(Extensive inspiration for the sermons in this series derived from the sermon samples in the "Who Cares" promotional series by Outreach Ministries.)
(This message opened by showing the video "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl)
The song has a good title, "Never Alone." And in it, Barlow Girl echoes the words that we have all heard from the Bible. Words that are easy to read. Somewhat believable. And yet often leave us still feeling void, forgotten and alone.
The words can be found in Hebrews 13:5, "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
They echo the words spoken to Joshua, "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you."
And yet, ninety-two percent of the Christians attending a recent Bible conference admitted in a survey that feelings of loneliness are a major problem in their lives. Feeling all alone. In fact, they indicated that they all shared a basic symptom: a sense of despair at feeling unloved and a fear of being unwanted or unaccepted.
Mother Teresa once said, "We have drugs for people with diseases like leprosy. But these drugs do not treat the main problem, the disease of being unwanted. The sick and poor suffer even more from rejection than material want. Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty."
Few emotions are more painful than the emotion of loneliness. It is especially common as each New Year dawns. The gifts have been opened. The parties have been given. All of the friends and family have returned home and the cookies have been eaten. Then, being alone after the holidays begins to cut through our being like the cold January wind. Disrupting all the layers of our warmth and security we had built up.
Loneliness. Feeling all alone. Picture the single person enduring the pain of a broken romance. Picture the divorced person who doesn’t know what to do with his or her time. Imagine the inmate behind the bars of solitary confinement, or the military person overseas. Think of the parents whose arms ache for a missing child. Look into the life of a widow whose table is still set for two. (Who Cares Video)
Then, after reflecting on all those scenarios, think of the person who may be around acquaintances everyday but still has no vital connection. Maybe you have been there. I have. We probably all have. The person who is a part of the crowd but not a community.
Just listen to the history of music over the years and hear the lonely voices crying out -
Paul McCartney: All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they belong?
Elvis Presley: Just take a little walk down where?...lonely street to heartbreak hotel.
James Taylor: Do me wrong, do me right. Tell me lies but hold me tight. Save your good-byes for the morning light. But don’t let me be lonely tonight.
Bonnie Rait: What can I do to get back to you. I’m feeling desperate and lonely.
Or Barlow Girl: I waited for you today, but you didn’t show. I needed You today. So where did You go? You told me to call. Said You’d be there. And though I haven’t seen You. Are You still there?
Many of us can remember the scene of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Kleighbolt killed 12 students and themselves. Harris kept a diary, and his journal entries flesh out the picture of his life as a teen who felt excluded by other kids. "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things," he wrote. "You people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no no no no no don’t let the weird looking Eric kid come along."
The Gallup Poll says loneliness, feelings of being left alone affect more than a third of the population, and psychologist say that figure is rising. And the figures are rising not only emotionally, but even physically. Census figures indicate that the number of Americans living alone has tripled since 1960.
And you know what? I think Lee Strobel is correct when he writes: "People today will admit any problem - drugs, divorce, alcoholism - but there’s one admission that people are loath to make, whether they’re a star on television or someone who fixes televisions in a repair shop. It’s just too embarrassing. It penetrates too deeply to the core of who they are. People don’t want to admit that they are (sometimes) lonely. Loneliness is such a humiliating malady that it ought to have its own politically correct euphemism: "relationally challenged." Or its own telethon. Anything to make it safer to confess. Because right now it’s a taboo, an affliction of losers and misfits. And - to be honest - of respectable people like you and me."
Yes, me. I too struggle with feelings of loneliness. (the following was a biographical extemporaneous sharing of a personal struggle with loneliness.)
- Sabbatical Discovery
- Hesitation to return to pastoral ministry because of loneliness
- Spring 40 Days of Prayer
- Anniversary
- Important Life Struggles (employment, health, marriage)
- Not to make you feel guilty, but to let you know I can relate
So maybe, or maybe not, you can take comfort in the fact that even I, a pastor of all things, struggle with loneliness. And we all can take some comfort in the fact that there are plenty of Biblical examples of loneliness. Let’s look at some of them together.
