Dear HBIC Family,

This week I find myself thinking about need. For so many of us, it is a reality we never want to experience. This might because we live in a culture that takes great pride in self-sufficiency. It might be because we have learned that to need is to lack, and therefore, somehow, having a need is understood as being some kind of character flaw. Maybe we have known need (whether spiritual, physical, emotional, etc.), and it has too strongly defined who we are. So, now, we treat need as an enemy. 

I find this fascinating, because we all have needs as humans. In every season of our lives, we all have places where we lack. The needs we have, and the ones we see others experience, should remind us that self-sufficiency is a myth. We need one another, and that is okay. We also especially need the Holy Spirit’s leading, directing, and empowering, Jesus’ life as our example to follow, and complete reliance on God to meet all our needs according to the riches of his glory. 

This week, as we continue our Luke: Good News for the Lost sermon series, we are going to be talking about our needs. Oftentimes, the focus of this week’s passage is on Jesus being the Lord of the Sabbath. Yes, Jesus was asserting authority as God and as the author of the Law that the people held so dear. However, Luke has shown that Jesus acts to bring God glory, and for the healed to serve as living testimonies for their communities. It is very helpful for us to remember all of this as Jesus meets the needs of his people. 

As you prepare for this week’s service, I invite you to read and meditate on Luke 5:33-6:11. As you reflect, I would like to ask you to focus on the following questions:

• What are some dangers of self-sufficiency?
• What does it mean to live and walk together in community?
• How are you being fully reliant on God in your current hour of need?
• Who is one person in your circle that God might be asking you to help?
• What does faithfulness to God look like when needs overwhelm?

One of the things I have been learning for a while now is that it truly is okay to share my needs. Over the years, I have overvalued self-sufficiency. I have defaulted to saying, “I’m okay,” or, “I will be okay.” Sometimes, I did this to the detriment of getting help I needed. One of the great blessings of my life has been living in community with people who love me, pray for me, and who are able to patiently wait for me to share as they listen with all ears and help carry me through. What a blessing it is to live in sweet community with one another!

Sisters and brothers, my prayer for all of us this week is that we lose our desire to be self-sufficient. I hope we can trade it in for a lifetime of full reliance on God. If we do so, we will be blessed by the Holy Spirit, blessed by our family of faithful sisters and brothers in the Lord, and blessed by our God who promises to make us lack nothing!

God bless you all!

Love in Christ,

Pastor Hank (Luke 4:18-19)