Father's Day: You'll Never Walk Alone

Welcome to an audio teaching from Windsor Park Baptist Church in Auckland, New Zealand.

If you would like to look at the message notes or see some questions for reflection that take their lead from today's teaching, head to our website windsorpark.org.nz and head to the online tab where you'll see services and series and you can download different resources from there.

Thanks for joining us, and we hope you're encouraged by today's teaching.

Just a few things about myself before we jump into uh today's message.

Um I have had the chance to be uh a youth pastor, a church planter, I um I currently volunteer as a as a chaplain to the Wellington Phoenix, which is uh a real privilege of mine uh being prison chaplain.

Um and uh I currently work uh with the Salvation Army uh up in the Company Coast in Wellington.

And uh it's a beautiful role to be front-facing to vulnerable people coming in, um needing um food or assistance or some sort of pastoral care around mental health and and then integrating um the Christian faith to them, um, having a chance to be present uh as as the as the incarnate Jesus to them in in the best of their times, but often uh in the worst.

So um I'd like to start a quick prayer and uh and then we'll jump into um this message.

Um Lord, I thank you for everyone um that is uh online today.

And uh whether they are in a good space or a place of uh desolation, um, would you hold them, uh would you minister to them, and would you come by your spirit uh as we point our lives and and and turn our gaze and our attention um to you and your kingdom?

We ask this now in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Cool.

Um let's begin.

Um a couple of years ago when I was a chaplain in Urumataka prison, uh the staff would say to us, uh, there is an opportunity um on different events to give cards to the prisoners, and we had a chance to um go through the units and say, hey, if you've got someone um say for Mother's Day, here write some cards um to your mum or your grandma and and send them away.

And of course, um uh when I was um on site, uh Father's Day kind of turned around and and I had a bunch bunch of Father's Day cards, and uh and for that entire week leading in, I had the opportunity to go to different units um and just talk to different men.

Sometimes it was organized, sometimes it would there would be uh within a within a unit, and to sort of say, um, hey, if anyone wants um like a Father's Day card, um uh here you go.

And not really to my surprise, but I think you kind of need to kind of get your head around it, was the uptake of that day was incredibly poor.

Um, that was a trend right across um my years and years as a prison chaplain.

You would sort of sit down with men and at some stage talk about um what was dad like um he was either absent or in those cases, um often um dad was someone uh that was violent uh or um abusive, um, and both, or if not um worse.

And uh it in fact actually granddad's uh featured very, very highly in a probably a very positive way to kind of calm and to nurture and to care for men.

And it kind of got me thinking, um, gosh, Father's Day seems to um scratch a bit of a wound uh in in our culture.

Um uh when I was preparing for this message um uh on the Capitol Coast, I had a lovely volunteer, beautiful lady growing up in the church, and uh and I told her what I was doing, this message today, and what it all meant.

And she had said to me, Oh, Christophe, um I I for years I I resented Father's Day.

And I said, What do you mean by resented Father?

Like when you know this, when you know this woman, she is at Margaret, and that's just her name I've given her, um, you would think that Margaret has no resent for anyone.

She goes, Oh, no, no, I I I I resented Father's Day.

And um and she would unpack on how the relationship was strained between her father and her, and how he seemed to berate and be abusive and uh and unkind.

And in every day, uh every year coming up at um when uh church would celebrate Father's Day, there was this disconnect and this tension within her of these men they were talking about that were that were good and valiant and heroic and providing and and strong and biblical, and then what she sort of experienced at home.

So Father's Day, we kind of sit in this day and it becomes very polarizing.

Some of us would be sitting there going, Hey, uh I've had uh my dad's been, you know, not perfect, but he's he's good.

And others of us are going, look, um, this is the kind of day I if I was gonna skip church and not kind of get into it, this would be the day um that I would do it.

Um there's a phrase in the last wee while that has come out a little bit out of academia in the 80s and 90s called um uh toxic masculinity.

