The Insufficiency Of Isolation

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Father, we are humbled today when we uh are reminded that our sin was outrageous, it was contagious, and then there you were in the crowd, God, and no one wanted us, no one could pay the debt that we had racked up, and you raised your hand and said, I'll pay for it.

You hoisted up your son and said, How about this?

So we were redeemed not with perishable things like silver and gold, ha! But with the imperishable blood, the spotless blood of the Lamb.

So today, Lord, we need we need relationship, we need we have relational, we have uh fellowship and we need blood.

We need to have fellowship one with another, and we need the blood of Jesus applied to our lives to remind us that we've been set free.

Sin no longer has power over us.

We're not just forgiven for sin, we're set free from sin because of what the Savior has done.

And so, Lord, we want you to lay a foundation in us and continue to build upon, give us understanding, Lord, that leads to experience.

This is our prayer.

We prayed in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You can have a see if you got a Bible.

I invite you to take it and open up to Genesis chapter two.

Genesis chapter two.

We've been going through the book of Daniel.

We're gonna take a break today.

We're gonna pick up and finish Daniel after Easter.

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, the following Sunday is is Easter.

After that, we'll finish the last three chapters of Daniel because it's an incredible section uh with a lot of stuff.

And I didn't want to just get into it today and then have to wait three weeks um to finish it.

And so I want to talk to you this morning about the insufficiency of isolation.

Uh, every once in a while, I just kind of look around our culture and see what's happening, and I feel something stirring up in me.

And so this is what I want to talk to you about the insufficiency of isolation.

And and and uh I want us to see three things today.

I'm just laying my cards on the table.

Here's the three things that I'm laboring towards.

Number one, I want us to see that when we live in isolation, we're living in violation of our created purpose, which is to be seen, known, and loved.

When we live in isolation, we are living in violation of our creative purpose, which is to be seen, known, and loved.

And I want to give credit where credit is due.

Uh uh, my 17-year-old daughter is in a book club here at the church with Cheyenne, our associate student pastor, and another student, and because she's talking about her book club.

I'm like, what are you like, Oprah?

You got a book club?

Uh and so I just, hey, what do you what are y'all talking about?

And she's well, we're reading this book by Jenny Allen called Get Out of Your Head.

And it is incredible.

And by the way, if you're a mom and you've got daughters or you're you're just a woman and you're looking for something to read, I want to recommend this book to you.

It's called Get Out of Your Head by Ginny Allen.

And and I told a buddy of mine, I said to my daughter, I said, Hey, set that out because I want to I want to read this chapter you're talking about, because I was talking about isolation, and she said, Yeah, we talked about that, you know, that we're created God to be seen.

I said, I used to say we're created by God to be seen and loved.

And she goes, Well, it's it's not just that, Dad.

You're listening missing this part because Jenny Allen talks about it.

I'm like, hey, listen, I'm the preacher, don't preach to me, woman.

Uh and it was great.

My 17-year-old just said, Hey, you're created to be not just to be seen, loved, but to be known, dad.

That's the great thing.

And I'm like, What?

I told a buddy of mine, I said, Yeah, I'm gonna read this chapter in this book my daughter's reading.

And he said, The book's written by a woman?

I said, Yeah, women can teach men things.

Yeah, that's all the wives in the room.

Yeah, of course we can.

We raise y'all from being boys, we help you become a man.

Uh so if you're looking for a book to read, and some of what I'll say today, uh, I just it's like right there, but I'll I'll point out when we get to there.

Second thing I'm laboring towards is that isolation is the place where our negative self-talk dominates the dialogue.

Isolation, that's why there's so much anxiety and depression in our culture nowadays, and there's so much uh such a push for mental health, it's because we've been cooped up and crammed up and isolate for the past year, and it begins to affect uh us cognitively.

Here's the third thing I'm laboring towards that we we see that in isolation we cannot live out the one-another's of scripture.

We cannot live out the one another of scripture.

So let me just read uh uh Genesis chapter two, starting verse 15.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of uh of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Then the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.

I will make him a helper fit for him.

Now out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heaven and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken for the man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man, and the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Now I want you to see, I don't have time to preach all of that, but I read all that just to give you uh the this one part in verse 18 that man is in perfection.

He is in paradise and he is in charge.

Ladies, that is every man's fantasy to be in paradise and to be in charge.

And yet God looks down on that and says, This is not good.

This is not good.

I mean, this man has run of everything, he's got all the animals.

This is like living at the deer lease.

He's got all the animals, he gets to name them, whatever wants to name them.

There's no woman there to say, What time are you getting back?

Hey, can you think you can take me to dinner?

You've been at the deer lease for five days.

You think you can break a sister off a nice meal or something?

None of that.

And God looks down and says, This isn't good.

