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Sermon
by Dr. Jeffrey Jeremiah “God’s
Answer to Loneliness” “In
children, it is the real reason behind dropping out of school, and out of
life. It sets in motion actions
that lead to outcast status and antisocial behavior.
In adults, it’s a major precipitant of depression and alcoholism.”
“It can make you feel unloved and unwanted, socially inadequate,
angry and critical of others.” What
is it? Loneliness.
The following quote is a pretty good summary of the research I did in
preparing this message: “Loneliness is a universal phenomenon.
To feel lonely is to join the rest of humanity is acknowledging that we
are somehow fundamentally separated from each other.
While we suffer a solitary existence, we are social animals, needing
each other, to connect, to bond, to love.
It is the paradox of human existence to seek to fill a need that can
never be satisfied, to fill the vortex of loneliness in our lives.”
Isn’t it incredible that as our world gets “smaller,” as
technology enables us to connect with more people more easily, that loneliness
is on the rise, is becoming a bigger, more pervasive problem in our world and
especially in our country? In my
research, I can’t recall a single group of people that isn’t struggling
with this problem. The American
Council of Life Insurance conducted a study in an effort to identify the most
lonely group in The first point is the statement of the problem. In sin, we are alienated from God, which is addressed in the first half of the chapter, especially verses 1-3. And in sin, we are alienated from one another, which is addressed in the verses we just read. That’s the statement of the problem: our sin, our desire to put ourselves at the center of the universe, with everyone and everything existing for our wants, our desires, our pleasure, has produced in our lives alienation from God and alienation with others. Sin doesn’t attract us, it doesn’t connect us; it drives us apart, it cuts us off from one another. The second
point is God’s remedy for that problem.
The solution is Jesus Christ, and what He has done for us on the cross.
Through His work on This
brings us to our third point, found in verses 19-22.
Here we have three familiar descriptions of the church, which John Stott
has called a “new society, God’s new society,” an entirely different
community of people in which alienation has been replaced by reconciliation;
division and hostility have been replaced with unity and peace; hatred and
loneliness have been replaced with love and friendship.
We are “fellow citizens with God’s people,” that is, members of
God’s kingdom. We are “members
of God’s household,” which means we’re members of God’s family.
And we’re part of “a holy temple in the Lord,” a personal part of
the center of worship and praise God is building in His people.
I want to focus our attention for a moment on being members of God’s
family, because I think it speaks most directly to God’s answer to
loneliness. I know that for some
of you, the idea of family may not bring pleasant, positive thoughts to mind.
You may have grown up in an abusive family,
you may have grown up with no family at all.
Please know that being a member of God’s family is positive and healthy
and even glorious! I think one of
the really remarkable passages in the Bible is I John 3:1, where John writes,
“How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be
called children of God!” It’s
such an incredible thought that it’s simply overwhelming to him, and he
adds, “And that is what we are!” It’s
like he’s saying, “Can you believe it?
In Jesus Christ we’re God’s children, the objects of His love that
He extravagantly lavishes on us!” If
you doubt you’re really part of God’s family when you become a Christian,
realize that to become a member of any family you must be born into it or
adopted into it. God’s Word uses
both terms to describe what it means to be a Christian.
As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born
again” (John 3:7; also 1 Peter The
question can be asked, “That all sounds wonderful, but what does this
community of believers look like in practical, real-life terms?”
One way to answer that question is to look at the repeated exhortations
in the New Testament about what we are to do for one another.
The Apostle Paul, in particular, used the Greek word for “one another”
almost 40 times to encourage us as a church, to encourage us in our
relationships with one another. I’d
like to list for you a number of them. As
you listen, think of what personal relationships look like in God’s family,
the church. Romans On your
outline I ask the question, “Will you commit to become the type of church
family God’s talking about in His Word, a ‘one another’ church?”
It doesn’t just happen. It
requires a response, a decision on our part.
Here’s an opportunity to get directly involved in making that vision
more and more a reality in this, your church.
You heard earlier this morning about “One to Another,” a ministry
that’s been in the planning stage for more than a year and is now ready to
launch. I strongly encourage you
to consider being a part of this important ministry, which I believe is going
to have a major impact for good on the quality of our life together in this
church. The goal is an ambitious
one, that all of us are connected in a meaningful, caring way to others in our
church family. Not that all of us
are connected to everyone else (that’s simply not possible).
But that all are connected to some others in a
personal, “one another” way. One
of the best ways that we can declare God’s love and life to lonely people in
our community is to be the people, the church God’s called us to be, a “one
another” church. Surely that
church is living a life that is distinctly different from the life of too many
who do not have Christ, who are not members of God’s
family, who are not in “God’s new society.”
Won’t you consider how you can make God’s vision for us your
vision, our vision and how together, blessed and empowered by the Spirit
committed to this very work, we can bring this vision to reality? |