And it's been branded around quite a lot of things in terms of associated with being um a man.

And unfortunately, um there are many things that men have done that have been painful and uh and wrong and abusive.

Like when I sat in my time of prison and tried to understand how men would um act in certain ways that would be destructive and violent, um, if sexual even.

Um but there's also sort of then things that men have done that are that are good and wholesome and and right.

Um here's um uh uh uh a definition of toxic masculinity that I think frames it a lot better rather than just to be a man is to be toxic.

Um it says this um it is like a catchphrase for male sexism and the dominance and aggression and violence.

And when we sort of think about toxic masculinity, we see things that what men could do, I think we get a picture of those kind of actions would be like, oh, this is not not a healthy expression of what it actually means to be a man.

I don't know if you track a lot on um uh like uh the culture in the media, but there's been interest of these these brothers called the Tape Brothers that have been um now um uh under charges for how they've treated women and um uh and all sorts of things.

And when you kind of link, oh, this would be sort of an image of toxic matchcular, you would probably go, I think this is an unhealthy image uh of what that means to be a man.

Uh a couple of years ago, Netflix picked up um uh a very well-written but gritty story called Adolescence.

And in this it hears this young boy trying to figure out um, you know, what it means to be a man and then equating um acts of violence um alongside a family life and in the backdrop of England.

Really, really kind of challenging um kind of things.

Um the apologist Nancy Percy says this is that we should not mistake uh the equating of masculinity with man's bad behavior.

The biblical worldview tells us that men were originally created to live by the ideal of the good man and exercising the traits such as honor and courage and fidelity and self-control.

Now, I want to before I jump kind of too deep into where I want to go this morning, um, my role this morning is um not to berate men.

Um not for me to sort of stand up and say, hey, I've got it all together, nor am I um gonna put the boot in and say, just because you're a man, I think you're probably gonna be one of the tape brothers.

Um I I want to hold a fine line, a one sense of going, hey, there are some things in our culture that are unhealthy around what I'm what this masculinity and the expression of it, but there's also some beautiful things that we can follow in our faith and and also role models in the church where where we can um live up to um uh lives of honor and courage and self-sacrifice and and provision.

Um and and I suppose my bent of this morning is this kind of this wider idea of that you do not have to walk alone and in being not just a human, but in this case, um uh that I'm addressing my brothers, but um as a man.

So Lord, again, would you lead and guide um our time and uh come by your spirit and uh and let there be affirmation and challenge, I ask in Jesus' name.

Yeah.

Um so um I don't know if you know football very, very well or Sakuro.

Um uh there is a very famous team um over in um in England called Liverpool, and uh and they adopted a uh a song that was originally done in the 1950s, and by the time they got hold of it in 1963, they made a um an anthem out of and essentially the song sort of says that you'll never walk alone.

Um and uh sometimes if you have if you have a chance to sit with someone who's a passionate Liverpool sorta Liverpool supporter, they will have that acronym you will never walk alone.

In fact, I probably if I can hear on the internet, there's probably someone humming it and singing it right now.

Now, they weren't the only team to then take that idea and uh and adopt it.

Um there's Celtic over in Scotland and uh but also Dortmund uh over in Germany.

And this wider idea of um of camaraderie as a team, um, but also as um as something galvanizing that uh if you would follow our team and and and do this, that you you know no one is ever alone.

Now the crazy thing is, is that for most men, um, though they may, if you're a Liverpool supporter or not, most of us actually do walk alone.

Um most of us um at times don't have the kind of supports that would mean that should something adverse come in our lives, that we would know actually how we're gonna deal with it and what we're going to do about it.

And this was picked this idea was picked up by um another football team um called Norwich City about two years ago in October 2023.

And uh, and I don't know if you have a chance to kind of go on, but just do a research on Norwich Football Um Mental Health Day.

