The Loneliness Epidemic

Thank you again, Mr. McNamee, and once again, good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be here with you all. It's good to get together and to worship God together. It's nice to see your smiling faces and excitement. It's wonderful that we have the opportunity to get together like we do. You know, it's one of those things where we sometimes take that for granted when we consider the freedoms and the liberties that we have in our country.

It's certainly wonderful that we are able to get together on the Sabbath and to worship God with one another. Well, when I was a kid, I grew up in a relatively small neighborhood of Greenacres, Washington. Anybody know where Greenacres is? Okay, a couple people. A few Spokaneites. I've been out there before.

First time I moved, actually, in my entire life was when I moved to Oregon. I'd never lived in another location. I'd always been in the same house, born—not literally born in the house—but born and raised in the colloquial sense in this little mobile home park, essentially, off of Sprague Avenue out in the Spokane Valley. So it's out in an area, again, called Greenacres. I grew up, as many of you probably can put together from the idea of age, grew up in the mid to late 80s and the early 1990s.

And in that particular time, looking back on it, things were very different. Things were very different. And I know, you know, many of you who have been around a lot longer than me can notice the change even more. Obviously, we're very, very different from the times in which many of you grew up as well. But, you know, looking back on it, we knew everybody up and down the block on a first name basis. I mean, everybody. We knew the next door neighbors, we knew the across-the-street neighbors, we knew the folks down the road.

We knew, in some cases, to be perfectly honest, we knew a whole lot more about some of those individuals than we really wanted to know. Some of you that have grown up in small towns can recognize that for sure. Greenacres is, I wouldn't define it as a small town, but we were a pretty tight-knit little area where we lived. There really wasn't a stranger, quote-unquote, for several streets. I mean, we knew everybody. And as a result of that, I lived a more or less free-range childhood. And what I mean by that, if you think about free-range chickens, it's kind of the same thing.

Except I'm not a chicken. So, my mom had a rule. My mom's rule was very simple. When it came time for dinner, basically, I was free to go wherever in the neighborhood I wanted to go, with whomever, she didn't need all of that. But when it came time for dinner, she would step outside of our house and she would blow a whistle three times. And I had to be close enough to hear that whistle, step one, and step two, get back within 15 minutes.

If either of those things didn't happen, I was dead meat. I was in big trouble. And so, the deal was, you will be amazed at how far away you can hear a whistle. I mean, really truly, we had this area, our favorite area to play when we were kids, was up on this hill behind our house.

There was a senior citizen center up on the hill. And behind that hill was like a vast untamed wilderness of mostly a field between houses. And it was a place where we'd always go and hang out as kids. There were snakes, so we'd go catch snakes and whatever else. But up on the hill, you were pushing that 15 minutes. Yeah, you were pushing that 15 minutes pretty hard. In fact, I had the worst bicycle accident of my life coming down that hill because I was flying to get home, lost complete control, head over heel.

I mean, it was bad. It was bad. But no, on that one, I didn't make it back in the 15 minutes I thought. But I made—no, I didn't actually. But it was okay because I hurt myself on the way home. My mom was merciful. She saw me come in with scraped-up face and hands and whatever else, and she was merciful. But, you know, I thought back on that, my own childhood experiences. I'm sure many of you have. And I thought, you know, my own kids' experience 30 years later is so vastly different. It is so vastly different.

You know, as parents, we want to know where they are at all times. You know, we want to know who they're with. We want to know which way they're going. We want to know how they're getting there. We want to know, are they going to be sticking to the main roads, or are they going to be walking the back roads? Are they going to take the alleyways? How are they going to get there? Who are they going to be with, and what are they doing?

And part of that is that it's a very different world. You know, our kids are growing up in a very different world today. And, you know, and some of that has to do with the area in which we live. You know, back in that time when I was growing up in Greenacres, we were not a human trafficking corridor. Sadly, as you heard Mr. Griswold talk about in a message a little while back, as well as maybe doing your own research, Salem, Oregon, I-5 corridor, is one of the largest human trafficking areas in the country, because it's unfettered access into Canada and Mexico.

