Loneliness

Appetiser

Even from before COVID-19 there has been another kind of pandemic raging: loneliness. This is ironic; we are arguably the most connected generation! Yet there are scores of people who don’t feel connected to anyone. They’re lonely. Chances are there are some of you, listening to this, who feel so right now.

This is a vast and varied topic. You can be lonely in so many different ways and for so many reasons. Just in my preparation, I have read passages from Scripture which highlight the following reasons why you may feel lonely: sin, remorse, disease, insomnia, depression, poverty, old age, dying and the approach of death, lack of friends, social ostracism, public shame, desertion, loss of family, loss of identity, discontent and disability... And I’m not suggesting this is an exhaustive list.

Here is the plan: the Bible teaches us of the root of all of this, and I would like to deal with that root today. I will also detail certain things you and we as a church can and should be doing to help whatever kind of loneliness it is you are facing. But beyond that, as your Pastor, I am placed here “for your progress and joy in the faith”, to allude to what Paul said in Philippians 1:25. So when it comes to specifics, I would love to talk to you in person, hear you out, and pray with you. Treat this sermon as foundational for all of that, for all of our thinking.

Let’s read Genesis 2:4-25.

Main Course

Creation

We were made for relationship with God

Look especially at v7-8; the first man was made by God, and was given life by God. We also see here that the LORD God placed him in the Garden of Eden. The text is full of clues that communicate that this place was like the first temple: the place where God would live with man. I can’t go into all the details to support this now, but perhaps it helps to note that in Ezekiel 28:13 this place is referred to as “the garden of God”.

Man was created to live with God, work with God by tending the garden made by God, and fill the earth for the glory of God. Fill the earth… This leads us onto the next topic here:

We were made for relationship with one another

We see from Genesis 1:27 that God was not thinking of a single man, but mankind as His ultimate goal for creating image-bearers. He created them “male and female”, and blessed them, commanded them to “fill the earth and subdue it” (v28).

The blessing of marriage. And so we read in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” The following verses detail how another human being would be created, out of the man, for this purpose. One like him, but also unlike him: he is a man, she would be a woman, a complement, a help to him. Without her, he would still be fully human. This is important to note, Friends. There was nothing wrong with Adam; but for God’s purposes for filling the earth with mankind, he needed a wife. Yet in her he gained not only a “tool”, like domesticated animals could be; he gained a companion, and it filled Adam’s soul with song (v23). In this we see God’s kindness to him, as well as a foundational design feature in him: he is created for relationship with a fellow human being.

The implication for other relationships. To this day, there is no closer and more intimate relationship between two human beings than marriage. Only there can we still be naked and not ashamed (v25). But it is not marriage, but godly humanity, made up of families and individuals, that God’s ultimate goal here was. God’s desire is for a humanity of worshippers, living in harmony with Him and one another. In such a world, nobody would be alone, nor lonely: disconnected from others. But something happened—and to this we turn next.

Fall

Sin has destroyed our relationship with God

Reading further, in Genesis 3:1, 4-5 we see how the snake (who is later revealed to be used by Satan, Revelation 12:9) torpedoes the woman’s faith in God’s goodness. Her husband is with her (v6), listening to all this. Sadly, they trust the snake more than the God Who made them; they eat from the fruit God forbade them. They become sinners. Notice the effect this has on their relationship with God:

Trust has been replaced with mistrust. The tree that showed them God’s wisdom now seems to speak of God’s stinginess. He has abused His power and authority, as they saw it. And so they will no longer trust Him. Their relationship to God is polluted.

They are filled with shame, v7. The phrase “the eyes of both of them were opened” has a double edge. Yes, it applies physically, as is evident from this verse. But in context, it also speaks of a realisation that they have indeed been lied to—but not by God; the snake! They realised their nakedness—their shame. For it is shameful to distrust the kindest Being in the world.

God is no longer safe company, v8: Their Maker is no longer their Friend. So fear accompanies their shame. They may be in God’s presence, but they are cut off from Him.

As Adam’s offspring, both you are also are sinners from the moment of our conception, as Romans 5:12 makes it clear. We are guilty before God, and our relationship is one of enmity with Him. This is the fundamental relationship that we need fixing.

