Description
KNOW FEAR
Fear of Loneliness
Ed Young
January 30, 2000
Swiss psychiatrist, Paul Townier, called it the most devastating malady of this age. Billy Graham has commented that it is man’s greatest problem. Mother Theresa once said that it is easier to fill a hungry stomach than to fill an empty heart. Thomas Wolfe said that it is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Ask the divorcee who just moved into the apartment. Talk to the parents whose arms still ache because of their deceased child. Speak with a single who ended the engagement. Watch the family who just got transferred in from another city. Ask them to tell you about their loneliness. Loneliness is not a good thing. I guess that’s why we try to steer clear of it at every turn.
What is so amazing about it is that the masses often magnify our loneliness. When we find ourselves in a crowded restaurant or a crowded church, we look at people connecting and interacting and we sort of feel ripped off relationally, like the “have-nots” looking at the “haves.”
I know it is hard to believe, but a lot of people who are hearing my voice right now are dealing with large levels of loneliness. You know how to mask it. You know how to keep it at arms length. You know how to sort of explain it away, but the cold reality is that you feel feelings of and are experiencing loneliness.
Loneliness can be defined as “being without companionship.” It is not being alone. Being alone is different from loneliness. Being alone is something commanded in scripture. The Bible talks about solitude. And sometimes we are afraid to be alone because we know if we are by ourselves we will have to deal with our loneliness.
Well, let’s take a long look at ourselves and a hard look at God and the implications surrounding Him. What we do is have a lot of motion and noise going on. We always have to have cell phones ringing and beepers buzzing and fax machines whining and computers e-mailing. We use technology and we stay tethered to it to keep us from relating to others. Little do we realize that this technology stuff has a lot of us surrounded by loneliness. Our culture has become so into doing deals, doing conferences, and have so many meetings that we have become a people of clients rather than a people who understand and live in true intimacy and community with others. We are a lonely people.
I want to challenge you with some words from the Bible that will help all of us deal with loneliness. The Bible mentions over 300 times that we are to stay away from loneliness. It says we are not to fear, we are not to have anxiety concerning today’s subject matter. It would be easy for me to say the Bible says don’t fear, let’s close the book and hit the exits. But we can’t do that. It is not that simple. The Bible shows us how to deal with fear and how to deal with the fear of loneliness.
Today I want to label three levels of loneliness and then show you how to deal with these levels. Now if you are saying to yourself, “Me, lonely. Are you kidding me?” I will guarantee you something. All of us, including myself, all of us are dealing with one or more of these levels of loneliness. So we better understand how to face them.
Level 1: Spiritual Loneliness. We are all born with an L-1 situation. We are born lonely. We are born separated from God. The prophet, Isaiah, alluded to this in Isaiah 59:2 when he said, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God….” When God saw our separation, when He saw the implications of our state of loneliness, He didn’t just say, “Well, too bad for you, I guess you will live a lonely life.” God did something, but let me read on before I talk about that. “…your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” Some of you have that gnawing sense that something is not right, something is amiss. It is loneliness. You are spiritually lonely.
You have been on a search for significance. You thought that joining this club or this team or climbing this corporate ladder would do it, but it hasn’t worked. You thought that making this amount of money would do it but it hasn’t worked. You thought that getting married to that person would do it, but it hasn’t worked. You thought that cranking out a couple of kids would do it, but it hasn’t worked. You know down deep that you are lonely. You are spiritually lonely. I don’t care what you do, how much money you can pile up, how many toys and things you can accumulate, it is not going to fill that void in your life. The math doesn’t work. So maybe today some of you need to make a Level 1 decision. Maybe today some of you need to allow Jesus Christ to come into your life. But the choice is up to you. It is your call.
We serve an initiative-taking God. When God saw our loneliness, this chasm, this gap caused by our sinfulness, He sent Christ to live a perfect life and to die on the cross for our sins and rise again. That is the message of Christianity. When Jesus was dying there on the cross, what did He say? Some of His last words were chilling words. Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why have You, God, turned Your back on Me? Why this loneliness, God? Jesus experienced a level of loneliness, friends, like we will never, ever experience. When Jesus was doing the redemptive act, God the Father had to turn his back on His Son, He had to separate Himself from His Son. Jesus felt this level of loneliness, that we cannot even express in words, as He paid for your sins and mine. Why? Because He did not want us to go through life and eternity missing true community with God. He paved the way for us to get to God, and it is through a personal relationship with Him.