And so there's different things that we have to worry about today that we didn't necessarily have to worry about back when I was growing up. Many of these kind of big issues that society faces today, they just didn't exist on the scale that they exist today. I mean, did they happen? Yeah, occasionally, but not on the scale like they do today. I remember, you know, us kids in the neighborhood, we always knew which was the weird house to stay away from.

We always kind of knew which one had the kind of weird folks in it, like, we're going to go cross the street and ride on the opposite side of the street when it comes to those houses. But you know, it seems, thinking back on it, as the 90s progressed, okay, as the early 90s hit and the 90s progressed, some of it just kind of stopped. And it's kind of weird to think about, but the neighbors didn't come outside as much as they used to.

We didn't get together with them as much as we used to. We still knew everybody, but people didn't really get together and gather like they did prior to that. They spent more time at home inside, not outside. In fact, I remember in 96 in Spokane, we had a massive ice storm.

It was probably one of the worst weather incidents that we ever had in the Spokane area. We got sent home from school early, actually, because the roads were so treacherous. In a 24-hour period, we had an inch and a half accumulation of freezing rain. Not snow, freezing rain. And it was literally an inch—I mean, you went outside the next morning. You couldn't get into your cars. There was an inch and a half of shell around the outside of them.

Well, overnight, we also could hear the wind picked up and the branches started to accumulate. So the branches all started breaking. You know, we had transformers booming. I mean, electrical went out for three days. I mean, we were down with electrical for three days. It was freezing outside. And we were the only house really in the area, one of the few mobiles there, and manufactured homes that had a wood stove. So our house kind of became the local speakeasy, so to speak.

Everybody showed up and hung out and had a warm cup of coffee and had some food and whatever else. It was kind of cool, because we hadn't had that happen in a lot of years. People hadn't gotten together like that in a long time. It's like old times again. And it was kind of sad, because we needed a disaster to make that happen. That wasn't something that we just decided to do.

We needed a disaster to cause that to occur, but it was sure nice to come together even for a couple of days. And I don't begin to even know what caused the change, but it was a marked change. It was noticeable. And I don't know if it was the advent of the internet, you know, early 90s, personal computers, internet started coming out. I don't know, for the young people in the audience, internet hasn't always existed.

There was a time before internet, there was a time before cell phones. But the reality is, you know, that kind of hit in the mid to maybe late 90s and became more popular. I don't know if people just stopped trusting each other, or they got wrapped up in their own lives, but it changed. Noticeably changed. Now, I don't know about the neighborhoods in which you live currently. I hope that some of you actually have experiences like this where you live now.

But in my little neighborhood in Salem, this kind of interaction between neighbors and families doesn't exist. At least not like this. Not like it was when I was a kid. In fact, research is starting to show, kind of interestingly enough, that people just don't really interact with one another in person as much anymore.

It's actually begun to reach an almost critical mass. There's a study done in January of this year by Cigna Healthcare and Ipsos that showed that only 53% of American adults reported having a meaningful in-person social interaction on a daily basis. 53% that reported having a meaningful social interaction with someone else face-to-face on a daily basis. That same percentage, the opposite percentage, 47%, reported being affected by loneliness, which ultimately has doubled in the last decade. So this survey has been done recently.

It's been done again a decade later, and 47% of individuals reported being affected by loneliness. That they experienced loneliness in their lives. Now again, that number has doubled in the past 10 years. Loneliness and social isolation have been linked to a 26% increase in early mortality. Kind of ask yourself, well, how do they figure that out? What they did was a meta-analysis of a number of studies. When they looked at studies where a question was asked about whether or not they had personal interactions with people and then health information. And so they connected those two things through a meta-analysis. It was done by Brigham Young University. But they found that social isolation and loneliness have led to increased distalic blood pressure.

