I want to begin with a confession — I’m rubbish at asking for help. In fact, as I was growing up, my parents joke that my favourite phrase was, ‘I can do it myself’.
I’ve often had to learn the hard way when I’m beyond my own abilities and need to ask for help. This includes one infamous episode when we’d just moved into a new house, and my parents had decided to involve me in decorating my new bedroom. Having been to the shop to buy the paint, I was insistent that I could carry the big, heavy paint tin up the stairs. When my parents suggested I might need help, you can guess my response, ‘No! I can do it myself!’
And, of course, I inevitably dropped the paint can halfway up, splattering my parents’ brand new carpet with blue emulsion.
‘I can do it myself’ — I wonder whether, at times, you can relate?
As human beings, we aren’t generally very good at knowing our limitations. And we can often react defensively when our vulnerabilities, weaknesses and failings are shown up before others. It takes real courage, instead, to accept our vulnerabilities, ask for help with our weaknesses, and forgiveness for our failures.
The modern society around us doesn’t help. In the world of politics, celebrity and sport, often the media will jump on any glimpse of weakness they spot — any chink in someone’s armour — for the sake of a good news story.
With the football World Cup going on at the moment, I’ve been watching ‘Dear England’ — a TV show that the BBC have made, adapted from a play, about Gareth Southgate’s time as England manager. It’s so interesting to see Southgate’s diagnosis of the problems with the England team he inherited, when he began in the job. The number one issue, he felt, was their fear of failure.
They were terrified, he felt, by the way that the media and the public had jumped on players in the past who had made mistakes. And this had left them paralysed, not just preventing them from performing well, but more than that, from actually being able to enjoy playing football.
How we deal with our mistakes — or our sin, to use the appropriate theological word — has a huge impact on how we live our lives.
Paul himself, the great super-apostle of the New Testament, confesses his own sinfulness in today’s Epistle. And in doing so, he acknowledges for all of us our human propensity for mistakes and failure.
To say the wrong thing without thinking. To act selfishly without thinking of others. To think we can do it all ourselves, and then wind up in a mess as a result.
‘I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…’ he writes. ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me?’
However, this honest realisation does not paralyse him, or leave him wallowing in self pity. Instead it causes him to rejoice in God’s grace. Acknowledging his need of help from something, someone, greater. Finally, he exclaims, ’thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!’
As hard as it may be, to be Christian is to accept and embrace our weakness. To acknowledge our sin before God, so that we can receive Christ’s forgiveness. The forgiveness won for us through his perfect life, and his perfect sacrifice on the Cross.
Because, when we bring our failures into the light, they can be exposed to the transforming power of Christ’s love and grace.
Some people look down on this aspect of Christianity. ‘Faith is a crutch,’ people sometimes argue, ‘for weak people who can’t face reality.’ But I don’t believe this. It feels to me like it takes more strength to admit our weakness, admit our mistakes, and ask for God’s help and forgiveness.
Others have rightly criticised the doctrine of sin, when it leads to the self-righteous shaming and judging of others. And it is never right to direct judgement at others like a weapon.
But when we accept for ourselves that we need God’s grace to help us, it can be truly liberating and transformative.
All of which brings us to today’s Gospel, and Christ’s famous words of comfort. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,’ he tells the crowd, ‘and I will give you rest.’
Jesus’ invitation is to all. It isn’t only for together people, or ‘soldiering-on-regardless’ people, or even ‘really-trying-their-hardest-to-keep-going’ people.
It’s for broken people. For exhausted people. For ‘I don’t think I can go on any longer’ people.
To these people, Jesus offers the gift of himself. A relationship with the one who sees us in all our weakness, and yet still loves us, forgives us, accepts us.
He does not expect from us more than we can give, but invites us instead to find rest in his service. His shoulders are broad enough to carry all our burdens. He hears when we cry for help. And his heart breaks when he sees our hearts breaking.
‘Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’
Responding to his humble invitation is the beginning of faith. The dawning of a hope within us, which grows and grows and cannot fade. The birthplace of true freedom — freedom from the past, freedom from self-hatred and self-pity, freedom from the fear of failure.
May you find rest in Christ’s loving arms today, whatever the burdens you might be carrying. Amen.
Sermon preached at Holy Trinity Pontnewydd in the Cwmbran Ministry Area on Sunday 05 July 2026.