The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Classic Version, 2015Mfano

The Answer to Loneliness

I remember reading an article in The Big Issue (the magazine sold by, and in aid of, the homeless) called ‘Single Lives’. It pointed out that most people’s image of loneliness in London is of a frail old lady stuck on the 24th floor of a block of flats. In reality, it could equally be a young, fashionably dressed guy trying desperately to make conversation with a girl standing next to him in a crowded bar. Being surrounded by so many people only compounds the feeling of isolation.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, ‘Loneliness and the feeling of being uncared for and unwanted are the greatest poverty.’ Loneliness is one of the greatest problems facing humanity today.

‘The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms,’ writes Desmond Tutu. He continues, ‘We are made for complementarity. We are created for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence with our fellow human beings ... We belong in one family – God’s family, the human family ... the greatest good is communal harmony.’

God does not intend for you to be lonely and isolated. Loneliness has been described as ‘a homesickness for God’. God created you for community – calling you into relationship with him and with other human beings.

Psalm 120:1-7

1. A peaceful community

One of the main reasons for loneliness is ‘quarrelling’ (v.6, MSG), which leads to the breakdown of relationships. We see this wherever we look – broken marriages, family bust-ups, fall-outs between friends, work colleagues and neighbours. Adam and Eve’s friendship with God was broken. This led to a separation between Adam and Eve themselves. Cain and Abel quarrelled, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The psalmist is feeling isolated as though living in a foreign land: ‘Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!’ (v.5). He is surrounded by lying lips and deceitful tongues (v.2). The people he lives among hate peace (v.6) and are for war (v.7). He feels doomed to live his whole life among ‘quarrelling neighbours’ (v.6, MSG).

In his distress he calls out to the Lord to save him and the Lord answers him (v.1). He describes himself in contrast to those around him as a man of peace (v.7). This is the characteristic of the people of God: Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God’ (Matthew 5:9).

Lord, in a world full of aggression, division and the breakdown of relationships, help me to avoid unnecessary quarrelling and to be a peacemaker in my family, workplace and community.

Hebrews 8:1-13

2. A ‘new’ community

‘The local church is the hope for the world,’ writes Bill Hybels. ‘There is nothing like the local church when it is working well.’ The church in the New Testament is described as ‘the people of God’. The people of God gather in local churches all over the world. The writer of Hebrews quotes the book of Jeremiah saying, ‘I will be their God, and they will be my people’ (Hebrews 8:10). No longer isolated and alone, we are part of the most amazing community.

In the Old Testament, God made a covenant with his people. However, the people did not ‘keep their part of the bargain’ (v.9, MSG). God promised that one day he would make a new covenant, whereby he would have a new relationship with his people: ‘I will be their God, and they will be my people’ (v.10).

The people of God are far better off now than they were under the old covenant. The writer goes on to say, ‘The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises’ (v.6).

There was a problem with the old covenant, for ‘if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another’ (v.7). The problem with the old covenant was that the people were unable to keep the law. They ‘did not remain faithful’ (v.9).

God promised a new covenant that would be superior to the old one and founded on better promises. The writer goes back to the book of Jeremiah, and quotes 31:31–34.

What were these promises? They are fourfold:

• New heart
  God promises to implant his laws in our hearts. This does not mean simply committing the law to memory (as per Deuteronomy 6:6–9). It means having a new heart, ‘I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts’ (Hebrews 8:10b).
• Firsthand knowledge
  He promises that the knowledge of God will be a matter of personal experience. ‘No longer will they teach their neighbours, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me’ (v.11). It is possible for all of us to know God in the way that Jeremiah knew God: ‘They’ll all get to know me firsthand’ (v.11, MSG).
• Universal scope
  ‘They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest’ (v.11b). This was a fulfilment of the promise in the Old Testament that the promise would no longer be confined to Israel and Judah but would extend to all nations (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6; 19:24).
• Total forgiveness
  ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’ (Hebrews 8:12). For the Hebrews, the word ‘remembering’ meant more than mental effort; it carried with it the sense of doing something to the advantage or disadvantage of the person who remembered. If your sins are not remembered, it means that God is determined to forgive and that the ‘slate’ of your sins is ‘forever wiped clean’ (v.12, MSG).

This new covenant is far superior and ‘has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and ageing will soon disappear’ (v.13).

This new covenant is the answer to loneliness. You have the immense privilege of belonging to the new community of God’s people. You know God personally. Your sins are forgiven. The Holy Spirit has come to live within you and given you a new heart. You are never alone.

Father, thank you for these amazing promises. Thank you so much that Jesus offered his life for me (v.3). Thank you that you put your laws in my mind and write them on my heart. Thank you that I can experience a personal relationship with you – that I can know you. Thank you that, through Jesus, you forgive my wickedness and remember my sins no more. Thank you that your Holy Spirit has come to live within me. Thank you that I am never alone.

Ezekiel 13:1-15:8

3. A faithful community

The great idols of our age are money, sex and power. But an idol can be anything we worship by giving it more attention and treating it as more important than God in our lives. It could be our home, car or possessions but it could also be our work or ministry. When we make an idol out of any of these things, it takes us away from God (14:14).

God is looking for people who are faithful to him. The problem under the old covenant was that ‘they did not remain faithful' (Hebrews 8:9). In this passage we see an example of what that meant. God spoke through Ezekiel about a country that ‘sins against me by being unfaithful … they have been unfaithful, declares the Sovereign Lord’ (Ezekiel 14:13; 15:8).

Ezekiel, the prophet, saw ahead to what we have read about in our New Testament passage for today. He foresaw a time when the people ‘will not defile themselves any more with all their sins. They will be my people, and I will be their God, declares the Sovereign Lord’ (14:11).

God’s people were ensnared by lies. As we read in the psalm about ‘lying lips’ (Psalm 120:2), so we read here about lying prophets ‘who prophesy out of their own imagination’ (Ezekiel 13:2). ‘Their visions are false and their divinations a lie’ (v.6). Using ‘magic charms’ they ‘ensnare people’ (v.18). They lie ‘to my people, who listen to lies’ (v.19). They dishearten the righteous with their lies (v.22).

How had they been unfaithful? The Lord said that they ‘set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling-blocks before their faces’ (14:3). Even in the Old Testament, the Lord was not concerned only about physical idols – but also about the idols in people’s hearts. God’s longing is for us to be a faithful vine bearing good fruit (chapter 15, see also Isaiah 5:1–7).

Lord, forgive us when we are unfaithful to you and set up idols in our hearts and put wicked stumbling-blocks before our faces. Lord, we repent and turn from idols and detestable practices (Ezekiel 14:6).

Help us to be a faithful community of the people of God – who know you, love you, and welcome everyone, ‘from the least of them to the greatest’ (Hebrews 8:11). May we be a community where many lonely, isolated people find love and forgiveness. May we be the community of the people of God, a people of peace, who know you and are faithful to you in every way.

Pippa Adds

The Old Testament passage (Ezekiel 14) is all about judgment. Thank goodness God made a ‘New Covenant’ (Hebrews 8:8–12)! Hope is restored.

Notes:

Desmond Tutu, God is Not a Christian, (Ridder, 2013) pp.21–24.

Edythe Draper, Draper's Book of Quotations, (Tyndale House Pub, 1992) pp.7130, 7132, 7146.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

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Scripture marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.