Turn to Genesis, chapter 2. The very first man. Talk about a problem that has been around as long as people have been around. Adam had a loneliness issue. Genesis 2:18 (read through verse 20).
All the animals and all creation just weren’t cutting it. Any man that tells you all he needs is his dog, is lying. It took Adam no time at all to give off the emotions and sensing from which God could tell he was lonely.
What about King David? A king? With lots of wives, bunches of children, and a whole nation at his beck and call. Surely he didn’t struggle with loneliness. Right? John Maxwell says, "It is lonely at the top, so you better know why you are there." How true that is for a king.
Look at some of the things that David wrote -
- Psalm 25:16, "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted."
- Psalm 102:6, 7, "I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof."
- Psalm 142:4, "Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life."
Even the Apostle Paul. The author of a majority of our New Testament. Turn and look at what he writes in 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4, verse 9 (read through verse 11).
He uses words like "deserted." We are "alone."
"Come to me soon." Then in verse 16 (read a). "No one stood with me."
So even great heroes of the Bible have experienced life alone. Feelings of loneliness. And what we all need to understand today is that loneliness isn’t a sin. It is simply a by-product of being human.
Follow this with me. We are made in God’s likeness, and why did He make us? Because He wanted our fellowship. We are made for fellowship. For community. So in and of itself, feelings of loneliness are not a sin. They are what we feel when we are alone, because we are wired and created to be in community.
However, loneliness becomes a sin when we chose to indulge in it. Completely avoiding community and isolating ourselves. Or when we allow it to posses us and ruin our lives. Or when we ignore the biblical prescription for it. So let’s look at that prescription today.
The old saying goes, "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." Well, here are the two aspirin for loneliness. First. . .
1. DEVELOP DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE
I bet you knew this, but let’s just throw it out there to make sure. People can belong to a church and still be lonely. It’s true. You can belong to a church and still be lonely.
The Beatles have a song entitled "Eleanor Rigby". It describes Father Mackenzie, a lonely priest, who wipes the dust from his hands after a funeral, feeling the emptiness of life. Eleanor Rigby is the lonely church custodian. She picks up the rice from the sanctuary floor after people’s weddings and "lives in a dream." In the song, these two lost souls have gone their entire lives almost elbow to elbow, inhabiting the same world without connecting until one buries the other.
I have noticed a phenomenon during my time here at SWC. People that have been in this church together for a year, a decade, even decades and can come in on a Sunday, and leave on a Sunday without ever even saying "Hello" to each other. Seriously. Some of you don’t even know the names of others that have been attending for months, even years. In just a small little church. Oh, you can be in a church and still be lonely.
Unfortunately, Christian loneliness should be an oxymoron. Everyone know what an oxymoron is? Jumbo shrimp. That would be an oxymoron. Civil War. Deafening Silence. Those would be oxymorons. Pretty Ugly. Free Speech Zone. You get the idea? Country Music.
Well, Christian loneliness should be an oxymoron. It just isn’t Biblical. Look at what 1 John 1:7 says, "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin."
If we are walking in the light. If we are living as Christians. It is supposed to be built in that we have fellowship with each other. But part of the problem of loneliness is that we don’t move that fellowship from casual acquaintances to deep friendships.
A little piece of advice that I have been trying to build into my life over the past few years. If you are lonely, don’t try to get a bunch of friends. More quantity does not necessarily abolish loneliness. Rather, develop a few good friends. Deep friends.
Proverbs 18:24 says, "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
You see, having a few deep friendships is better than having many surface friendships.
There was a Japanese sculptor who came to America with a unique twist on his art. At his exhibit, each station was a small sign that read, "Please touch." He literally wanted people to feel his art.
