Fighting Loneliness in the Coronavirus Outbreak

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back everyone.

00:00:05.480 | This is a special episode of the podcast based on what's happening in the world right now.

00:00:10.800 | We don't plan to have a lot of coronavirus episodes, but the virus raises a few topics

00:00:15.760 | that we need to address on the podcast, and that includes the topic of loneliness, which

00:00:20.440 | is what we talk about today.

00:00:22.880 | This season of self-quarantine is abnormal for most of us, and that means the feeling

00:00:27.520 | of loneliness is a reality most of us now face.

00:00:31.560 | We can't visit retirement homes, closed off to us now are churches, workplaces, restaurants.

00:00:39.080 | The sense of isolation and loneliness so common before this virus has been amplified now by

00:00:44.560 | this quarantine.

00:00:45.560 | No surprise we're hearing this theme in our inboxes, listeners write in.

00:00:48.800 | So Pastor John, what would you say to the lonely during this season?

00:00:54.320 | That's a good word you just said, amplification.

00:00:56.960 | Things are amplified now that in a sense have always been true for some.

00:01:01.960 | So maybe the first thing to say is that I'm aware that thousands of Christians live alone

00:01:10.320 | all the time and deal with the issue of aloneness and sometimes loneliness, even when there

00:01:18.760 | is no coronavirus to amplify the issue.

00:01:24.320 | A few of these people love it that way.

00:01:28.760 | Most of them, most of them probably can imagine situations they'd rather be in, whether marriage

00:01:36.600 | or friendships or memberships that just haven't come their way.

00:01:41.500 | So we're not talking about an issue here that is only relevant during coronavirus, but there

00:01:48.880 | is no doubt that millions of people are being thrown now into a kind of life that they have

00:01:57.520 | never lived before, at least not in this way.

00:02:02.480 | These really are unprecedented days, and we don't know how long they're going to go, and

00:02:08.960 | we don't know how bad things are going to get or not.

00:02:12.720 | So it's good to say in general for the long-term issue of aloneness or loneliness or the short-term

00:02:21.900 | issue of loneliness during this crisis that it's okay to believe and to feel that loneliness

00:02:30.960 | or aloneness is not the ideal way of life that God set up for humanity at the beginning.

00:02:38.840 | It's okay to believe that.

00:02:40.360 | He said to Adam when he was alone in Genesis 2:18, "It's not good for man to be alone,

00:02:46.960 | but the world isn't the way it was created to be."

00:02:50.340 | And there are many reasons, some good, some justifiable, some bad, for why people are

00:02:55.680 | alone.

00:02:56.840 | Paul wasn't married.

00:02:58.040 | Jesus wasn't married.

00:02:59.880 | They knew lots of aloneness.

00:03:02.760 | Thousands of missionaries have had fruitful ministries without marriage partners, which

00:03:07.360 | means that even though aloneness is not ideal, God has provided grace for all kinds of situations

00:03:17.400 | in this fallen world that are not ideal, and loneliness is one of them.

00:03:22.280 | He's not unaware of it.

00:03:24.480 | Jesus experienced it, and there is grace for it, whether the short-term of coronavirus

00:03:31.500 | loneliness, or the long-term of a life situation that involves loneliness.

00:03:39.100 | One way that God planned grace for the lonely is by sending his Son to become a human being

00:03:47.920 | so that Jesus, his Son, could experience a kind of loneliness that would make him, the

00:03:55.960 | Bible says, a sympathetic high priest for the lonely.

00:03:59.820 | I think the Gethsemane scene, the night before he died, is one of the most poignant in the

00:04:06.140 | Bible.

00:04:07.140 | Jesus takes his closest friends, Peter, James, and John, apart, and he says, "My soul is

00:04:13.660 | very sorrowful, even to death.

00:04:16.460 | Remain here and watch with me."

00:04:18.140 | And going a little farther, that means he's now alone, "He fell on his face and prayed,

00:04:23.540 | 'Father, my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

00:04:28.260 | Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.'

00:04:31.580 | And he came to his disciples, and he found them sleeping.

00:04:35.540 | And he said to Peter, 'So you could not watch with me one hour?'"

00:04:41.300 | Now, that happened three times.

00:04:45.340 | They fell asleep on him.

00:04:46.340 | He wanted their partnership in prayer in this hour.

00:04:51.380 | He was a human being, and they couldn't do it.

00:04:56.220 | So it gets worse.

00:04:58.860 | When the soldiers come, it says, "Then they all forsook him and fled."

00:05:04.780 | And it gets worse yet, because the next morning it says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken

00:05:11.540 | me?"

00:05:12.540 | Now, why so much loneliness in his suffering?

00:05:16.740 | Because it was all according to Scripture.

00:05:18.580 | This was planned.

00:05:19.580 | Why?

