The Only Not Good in the Garden

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

So have you ever done this where you make plans?

Maybe it's a month out, you're gonna have dinner with friends, you're going to a birthday party, maybe it's a small group, maybe it's an event you're going to, and you're kind of excited.

You put it on your calendar, you're looking forward to it, and then it starts to get close to time.

So maybe it's like a few days before, maybe a couple days before, and then you start thinking logistically about what will this require of me.

Then you wake up and you go, okay, now I have to, what am I gonna wear?

I figure out what to wear, I've got to do hair and makeup.

Okay, so the guys, you guys have this really easy, you don't have that part.

You're thinking about, okay, how far is this place?

You look it up, how long is it gonna take?

Do I need to get gas in my car beforehand?

How much money will I need to spend?

And then you just kind of start thinking of all these things, and then suddenly you're like, hmm, I think I have a tickle in my throat.

Maybe I'm too sick to go.

Or you're like, oh, I'm really slammed at work.

I have too much to do, I have a paper to write, I just I can't go.

Um, or you're just kind of like trying to find excuses to opt out of something that you had planned and looked forward to, but when it gets to time, you start to get um overwhelmed by it, and it feels exhausting.

And so I realized that I don't have FOMO, the fear of missing out, I have Jomo, the joy of missing out.

And I bet some of you also experience JOMO, at least some of the time.

And I think, you know, a recent Atlantic Monthly article declared that we are currently in an antisocial century.

We spend more time alone, eating, watching, working, exercising, whatever it is we do, we do it more alone than ever in history before.

And of course, we're on our devices more than ever before.

And it is not good for us as individuals, and it's not good for us as a society.

And like some of you, I also work from home and I coach clients on Zoom.

So I can go days without seeing another person face to face, other than my husband and maybe the Trader Joe cashier.

I see him on a regular basis every few days.

But it's so easy to isolate ourselves.

But the irony is that every time I've made that effort to connect with people, I've just been so glad afterwards.

And I've and know it's good for me to engage with other people and to get out and to talk and let people into my life.

And yet, I still have to talk myself into it sometimes, even when I feel lonely.

So, how about you?

What do you do when you feel that ache of loneliness?

Do you are you tempted to hide out at home in your jammies watching Netflix, or do you feel that need to reach out and connect with someone else?

A recent 2024 Pew survey on loneliness in American adults found that the those, the number of people experiencing isolation has been consistently rising every year across all generations.

So it's up and to the right, but not in a positive way.

Um and of course, the young adults, as we've been hearing, have been hit the hardest, 18 to 29-year-olds.

With 20% report that they experience loneliness every single day.

And of course, we all experience loneliness from time to time.

That is part of the human condition, and that is normal.

Um, but when we're isolated for a long time, the loneliness can start seeping into our souls, and it starts to shape how we see ourselves and how we see the world in an inaccurate way.

We may start to see ourselves as people who don't need other people, which we know is not true.

Or we can start to retreat in isolation and to protect ourselves from vulnerability, from hurt.

It's kind of this vicious cycle.

The more you don't connect with people, the more you're kind of reluctant and afraid to connect with people, which then causes you to connect people less.

So as you see how it goes.

The flip is also true.

The more you do connect and stretch yourself and let people in and are in their lives, the more you see the joy of that, and then it kind of feeds into a more virtuous cycle.

So think about how many close friends you have.

I'm talking like not your um social media friends necessarily, but your 9-1-1 friends.

These are friends you can call in an emergency in the middle of the night, and they'll come get you, they'll come help you.

If you have more than 10 of those kinds of friends, raise your hand.

10.

Okay.

So we have a few here.

Um, you are part of the 13% of Americans, only 13%, that say they have 10 or more close friends.

And that 13% is the exact same percentage that said that they have zero close friends.

Almost half, 49% of Americans now report that they have three or fewer close friends.

And these this survey was done in 2021 with numbers before COVID.

As you can imagine, the numbers are way higher today post-COVID.

We know Jesus had at least 12 close friends, and as this meme points out, this would be a modern-day miracle.

It says, nobody talks about Jesus' miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s as a single man.

So, as a former small groups pastor, I used to talk and train our small group leaders and groups about developing life on life, refrigerator rights, kinds of friendships.

