Lonely People
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but the world is increasingly becoming a lonely place.
All of our social media accounts haven’t solved the problem or filled the void we all have for real relationships. More and more people are feeling isolated, alone, and they feel like no one cares about them.
Maybe you’ve felt that way, or maybe you feel that way today. I’m not sure if there’s a worse feeling than feeling all alone.
Isn’t it amazing that you can live in a city full of people and feel completely alone?
That you can have over a 1000 friends on facebook or followers on Instagram and still feel like you have no one to talk to?
That you can sit in church with a room full of people you know would do anything for you and still feel like no one cares?
Yet, this is our reality.
And it’s a problem.
But God has an answer.
What I want to suggest is this simple yet powerful truth, people need people. Everybody needs somebody who knows them by name and cares about how they are doing, really.
How many times have you been asked today, “How are you doing?” And how many times did you say, “Fine.”
That’s all well and good, but we all need somebody we can be honest with and either say, I really am doing fine. Or… I’m not and here’s why!
People need people. Everybody needs somebody they can be real with. We were never created to do life on our own. We need people. We need each other.
An Unpopular Opinion
So let me begin by sharing an unpopular opinion:
Church attendance is important. Church membership is essential.
I say this is an unpopular opinion because we live in a world where fewer people that ever before are attending church. Someone recently told me that people who consider themselves committed members of their church only attend church 1.3 times per month! If that’s true, then it isn’t a stretch to suggest that most people in our world today don’t think attending church is a priority. If they can make it, great. If not, hopefully they can be there next week.
And when church attendance is in decline, church membership follows. People begin to believe the lie that they don’t need church. Do they need God? Sure. Yes. But the church? Not so much.
The Lie
Let me ask you a question, if you were the devil what lie would you try to convince good people to believe?
What idea would you try to plant in people’s heads that would seem harmless but would have catastrophic effects if in fact they believed the lie and began to live the lie?
Can you think of a better lie you could whisper into the ear of a good, Christian person than this? “As long as you believe in God it’s not a big deal to miss church.”
“Sure, you need God. But the church? Those people are just a bunch of hypocrites.”
We’ve all thought something like that, felt something like that, and even believed something like that from time to time. And that’s for a lot of different reasons.
But today I want to call us back to the simple truth that church matters.
Remember when…
Do you remember the days when your mom was cooking dinner in the kitchen and needed a cup of sugar, or maybe just a little more flour, but instead of sending you to the store to get some more, she sent you across the street to your neighbors house to borrow that cup of sugar, or to borrow just a little bit of flour?
I don’t know why we ever borrowed sugar or flour, it’s not like we ever returned it! But we did!
Or the time when your dad needed a tool that he didn’t have, or a little more gas for the lawn mower, but instead of making a run to Ace Hardware or the gas station down the street, you looked over the fence at your neighbor and asked them for whatever you needed?
There was a time when we leaned on each other a little more and relied on friends and neighbors for help in small ways that may have seemed insignificant but created connective tissue that held communities together.
I remember when I was 16 years old, my grandfather gave me his truck! I was so excited. It was a 1980 Blue Chevrolet Custom Deluxe. It had a bench seat in the front, 3 gear column shift, and in order to get the windows down you had to manually roll down the windows. There was only one problem, it didn’t run! The engine was shot.
But not to worry, my dad decided to buy a rebuilt engine and with the help of a friend from church, they worked every night in the garage to remove the old engine and put in this new engine. As far as I know, neither of them had done this before, but they thought they could figure it out. And for the most part, they did.
My dad was able to do that because he had a friend from church who said, “I can help you with that.”
We used to live in a world like that. The kind of world where we helped each other a little more. The kind of world where we called people when we had questions. The kind of world where we asked other human beings how to do things and if they could help us do something we didn’t know how to do, they would.
But today we hire help, we turn to Google and YouTube with our questions, and we really don’t want to bother any one else with our problems.
But can we be honest? We are struggling.
Google is a great resource but it is a terrible friend, an even worse counselor, and it doesn’t, contrary to popular belief, have the best answers to life’s hardest questions.
YouTube, as helpful as it can be, cannot fill the void we have for meaningful interaction. Consuming digital content does not equal making meaningful connections.
Virtual connectivity does not = True Community.
And ChatGPT isn’t going to solve our problems either.
We are striving to do life on our own and, if we’re honest, we’re struggling to do life on our own.
But we were never created to do life on our own. We were not created to be lonely. That’s why it hurts so much.
Good News for the Lonely
The good news is God has an answer for the loneliness we all face. God knows that we need people.
I could show you this in a million different places throughout scripture but I want to begin with Jesus today. You probably know this story. Even if you didn’t grow up in church, you’ve probably heard what Jesus said about what is most important.
This story is found in Matthew 22:36-40.
Matthew was one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers and he writes his story of the life and ministry of Jesus primarily so that his people could come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth really was and is God’s Messiah.
For the Jewish people that was a crazy claim. One of his own disciples even asked the question early on, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” And the answer was, “YES!”
And right here, near the end of Matthew’s gospel story, his Good News story that something good has come out of Nazareth, that God’s Messiah has arrived in the person of Jesus, we have this story, this moment where Jesus is confronted with a question designed to trap him. But Jesus turns this trap into an opportunity to share an eternal truth.