It's led to higher HDL cholesterol levels and an elevated risk for depression. Now, whether it led to, or whether it's simply associated with, I mean, that's the question. But another study actually showed something else kind of interesting. Generation Z, those young adults that are ages 18 to 22 in this last study were recorded as being the loneliest generation. That they experienced the greater degree of loneliness. Our young people up front are like, yay for us! But experiencing the loneliest situations in their lives. And I want you to think about that for a minute.

I want you to think about that for a minute. Because we're talking about a group of young people at 18 to 22 who are in school surrounded by people. They're in school surrounded by people. They are in the prime of their lives academically, socially, physically. They're considered out of any previous generation in this country as more, you know, technologically connected than any other. And yet, they are self-reporting that they are experiencing higher degrees of loneliness than any other generation today.

That's an incredible dichotomy, and I think it's something that should cause us to think for a minute as to what's really going on. What is really happening? Because they're connected more than anyone else has ever been connected before. But as I'm sure many of you realize, whether you have 400 friends on Facebook or 4,000 friends on Facebook, how many do you have in person?

How many do you have that are truly close friends who you truly have a connection with?

Came across a beautiful story this past week. Honestly, kind of heart-rending at first, but it was heartwarming at the end. So it rendered and then warmed. So it was a nice story in that regard.

But it was about an elderly widow named Wanda who took a chance and kind of stepped out of her comfort zone. She was living in a very isolated situation. She lived alone. She didn't really have a whole lot of interaction. And she, like many people today, didn't really know her neighbors.

Really didn't know her neighbors. Family members lived quite a distance away, so she wasn't having regular visits from her own family. She was in poor health. She had congestive heart failure, osteoporosis, and was on oxygen 24-7. So she was limited in her ability to get out and her ability to do things. But despite all of those things, she craved connection. She craved a connection. And so she took matters into her own hand. She actually wrote a note to a woman that lived down the street from her that she had seen going into and out of her house.

She managed to get up the gumption to go over to the person's house and stick the note in the mail slot. And then she left. She left it at that. She stuck the note in the mail slot, and she left it at that. The note read, very simply, Mrs. Question Mark. No idea what your name is, Mrs. Question Mark.

Would you consider to become my friend? I am 90 years old. I live alone. All my friends have passed away. I am so lonesome and scared. Please, I pray for someone. That took some guts to be able to admit that vulnerability, to be able to, you know, step up and make that happen and go over there. The recipient of the note was a woman named Marlene Brooks, 37. She had a young daughter.

And so her and her daughter decided, you know, I'm not going to let this moment pass. I'm not going to take this note and throw it away and pretend it never happened. So they baked cupcakes, and they went over to visit. Spent some time with Wanda. And Wanda told her when they visited that she had lived in that home for 50 years. She knew none of her neighbors. For 50 years, and she knew none of her neighbors. They connected immediately, and their friendship bloomed. And thankfully, their story has a happy ending. But for many today, it's a bigger challenge. For many today, loneliness is a much bigger challenge. Honestly, the majority of folks would not take the first step that Wanda took and reach out on their own. Instead, they would hope that someone would reach out instead to them. Unfortunately, so many of us are wrapped up in our own lives at times. We don't always recognize the need. And even if we do recognize the need, we don't always clear the time in our schedules to make it happen. Or sometimes we do see the need. We try to figure out what we can do with our schedule, and we're honestly really not sure what we can do to fix the issue.

The title of the message today is the loneliness epidemic. The loneliness epidemic, which is a term that was coined by one of the researchers on this particular study. And they are seeing, and again, an increasing trend of this over the past few years. Now, whether that has to do with the number of baby boomers that are now entering into that phase of life, you know, what the reason for the increase is, it's hard to know for certain. But we are instructed to love our neighbor.