This is not good.

It is not good that man should be alone.

Why?

Because we're not created to be live in isolation.

I tell young men all the time, hey, listen, you you were created by God to be in a relationship with your parents, and you leave the context of that relationship and you form a relationship with your wife.

You leave and then you cleave.

You don't cleave and then leave.

That's what most guys do.

We cleave on to a girl and then we leave her and find another girl to cleave on to.

Ladies, if you if you're in a relationship with somebody, you're thinking about being in a relationship, you should ask yourself: does he understand the rhythm of relationship?

That you leave and you cleave to this person, you leave this one relationship that formed you with your mom and dad.

And then you and I get in a relationship and we become one flesh.

This is what we were created for.

And so when I say we're not created to live in isolation, I want you to see that God created us to be in relationship all along the way.

And so, Adam again, he's in paradise and he's in charge.

Some of you may be uh in our online community this morning.

You you could be sitting in the home of your dreams.

You could be in the home that you and your wife designed, you worked hard for 35 years, you saved up for, you retired, you built it, you bought it.

This is incredible.

And as you sat there this morning watching this, you have this deep ache of disconnectedness and loneliness because you look to your situation to meet needs that relationships were created to meet.

And matter of fact, one of the studies I read in preparation for today that said that uh over 80% of people over the age of 60 spend every day alone.

They do not have what they call a brush with relationship.

They don't, they don't, so the older we get, the more we just kind of check out and we say, Oh, I don't need people, I don't know, people don't matter, people are over aid, blah, blah, blah.

I just want to be a voice crying in the wilderness and saying, you were not created to live in isolation.

I don't care.

I'm not saying don't build your dream home.

I'm not saying don't retire.

I'm saying you have more time to establish and maintain nourishing relationships, is what you were created for.

So I I want to just summarize what you see because I said in the beginning that we were created to be in relationships where we're seen, known, and loved.

That's that's Jenny Allen's take on it through my 17-year-old.

Now, by the way, I love when my 17-year-old preaches to me.

Uh, because when she gets going, she gets a little passionate.

Uh, and I'm like, you got that from your mom.

Uh, and and I'll say something that she'll go, no, no, no, Dad, it's not like that.

And I'm like, oh, excuse me.

Uh, and so I sat at dinner a couple a couple weeks ago, and I just let her just talk and she's just and I would ask the question and she would get bored.

I just thought, I am so glad my daughter is spending time with Cheyenne Burge, our associate youth pastor.

So, men and women, if you've got daughters, you need to introduce them to Cheyenne because she's doing a great job of helping spiritually form our children.

But Adam and Eve are here, uh, and they let me just summarize what you see.

And and because we we we should experience horizontally from other people relationships where we're seen, known, and loved, because it reminds us that we're in a relationship or we can be in a relationship with a God who is willing to see us, know us, and love us as well.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Adam and Eve, they sin, they hide.

Uh, God comes looking to spend time for them.

He says, Adam, where are you?

And he said, God, Adam said, Hey, I kind of put it in the ditch, kind of, kind of, mmm, the one thing I said I'd never do, the one thing, I mean, you told us we could do everything, but there's one thing.

Guess what I did?

And so I was a little embarrassed, so I was I was ashamed, and so I hid myself.

Uh, and God said, It's a great question, God.

God didn't say what did you do?

He said, I was naked, so I hid, and God said, Who told you you were naked?

Matter of fact, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 3, verse 7, that their eyes were open after they sinned and they realized they were naked.

Genesis 3:7

Have you ever been anywhere naked and didn't know you were naked?

You see, because here's what happens, okay?

Don't miss this.

With sin comes shame.

With sin comes this new awareness of yourself that you do not like.

It's called shame.

And that's why they realize their eyes were open, they realized they're like, oh my gosh, I do not like this.

Because it's not what we were created to live in.

That's why the Bible ended on that note.

It says the man and woman were both naked and they were not ashamed.

I tell people all the time, marriage is the only place that you can be naked and not feel shame.

And we as a culture, because it's kind of like, I did a wedding last night in Montgomery.

I killed them fools.

I told them in the middle of the ceremony, I said, Listen, your culture, this TikTok generation acts like they know everything about sex and intimacy.

God invented sex.

God looks down on people in the book of Song of Solomon who just consummated their relationship on their wedding night.

And God says, Eat and drink deeply, O lovers, imbibe.

And I looked at the that the bridegroom said, You know what imbibe means?

And they were like, I said, it means get drunk on each other.

So consume each other that you're intoxicated by each other and their body.

People in the crowd were like, Grandma came up to me at the reception.

She goes, That kind of got personal.

Yes, because I am sick and tired of 20-year-olds telling me about intimacy.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Okay, you've just been raised on perversion.