Here’s the question his opponents were asking…
36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Now that question may not sound like a trap to you, but what you need to know is that the Pharisees had taken the law of Moses and parsed out some 633 commands that they said people had to keep in order to please God. So which one would Jesus pick? Which one would he elevate? They were convinced that no matter what he said, they could come back and say… but what about this!
For those of you who have kids or work with kids, you know all about this.
The other day I told my daughter, “No one loves you more than I do.” I was just trying to be sweet, to be a good dad, you know? But she fired back, “That’s not true, God loves me more than you!” Ok. Yes, you got me! With some people, you just can’t win!
The Pharisees were ready to fire back at whatever Jesus said, to rebut whatever answer Jesus gave.
“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Here’s what Jesus said…
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
What is most important?
Love God. With what? With everything. Everything? Yes, everything. Everything you have and everything you are. Everything within you and everything within your reach.
That’s the first thing, but there’s a second thing and it is of equal importance so don’t miss this. ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
In other words, Love people. Why? Because, people need people. We need each other.
And O, by the way, Jesus says, Everything hangs on these two things. All 633 laws you’ve come up with, all the details you’ve parsed out from the Law of Moses, if you do these two things the other 631 will work themselves out.
The Pharisees were ready to fire back, but they didn’t have a comeback to that.
We tell this story and we preach this story and we turn this story into the mission and vision of our churches, Love God and Love People. And that’s all good! But what sometimes gets lost in what Jesus said is this simple yet eternal truth.
People need God.
And… people need people.
We need God. And, we need each other. And if you ask me, that’s why God gave us the church.
The Problem of Loneliness
A report released this year by our own Surgeon General titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” revealed that even BEFORE the Covid-19 pandemic, about half of the adults in the US experienced measurable levels of loneliness.
Not only that, but they’ve discovered that there are physical consequences due to poor relational connections. Loneliness can lead to a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.
According to the US Surgeon General, what he calls “social connection” can decrease anxiety, heart disease, high blood pressure, dementia, depression, and diabetes!
There may be an epidemic of loneliness and isolation in America, but I would suggest it’s not an epidemic, it’s a pandemic. The UK now has a Minister of Loneliness to address the more than 9 million people in the UK who reportedly “always or often feel lonely.”
Social Isolation and Loneliness is even recognized as a global problem by the World Health Organization!
Why is this such a problem?
The world cannot supply what only God can provide.
I for one am glad that governments and health organizations around the world are recognizing the problem of isolation and loneliness, and I support every effort to help people make meaningful connections, but the truth is only God can supply the kind of friendship and relationship that will carry us through this life.
It’s a secret but it’s an open secret:
The church is God’s answer to the deep loneliness people feel and experience.
And the church is not a building. We have a building, but we are not a building. Just like my family has a house, but my family is not a house.
We are not a building. We are a church. And the church is you. The church is me. Wherever we gather, we are the church.
And when we commit ourselves to loving each other, to not just “doing church,” but to being the church, something happens.
A lot of people, a lot of Christian people, are committed to attending church and doing church, but not to being the church. You understand the difference?
If we attend church so that we can do church, so that we can sing a few songs, say a few prayers, read a few verses, give a few dollars, check all the boxes, then go home and go about our day, then we may have participated in a seemingly religious activity, but that’s not what it means to belong to a church, to be a part of the body of Christ.
If we are members of God’s church, then we are members of His body. We are a part of the body of Christ, the bride of Christ. And when we gather something entirely different takes place. We find meaning, and purpose, and belonging not in this place, but WITH each other.
We love each other as Christ has loved us and in loving each other in that way, we build friendship but not just friendship, Spiritual Friendship. We look to each other for help, we learn from one another about what it means to follow Jesus, we lean on each other when life is hard, we celebrate with each other when life is good, we lift each other up when we’re down, and we lead one another into the presence of Jesus.
Why Does Church Matter?
Why does church matter for you? Why should church matter to you?
In 2016 a new musical entitled, “Dear Evan Hanson” premiered.
If you haven’t seen the musical, the movie, or read the book, I’ll give you an idea what it’s all about without ruining the ending.
Evan Hanson is a high school boy dealing with social anxiety. And through a series of unforeseen events, a video goes viral of Evan making a speech reminding people that we are not alone. That we have each other.
Evan sings this song, which has become an anthem for anyone and everyone who has ever felt alone, and it breaks through the feelings of isolation and brings people together.
Listen to this song and these lyrics.
Sometimes a secular song comes forward and resonates loudly with our world because at the heart of it is a gospel message. And this is the message of the gospel:
You are not alone.
Jesus came, he loved, he lived, he died, and he rose again so you could know, You will be found.
Just like the shepherd who left the 99 to find the one sheep who was lost, You will be found.
Just like the woman who turned her house upside down to find the one coin that was lost, You will be found.
Just like the Father who gave his sons everything he had so they could know whenever they felt lost and alone, They would be found.
We have a Father who is watching from the front porch for you and me to come home. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is coming after us and won’t stop until He finds us. The Spirit of the living God is turning the world upside down searching for you and for me and can’t wait to throw a party when we are found, when we come home to God, when we come home to the people of God.
You see, the lost sheep was returned to the flock, the lost coin rejoined the other nine, and the lost son was welcomed back into being a full part of the family.
We need God, YES!
But we need each other! People Need People.
And if you feel LOST and ALONE, You will be FOUND.
Everybody needs somebody. Everybody needs the church.
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