Sermon Tone Analysis

| *PRINTED* |

Becoming a Person of Solitude in a Culture of Crowds

!!! Restoring the Savour of our Salt Series               Message # 9

 

 

We’re going to be looking today at a passage in Mark chapter 6. We’ve been in a series of messages about restoring the savour of our salt as we confront the culture in which we live.

We’ve been talking about the fact that I am either being molded by the culture around me, or I am being molded by the Word of God.

I have two options.

Somebody is molding me.

Somebody is changing me.

We’ve been talking about the fact that I can project my life down the road twenty years, and if I keep making the choices I am making, keep thinking the way I’m thinking, keep doing the things that I’m doing, keep nursing the attitudes that I have in my heart—I can project where I will be in twenty years.

And we are trying to think about the idea that we want to be people who are molded by the Word of God so that as we project our lives twenty years down the road, that we see a good and encouraging outcome.

Mark chapter 6. We’ll be reading from verse 6 down to verse 13, and then drop down and pick up the story again in verse 30.

If you’d like to follow along with me, that would be great.

Mark chapter 6, middle of verse 6, speaking about the Lord Jesus.

It says, “And he went round about the villages, teaching.

7 ¶  And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits; 8  And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: 9  But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.

10  And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place.

11  And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them.

Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

12  And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

13  And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.”

Then go down to verse 30 to pick up the thread.

“And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.

31  And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.

32  And they departed into a desert place by ship privately.

33  And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him.”

I’d like to tell you two very short stories, and ask you to say to yourself, which life do I identify with.

The first man is a man who is a carpenter and contractor.

He is a man very deeply committed to God.

He loves the Lord greatly.

He lives throughout the week for the Lord.

And he has one very interesting feature about his life.

This man, on a regular basis, has quiet solitude alone, away from everybody else.

He is a person who is very much at ease saying “no” to people.

He is a person who has margin in his life.

On Sunday afternoons he typically disappears into his study and is not seen or heard from for several hours.

He spent those hours alone every Sunday afternoon, away from other people.

A second man is also a believer in Jesus Christ.

He is a missionary and a pilot.

This man habitually stays on the go.

He was in and out.

He comes in change clothes, eats, and leaves.

Come in, drop something off and leave.

He would come in and get a tool and leave.

All the time—he has more energy than a squirrel with ADD.

He is just gone everywhere.

Two different people, both of them who are believers in Jesus Christ, with drastically different lifestyles.

I’d like to ask you today to reflect on your own life and say to yourself, which life is my life like?

The difference, the contrast between these two lives is arresting.

I’d like us to think today as we look at the passage we read a few minutes ago, about becoming a person of solitude in a culture of crowds.

Let me define four terms.

They are so obviously simple you may think it foolish for me to define them, but I want to just take a minute to talk about them.

Number one, the first term is the term loneliness.

Loneliness is very simply the feeling and the belief that you are alone in the world, that no one cares about you.

Loneliness can happen on a deserted island, it can happen in a crowded school.

Loneliness can happen in an empty room or a jam-packed elevator.

It is simply the belief and the feeling that you are alone and nobody cares for you.

Definition two.

Crowds.

They are very simply a large gathering of people and generally speaking they are not necessarily relating to each other.

It’s just a large number of people packed in one place, congestion, noise, etc.

It happens at sporting events, it happens at entertainment events.

It happens at political events.

It happens at the store, at the mall, it happens on the highways.

And despite the incredible number of crowds in America, we are profoundly lonely people.

We are a nation of lonely people even though we live in the midst of crowds.

One person had a song years ago that had this phrase: “I don’t need a crowded house with nobody home.”

Whoever wrote that line understood the difference between crowds and relationship.

The third term I want to define is the term community.

A community is a group of people who are gathered together in genuine relationship.

A community is different than a crowd.

A crowd is measured by the number of people who came there.

A community is measured by quality of relationship among the people.

If you are living in a community, it means you are living with people who are deeply committed to you, with people who forgive you, people who cut you slack, people who care about what is happening to you, people who are willing to help you even at personal sacrifice.

Community is far different than crowds.

Last term I want to think about is the term solitude.

Solitude is very simply the practice of getting away from the crowds, getting away from community, getting away from other people for the express purpose of having a quiet place to relate to God Himself.

The goal of solitude is to find a place to be in relationship with God alone.

It usually requires silence, quiet, away from other people.

There is a very tricky relationship between community and solitude.

We need community.

We need to be with other people.

We need grace and truth relationships.

Several weeks back we talked about being a person of community in a culture of isolation.

What I am going to say today does not contradict that, does not violate that.

The two of them work together in balance and harmony.

We need relationships with other people.

We need time of solitude when we are out of relationships with other people.

I’d like to read a quote from Deitrich Bonheoffer.

Bonheoffer was a pastor during World War II in Germany, who openly opposed Hitler and the Nazi forces.

He was imprisoned in a prison camp.

He was killed just weeks before the Allies liberated the prison camps in Nazi Germany.

Bonheoffer wrote a book called /Life Together./

In that book, he said, “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.

Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils.

The person who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings.

The person who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.”

We need community, and we need solitude.

I want to ask you to think with me today about this passage in Mark chapter 6, and a spiritual chain of events that happened here when the Lord Jesus taught His disciples about their tremendous need for solitude.

Link # 1 in this chain of events—the disciples are immersed in ministry, immersed in relationships, and in responsibilities and in the regular stuff of life.