Isolation

Let’s open our bibles to hebrews chapter 10 and find with me verse 24. And let’s read together, verses 24 and 25. I spent the last three days in Ephrata with many of my friends and colleagues at the Lead Deep conference and what I can say about that experience is this… Every one of us, in this world, today….. needs one another. We’re not meant to walk this faith journey alone.

Isolation is not healthy. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are times when isolation is healthy. For instance, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert. Isolated from others, and even dealing with temptation. But the reality to that is what? Jesus’s purpose wasn’t to isolate himself indefinitely from others, but to prepare himself for what’s ahead. Think about it… After the solitude for 40 days in the desert, in Matthew we find Jesus preaching the beatitudes.

In Mark, after the isolation, Jesus began proclaiming the good news. IN Luke, We find Jesus saying the Spirit of the Lord is on me and anointed me to preach the good news. And what do we find in all three of these accounts of Jesus after isolation? We find purpose. We find Jesus gathering the disciples. You see, isolation is never to keep you from others, but at times it prepares you a d I to become available to others.

This week at Lead Deep we examined isolation a little bit during our nightly revival services. And we learned three things about the dangers of isolation… First, when we look at unhealthy isolation we realize in those moments that there is no one to help us when we fall. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the story, “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” Even one of our brothers in Christ, Bill Weed, his story was that he had fallen in his dark room of his apartment and he couldn’t get up.

And of course, it was his neighbor who heard him call for help and came to his aid a few hours after he had fallen. Think of Ecclesiastes 4:10: “If they stumble, the first will lift up his friend—but woe to anyone who is alone when he falls and there is no one to help him get up. “ In 1 Corinthians 11:18 it says, “In the first place, when you come together as a church .

. .” 1 Corinthians 14:23, “If, therefore, the whole church comes together . . .” Our Scripture in Hebrews 10:25 says, “… not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching”. We’re called to be together. The second danger of unhealthy isolation is that “We become vulnerable to deceptive thinking.” Isolation leaves a person vulnerable to the spiritual attacks of temptation to sin, depression, selfishness, and even anger.

There is no one around to speak good judgment and wisdom into your life. Who speaks encouraging things to you? What company do you keep? Are you hanging around people that are dreadful…where they are like, woe this and woe that. That’s usually a sign of a heart that’s needing grace. Think about that, but through the eyes of Jeremiah… He writes, 9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.

Who can understand it? The heart often wants what it wants without any thought about the repercussions. We need others to speak God's word, and goodness, and encouragement into our hearts. Thats why I’m encouraged knowing that by faith, God puts the Spirit of Christ into my heart that cries out abba father. My heart can be changed. Little by little, grace by grace, we find our hearts yearning and desiring God.

I was in my cohort yesterday, and we we’re talking about sanctification and holiness.. and I kept quiet listing and hearing everyone else’s thoughts.. and then the entire room looked at me and asked, Matthew, How do you pursue holiness… what’s holiness to you? And I answered this way.. holiness for me, is that my utmost desire in my life is to know God and to enjoy the glory of God to the fullness that which is available to me through Christ Jesus.

I’m starved for it. Many times, We think nothing of Isiah before the throne and hearing the angelic host singing Holy, Holy, Holy.. and even more, we forget that we read this part…. the Earth is Filled with His glory. If we just had eyes to see we would see a creation filled with his glory, but also the danger of realizing that The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Thirdly, the dangers of isolation is that the church is weakened. The Church isn’t as strong when its people are scattered. Just as the human body has many working parts, so the body of Christ consists of many people working together (1 Corinthians 12:12). Every part of a person’s body is needed, just as every believer is needed to fulfill God’s will. No one is dispensable. I’ve never read in the Bible the great cloud of witness was people away from each other..

to be. Cloud you’ve got to be a shape and form of something. When I read about heaven I never read how we worship separately. The church is weakened when we are isolated. It’s so easy to isolate ourselves. Especially when hurt happens. Sometimes, people hurt us. It’s a fact. Sometimes the busyness of our activities cause us to retreat to peace and quiet. Think of Elijah… defeating the false priests and then retreating with depression to the mountains.