And effectively here's this whole story of of telling uh in about two, two and a half, two and a half minutes of these two men sitting alongside each other seem to be sharing life.

One of them has, um, by the looks of it, um, looks like he's got issues, and the other guy has got it.

Um, you know, seems to be absolutely encouraging.

And now I don't want to spoil what that um what that clip does, but the right at the very end of it, um, it ends up sort of saying that um check in with those around you.

Um, and then that one of the last phrases it says is that um you are not alone.

That one video went right across um the world and I think it has about 2.8 million views.

Why so popular?

Because for the average man sitting there watching that, whether they play football or not, there seems to be a sense of um that we are often quite isolated, even though we're surrounded by lots of people.

So um, and I and I found that um over the years um working uh as a pastor, um, often when people would come to me in terms of um marital issues, um I'm leaning to the to the to the wife and and she seems to have a really good support network.

Um she knows how to talk to her friends, she knows how to kind of what the next step is.

She's worried about where this marriage is at.

When I talk to the guys, and I'm saying, who are you talking to?

And he like looks at me going like, Well, we're talking today, aren't we?

Um and and there definitely sort of seems to be like, gosh, one of one of the couples, um, one part of it has a really good network to work it out, and the other one um it's just doesn't even know where to kind of start or where to begin.

Challenging kind of stuff.

Um David Smith, an author, um, writes this provocative title, and it's a North American context, but it's um it's called The Friendless American Male.

And and he has this, he interviews all these men around why do you not have why do you find have good, why do you find it so difficult to have good friends?

And and this is one interview snippet that he says this.

It says, um, this is what this guy says.

Of course I don't have friends.

I'm a man.

Uh my wife is the one with friends.

And so um, whether or not that strikes true with you or not, I'm not saying that men um don't have friends, um, not at all.

But there just seems to be a a sense for most of uh men that we have like mates that we do stuff with or mates that we would um uh experience things beside, but there's something very, very different about um being um uh open to connecting and going deeper with a bunch of guys and having that kind of life shape us and change us and and sometimes support us and sustain us.

So um I want to take a reading um from uh the Gospel of Matthew, and um this is the words of Jesus, and it's really interesting kind of how he kind of frames it.

And this is what he says.

Um, this is in uh Matthew chapter 22, verse 37.

Matthew 22:37

He says, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first of the great commandments.

The second is equally as important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

The entire law and all the demands on the prophets are based on these two commandments.

Now, an interesting idea out of Matthew out in this in this passage that Jesus talks about.

Um, firstly, the question that is posed to Jesus is um what does it mean to lead a the good life?

Or what does it mean to follow the ways of God?

And essentially what Jesus is kind of unearthing here is everything that he is talking about about knowing God and following God is in terms of relationships, is in terms of something knowing deeper, not only the Lord, but also this kind of invitation to kind of knowing each other.

Let me read it again.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

These are the first of the great commandments.

There's this sort of the sense of all of who you are, um, not just some sort of detached kind of faith, and I kind of know this is what I've got to do to kind of live my life.

And also love your neighbour as yourself.

Now, obviously, we we get this idea that neighbor is not just like the person that kind of lives next door or is in the apartment down below us, and I've I've got to be nice.

There seems to be something else around knowing and relating and caring or even being open to those that are kind of close um and that are around us.

Um I have been leading a men's Bible study up at work for the last um uh couple of years, and um it came it the the I first started it because uh the the wider community at Salvation Army was uh wanting to do a um study around addictions, and they had realized through the 12-step programs that um addictions are only generally broken um by following the 12 steps, and one of the most important parts of the 12 steps is that you are um engaged and vulnerable uh with other people.

And I can remember um so with my bunch of guys, um, some of us have got issues with um recovering alcoholics.

Um some of the guys have been um uh been part of church and faith for a very long time, some are really brand new, got this eclectic mix of guys that um if you had come in, if you come in and on a group, you'd say you guys shouldn't kind of know each other or hang out.