It is paradoxical when you think about it, because it is our loneliness that drives us to our knees. It is our loneliness that motivates us to become Christ-followers. Talk to people who have just stepped over the line. Talk to people who’ve been followers of the Lord for years and years. They’ll tell you that they felt lonely, a gnawing sense that something was wrong, a hole in their heart, that drove them to their knees and they received Christ. Maybe you are there. And if you are there, make a Level 1 spiritual connection with God through Christ. It all begins there.
What if you are a believer? What if you have stepped over the line? What if you are like me and you know Christ personally, but now and then you still feel feelings of loneliness? We know, if we have accepted Christ that we can never experience true loneliness again. Never. But we still feel feelings of loneliness, what do we do with those feelings when loneliness rears its ugly head and tries to knock you on your rear? What do we do about it? We have to deal with the feelings. And the feelings are subject to our decision-making capacity fueled by the Holy Spirit of God.
We can either take those feelings of loneliness and allow them to push us away from God, think about what we don’t have, or we can allow those feelings to push us toward God. We can pray, “God, I am feeling feelings of loneliness. I know I am not truly lonely because I know You. But I am feeling the feelings. God, fill the gap. Fill the void. Help me, God, with your grace and your love and your power. Help me.”
The Apostle Paul processed this. 2 Timothy 4:16-17, “At my first defense no one came to my support….” Have you ever felt that you are the only one standing for Christ at the office? The only one living that life around the neighborhood? “…But everyone deserted me…. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.” We have got to recognize the companionship of Christ. It is a 24/7 situation. What did Jesus say to His disciples right before He left this earth and went to heaven? “I will never leave you, and I will never forsake you.” It is all about Level 1. Do you have that Level 1 loneliness quenched? Have you met God through Christ? Or maybe you know Him, are you allowing the feelings of loneliness that sometimes assault you to push you closer and closer and deeper and deeper into Him or not?
Let’s talk about the next level of loneliness. Level 2: Relational Loneliness. If you go back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and read over the first two or three chapters, you’ll see God creating. And after every creative act, God stepped back and said, “It is good.” God was on a roll. It is good. It is good. It is good. Then God made man in his image and God said, “It is very good.” Suddenly, though, in Genesis 2:18, something changes. Adam, the first man had Level 1 going on, he was connected with God. He was interacting with Him. God saw, though, a Level 2 problem and He labeled something as not good. Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”
God didn’t go into denial. God didn’t try to explain it away. He said that there was a Level 2 need and that He would make someone suitable for Adam. God took the initiative with Adam. He took the initiative with Christ. We serve a God who steps out of the shadows and is proactive. That’s what God did. And God’s game plan is basic. He wants us to have a vibrant connection with Him through Christ and also He wants us to walk deeply in relationships with others. That is God’s agenda.
Jesus nutshelled this in a couple of succinct sentences. Matthew 22:37 & 39, “Love the Lord your God”—that is an intentional thing—“with all you heart”—that is intensity—“with all your soul”—intensity—“with all your mind”—intensity. “This is the first”—Level 1—“and greatest commandment. And the second it like it”—Level 2—“love”—intentional—“your neighbor as yourself”—intensity.
So we have intentionality, a decision to love, followed by intensity. Level 1, Level 2. Must be pretty important. Must be huge. The Bible never tells me or you to love ourselves. That is a given. I love myself. You love yourself, too. But when I am asked to love my neighbor as myself, wow. Hunks of us say, “I want to have deep relationships. I want to really, really connect with others.” A lot of us say that, but in reality we don’t really mean it. Most of us have hydroplane relationships. When you are driving and you hit a patch of ice, the wheels aren’t really on the pavement, they are on the ice. You are just skimming. And we do that in relationships. We have known people for a long, long time and we are still talking about the same stuff; the weather, sports, current events. We are fearful to really relate to them on a deep level. Why? Because we say to ourselves, “If they could really peruse the portfolio of my problems, they would reject me; they wouldn’t like me. They wouldn’t believe what I am dealing with or what I have done or what I am struggling with. They would totally keep me at arms length.”