It's like the Grammys or whatever, some musical awards show was on last Sunday night.

I didn't watch it, but I saw a clip the next day from Cardi B and some woman walling around.

I'm just like, this is not diversity, this is perversity.

This is why our kids don't know anything about intimacy when they get married.

They just think, uh, uh, because they cleave and then they leave every relationship they get in.

That's a whole different sermon.

Y'all got me worked up here a little bit now.

Ah, ooh, calm down, Neil.

But here's the thing: you're created in relationships where you're seen, known, and loved.

Adam and Eve sinned.

They're embarrassed, they realize they feel shame for the first time.

They were created to without shame.

Sin introduces shame into the human psyche and consciousness, so they hide.

God comes looking for them.

He says, Where are you?

He said, Well, I was naked, so I hid myself.

Who told you you were naked?

And here's what they did: they covered, they made for themselves fig, they took fig leaves and they covered themselves.

They're like, ah, this is kind of creepy.

This is like the the the community shower at seventh grade PE.

It's like, ugh.

And so they and here's what God does.

See, some of you in this room are afraid that God's going to see you.

By the way, he already sees you.

There's nothing you could tell God today that he's gonna go, oh, really?

I didn't know that.

You're already seen.

And and when you embrace that you're already seen, then you have to embrace that you're loved in ways that you don't even fathom yet.

Why?

Because God sees them.

And what he sees them is they got these makeshift little, you know, fig leaf bikini and speedo going on, and God's like, come on, man, that ain't good enough.

And so the Bible tells us this happens, but it doesn't really go into detail.

It just said, and God uh provided animal skins for them.

And the Bible winks at us right here and kind of foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus because in the garden, uh when Adam and Eve sinned and they covered themselves, God said, Listen, let me give you something more permanent covering.

And so he sacrifices an animal and provides them animal skins to cover their bodies.

And it's just a little foreshadowing that coming on down the road, somebody's gonna be sacrificed, not to cover your sin, but to take it away.

And so they hide and they can't stand being seen.

They're like, oh my gosh, God doesn't want to see us, so we hide.

And God says, come out, come out wherever you are, because they're created to be in relationships where they're seen and they're known and they're loved.

And God created them to be in this kind of relationship, and they have to experience it.

And God creates you and I to be in the same kind of relationship with God and with other people.

I like what Leg Crab said, he the he who just died, by the way, last week.

He's a brilliant uh writer and counselor.

He said, No lie is more often believed than the lie that we can know God without someone else knowing us.

No lie is more often believed than we can know God without someone else knowing us.

We just kind of think, hey, just me and Jesus.

It's all I need, just me and Jesus.

And I would just say to you that God Himself exists in community, he formed us to need community, and the Bible assumes community.

My buddy said to you, Should you go read a book written by a woman?

And I was like, dude, could you feel the contempt in your voice?

And I said, I'm gonna read by chapter because I'm curious about what my kid's exposing herself to.

I want to make sure it's on the up and up.

I don't assume it's not, but it not only was it solid, but it's not on the up and up, but it was good.

And he said, Well, what would you read?

I said, in summary, this right here, God exists Himself exists in community, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, He formed us to need community.

He didn't just form us for community, he formed you to need community because the onus is on you to pursue community.

Because if you just think, well, God formed me for community, I came to church three times, no one invited me to lunch or to their house to have coffee.

See, therefore, it's not it's not for me.

No, no.

God formed you with the need for community so that you would take responsibility for meeting that need.

You hear the difference in those two.

You have to put yourself in the environment where community takes place and the Bible assumes community.

Uh uh here's some things that uh I love that that Jenny Allen talks about in the book.

She says, here's some thoughts that women have.

And I was like, Women, men have those too.

Here's some of the thoughts that people that avoid community, they think.

Things like people just aren't drawn to me.

If people know how badly I'd screwed up, they would run.

I just don't fit in.

This is my favorite.

If people knew the thoughts I am capable of thinking, they would evict me from their lives.

I've always been kind of a loner and I like it that way.

People don't care about what I'm going through.

Nobody really gets me.

People don't need to hear about my problems.

Now, by the way, many of you were sent that message in childhood, and you just come to expect it in adulthood.

We'll talk more about this in a minute, but let me just say it now.

Put this language in the water.

The messages we receive as a child become the messages that we expect as an adult.

Let me say that again.

The messages that you receive as a child, like become the messages that we expect as an adult.

Like I had lunch with a guy this past week, uh, and and he all through the thing, he said, Well, I know you're busy, I won't take up much of your time.

And I the first time I was like, Oh, second time I was like, Oh, okay, he's in a hurry.

Third time, I was like, Hey, can I ask you a question that guys don't ask other guys?