And uh and one night I'm gonna just share uh this is not his real name, but Jim, um who had been having some issues um and still does with um alcohol.

Um one night Jim turns up to our group and um and Jim is um very drunk and he kind of walks in and we're just about to start worship and um you you can smell the alcohol on him.

And some of the guys that are um trying to stay away from that, they saw Jim come in and um and there was this tension um in the air.

Um conversations started happening, like going, well, what's what sort of space are you in, Jim?

And um and and Jim um didn't really know kind of uh what to say.

Uh we started kind of uh doing intros in a in a bit of a check-in because that's what we do.

And when I say check-in, here's the space where we uh invite our men in high trust uh to be open, uh to talk about what's really going on.

And of course, for Jim, he had lots going on.

But at that moment, when he was sort of sitting there, he couldn't really articulate a lot of things, mainly because of the state he was in with the drink, but also because suddenly he's sitting in an environment with men that are asking and and wanting to know what's really going on for him and he didn't know how to handle it.

So at some stage he gets up, um doesn't really finish even um that first part of the check-in and just leaves.

And then the next part that would happen was probably uh a moment I can remember quite fondly um and and challenging and in a challenging way in my group, is that all these guys had uh not a moan about what had happened, but there was there was there was a sense in the room of anger, um, and then a sense of trying to understand what was going on for Jim.

Why did he tune up to our men's Bible study group when he was obviously drunk?

And uh and the boys were going, mate, this is like this is against, you know, in terms of recovery, like what is this guy doing?

So one guy who's recovering, alcoholic, he was angry at Jim.

Uh another guy's going, oh, we just should pray for him, and all that, and that's what we ended up doing.

And as the conversation unfolded, there came this revelation of going, Well, who checked in with Jim recently?

And then someone else kind of popped up and said, man, Jim must be really alone at the moment because um he's turned up and and even though he knew what he was like in terms of his his state, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he was lonely.

And from that point onwards, there seemed to be something around um our men changing and trying to understand of going, how do we do life differently where we are looking out and and trying to find each other and care for each other?

Now, fast forward a wee bit, that night galvanized our group in in a way that um none of my Bible studies um could ever do.

Because here we had this moment of of shame and brokenness, but also suddenly an opportunity to release grace and to lean more different uh more lean more definitely into compassion and and understanding.

Um Jim still has his troubles and he's on a on a beautiful journey towards a recovery, but that night, suddenly the men went from going, Oh, we we just have a men's Bible study group, to then asking, How do we not walk alone?

And um, and I think that is the the critical kind of question that I want to bring to you again and again uh this morning.

Ephesians 16, uh all the way through 18 has this beautiful um uh picture of um it's a militarized picture where Paul writes that you should put on the full armor of God.

And um, and as you kind of read Ephesians, there's there's images of um of uh armour around you know breastplates across the chest and belts and and shoes and shields and uh and and and and helmets that you wear.

And I don't know if you're really into kind of um military things, but here the the these linking faith to to things that we can do to stand against what the enemy would do uh to us.

Um my point around that is that going, we we need to to approach Ephesians 6 and say, yes, we take the full armor of God upon us every single day.

But my brothers, I just want to say one thing about that is that I think we need to learn when to lay our armor down and and and take it off.

Not that we would be susceptible to the enemy, but but or actually when we when we're actually in the in proximity to other men, that we know how to take our armor off, that we that people would actually see what's really going on um within us.

Proverbs 2717 says, as iron sharpen iron, um one man sharpens another.

I remember as I as a young Christian hearing about that in um Promise Keepers.

I don't know if you know what Promise Keepers is, it's uh it's it's pretty cool.

Um and and I've and I've thought about Proverbs 2717, as iron sharpen iron, one man sharpens another.

I mean, how on earth um do you get a dull blade sharp um if you never get it close to to anything that's going to sharpen it?