Sometimes the fallenness of the world hurts us and we retreat to lick our wounds. And as we saw with Jesus, It’s okay to temporarily cocoon ourselves in isolated moments of prayer, but we shouldn’t camp out there permanently. But here’s the truth…. God gives us an antidote for this loneliness. And it’s this… Jesus. Think of the first part, One of my favorite names of Jesus is Emmanuel, which means God with us.

And When we invite His Spirit into our hearts, He is there with us forevermore. His Sprit leads us into times of solitude, and prayer, as he strengthens us and ready’s us fro service. And I just felt compelled today to let you know, that You are never alone because the Lord is with you. We’re never alone when God is with his people. God is with us. And he’s with us right now.

Isn’t that his promise? To be with us to the end of the age? Didn’t Jesus say, go and make disciples and I will be with you to the end of the age? The result of that antidote to loneliness is others. I was listing to Kerry our DS talk on stage yesterday and he began to speak on how he began to pray this… Jesus, I want to see you in the eyes of those I meet.

And he gave this story of when he would visit this guy in jail and they would pt their hand on the window before they would depart and he would pray for them.. but one time Kerry asked, instead me praying for you, would you pray for me. And he said he looked into the eyes of that man, and he saw Jesus in him. Do you know act Kerry was doing?

He was storing up love and good works in the heart of the other man. Hebrews 10:23 says, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. You see, when we have Jesus in us, the antidote to our loneliness, the result of His presence is that it draws us to others. You see, Jesus becomes our main focus. He becomes our fixed point. And holiness is moment by moment in our lives getting closer and closer to him.

Think of what Jesus says on the cross in John. “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” He draws us. And when we come and follow him, he makes us his disciples. Do you know something… when it comes to discipleship, evangelism and missions… I believe we got it all wrong. Are you a disciple of Jesus? If so, can I test that this morning…

??? A disciple of Jesus has three characteristics.… The first characteristic is that they are people who reach out to others. I’ve been thinking about this. Jesus would send his disciples out two by two to preach the good news, and heal. Ya know, I don’t see that much anymore. The Mormons do a great job at this… but do we? The second characteristic is that they Grow learn to feed themselves and others.

I’ve learned in ministry there’s a lot of people that say. I want to know more. I want to go deeper in the word. I’ve heard people even say to me, I’m not being fed here. And I’ve heard all my pastor friends say the same thing. They have people coming and saying, I’m not being fed. At some point the disciple has got to begin feeding themselves. I mean, come on.

I’ve been around christians who’s been christians there entire life that have said, I'm not being fed. If by now you’re not being fed, maybe you need to pick up the spoon yourself instead of expecting others to always be feeding you. It sounds harsh, but it’s truth. Think of what Paul speaks of to the Corinthians, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.

Indeed, you are still not ready. There are many christians like this bird I saw in a video the other dya.. watch this. The bird thought the worm was just supposed to hop in it’s mouth. The problem we see is that so many Christians come, and they open their mouths expecting steak, and prime rib and this buffet and sometimes all Jesus has for them is manna. Sometimes, you’ve got to use your hands to feed yourself.

Because you can not fed others if you’re not willing to be fed yourself. And that leads to the third characteristic of a disciples.. Gifts. Willingly use your gifts for church and community. I was at shady maple this week, and I went up to the prime rib counter and there was a guy named dan there. His job, was to serve and slice for us prime rib. I guess they dont trust us with slicing our own prime rib..

maybe they know I would take a steak portion instead of a slice portion. I looked dan in the eyes, and said, Dan, I appreciate you being here today, at your job. Because without you being here, I wouldn’t have someone to serve me my lunch. And so, for that… I want you to know, I see you, and I appreciate you. You could tell he needed to hear that. Serving sometimes is hard because we do so without any recognition.

I know we’re to give the glory to GOd, but understand this.. people are our commodity at church. We’re here for people, for one another. Are you a disciple? Jesus says, my disciples will love one another and Serve one another. Jesus says, my disciples will not sit on the sidelines and watch another suffer. But in my name go to them and care for them. They will have compassion like me, and look like me, and sound like me.

And the fact is.. we need the presence of God for all of this. We need presence more than performance. That’s another sermon we heard this weekend. It’s staying late. It’s communicating with those God has planted here. Let’s do life together. *