He went, Oh my gosh, uh, yeah, I guess.

And I said, Who told you that you weren't important?

He goes, What do you mean?

I said, You've up you've apologized about how much time you're, you're not taking my time.

I'm here because I just want to get to know you.

I don't want to see you on Sunday and go, oh, there's that guy whose name I know and nothing else.

I want to know you, I want to know your story.

He said, Well, I mean, I know you're super busy, you're super busy, and we're building that new building over there.

And I said, That build, I don't even think about that building.

By the way, they're pouring the foundation tomorrow.

Starting at three in the morning.

Now I'll come down here and watch that because I like the smell of concrete in the morning.

I think men that build stuff are smart.

I'm just kind of like after a cup of coffee, like, mmm, mmm, that's awesome.

Uh but but other than that, I don't think about it.

Way Burgess manages, he and Mike Rice, and they're doing a great job.

The last thing they need is the preacher to show up and go, hey, what's that right there?

Like, whatever.

Here's all I do is pray, God, let's pay for this before it's even finished.

And it'll be finished before the end of this year.

Yeah, like, uh, well, by the way, we're not gonna paint a big thermometer on the wall and have a fundraising go.

We don't do that.

So if you're visiting, just relax, okay?

Here's what I want you to understand.

It's it we're sitting there talking to me in this guy.

And and I said, Who?

Somebody kind of sent you the message that because you you apologize for taking time and you talk really fast.

And this is from a guy that talks really fast myself.

Uh, but it just makes me wonder what messages you get sent and who sent it to you?

He goes, Oh, my mom.

I said, What?

He goes, as I remember as a little kid just thinking, I'm interrupting her.

I need to say what I need to say as fast as possible so she can get back to what she wanted to do.

Be careful, parents, the message you send your children.

Because the message we receive in childhood become the messages that we expect as adults.

We walked out of the restaurant, we're getting I'm getting in my truck, and he says, Hey, I hope I didn't make you late for anything important.

And I walked over to him and he's like, Oh my gosh.

And I said, Just relax.

Stop apologizing.

You're not a waste of time.

You were worth this.

I just wanted to get to know you.

Well, I mean, I know you're really big.

Stop! I told him at one point, I said, You say that again, I'm gonna tell you, shut up.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Again, the messages we receive in childhood become the messages we expect in adulthood.

Here's the second thing I want us to see is that we often choose isolation.

We often choose isolation.

See, we were not created to live in isolation.

Despite that, we often choose isolation.

Uh, this is happening in ways that we're not aware of.

One of the ways it's happening for us is that our over-reliance on technology and our addiction to convenience.

If we're not careful, you will never have to leave your house for anything.

Instacart delivers groceries, Amazon delivers everything else.

As soon as Amazon figures out how to get a drone to come gas up your car, you will go off the grid.

I mean, it's just like I'm just one thing.

That's the only thing I have to do is to get gas.

I had to go, you know, put a card in a little slot.

But as soon as they have a truck that comes around and fills it up and just builds my account, and I think in the name of convenience, you think this is great.

And I'm gonna be a voice in your life going, that's not great.

My pharmacy is a CVS right down the road here.

I live right there, my pharmacy is right there.

And anytime we have prescription, they say we can deliver it to your house.

And I'm like, hey, uh, my truck has wheels, they're round, it rolls.

I need to be in convenience.

It's very formative for me to be in convenience.

Stopped worshiping convenience.

Jeff Bezos is lying to you and laughing all the way to the bank, and you're getting more lonely, and your cognitive uh functioning is decreasing because this is why houses are becoming more and more.

There are houses in America that have slides in them.

I have a friend that his business sells slides in people's homes.

Now, if you've got a slide in your home, I don't care.

I want to come to your house and party.

But I'm just like, here's the thing: we're trying to find in our experiences what God created us to find in relationships.

And you're never gonna find it.

Take the best vacation ever.

I don't care if you take 50 a year, but if you bend your thinking to thinking, you know what, if we can just get some some Instagram posts, what about this?

We're gonna, my gram's gonna blow up with it.

No, it's not.

People are gonna go, oh, oh, that's awesome.

Swipe.

And then you gotta come up with another one.

You never find in your experiences.

This is what culture tells us.

Oh, you need this.

What God created you to find in relationship.

We choose isolation, and it is happening.

We don't think we're choosing isolation, we think we're choosing convenience, but slowly you're just being backed into a dark corner you call a house.

If we're not careful, uh, we we fail to realize that technology slowly isolates us, and then get at the same time, why it's isolating you, it gives you this false sense of uh of connection through social media.

And here's the problem with social media it's not very social, it's just you and your pajamas yelling at Other people on Facebook.

That's not relationship.

You have to learn to ask yourself am I choosing isolation or am I practicing avoidance?