And think about the people in your life who you are okay if they run walk into your house, go into your kitchen, open your fridge, and start grabbing stuff and start eating without asking permission.

How many people in your life would you feel comfortable having doing that?

Or on the flip, how many people would you feel comfortable going to their house, going to their kitchen and grabbing stuff out of their fridge without asking?

And to me, refrigerator rights is a shortcut way of looking at do you have those kinds of close friends where you're that level of comfort and trust?

Um, the problem is that in 2025, outside of family members, most of us have few, if any, refrigerator rights friends.

But church, it does not have to be this way.

Here's the beautiful truth what people need the most in our society right now, we as the church are most qualified to offer.

As part of our collective DNA, the community of Christ, this church has a mission to connect people to God and to one another.

It's like two beams that make up the cross.

We need that vertical relationship with God, and that's what you guys have been talking about the last two weeks of this Unalone series.

And then we also need that horizontal relationship with each other.

And the truth is that the vertical relationship is hampered unless you have that horizontal relationship with Jesus.

We cannot grow with Jesus without each other.

So last month when I was here, we focused on Genesis 1 and how God made human beings, male and female.

He made them in his image and likeness.

And then we talked about how they together were part of the first human family given the role of stewardship over creation.

So God is in a triune relationship, meaning three and one, Father, Son, the Holy Spirit are in perfect unity, interrelated in this relationship together.

So of course, when God created human beings, he also put that into our DNA.

From the very beginning, God designed us for deep connection with the Lord and with one another.

And in Genesis 1, God called all the creation good.

Remember, every day He said it was good, it was good, right?

There's six times.

And then after he made humans, he said it was very good.

Um today we're unpacking the only thing in the garden that God said was not good.

And so turn your into your Bibles to Genesis 2.

We're gonna read from verse 18 to 25, and I'm reading all the scripture today from the New Living Translation.

Then the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper who is just right for him.

So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky.

He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.

He gave names to all the livestock, all the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals.

But still, there was no helper just right for him.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall asleep into a deep sleep.

While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the opening.

Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and he brought her to the man.

At last the man exclaimed, This one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

She will be called woman because she was taken from man.

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Now the man and his wife were both naked but felt no shame.

So the first not good in all creation is that there is no woman on the scene.

Which I love that for us.

But this would have been just as true if Eve had been alone with that in the garden without Adam.

Before sin entered the world, before there was brokenness and just the big mess and the fallness of it all, God declared that it is not good for humans to be alone.

So that loneliness, that ache we feel when we're disconnected, it's not a weakness.

It's actually like a warning light.

Kind of what you have on your dashboard in your car when the door is left open, or you need engine oil change, that light is this warning reminding us to propel us towards connection.

So scientific research consistently supports God's pronouncement of aloneness is not good for us or for our society.

Study after study shows that loneliness is just terrible for our physical, mental, emotional, and I would add, spiritual well-being.

Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy identified loneliness as America's biggest health crisis, and he prescribed relational connection.

And he said, we are good medicine for each other, which I think is a physician's way of saying what God already said in Genesis 2.18.

It's not good for us to be alone.

So then God fashions a solution to this problem and he creates this companion who is just right, well suited, so that they can carry out God's plan together.

And this passage is often used in marriage ceremonies and weddings and sermons about marriage, but it is about so much more than the marital relationship.

God made each person his image to reflect his character, so his relational connectedness with one another in the family of God.

So this not good reveals that one human being by themselves cannot be what God has called all of us to become together.

So Dr.

Tim Mackey from the Bible Project, he explains it this way: Though the example of marriage in Genesis 1 and 2, we come face to face with a calling that God has placed upon all humans to pursue oneness with others.

Ultimately, God means for humanity to be a family.

Marriage is not the only way we find ourselves in a family.

This is just how the narrator of Genesis points out an important motif that carries throughout the whole story of the Bible.

So marriage creates small family units, and then God's ideal vision is for those families which to then comprise nations to then ultimately become one big family of God that spans nations, ethnicities, generations, time and space for the benefit of all.

We are called to be unalone as part of God's local family, right here, Awakening Church.

It's a local family to be part then of God's global, eternal family.

And so when we look at our key verse, we look at how do we do that?

How do we create that sort of family?

Well, when the Lord said it's not good for man to be alone, he said, I'll make a helper just right for him.