00:05:20.580 | Well, among other reasons, it was so that Hebrews 4, 15, and 16 could be in the Bible

00:05:26.580 | for lonely people.

00:05:28.020 | "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one

00:05:34.220 | who was tested or tempted"—same word in Greek—"tested in every way like we are, with loneliness,

00:05:42.540 | yet without sin."

00:05:44.420 | And then it says, "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we

00:05:50.740 | may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of," it says, "need," but you could

00:05:56.560 | just supply, "loneliness."

00:05:59.440 | So Christ experienced utter forsakenness, utter loneliness, so that we would boldly

00:06:05.900 | pray for grace, a special grace in time of loneliness, and would have confidence he would

00:06:14.040 | give it.

00:06:15.040 | Now, what might a prayer like that sound like?

00:06:17.380 | Well, here's what it sounded like in the mouth of David.

00:06:20.980 | Psalm 25, 16, "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted."

00:06:28.220 | He had a lot of crises where he was cut off from the people he needed.

00:06:32.500 | This is a good prayer right now for thousands of people.

00:06:36.060 | I'm saying this is a good prayer right now for thousands of people.

00:06:40.220 | "Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted."

00:06:46.300 | Will God answer that prayer?

00:06:47.500 | Well, there are good reasons to believe that he will.

00:06:50.740 | First, because he made provisions for it while he was still here.

00:06:55.020 | He said, "I will not leave you orphans."

00:06:57.740 | I won't leave you as orphans.

00:06:59.220 | "I will come to you," John 14, 18.

00:07:02.300 | The last thing he said on earth was, "Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age."

00:07:07.740 | In other words, he sends the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, and he will

00:07:12.340 | be with every Christian.

00:07:13.940 | Christian, you are not alone.

00:07:15.700 | I'll say it again.

00:07:16.700 | Christian, you are not alone.

00:07:19.500 | This is absolutely wonderful.

00:07:22.100 | You are never alone.

00:07:24.520 | The most important person in the universe—mark it—the most important person in the universe

00:07:30.460 | is with you personally.

00:07:32.260 | He promised to be.

00:07:33.420 | He doesn't break his word.

00:07:34.820 | He is.

00:07:36.020 | And the second reason we can expect a sweet answer to that prayer is, "Fear not, for

00:07:41.100 | I am with you."

00:07:42.100 | There it is.

00:07:43.100 | You don't need to go any farther in Isaiah 41.

00:07:46.260 | I mean, we all want to go farther.

00:07:47.940 | "Fear not, for I am with you.

00:07:49.180 | Be not dismayed.

00:07:50.180 | I am your God.

00:07:51.180 | I'll strengthen you.

00:07:52.180 | I'll help you.

00:07:53.180 | I'll hold you up with my righteous right hand."

00:07:54.420 | But the first phrase is everything.

00:07:57.020 | "Fear not, I am with you."

00:08:02.980 | Or here's the way Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 9, 8, "God is able to make all grace abound

00:08:07.860 | to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in

00:08:12.540 | every good work."

00:08:13.540 | In other words, there is a grace, a well-timed grace to make you fruitful in times of loneliness.

00:08:21.320 | So the experience of loneliness is real for God's people, God's people, because this

00:08:27.820 | world is not what it was created to be yet.

00:08:32.740 | In its ideal form, when it was made, it fell.

00:08:36.780 | It is a fallen world, and our relationships are fallen and viruses are fallen.

00:08:43.600 | But God did not leave the world and its brokenness without grace, special grace for every need

00:08:52.740 | that His people have, including the need of loneliness.

00:08:56.940 | Jesus purchased that grace for sinners with His own lonely suffering.

00:09:02.780 | He knows our frame.

00:09:04.260 | He has tasted it, worse than we know, and He will not leave us as orphans.

00:09:10.580 | He will come to us.

00:09:12.500 | Whether the coronavirus isolates us or takes our life, He will not leave us alone.

00:09:19.420 | This is a precious and sure promise.

00:09:22.180 | Amen.

00:09:23.180 | Amen.

00:09:24.180 | Amen.

00:09:25.180 | Those are really good words here, refocusing our attention on Christ and to His vicarious

00:09:29.300 | loneliness that He endured on our behalf.

00:09:31.700 | Thank you for that potent perspective, Pastor John.

00:09:34.820 | Well, here at DG, once a week or so, we're producing special resources related to this

00:09:39.820 | pandemic, including this and other APJ episodes and a few articles.

00:09:43.840 | You can find all of them online at DesiringGod.org/coronavirus, that's DesiringGod.org/coronavirus.

00:09:49.340 | I'm your host, Tony Rehnke.

00:09:53.060 | Thanks for listening to the podcast, and we will see you next time.

00:09:55.980 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Fighting Loneliness in the Coronavirus Outbreak

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