There's a good kind of isolation, has more to do with solitude than avoiding people or feelings or circumstances.

And then there's just avoidance.

There's just, and this is what we see when I say we often choose isolation.

I think of a man in the Old Testament named Elijah.

Elijah was a man, he's a great prophet of God.

He defeated 850 false prophets at one time, and it was this incredible victory.

And in the next chapter, he wants to die.

It's 1 Kings chapter 19, verse 1.

1 Kings 19:1

Just hear this.

You don't have to turn there, it'll come up on the screen.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and now he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So may the gods do to me, and more so.

If I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow, you tracking with that?

He had this great victory.

Ahab, this man, goes home and tells his wife, Jezebel, there's a reason, ladies, you don't name your daughters Jezebel.

This is the reason.

She was a skanky, mean-spirited woman.

She would kill your cat and leave you a note.

I mean, she's just not the.

So she basically says to Elijah, this prophet of God, hey, I'm gonna get you tomorrow.

Okay?

Enjoy tonight, rest well, I'm gonna get you tomorrow.

What does he do?

He skips town in fear.

Look at what the Bible says.

Then he was afraid, and he arose and he ran for his life, and he came to Beersheba, which belonged to Judah, and he left his servant there.

Bad idea.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.

And he asked that he might die, saying, It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father's.

I want you to go back to that early part there.

He says, after she makes the threat, and then he says, Then he was afraid.

Can you still feel when you get afraid?

Because if you can't feel when you're when you're fearing something, like I ask people in counseling fairly consistently, hey, uh, what role does fear play in what you're feeling right now?

And and and typically, especially the men, it's like, well, I don't I'm not afraid of anything.

I'm not about it's not about bravado, it's about self-awareness.

Because Elijah was very self-aware, he was afraid, and he arose and he ran for his life.

He does four things.

He's fearfully overwhelmed, so he isolates, he rans for his, he comes to Beersheba, and then he leaves his servant there.

See, when you're not in a good way, you do not need to choose to isolate yourself.

He leaves his servant, and the Bible says he goes an extra day's journey into the wilderness, sits down under a tree, and says, It is enough.

Hey, by the way, you and I don't get to decide when it's enough.

A lot of points in this past year, a lot of people just tapped out and said, It's enough.

I can't do this anymore.

I just can't.

Uh students, suicide is rampant because of mental health issues.

Because in isolation we experience anxiety.

How long is this gonna last?

Because our needs aren't getting met, and anxiety can only be sustained for so long, and then it evolves into depression.

We have a generation of students that are gonna have deep, deep, deep psychological implications because we can't seem to get things opened up and get back to living our life because the government needs to tell us this is what you have to do, and then and then, oh, we got a vaccine, but after the vaccine, wear two masks.

No, no, no.

Well, you have to wear a mask.

Well, if I have to wear a mask after I get a vaccine, then does the vaccine work or do masks work?

How does this work?

I'm just curious.

So, well, I I don't know what you mean by all that.

Here's what I mean by this is that sometimes, in fact, we were not created for isolation.

God did not create us for that.

We choose isolation.

And be careful that you don't choose, so you don't be like Elijah and say, hey man, stay here and you go a day's journey into the wilderness by yourself, and you sit down and you let all the negative thoughts and core beliefs just flood in on you because you will not make good decisions.

Again, and notice I said he isolates, he gives up, and then he engages in comparison.

It's the fourth thing he does.

He says, I know better than my father's.

Remember, the messages we experience in childhood become the messages we expect in adulthood.

It's what we just kind of conditioned that.

Even then the message is not true as an adult, it feels familiar, so we choose it over the unknown.

I know how to deal with this.

It's that old saying, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.

No.

No.

Matter of fact, I uh uh uh let me say it like this.

Yeah, absence of human contact leads to a decline in cognitive function.

Uh and so what's happening in people nowadays is it is that people are slowly, they kind of got this mental fog going on.

I heard a lady, I read a study, and a lady said, I haven't been pregnant in 10 years, but I feel like I have pregnancy brain.

Uh, and I've never been pregnant, uh, but but but she went on to say that you're just kind of fogged out, you're not as crisp as you are, you're just kind of mentally dull.

And that's what's rampant in America because cognitive function, you may think, hey, great, what is that?

It basically that's that refers to learning, thinking, reasoning, remembering, problem solving, decision making, and attention.

All of that is affected when we go into isolation.

It's why C.S.

Lewis said he had a great phrase.

He just said, uh, hey, when it comes to friendship, two is not a good number.

And people are like, what do you mean?

And so he he wrote a book called The Four Loves.

And in the book, he said this he said, Each of my friends, there's something that only some other friend can fully bring out.

By myself, I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity.

I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.