So this Hebrew word for helper is Ezer, and it's commonly translated in English as helpmeet or helper.

So let's be really clear that Ezer does not mean junior, doesn't mean little helper, assistant, or any implication that the woman is in fear of subservient to man.

In fact, Ezer is most often used to describe God, as a title for God, in battle context, as the one who fights for us, the one who renders aid, the deliverer, the rescuer, the resource provider, and the encourager.

Ezra is used 21 times in the Bible, and here are just a few examples of how it shows up.

In Deuteronomy 3, Ezra is used three times in that chapter in reference to God giving Israel strength and protection and victory over the enemy.

And then Psalm 33, 20 says, We put our hope in the Lord.

He is our helper and our shield.

And Psalm 124.8 says, Our help is from the Lord who made the heaven and earth.

And then in Hebrews, jump over to New Testament 13, says, For God said, I will never fail you, I will never abandon you.

So we can say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, so that I will have no fear.

What can mere people do to me?

And in that passage is quoting Psalm 118.

So God is our primary Ezer, our helper.

And we made in his image are called to be Ezers to one another, to help for one another and for this world.

Not just because other people need us, but because we also need other people.

We get to partner with God's work in people's lives and in our own life and in this world that He's given us.

So just as God comforts and helps and wins battles and provides for us, we get to experience that help not just for ourselves, but then we get to bring it to others.

But we can't help people from a distance.

We need to get really close and personal and face to face.

You can't have intimacy without proximity.

But then why is it so hard for us to connect?

Why is it so hard to build relationships beyond the superficial level?

Well, our individualistic culture, our media algorithms, they push us overwhelmingly towards isolation.

And we need to then be intentional and vigilant and pushing back to overcome these obstacles to building relationships.

And we know as Christ followers how to fight the world's influence on us.

That is what we do every day as we battle sin and temptation.

So we know that we need to push against what the culture wants us to do.

And there's so many obstacles, right?

But some of these obstacles may be true for you, and maybe in your stage of life, there's other ones that pop up, but these are some of the really common ones.

Busy overpacked schedules.

Anyone?

Everyone?

Probably, yes?

Um, job transitions.

If you move around every few years, I think in the Bay, it's like every three years people move.

So then it's hard to build roots in those relationships, and then it's also hard to bother getting to know people because you know you're gonna be going.

Um, there's the hustle culture that's focused on achievement and making our work identity our highest priority.

The time, the energy for raising kids, that's real.

The youth sports, all of their activities, that takes a lot of time and energy.

Then, of course, our phone use, hours and hours of media consumption that we do every day.

And then there's the emotional pain.

The pain from past relational hurts that you haven't fully healed from, the fear of that happening again, and especially if you've been hurt inside of a church context, I think that makes it a little harder than to risk connecting again.

So it's easier, and the world wants us to choose comfort and predictability over risk and discomfort, but that comes with growth.

So, on there's so many things you could probably add to the list.

So the world gives us these excuses, but we don't want to settle for a life that is not really life.

We want to thrive and flourish in a life that Christ asked for us.

So, yes, you may have a demanding schedule that makes it hard to find time, and I totally get that, but I also want to challenge you.

If you have two hours to scroll on your phone or to watch, consume, doing something fairly meaningless, then you have time to meet a friend for coffee or for boba since we're here.

And I had boba, by the way, I had boba yesterday with my daughters, and it was fabulous.

I don't have good boba where I live, so side note.

But you have that time to meet a friend for coffee, for whatever, a meal.

Or um you can do what I just started to do.

I don't really like to exercise, so I have to trick myself into it.

And so I have a friend that loves to exercise.

I don't know what's wrong with her.

So she we have um ourselves on our headphones and we'll walk now.

Uh, once a week, we'll walk together, and I don't even know that I'm getting my stuff soon.

It's so great because it's so fun to connect.

And she's someone who lives further away, we don't get to see each other.

So just even something like that.

If you're doing something, do it together.

If you're gonna go to Target to pick up something, go with someone.

Find opportunities to put people in connection into your life.

Then I wonder, aside from the schedules, if perhaps the biggest challenge is fear.

Um, pastor and writer John Orperg said, you can only love and be loved to the extent that you know and are known.

We all understand that there's a huge difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone, right?