That is not true. That is not true at all. If we would come clean and commit to God, Level 1, and commit to God, Level 2, and begin to share who we are with people, people would sigh and say they are struggling with the same thing, dealing with the same issue. Sometimes we become all freaky about relationships. Have you ever done that before? Sometimes we put too much weight, too much stuff on the shoulders of human beings.
We have an elevator in our complex. There is a sign in it saying, “The maximum capacity is 2,500 pounds.” If the maximum capacity is exceeded, you are going to be in trouble on that elevator. During our Christmas Eve service, the elevator stalled between floors—too much weight on it. We see a relationship and kind of turn our backs on Level 1 and just go to Level 2 and put all of this stuff, all these expectations and pressure on human relationships. Though it says, “maximum capacity 2,500 pounds,” we are putting thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds on humans, and we expect human beings to meet needs that only God can meet. No wonder we have gone through so many relationships. No wonder we have gone through so many marriages. You are expecting your spouse to meet needs only God can meet. You can’t put those kind of expectations on your wife or your husband or your friend. I don’t know about you, but my friends can’t deliver me from evil. I don’t know about you, but my friends cannot answer my prayers. I don’t know about you, but my friends cannot forgive me of my sins, or guide me or lead me. Only God can.
We sometimes become so intensive, so freaky and so clingy and so whiney in human relationships that we forget about Level 1. We put so much pressure on them that we turn off the person we are trying to relate to. They are saying, “Whoa, what’s up with them? Man. Chill. Cool out.” And they kind of push us away, and we feel rejected. Go back to Level 1. Our Savior has to be the source of our relational strength. When we connect with Him, when we walk with Him, when we talk with Him, then we have some real power to bring to the relationship. Because a true friend is going to point you to Christ. A true friend will deepen your relationship with Him. A true friend sees themselves as an extension of God in the relationship.
God is a jealous God. I am going to talk about that next weekend. And if you are putting these kind of expectations on relationships, God will find a way to end the relationship. What do we do? Are we serious about Level 2? What do we do? Do we really want those deep water relationships? Several suggestions. I am still at Level 2 now.
Number 1, take regular relational risks. Every time we take a relational risk, we are reflecting the character and nature of God. Every time. When we don’t, we are disobeying God. Proverbs 18:24, “A man that hath friends….” Let me stop there. A man who has friends. We all want friends. And if you want to have friends, ask yourself several questions. “What kind of friend would I like to have? Am I willing to be that kind of friend? Am I really willing to be that kind of friend?”
I have moved around a lot. I have moved from Canton, North Carolina, to Taylor, South Carolina, to Columbia, South Carolina, to Houston, Texas, to Tallahassee, Florida, back to Houston, Texas, and from there to Dallas, Texas. I am here. I am locked in. A while back I was looking at my relationships and asking myself what were the qualities in those relationships that God has given me over the years. Ding dong, it came to me. I have taken the initiative in almost every relationship. I have taken regular relational risks. I read on, “…must show himself friendly.”
Here is what most of us do regarding relationships. The church is to be a relational body. Let me demonstrate. Week in and week out, we walk into the church and we look for a seat. We are thinking to ourselves, “Boy, there sure are a lot of people here. Excuse me, I want to sit down over there. Boy, this is a big church.” And we just sit there. And this happens weekend after weekend after weekend. And then after awhile, after several months, we say, “No one talked to me. No one came up to me. The church is just not a friendly church. It is full of snobs.” Then we will go to another church and do the same thing, the same way. After a while we will say, “No one talked to me. No one came up to me. I guess that church is just full of snobs. Yep, snobs. No one cares about me. You know, I want to relate to people. I want to talk to people but no one comes up to me.”
Please, let’s don’t give that weak stuff to God. Let’s take relational risks. Let’s step out. There is no telling what God will do through an ordinary you taking an ordinary relational risk. Gallop says that the average church member knows 67 people per church, whether the church has 150 people in it, 11,000, or 25,000. And the great thing about the Fellowship Church is that it is a large church. If you meet somebody and you don’t jell, you don’t mesh, that’s OK. Look at all the other opportunities there. And you can meet anybody and everybody here. You can meet teachers, repair persons, professional athletes, pastors, realtors, whatever.