Now, few of us think on the level that C.S.

Lewis thought on.

But basically what he was saying was if you've ever had this experience, you're having lunch with somebody and you're trying to speak to something in their life, and they just keep giving you the same response over and over and over, and you're kind of getting frustrated.

You're like, I don't, this is not the way I wanted this conversation to go.

If you've ever had that experience, say amen.

What C.S.

Lewis is saying is that, hey, sometimes you need other people to be at the table so they can speak from their perspective, you can speak from your perspective, and then that person is fully invited out.

This is what he means when he says that when friendship, two's not a good number.

I say it like this in 1 John chapter 1, verse 7, the Bible says, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:7

Let me say that again.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

To be a Christian means that you're going to be in relationship with other believers, and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

I had a friend call me uh like last week, like in the past 10 days, and he just said, he texted me and said, Hey, can I call you today at three o'clock?

And I said, Yeah, it's something, what's up?

You good?

And he said, No, I'm not good.

I'm starting to believe things about myself that I know aren't true, but I can't push back against them.

And I wrote back, absolutely, three o'clock, clear my calendar, I'm available.

And we called, and it was a great thing.

And then I said, uh, he said, I just need you to ask me questions, whatever comes to mind.

I said, I got a weird question for you.

He goes, What?

And I said, uh, do you need fellowship or do you need blood right now?

He started laughing.

He goes, What?

I said, Do you need fellowship or do you need blood?

And I quoted 1 John 1:7.

1 John 1:7

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, fellowship.

Sometimes you need fellowship.

This is a relational need.

Sometimes you need to apply the blood of Jesus to your issue.

This is the theological need.

And you need to discern, be you need to learn to discern between the two.

Do I need fellowship or do I need some theological uh truth to be reminded of?

Because if you just need fellowship and somebody's over here and they're kind of like they're preaching to you, you get frustrated.

You're just like, for the love, dude, I don't need a sermon.

I just need you to be present in my life and just be, just be here.

Don't fix anything, just be here.

That is easier for women than men.

Because we love to fix some stuff.

My wife, matter of fact, will start off conversations by saying the craziest thing I've ever heard.

Now, I'm gonna tell you something, and I need you to not do anything about it.

And my response is always the same.

Then don't tell me.

Because I fix stuff for a living.

I don't need to be fixed, I just need to put this out there.

Why do you have to tell me?

Call one of your friends, tell them.

No, you're my best friend.

She's puts it out there, she'll just say something, and I don't need you to do anything about it.

Now, for the longest time, I've just thought, what's the sense of even telling me?

But here's the reality.

My wife is right.

What she's saying is, I just need this is a relational thing.

I I need fellowship, I don't need the blood, I don't need some profound insight from my pastor husband about how to handle this problem.

I need you just to feel this with me.

Don't you have friends for that?

And that's hard.

You gotta ask yourself, can you be present in someone's life and not feel responsible for everything you see wrong?

It's like going to someone's house.

You want to hear my depravity along those lines?

Yes or no?

Yeah, yeah.

This is my depravity.

Uh, when I was in college uh and I had a job and I first started making money, uh, I grew up in in pretty much poverty.

Uh I would go back to my mom's house and I would like one day I took all the furniture, because we always got hand-me-down furniture, took it all in the living room, took it all in the backyard, put it in a fire in a big pile, and burned it.

And I bought my mom all new living room furniture.

And the reason I burned it is because when you grow up poor, you never throw anything away.

And my mom would be like, Oh no, we might need that one day.

And I'm like, no, pour gas on it and lit it on fire.

The neighbors were calling the cops, and I was just waving it.

What are you doing?

I'm I'm burning this stuff.

It was trash when someone gave it to us to bless us.

I ain't gonna bless somebody else with it.

I'm burning it.

And my mom's like, Oh, I'll give my mom news it.

My mom wouldn't take the covers off of it.

Like, leave the plastic.

I was like, Mom, take it off and sit on it.

Oh no, I don't want it to get old.

My mom, so I did that, flew my mom to Phoenix to hang out with her brothers and sisters for two weeks, and I painted the entire inside of her house.

That's pretty incredible, don't you think?

Yeah, some of y'all are like, man, I don't tell my parents any of this stuff.

I was always doing stuff, okay?

My mom, my mom drinks out of jelly jars.

I get my mom a case of glasses, nice, hand-cut, weighty glasses.

She's like, Oh, oh, those are beautiful.

I put them out in the closet on top of the other two cases of glasses I got her last year.

And my mom, but here's the thing that dawned on me.

Again, this is under the this is under the banner of hey, can you be present in people's lives and not have to fix everything?

Not have to take responsibility for everything.

It dawned on me when I was in grad school.

My motivation, these are good things, but my motivation is terrible.