You to know about someone, you just need to go on their LinkedIn, their Instagram, um, you can Google them.

But to actually know them, you need to actually meet them.

Think about the dating app.

You can know lots about people from the dating app, but until you have that first date, you don't really know who they are.

Um, and you need to keep having that relationship to get to see who they really are.

We all crave to be known, and it can feel risky to open ourselves up because we're afraid of being judged or being rejected.

But to connect in real friendship, we gotta take off that mask of self-sufficiency, of independence, and of pride.

We have to let go of wanting people to see our best curated self from wanting to be admired to wanting instead to be known.

If you choose to be admired, you will stay trapped in loneliness because you will only be showing them this idealized self.

We need to show people our messy, insecure, our imperfect self.

And that's how we let people into our real world, and that's how we enter into the honor of being in their world.

But here's the amazing truth: Jesus knows absolutely everything about you, past, present, future, and he loves you unconditionally.

You have nothing to prove, you have no image to project.

His grace is more than sufficient for your weaknesses and any fears you might have.

When we rest in that firm foundation of God's love for us, we can take that risk of connecting with others.

What can the immortals do to me?

I know I am loved.

So if someone is like kind of eh, you know, I don't really want to hang out, it's okay.

God still loves you.

Move on to the next person.

Um, the church, more than any other place, we need to be a space of safety and security where we can hold this non-judgmental space and be real and honest and vulnerable.

If you don't do it here, where could you do it?

Romans 12, 5 reminds us that we are all part of Christ's body and that we belong to each other.

Um we have the potential for this more meaningful, more in-depth relationship because we share this faith in Christ.

And the Holy Spirit is working between us, in us, a mediating all around us.

And so the possibility of having those kinds of deeper connection is right here.

So then, how do we move from isolation to connection?

We start by trusting God and trusting his promises and living out verses like Hebrews 10, 23 and 25 together.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

That's the foundation for any risks we take in life, including the risk of friendship.

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.

And let us not neglect meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another.

When we gather together like this on Sundays, we are encouraged.

We worship God, give him glory, but we are also enriched and enlivened again, refreshed and renewed.

And whenever you guys gather together in youth group, in small groups, in serving together, that is what happens.

God works in us and through us.

And the New Testament letters written to the early churches are full of these types of instructions on how we ought to live with one another.

And the phrase one another as a former small groups pastor, there are like 50 plus by some count of those one another passages that we cannot do and obey without being together as sisters and brothers in the Christ.

So we can't do this without God, and we can't do this without each other.

So first we receive help from God, our Ezra, and then we seek to do for others what God has done for us.

So there's many ways to be part of the solution of the not good human condition.

Um this morning I'm gonna focus on three ways.

And these ways come exactly from where how God helps us.

He is with us and he is for us.

And this is the example we want to follow.

We want to be with and for people.

So, first, just as God is always with us, we help by being fully present to one another and showing up with our whole selves.

So when my daughter, uh younger daughter Sarah, was about three, um, we were hanging out in the kitchen by the kitchen island.

She was on one side, I was on the other.

I was, and she was telling about her day in preschool, all the stuff that happened, who she played with, all the things.

And I was cutting up fruit for the snack, I was doing dishes, I was cleaning up, I'm sure I was thinking about the next thing I had to do.

All of a sudden, Sarah lunges across the island, she grabs my face, I'm sorry, with her little hands, she pulls it right next to her face, and she says, Mommy, I'm here.

Look at me.

And I just wonder how many people in our lives are silently pleading with us.

And they're saying, I'm here.

Look at me, listen to me.

Show me that I matter.

God convicted me that day and many, many times since, about how often I fail to be fully present.

Because I'm distracted, I'm multitasking, which by the way, that is not a thing.

They figured it out neurologically.

We nobody multitasks.

So we can only really do one thing.

And we tend to be in our head about what we want to say next, what we want to do next, and we don't give people the gift of presence together.

And that was before even phones existed.

And now, with our phones, it is our biggest source of distraction by far.

And studies show that even if you take your phone, you're meeting with someone, and you put it face down between you or on the side, just the fact that it exists within your eyes where you can see it, that that is a source of distraction.

There's a part of your brain that kind of gets parked wherever our phone is.

So I encourage you just to put it away.

Apparently, it still impacts us.