That isn’t how we operate today. We’re used to "Don’t touch." "Don’t Enter." But we are surrounded by people who want to be touched and noticed. They don’t have a sign around their neck that says "please touch, but be certain most people are hungry for the touch of a friend. For a deep, caring relationships that moves beyond the surface.
(i.e. Visit with Chris Vogelsang. Accountability Team. Mentored relationship.)
Following the advice of Proverbs. Don’t worry about quantity. Develop some deep, quality friendships. How might we do that?
- Move beyond the Celebration Service to a Connection Group
- Move beyond rushing home for lunch to taking someone with us
- Move beyond thinking about people to interacting with them (i.e. cards)
That’s the first aspirin. But we are supposed to take two. Secondly. . .
2. DEVELOP A DEEP RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
This is where things may get a bit ironic. Because in order to build a deep relationship with God, you need to be alone, and that may sound like contradictory advice for loneliness. But there is a huge difference between solitude and loneliness.
Let’s face it, just because you are with people doesn’t mean you won’t be lonely. In fact many people are at their most lonely in crowds.
So in our busy world, it is extremely important to take time out for your relationship with God. If you are going to grow in your faith, you need to spend time with the Lord. He is the only one who promises to never leave or forsake us, and actually has the gumption to live up to it. But this will not happen unless you schedule your devotions. Schedule your time with the Lord. One’s devotional life will determine the success or failure of their faith development.
James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
I shared earlier some examples of my struggles with loneliness. During our recent sabbatical, I wrote down these words during a time of prayer and worship, "I have traded kingdom influence for earthly influence." Why did I write that?
As I struggled with these feelings of loneliness this past spring, I began to seek out earthly connections. Not deep friendships. But busy relationships. Things to do. Groups to be a part of. Connections to try and help me no longer feel alone.
But to find the time to do those things, I had to sacrifice. And I sacrificed my time with God. My kingdom influence. My prayer and devotions.
So this past week, I looked at my schedule. I block in time for my family. I block in time to go to the Y and work-out, taking care of my physical being. Hard to believe, but I do. And I decided it was time to schedule God. To sit down at the beginning of the week, and block off appointments with God to deepen our relationship. Times for prayer, for praise, and for reflection.
You may actually try to connect with me, and I may tell you I have an appointment. And if you ask who with, I just might tell you, "God." Because my mind has been renewed and reminded of the need to develop a deeper relationship with God, and to find the cure to my loneliness in my walk with Him. Let me encourage you to make an appointment with God, and grow deeper in your friendship with him.
Let me wrap up with these words by Charles Swindoll to encourage us at times of loneliness -
"God knows, my friend and He does care. Please believe that! He not only knows and cares, He understands, He is touched, He is moved, entering into every pulse of anguish, He longs to sustain and deliver us.
"In the strangling grip of Golgotha, our Savior experienced the maximum impact of loneliness. For an undisclosed period of time, the Father forsook Him. His friends had already fled. One had betrayed Him. Now the Father turned away: (Matthew 27:45)
"In the bottomless agony of that moment, our Lord cried, He literally screamed aloud, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
"The loneliness of those dark moments as our Savior carried away our sin cannot be adequately pictured on paper. Cold print cannot convey it. But is it any wonder that He is now able to sympathize and enter in as we battle feelings of loneliness? Those who bear the scars of that silent warfare need no explanation of the pain - only an invitation to share in the wound and, if possible, help in the healing.
"When we are lonely, we need an understanding friend, Jesus is the One who sticks closer than a brother.
When we are lonely, we need strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other, Jesus is the One "who strengthens me."
Let me encourage you this week to combat those feelings of loneliness by taking a step to develop a deep relationship with a friend. Take the first step. At least one this week. And develop a deeper relationship with God. Look at your schedule tonight, and make an appointment with God. Give Him at least one time this week that no one else can have. No one else can interrupt.
And know that when you are feeling lonely. We care, but more importantly. . .He cares.