My motivation is not, I love my mom, want to bless my mom.

To some degree it's that.

But a greater thing is, hey, I would feel more comfortable coming home if it was like this.

Because at that point, I couldn't be present in someone's life and not take responsibility for everything I saw that needed to be fixed.

Because there's a part of me that says, What adds value, what I bring to the situation is my capacity to fix stuff.

Couldn't you just be present in people's life and just kind of be like, you know what?

I ain't gotta fix this.

Because sometimes they don't need your theological, your astute theological observations, they just need fellowship.

That's why I asked my friend, I said, Hey, you need fellowship or blood?

I knew you'd say something crazy.

What does that mean, McClendon?

And I explained, oh well, I said, because see, here's the thing.

If you believe the Bible, the Bible says that if we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus, you should fellowship with people that enhance the capacity and the authority of the blood of Jesus in your life, cleanses us from all sin.

Here's the last thing I want to say.

You still with me?

Uh the third thing is this sometimes isolation is forced upon us.

That's this past year with COVID and everything.

Isolation is forced upon us, and the danger that we face is that we'll be tempted to calibrate to what's been our experience over this past year.

I hear a lot of people say, yo, this isn't bad at all.

I like this, actually.

I think we're gonna homeschool our kids and we're gonna grow our own vegetables and we're gonna live in the biosphere, we're gonna get a bubble over our house.

No.

See, here's what happens we're tempted because uh in some ways, because this works for us in this isolation because it delivers us from the vulnerability of relationships.

It delivers us from the vulnerability of relationships.

Uh and again, the Bible assumes that we're in community where we're having vulnerable relationships.

And I just ask this, I know the isolation is forced upon us, we're kind of coming out of that.

Uh, some people are like, I don't know if I want to come out.

I kind of like this.

You weren't created for that.

Uh if you're one of those people, let me just ask you a simple question.

How do you live out the one-anothers of Scripture?

How it's as simple as it gets.

I have friends that are getting ready to retire and they're like, Yeah, we're gonna move.

I don't understand this.

Hear my heart.

You may be planning to do this.

Glory to God.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do.

I've never understood that when people retire, they move somewhere where they know nobody, buy a house, and they live in isolation the last 20 years of their life.

No friends, no engaging relationships, and I'm just like, uh, why would you leave community to go into like this?

Is my right.

Now I I've engaged with the world.

Now I'm just gonna go over here and and and what?

Just just decline cognitively because you're not engaging with anybody.

And so I just said they said, you know, anything we should be thinking about?

I said, yeah.

I said, uh part of your plan for retirement ought to be, how am I gonna live out the one another is of scripture?

What do you mean?

Sydney Allen does a great book.

She lists some, I added some to the list, things like this.

Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor, live in harmony with one another, bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Whose burden are you helping bear right now?

Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of peace will be with you.

Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another.

Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

I had a friend call me this past week and he said, Hey, I need to confess my sins to somebody, and you're the safest guy I know.

I said, Okay.

And he said, I went out to dinner with some friends to work the other day, and I had too many drinks, and I told two off-color, inappropriate jokes.

And I said, Man, I am so refreshed by your honesty.

I said, Did you know what was happening?

He goes, Yep, yeah.

Usually I'm like, hey, two drinks, I'm good.

I uh I'm not gonna be mastered by this.

But but I was so enjoying being included in this club of men that are successful that I compromise my theology of alcohol just to be accepted by them, Neil.

And I said, Oh, that is so self-aware, it makes me want to weep and sing at the same time.

And then you told two inappropriate jokes.

He goes, Yep, because the first one I told, and they all laughed, and my thought was, man, if you think that's good, I got it.

One's even better.

Oh man, you that's terrible.

And I didn't say, you dirty minded pervert, what are you doing?

I said, Oh, that is terrible that you did that.

And the only thing that's that that is redeeming about that is that you knew it.

And he goes, Yeah, I knew it in the moment, and I exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and I worshiped and served created things instead of the creator.

This man knows his Bible, and he said, and I've just been sick.

And I thought, who can I tell?

And I thought about you, Neil.

And I said, I am so honored by your honesty.

Thank you for confessing your sin to me.

I'm gonna say this and we'll be done.

You still with me?

Uh after we preach we finished the book of Daniel, uh, the next book I'm gonna preach through are the epistles of John, first, second, third, John.

So we'll get into this then.

I'm not trying to be controversial, edgy, but I am trying to be biblical.

Nowhere in the Bible after the cross are you told to confess your sins to God in order to get forgiveness.

Now, if you grew up in church right now, you're thinking, what about 1 John 1 9?

If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just forgive us our sins.

And when we get to 1 John, I'm gonna tell you that is a salvation text, not a forgiveness text.