It's just to say, hey, I'm gonna spend this time with you.

I'm gonna be uninterrupted.

And by the way, if you find yourself thinking like distracted by work or something else going on, then just say that to the person you're with.

And just say, hey, you know what?

I'm a little, I may be a little distracted today.

I'm so sorry.

Um I'm worried about XYZ, whatever the thing is, but I want to really be here with you.

I'm so glad we're together.

You just own up to it.

Don't try to fake it.

Um, fake listening is doesn't serve really anyone well.

As a Christian, um Quaker, Quaker is a sect of Christianity, and they really focus on community.

So Parker Palmer is an educator, but he's also a Quaker, and he said the human soul doesn't want to be advised, fixed, or saved.

It simply wants to be witnessed, to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is.

So the idea here is that, you know, how many of you had friends or parents or uh spouses wanting to fix you, to save you from your problems, to give you advice.

Um, and the world wants to tell you what to do, how to do it, and what to have and all that.

And it's just a lot.

We long for that gentle companionship where we can just let down our guard, we can be seen, we can breathe, we can exhale, and just be.

And the book of Job gives us a beautiful picture of what this type of companionship and presence looks like.

Um, and if you know the story of Job, he had it incredibly hard, um, and he had terrible losses and going through horrible tragedies, death and life after another, like one after another, huge, huge losses.

If you think your life is really hard, if you want a downward comparison, Job would be your book.

He suffered a lot.

Okay, but he had these three friends, and these three friends were amazing in the first chapter, first couple chapters.

They hear the news of what's happening to Job, that he's having all these horrible tragedies.

They rush to his side together, they meet him on the road, they can hardly recognize him because he's just so distraught.

Then they weep with him, grieve with him, they tore their ropes, they sit in silence for seven days and seven nights before they open their mouth.

And in that silence, they are eloquent in supporting Job.

It's only after they open their mouth and the rest of Job, where they tell them all the things, that it goes not great because they can't help it and they kind of have all kinds of issues that they get wrong.

But in the beginning, to be present with people is to just be with them.

Give up the temptation to fix them or give them their advice or their problems.

We just need to accept people for who they are, not who we want them to be.

And try not to center ourselves or push our agenda in those conversations or to give advice or to say, hey, I know something, you have this issue, well, I have this issue, and then just kind of, you know, move that conversation off of them.

No, focus.

Focus on them.

Ask good questions.

Don't just settle for, how are you?

Fine, which is, you know, okay.

But instead ask good questions.

Ask each other, hey, what are you excited about right now?

What's been going on in your life that has really been really good or really hard?

Um, ask each other, you know, what has God been doing in your life?

How are you hearing him lately?

I mean, meaningful questions will help you not only lift them up, but it'll lift you up.

Second, just as God fights for us, we help by fighting side by side and holding each other accountable.

So Ecclesiastes 4, this famous verse that two people are better off than one before they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.

But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

We know that we are more likely to be tempted to be give in to Satan's lies and attacks when we are isolated and we are alone.

Um we know that there's a reason why we have our most anxious thoughts when we are alone.

Typically late at night, early in the morning.

Um the enemy just messes with our heads and we are alone.

We're far more susceptible to listening to all of those things.

Um and those things aren't always true.

Writer Anne Lamont puts it this way.

She says, My thoughts are a bad neighborhood, so I shouldn't be walking them alone.

I need you to walk me through it.

We need each other as protection so we speak truth to one another.

A great example of this principle is an Alcoholics Anonymous.

So AA began in 1935 when one of the founders, Bill W realized that he was an alcoholic who needed another alcoholic to help him stay sober.

So he they started this 12-step program, which has its foundation in Christian faith and principles.

And it helps has helped so far over two million people in 180 countries quit drinking.

And in 2022, a Stanford meta research group did a study on all of the AA studies that so far, and they concluded that fellowship in AA is more effective in people achieving sobriety than individual psychotherapy for years.

Because it's based on social interaction, because they give each other moral emotional support as well as practical tips.

And the researchers concluded this: if you want to make a change, if you want to change your behavior, find some other people who are trying to make the same change.

And that's why AA requires a sponsor, everyone has to have one, and then you have to become one.

Doesn't that sound like what we do here at church?

We are all people wanting to make the same change.

We want to be like Jesus.

