Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-37
“It Can Be This Good”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN 37412
In the movie As Good as It Gets Jack Nickolson plays the part of Melvin Udall, a very lonely, cranky and most unhappy man.
In one scene, Melvin angrily stomps out of his doctor’s office into a waiting room filled with depressed and lonely psychiatric patients.
Stopping to make eye-contact with the group and with a devilish sneer, Melvin asks the group, “What if this is as good as it gets?”
Have you ever felt lonely, even when you are surrounded by a large crowd of people?
Have you ever moved to a new town or headed off to college or started a new job where you knew no one?
If so, you have probably experienced that unpleasant feeling we call loneliness.
Why do people become lonely?
Why is loneliness such an unhappy emotion?
Just think of some of the things persons do to try and solve the loneliness problem.
Children cave into peer pressure in order to fit-in with a group…
…any group of other kids…
…any group that will accept them no matter what that group is doing, be it drugs or a whole host of other unhealthy behaviors…
…simply to fill-in the hole that loneliness causes…
…and in doing so, people find that they are quite capable of doing almost anything in order to eliminate loneliness.
For many, our need for other people, for relationships, for community, for acceptance is what drives much of what we do.
And why is this?
In Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone…’” so God created another person.
It’s not in our genetic make-up to be alone.
We need other people; we need community.
And the sad part about all this is that there are oh, so many lonely people living, working and going to school right next to us!
Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote a song about this:
“Ah, look at all the lonely people…
…All the lonely people where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?”
It is not just our need for other
humans that causes us to feel isolated and alone.
It is also our need for God.
The 17th Century physicist/philosopher Pascal spoke of a “God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every [person]” which can only be filled by a relationship with God.
That’s why Jesus came to this earth…to restore the severed relationship between fallen humanity and God.
Before Jesus was arrested and crucified He assured His disciples: “I will not leave you as orphans…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth…on that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
Jesus kept His Word, did He not?
For on the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus had ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit came.
And the disciples were emboldened, for they knew they were not alone.
And three thousand new converts joined the brand new Christian Church in one day!!!
Finally, there was a prescription for the “God-shaped void.”
There was an answer for “all the lonely people.”
Notice, from our Scripture Lesson for this morning, that there is a thread which goes to the very core of what it means to be Christian.
They studied together, they broke bread together, they prayed together.
They were all filled with awe together as they witnessed together the many wonders and miraculous signs.
They were all together and had everything in common.
They shared their material possessions together.
They worshipped together…continuing to meet together in the temple courts.
They ate in one another’s homes together.
They praised God together; they shared their lives together,
“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Christianity is about being together with God and with other human beings.
Christianity has always been about relationships.
How many times have you heard someone say: “I can be a Christian without going to church?”
That would not have even been thought of as a possibility by the early Church.
A young man who was fed up with church went to see a wise Christian to get some advice.
As they sat in front of a fire, he told him all the things that were bothering him about church, and how he felt he would be better off without it.
As he was speaking, the wise Christian silently took the fire tongs and removed a red-hot glowing coal from the middle of the fire and set it on the hearth.
The coal glowed for a while, but eventually dimmed and turned black.
He let it sit there a while and then took the tongs and placed the coal back in the middle of the fire.
Within seconds the coal was glowing red hot once again.
The young man took the wordless lesson and left determined to stay with the church.
We cannot grow in our walk with Christ or even survive outside of the church!
We need one another.
In Romania, after communism fell, we in the West became aware of the many orphans there who were basically warehoused in huge orphanages which were vastly understaffed.
So the babies, while they had most of their physical needs looked after—food, shelter and some hygiene, were rarely picked up and snuggled or played with.
Many of them had what doctors aptly call “failure to thrive syndrome.”
They may have been many months or sometimes even years old, but they still looked and acted like newborns.
And this is what happens to those of us who do not share our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Proverbs 27:17 says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one [person] sharpens another.”
A wise person once said: “Snowflakes are frail, but if enough of them get together they can stop traffic.”
The church is like that, is it not?
Did not Jesus say, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them”?
Jesus taught in community so that we would learn to discover His presence in others.
Every Christian needs other Christians.
A great theologian once said, “The Christ in one’s own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of a brother or sister.”
If one of us miss a worship service, a Sunday school class, a Bible study we all suffer; we all miss out!
We all need each other.
Before Christ left this earth, He prayed for all those who will believe: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
My friends, “look at all the lonely people.”
Look at all the lonely people who need to know God loves them, that they are of supreme value, and that their life has significance.
Look at all the lonely people who
need to know that they are not alone;
that when they face life’s difficulties--
there is a community of grace which will surround them.
And that they do not have to figure out entirely for themselves how to cope with family tensions, self-doubts, periods of despair, economic reversal, and the temptations that hurt themselves or others.
Look at all the lonely people who
live in our neighborhoods, work
beside us, go to school with us.
They are starving to know the peace that runs deeper than an absence of
conflict, the hope that sustains them
even through the most painful
periods of grief, the sense of
belonging that blesses them and
stretches them and lifts them out of
their own preoccupations.
People need to learn how to offer
and accept forgiveness and how to
serve and be served.
As a church, we are to be a school
for love…a congregation where
people learn from one another how
to love.
Ah, look at all the lonely people
who need to know that life is not
about having something to live on but
something to live for…
…that life comes not from taking for
oneself but by giving of oneself.
People need a sustaining sense of
purpose.
People need a relationship with
God through Jesus Christ…which
is what those of us who belong to a
community of faith receive as we
“devote ourselves to the apostles’
teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer.”
The most powerful witness to the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is not necessarily an empty tomb or a fantastic Easter sermon, but rather a group of people whose life together is so radically different, so completely changed from the way the world builds a community, that there can be no explanation other than that something decisive has happened in history!!!
And you and I are witnesses to that fact!!!
This church, of which we are a part, lives (as a whole) radically different than the society around it.
Will we not share this with those on the outside?
When we invite people to a
Sunday school class, a worship
service, a Bible study, to a prayer
ministry, to sing in the choir, to Youth Group, to help with a project-- we are
providing an avenue through which the
Spirit of God shapes the human
soul, fills the empty spaces in
people’s lives, and brings them into a
relationship with God and other
people.
How many folks have we invited
into the fold this week?
An invitation is not complicated.
In the first chapter of John’s
gospel, Jesus’ invitation was simple:
“Come and see.”
His disciples then used the
same language to invite others.
We don’t need to know the
answers to all the questions of faith
and life to invite someone to church.
We all simply and naturally
need to say to acquaintances and
those with whom we share common
activities: “Come and see.”
The power of an invitation to
change another person’s life must
never be underestimated!
Perhaps that is how God began to
change each one of us!
A world suffering from the pain of sin, guilt, self-indulgence and loneliness needs to know that “This is Not as Good as it Gets!”
Let us pray: Dear God, stir up in us a desire to be the church you want us to be. May we all be intentional about worshipping together, sharing our lives with one another and learning better how to love our neighbors and You. Lord, enable us to be conduits to Your adding to our number daily, those who are being save. In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray. Amen.