And you have to understand the context who John's writing to and what he's combating.

It's called Gnosticism.

But if that's how you think you get forgiveness, then here comes the really big haunting question.

If you get forgiveness because you remember your sins, you confess them to God, how do you get forgiveness for all the sins you forgot to confess?

No, what I'm gonna tell you when we get to 1 John, you got months to get ready, is that you're not supposed to confess your sins to God.

You acknowledge your sin.

Don't mishear me.

Look at me, look at me.

You're supposed to confess your sins one to another.

And pray for one another that you may be healed.

And so I said to my friend, I said, I am so glad, I'm so honored, and I'm so glad.

And I'm gonna now pray for you with leverage and authority because you have the fear of man at work in you, and you want to be accepted by men who don't know Jesus because it makes you look successful in the workplace.

And he goes, Oh, that's absolutely right, Neil.

And after I prayed, he said, Man, I feel so much better.

Now, why do I tell you all that?

Here's why to end with this simple question this morning.

What would your life be like if you had a community of people where you actually practiced the one another's of Scripture?

Or you could confess your sins to other people and they would pray for you.

Can you imagine ladies being La Madelins and about five of you just being honest right there as you eat your strawberries, Romanoff, and your spinach salad?

And then one of them says, you know what?

I've I I didn't confess my sins.

Can you imagine all the people around you be like, what?

And not glorify it, not well, hey girl, that's nothing.

Let me tell you what I did.

No, but a deep sense of, oh, that is tragic.

But man, now I know how to pray for you.

Because what I'm saying to you and to me is that we were created to be in relationships with other people where we can live out the one another's of scripture, and that cannot happen in isolation.

In isolation, all you do is increase your determination and your self-hatred.

And eventually, like Elijah, you'll just want to give up.

You'll just want to go, this didn't work.

This this this is broken.

This doesn't work for me.

No, this is this works in you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that he who began a good work in us will continue to the day of Christ Jesus.

And so it's not about you working for us or Christianity working for us, it's about God at work in us.

And so, Holy Spirit, we just want to be still for a moment and just think about what the Bible said to us today.

We were not created by you to live in isolation.

You're the God that said, uh, it is not good for man to be alone, to be in paradise and in charge, and not be in relationship.

And so, Holy Spirit, just brood over us for a moment as we think about these things.

Father, our confession this morning is that after a sermon like that, we just want to, uh, I don't know, because it reminds us what we were created for.

And I pray, Holy Spirit, that all of us in this room and everyone watching online, we just hear the voice of God saying, Ali and free.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

Because we were created by you to be seen, known, and loved.

God, remind us that you see us.

You've looked upon our nakedness and you're not ashamed.

We were created by you to be in relationships where people see us at our worst, and they're not embarrassed to be our friends.

They run towards us, they show up at our house.

They say, Come on, girlfriend, you're not laying in bed and watching Netflix all day and just hating yourself.

Let's go.

This is what we were created for, by a God who lives in community.

For that we're grateful.

So we say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest today, I want to say thanks for being here.

You're always welcome.

If you have any questions about anything you saw or heard today, we'll be available down front.

We'd love to help you kind of process and take the next step in your spiritual journey.

Hope you've had a chance to pull in those guest cards in your seat back pocket in your row.

If you would, just fill that out on your way out.

Just drop it in the wooden box by the door.

That's also where we receive our offering.

So if today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity when it comes to giving, that's where you take care of that as well, okay?

We have a few things coming up in the life of our church we want you to be aware of and involved in.

So let's give our attention to our video announcements.

Thank you for joining us today.

Here's a few things we want you to know.

Missions is being intentional with how you live and doing your part in the telling of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

On Mission, we are reminded of the bigness of what God is doing in the world and that we're never alone.

One way our church acts in this mission is through a ministry called ESL.

ESL meets on Tuesday evenings to teach English as a second language.

God continues to provide a harvest of fruit from this ministry, and there's still much work to do.

Pray about being a part of your church's mission and joining ESL.

No experience required.

For more information, head to grandparkway.org slash missions.

Holy Week is the most important week in the life of the most important person who ever lived.

It's a time the church has set aside to remember, reflect, and rejoice in what Jesus has accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection.

Next week it begins on Palm Sunday and concludes the following Sunday on Easter.

During the week, we will observe May, Thursday, and Good Friday at 7 p.m.

Childcare is available ages birth through 5 at grandparkway.org slash events.

If you're new, we would love to meet you.

If you have any questions about anything you've heard today, or you would like someone to pray with you, some of our pastors will be available down at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

We always conclude with a spoken blessing, so stand to your feet if you would.

Hold your hands out.

Because of the blood of Jesus, you are seen today.

You are known today.

And you will be loved forever.

Depart now into these realities in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.