And we need each other who also wants to make that same change to come alongside us.

So you may not struggle with addictions, but we all struggle with sin.

That is part of the human condition.

We struggle with battles, lies from the enemy, we struggle with insecurity and discouragement, depression.

We struggle with so many things.

And we know that we don't grow and we need each other to help us.

Because in isolation, we tend towards loneliness, self-centeredness, pride, self-justification, defensiveness.

I mean, we can go on and on.

We don't go good places when we are alone.

But when we're together, we can move towards hope and light and life because we can speak God's truth over one another.

Proverbs 27, 17 says, and as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

There is this beautiful reciprocity and mutuality here.

Sometimes we're the one doing the sharpening, and sometimes we're the ones being sharpened.

The power is in this mutual giving and receiving.

So if you're the one always doing the sharpening and always the one doing the giving, then you have to consider if you've been humble enough or vulnerable enough to allow other people to support you.

If you're the one always receiving and always being sharpened, you may be struggling with a little bit of self-focus, and you may need to attend and look out and see who else can need that support from you.

Which then leads us to the third way that we are Ezer to each other.

That just as God provides for us, we help by providing for others.

I grew up, as you know, from a Korean immigrant family, and we highly valued helping people, but not necessarily being helped by them.

My parents were great at helping people all the time.

So we were supposed to be helpers, but we were never supposed to ask for help.

Just like never having to, you know, admit that we needed things from other people.

I think it was more about pride and a lack of vulnerability and not wanting to look like we have it together, and then it was also about not wanting to burden people.

We just didn't want to be a bother.

And the reality is, though, that God often meets our needs through other people and he uses us to meet their needs.

Galatians 6 says to share one another's burden's burdens.

And I think the NIV says to carry one another's burdens, which is just a beautiful imagery.

And in this way, obey the law of Christ.

Therefore, whenever you have opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially those in the family of faith.

So here are a few examples of the kinds of things that the small groups in my former church did for each other, and we really emphasize that serving one another peace.

So here's some examples.

So one group had a member that was going to be in surgery for several days hospitalized.

So they secretly got the keys, cleaned the house, stocked the fridge, did all the things, and she came home to this incredible surprise.

Um give money to help pay rent or utilities or something for someone who'd been laid off or needed some um help.

People would provide babysitting for exhausted new parents or provide legal, financial, or plumbing or contractor work, whatever was needed that they could offer, they offered it as a resource.

Um one group, this is one of my favorites, one group really wanted to help people that came to our auditorium.

So our worship center had about 2,000 seats.

So a lot of people that were sitting alone.

And so they would come early, they would find someone to sit alone that was sitting alone, sit with them, and then after service, they would meet over by the coffee and donuts together, introduce their new friend to each other and invite them into their group and their community.

Um, others would give elderly people rides or just sit and listen to them that were lonely or take them to church, or some would mentor a young adult or a student.

And of course, above all, they would pray for and pray with one another.

So many years ago, when I was just starting out in small groups ministry, this is probably about 20 years ago, um, there was a middle-aged woman who approached me in the lobby, and she had told me she was recently divorced, and she asked me to find a group for her of women who were divorced.

And we were newer in our small groups ministry, and we didn't have specialty groups like that yet.

And so I said, I'm so sorry, we just have groups that meet in cities and they're married, divorced, single, whatever.

It's just whoever lives in that neighborhood gets together.

Um, and she was really hesitant and she was apprehensive, and she told me she had been deeply hurt by her ex-husband and by other men in her life, and she really didn't want to be in a group with men, but okay, fine, if this is all we had, she was going to do it.

And that was kind of about her attitude.

And I was like, okay, thank you.

Um and then she went to the group, and I knew the leaders were pretty solid, um, but it was rough.

The first month or two was rough, and so she was struggling with kind of feeling um seen or accepted, whatever, her issues, they were kind of trying to work it out.

But then, fast forward like six or seven months later, she approached me with just joy, just radiating from her face, and she was sharing how the men in this group had been so kind, so supportive.

They helped her with house repairs, and they um kind of befriended her son.

She had an adolescent son, and um the dad was absent, and so these fathers would just bring them along whenever they did stuff with their sons.

So they took him to games, they played catch with them, they just invited him along, and they became like honorary uncles to them, a spiritual mentor to him, and they just became part of his life, and she was so, so grateful.

