometimes. Try not to end up like Solomon says here, alone. And when you go down, there's no one to help you up.

Verse 11, "Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm." If you're not married, do not misquote this verse. This is no license, well, it was a cold night and the Bible says if two lie down together they'll keep warm and the scripture is true, it's working, it's working. But how can one be warm alone? Just something as simple as body heat.

This is not about sexual stuff, though it can turn into that if you're married, hopefully. But two men freezing to death on a mountainside know the principle. They will hold each other, cling to each other for that body warmth to sustain them. Verse 12, "Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him."

Do you get the point here? If you're by yourself, just the simple principle of having relationship with one other person, if nothing else, just somebody. And he closes verse 12 by saying, "A threefold cord is not quickly broken." One of the illustrations they would use back then is that they'd talk with their children about, if you take twigs, you can break them one by itself.

But if you take a bundle of sticks, of twigs that you could snap by themselves and you wrap them together and you try to take the whole and break it, it's not easily broken because together they have strength where they don't have that same strength on their own. Matthew chapter 11, turn there with me for just a second, in verse 18 and 19.

It says, "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, he has a demon. Verse 19, the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." One of the greatest compliments they ever paid Jesus was saying that he was a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Now, I'm going to encourage you to be very careful here. But sometimes people pull so far back, and there's a period of time where maybe you're safer doing this. It is a shame, it's tragic in some ways, that some Christians have been Christians so long, they don't even have any friends anymore who aren't Christians.

You say, well, who are your friends that are not believers? Well, you know, we've been doing this so long, we've just huddled up and everybody we know now's a Christian. That should not be the case. Certainly we should have some godly friends, but you ought to have some reprobate, pagan, ungodly, out-there friends. Not to get sucked in, not to go by yourself, but to interact with and be friends.

Jesus was out there where nobody would go anymore. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, just pointed their fingers and did the same thing that was going on out there themselves, and Jesus comes along and literally gets accused of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners. But something as simple as this, Mark chapter 6, verse 7.

"And he called the twelve to himself, the twelve disciples, and began to send them out two by two and gave them power over unclean spirits." How did he send them out? Two by two. You look at the military. There are very few commando raids, any kind of thing where one guy gets sent out. They go in pairs or in small groups. He sent the 70 out later. What did he do? Sent them out in pairs, two by two.

There is a reason for this. There is something to being together, a relationship with another human being, the accountability that there is there. Look at John 13:34 and 35. He says, "A new commandment," this is Jesus speaking, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."

Now why is this so important? And you say, well, yeah, I love everybody. Let me tell you something. When you love somebody, someone else is going to notice that. Someone else is going to observe that. Someone's going to see that interaction and the way you treat someone. I'll tell you how you know that, verse 35. Love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

"By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." When someone walks in a church, they may listen to what I have to say and read this scripture and say, well, wow, yeah, that was all true. They may listen to the music and go, great music. They are watching, according to the scripture what Jesus said, they're watching more than anything usually what's going on between us.

What even someone who is not a Christian says is, if these people don't care about each other, there's no way they're going to care about me. If they can't even get along with each other and they're stuck here together for some reason, there's no way they're going to give me the time of day. But they say, if they love each other, not do they say all the right words or do they sing all the right songs, but bottom line, if they love each other, then I know they've got to be following God because you can't do that without God.

That's the one thing the world cannot do is get along without God, especially when there's diversity economically, culturally, ethnically. So by this, Jesus said, will all know that you're my disciples, my followers, if you have love one for another. Look at John chapter 15, verse 12. "This is my commandment, that you love one another." Now how does he say to love? "As I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

Then he says an amazing thing in verse 14. "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you." He communicates. But there is a cost.

When you are friends with somebody, you know what's going on with them and them with you. This relationship that Jesus had with the Father, he says, I've got it with the Father, I have it with you. I'm telling you you're not just servants anymore, you have become my friends because you do what I tell you to do.

And I'm telling you what's going on, you're not in the dark. Clearly here's where we're going, here's what we're doing. But if you're going to be a friend, he says you're going to have to do it the way I do it and that's to do what? Lay your life down for a friend. Now at some point, if you don't love someone, the friendship is going to fall apart because there are some things that you will not do unless you genuinely love someone.

When it gets down to sacrifice, when it gets down to laying things down like time and money and whatever it takes to help somebody else. And I think we've all been there at some point in our lives where we've had to literally maybe bail somebody out of a situation and help them through something where cost was involved.

Just one verse here talking about how we're to interact with each other. Romans 12:10, he says, "Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another." And the word here "kindly affectionate" means it's more than just friends even. It turns into family. It gets personal. It gets intimate. It gets close.

Look at 1 Peter 3, verses 8 and 9. He says, "Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another." And the word here "having compassion for one another" means suffering or feeling the like with another, sympathetic.

Guest (Male): Richard will be back in a moment to wrap up today's talk. But first, I want to share a couple thoughts with you. Let's be honest, real life isn't about living some highlight reel for others to see. Most people have deep hurts, questions, and struggles. We get it and want to help you in any way we can.

So, let's keep this conversation going. Give us a call at 855-6-RICHARD, or connect with us at our website, richardellistalks.com. You can even put in your prayer request right there on the prayer wall so others can pray for you as well. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD or online at richardellistalks.com. And now, let's get back to Richard with a final word on today's show.

Richard Ellis: There's an old hymn, an old song, that was written by a young man for his mother who was ill. He tried to comfort and encourage her and intended the poem just for her. And hear the words to the song that he wrote. "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer! Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy-laden, cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer. Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In his arms he'll take and shield thee; thou wilt find a solace there."

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