I would hate to get to the end of my life and have God say, “Ed, you know you did a pretty good job at doing this and doing that. However, I had so many relational opportunities for you at the church, but, Ed, you just sat there and waited for people to come up to you. You just sat there and didn’t do a thing. You just sat there and didn’t take initiative. You just sat there. I wanted this person to help you. I was going to speak through this person in your life but you missed it.” The church is to be a social church. Am I just making this stuff up? Read about the early church in Acts 2. They met together in the temple courts, then they met from house to house.
Here is another suggestion. I am still talking about Level 2. This suggestion is one you rarely hear articulated in a church. It is one of the commands of being a card-carrying Christian. Hospitality. We need to make hospitality happen. Yes, we need to take regular relational risks, but also we need to make hospitality happen. 1 Peter 4:9, “Offer hospitality to one another”—I like this part—“without grumbling.” I am talking about that initiative-taking, hand-shaking, house-warming, guest-comforting mentality that says, “Come on over with us to Wendy’s,” or “Pour some more water in the soup. Let’s have a good time.” That’s hospitality. Are you being hospitable?
The Lord hit me with a bolo punch a few years ago about hospitality. I was on a mission trip with Lisa. We were in Korea, and a missionary invited us over to her two-room house to spend the night. She served us Spam and Saltines with Kool-Aid. She threw a mat on the floor. She didn’t say, “Well, I’m sorry. This is all I can serve. This is all I have.” She was hospitable. Hospitality is having what you have and using it for the glory of God. Yet a lot of us walk around here with three, four, five, or six bedroom homes and haven’t invited anyone over yet. “It would take me to long it clean it up.” “I can’t really cook that well.” “I don’t know what to say.” Just try it. Man, you are missing some great blessings from God Himself. The book of Hebrews says that often we entertain angels without even knowing it. We are commanded to practice hospitality.
Taking it a step deeper, our entire church, the infrastructure of Fellowship, is built on hospitality. Many of us are only one step away from Level 2 community. A Home Team is a cluster of single or married adults who meet throughout the Dallas/Ft. Worth area for fellowship and Bible study. I cannot describe to you the letters we receive week in and week out about the blessings of Home Teams. Yes, we are commanded to corporately worship God, but true life change takes place in a small group. We want to grow smaller while we grow larger. “Well, Ed, they might ask me a question about the Bible. I don’t know that much about the Bible. They might put me on the spot.” No, they won’t. It is a cool deal, a casual deal, but a life changing deal. And we have got to connect before the crises of life hit us. We have to connect because of community. We have to connect because of the loneliness that we are feeling. We have to connect because of what we will bring to the small group table.
If you are lonely, for the most part, you are lazy. If you are lonely, get outside of yourself. I can’t take you and grab you by the dress or the shirt and drag you into Home Teams. You have got to do it. But I am so saddened that many of you have gone to church year after year after year without connecting this way. One day when the bottom drops out, who is going to help you? Who is going to serve you? Who is going to support you? Who is going to take care of you? Who are your real friends?
What are the fringe benefits of this stuff? Let me hit a couple of them right quick. Still talking about Level 2. It will deepen and mature you like nothing else. When you think about spiritual maturity, when you check it out in the Bible, it is always others centered. We are to love one another, serve one another, help one another. Everything is getting outside of ourselves. It will deepen your faith. It will cause you to have to articulate your faith and welcome people. Number two, it will broaden your horizons. “You mean other people are living in the world who didn’t go to Texas A&M?” “You mean other people are living in the world who don’t have the same skin color that I do? Really?” Yes. They are here at Fellowship. You want to do something that really makes an impression on your children? Do the Level 2 stuff. They will see you sharing your resources. They will see you helping one another. That is what God did for us.
Let’s talk about Level 3. Well, really I can’t talk about it very much, it is eternal. Level 3 is reserved for those of us here who have met Christ personally. Level 3 is that eternal quenching that will occur when we move from this life into heaven. That’s it. Level 3, though, this eternal quenching will have Level 1 and Level 2 going on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. We are wired up for a happy ending, aren’t we? Everything in our life points toward it. That is why we like to watch movies with a happy ending. That is why children’s books end saying and they lived happily every after. God has set eternity in our hearts. So true fulfillment will only occur in eternity.
Well, that’s the fear of loneliness. We talked about a lot of data we need to download and process and live out. And I can guarantee you something. When we do, life change will take place. So the next time the fear of loneliness lowers its ugly bucket head and tries to knock you on your rear, remember Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.