And unfortunately for for us for some of us as men, um it is one it's a very massive thing to allow anyone even to get close to us, that there would even be any conflict, any tension, any ability to have the rough edges sawn off each other, and that we're we are way more sharpened.

My brothers, I I I was to appeal to you um this morning.

Is that our faith in terms of being a man is not meant to be done in absolute isolation.

There's this challenge for us to learn that we find strength and courage, not only just from being a provider and looking to follow the Lord, but to learn to do that alongside other men that need us at different times and more so the times that we need them and their wisdom and their grace and their relationships.

I've done some research on uh on what happens on your context at Windsor.

And you already have beautiful and passionate and godly men that are um putting their hands up to say if you want to follow Jesus, you do not need to follow Jesus alone.

In fact, you don't need to walk alone ever.

Here's some of the people in your backyard that are right now leading things to invite you to um to connection.

Uh we've got um uh Alan who runs uh Real Men on a Sunday night, and I know Alan um is away this weekend.

Alan, uh Mike, our conversation we had a couple of months ago, absolutely love talking to you.

You've got some awesome ideas of what you do.

There's Murray that runs the men's breakfast.

Now, I I I know that um when uh with my work of the Salvation Army and you feed people, that's absolutely awesome for a um for hanging out.

But most of the time the men's breakfast is not about um filling the bellies, but it's about making a place that you can have a chance to get to know someone across the table that's different from you.

Love your work.

Um I think it's awesome.

Um, you've got Aidan and Caleb are both um working as pastoral staff to work with both young adults and and young people.

But here's the thing is that even those men that I've pointed to, there are other men in your backyard that are maybe just waiting for you to have a relationship, community, and connection.

But here's the challenge is that as much as that you have courage to take risks, business ideas, or or get out and and play high performance sport or or go hunting or fix something, there is a certain type of courage that is out there to to actually get to know somebody far more than just whether or not the Warriors did well or um Auckland FC lost sadly to the Wellington Phoenix.

I'm I'm just um that I hope that that's uh a reality that could happen uh in the season ahead.

There's something far more to being a man than just talking about sports and results and about a business portfolio or about your sore right knee that you've damaged playing rugby.

There's something deeper that we can go, but we've got to learn to lay our armor down.

One of the most difficult and challenging things is learning how to trust somebody else.

Let someone else into your world realize that you don't need to walk alone.

So my hope and prayer is that if you're a man this morning and you've done it for alone for a very long time, um, that you would have great courage and to take a risk.

And at some stage, uh if you reach out to somebody else, maybe flip it around, maybe you have the opportunity to be that kind of um risk to somebody else, someone you might know in the church or maybe beyond.

So I'm just gonna pray for a few things um just to finish up and um um and uh and we'll just sort of see what the Holy Spirit does from there.

Um I do pray uh for my fano uh that uh that are online uh online right now that they would that would they would be reconciled, they would know the closeness and the life that you give Jesus.

Um that the following you and and having that life come into them um in all of who they are, that that is accessible in and through who you are.

And first and foremost, I ask Jesus that you would reveal yourself uh to men and to women um that are that are listening online right now.

Holy Spirit, um, you are Lord and you are close.

Would you reveal uh what you are doing?

I also want to pray, Lord, for um for the men that are in uh listening right now, that they would have courage to lay their armor down, find somebody to be connected to, find someone to have a conversation that is deep and life-giving.

Uh, where there is risk, there is there is grace.

So I ask that in Jesus' name.

And I also want to just challenge um the men of this um amazing community at Windsor Park that um that they would that they would choose not to let a brother um fall away.

That's that they would find the grace and the courage um to not walk alone.

So would you go and be healthy and life-giving, courageous and honest men?

Um in Jesus' name.

God bless you, and uh thanks for listening in.

Thank you for joining our audio teaching today.

If there are ways that we can continue to support you or help you in your journey, please reach out to us.

Head to our website windsapunk.org.nz, and you'll find various ways to contact us.

God bless.