And then with tears, she said, Um, if I had gotten the group that I wanted, I would never would have experienced this healing and this transformation.

But because this is the group that God had for me, that I got to experience um something so much better.

And it and this is really what God does.

When we provide for each other's physical, emotional, or spiritual needs, we get to partner with what God's doing in people's lives, his Ezra work.

And that not only grows their faith, it also grows ours.

I am sure that that group grew as a result of ministering to this woman in similar ways that she grew because she was the one being ministered to.

So, in conclusion, though, I just wanted to remind you again that we are not designed to do life alone.

In John 14, 16 to 17, Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit is coming and that we'll never leave them.

And the Holy Spirit, the one who dwells in us, is described in scripture as an advocate, a defender.

And some translations use words like comforter, encourager, or counselor.

He is the one who comes alongside us as a constant presence and a source of help.

So if you are here today and you're struggling with loneliness and you feel so isolated, ask the Spirit to help you invest in a relationship, to bring someone to mind, just one person for now here in this body of Christ.

And if you are someone who notices somebody struggling or sitting alone next time, reach out and invite them into your circle.

Invite them to coffee or lunch or just hang out for a little bit.

It doesn't take much for people to feel like they matter and they need that face-to-face contact.

So start small.

Don't try to go make 10 friends, just one, just stick with one, and ask God to help you connect.

As part of Jesus' final instructions to his disciples, he said that my command is this: love each other as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

And that is exactly what Jesus did.

He demonstrated his great love for us by laying down his life and to save us for eternity and connect us to God.

And so this is the way of love and the call of Jesus on our lives and the cure for the not good in the garden.

Just as Jesus is always with us and for us, we want to follow his lead to help others know and be known, to serve and be served, and to love and to be loved.

I'm gonna invite Robbie back up for um to continue our time of worship.

And in a few moments, we're gonna be taking communion together.

And communion is the way we reflect and remember Jesus' sacrifice, his death, his burial, and resurrection to give us eternal life.

And so we take these elements together, not alone, but as a community.

And so today we're gonna do this communion a little differently, apparently never being done before at Awakening Church.

So you're in the inaugural way we did communion today, which is such a beautiful, tangible expression of that we are together, we come to the table together.

And so we're gonna serve each other communion.

And me just saying that, if that made you a little nervous, we have instructions so we can do this together.

Um, so we're going to you're going to line up in a few moments in two lines.

There's gonna be two sets of um the bread and the juice, and so you line up in the section closest to you, and you're gonna receive from the person in front of you who's going to say to you, Um, this is the body of Christ broken for you.

And you're gonna receive it and take it, and then you're gonna turn and offer the plate to the basket or the cup to the person behind you, and you're going to say, This is the blood of Christ poured out for you.

Okay, so we're gonna practice together, okay?

So let's say this together.

The body of Christ broken for you, the blood of Christ poured out for you.

Um, and for bonus points, if you want to say, you know, do this in remembrance of him, go for it.

Um, okay, so I know this, I just love that this idea that the team came up with because it reminds us that we are here not as isolated individual people, but we are here as the body of Christ together and we belong to one another.

And if you need encouragement or prayer support in the back corner, there's a prayer section.

So the volunteers I would love to pray with you.

So I don't know where you're at today, where you're at with Jesus, where you're at in your loneliness, or what fires or storms are in your life, but God, our Ezra helper, knows it all.

And he is with you through it all.

And so, child of God, you are not alone, you are seen, you are known, you are forgiven, and you are loved beyond measure.

Let's pray.

Oh, God, thank you for being our helper, our Ezra, for not leaving us alone, but giving us your constant presence and giving us the gift of one another.

God, I pray you would help us be bold and brave this week.

And as we sense you, you stirring our hearts to connect, God, may we take those steps to connect with each other.

And may we find places of belonging.

May this church be a space and a place where people can lay down their burdens, can remove the mask, and just be known and loved for who they are and follow Jesus, follow you together.

And that is our desire.

And God, I pray you would use us and use one another to stir that up in us, God, so that we can bring the good news of your hope and your love and your forgiveness and grace to others around us, and we can receive that good news from each other, God.

So help us, Lord.

We need you, we love you, and we want to be more like you.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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