Sin has destroyed our relationship with one another

v7 also shows that the man and his wife tried to cover up their nakedness. Viewed in light of 2:25, this is very revealing: the most intimate of relationship has been turned sour. They are not only unsafe before God; they’re unsafe before each other.

You and I both know the feeling of knowing we’ve done something wrong, and so we feel the need to hide it lest others find out and we’re discredited before them. This is what sin does to us: turns us inside. We don’t want to be seen—yet we desire companionship! And so sin drives a wedge between us.

If sin is able to bring this heartache into the most intimate relationship, how much more into wider society? Into friendships, work relationships, in the school, in the neighbourhood... There is so many of us, and yet we can feel so alone.

So this is the heart of the problem. We are not functioning well (none of us are), because of these severed relationships. Although when feeling lonely we often feel cut off from people, our problem lies in being cut off from God.

Remember how Adam was alone for a while? Yet He wasn’t lonely; Eve was not given to address his aloneness, not fix his loneliness. For us likewise, the problem of loneliness won’t be fixed by other people. They help, but the underlying cure does not come from them. We need to be restored to God.

Maybe for the first time; you may never have been reconciled to God: today could be the day.

But maybe you are a Christian, who knows God; well, we are not immune to loneliness either, are we? David writes, as a believer in God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?”

Redemption

Christ restores our fellowship with God

Salvation comes through Christ to all who believe. These words were echoed by Jesus on the cross (Matthew 27:46). There, He underwent a God-forsakenness, just like Adam was cast out of God’s garden. Why? Did He also sin, like Adam? No. He was sinless, the only man ever to be without sin altogether—He was born, in fact, to pick up Adam’s bill, as it were. To be punished for his sins. And in so doing, Christ gave His life in exchange of Adam’s, Eve’s, and… well, who else? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Repentance and faith

Eternal life, life with God is granted to all who believe in Christ. May I ask, Friend, if you are at peace with God? Is your relationship with Him restored? Or do your sins still separate you from Him? Will you turn to Him in repentance and faith, receiving forgiveness through Jesus’s sacrificial death?

You may have already done that. You may be listening to this as a believer, and I think most of you are this morning. Brother, Sister, do you realise the love God has for you? That He would give His only Son to do away with your sin, so that you can be restored to Him—who would do such a thing? “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:7-8) And having been reconciled to God, listen to the encouragement of Psalm 68:5: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.” Vaughan Roberts says:

“We might be bereaved, divorced, unhappily single or in a difficult marriage, but as Christians we are never alone.”

It is by faith in God that the believer lives. This means that you may frequently need to remind yourself, when you feel like this: “Look and see, there is no one at my right hand; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life.” (Psalm 142:4) of the truth of this: “I cry to you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.’” (v5) Apply the truth of God to your lonely heart.

Christ restores our relationships with one another

God also graciously restores our relationship to fellow human beings through Christ. Primarily, this is to be seen and experienced in the church.

Restored humanity. Let’s read Galatians 3:26-29. Do you see the reconciliation Christ brings? It’s not that God does away with our differences; it’s that He brings us together in Christ, as “children of God through faith”. This is why we call each other “brother” and “sister”—do that often! We are a family of worshippers—God’s original plan is being realised in the church. It is there that “God sets the lonely in families”, we read in Psalm 68:6a. And Jesus reminds us that this is so in Mark 10:29-30.

A foretaste of our future hope. Let’s not be naive, though. The church is not perfect. You can be hurt here, and seriously so. Your brother, sister is not the finished product—and neither are you. We wait for our perfection, our glorification, when Christ returns. But the church is a real foretaste of the sweetness of our humanity fully restored as God-worshippers. So be a brother; be a sister. Be a spiritual father or mother to those younger in the faith. Let us care for one another, love one another, as Christ has loved us. Let us pray for and with one another, binding our hearts together before the Lord. Let us bring God’s Word to one another at all times. This is how God cares for the lonely among His people.

Pudding

Beloved, let me reiterate: this sermon was not meant to be a fix-it-all-in-one-go. But I do call you to receive this teaching of God’s Word in faith. Let us come alongside one another: not just the lonely, but all, to be those companions who constantly remind each other of the blessed fellowship we have with God through Christ.