We're instructed to love our neighbor. And thankfully, Scripture has a lot of things to say on this particular topic. Let's visit just a couple spots to kind of build some background here before we dig in a little further. Let's go over to Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19, and we'll see that as far back as ancient Israel, God desired his people to care for one another. Desired his people to care for one another. Some tend to view this particular command when we talk about love your neighbor. Some tend to view this particular command as being really a more New Testament thing. Ah, that's just the New Testament stuff. But really, it was being quoted from the Old Testament. Many of you know that. We'll take a look at what that is. Scripture itself as a whole is replete with reminders that God has worked with people over their time or over time and that they have a certain obligation towards one another. But Leviticus 19 is one of those places where this is recorded. We'll pick it up in verse 11 here in a chapter in my Bible that's mentioned moral and ceremonial laws. Leviticus 19 in verse 11 says, you shall not steal nor deal falsely nor lie to one another and you shall not swear by my name falsely nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. Verse 13, you shall not cheat your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind but shall fear the Lord or fear your God. Sorry, I am the Lord.

You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. You shall not go out about as a tale-bearer among your people or as a gossip, as a tale-bearer, slanderer, nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am the Lord. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. Verse 18, you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the children of your people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. As we see in Leviticus 19, the instructions which God provided to Israel, which included ensuring that we were fair and that we were honest with our neighbor, that we should ensure that we pay them on time, it says. We should ensure that we don't hold back wages. We should ensure that we are not partial to the rich or to the poor among them. We should ensure that we're not doing injustice in our judgment. God instructed them not to go out as a tale-bearer, not to go out and spread stories about them to other people around you to kind of drive up support for you and less support for them. He said don't take a stand against their life. You know, down through the list, as you go kind of to what God, you know, writes here to Israel through through Moses, he gave them the desire that he had for them regarding those whom they lived with and lived around, which again culminates in the statement that we see quoted in the New Testament by Christ, which is, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, what's interesting, the word neighbor here has a couple of different connotations. It's actually a couple of different words itself in Hebrew. In verse 13, it is the Hebrew word rea, r-e with a little a that has been added later, but that's h7453. h7453. And I want to take a moment and mention, I often reference strong numbers, and that is partly for your ability to look them up later, because I don't read Hebrew, and most of you likely don't either. And what you know is that the better and the the more effective Hebrew and Greek lexicons, right in the Hebrew and Greek, but many of them are also keyed to strong numbers. So you're able to use that strong number to look it up in a more advanced and a better, really, lexicon or dictionary, such as Mounces or Thayers or something like that.

Many of them have keyed their lexicons to those numbers or to GK numbers. They call them Goodrick Kollenberger numbers, but many of those things are all cross-referenced. And so I would suggest, use strongs. It's a good start, but don't let it be your only resource. When you're looking up word studies, don't let it be your only resource. Dig in deeper. Go into some of the other other lexicons and dictionaries as well, but it helps to kind of have that have that strong's number to help. So the word Rhea is h7453. Now it translates, scripturally, most frequently, as companion or friend, favorite, darling, and it kind of implies a level of closeness that would not necessarily be implied by the idea of a random neighbor today. Okay, so it implies a level of closeness in verse 13. But the other word that's used in the passage for neighbor in verse 15 is the Hebrew word Amit, A-M-I-T, h5997. Okay, and that particular word is translated as community or association of people, which really, I mean, would be what we would consider a neighbor, quote-unquote, to be in our modern vernacular today. So in this sense, we would kind of use that term to understand the concept of neighbor as we would use it today. But what's really interesting about this particular passage is it bounces back and forth in its usage. It references one and then it references the other and then it references one and then it references the other as the passage goes on, alternating in and out. First it's Rhea, then it's Amit, then it's Rhea again, and then it's Amit. And so it's alternating through. Now we don't have, obviously, the reasons why it was written in this particular way. That's not preserved for us. We can speculate and it's the best we can do. But is the writer trying to make the point that it doesn't matter whether they are someone who is associated, quote-unquote, or whether they are someone who is near and dear and darling to you, it doesn't matter, they get treated the same. Personally, I think it stands up to scrutiny. I think it stands up to Scripture and what Scripture states, but I don't know for certain. 100% speculation. I honestly don't know. But by the time Christ came along, the Israelites had really narrowed their definition of who and what these instructions applied to. And so what they ended up doing was they made it so that it wasn't applicable to those who were surrounding them. They made it so that it was applicable only to them. Let's go over to Luke 10, and we'll see that. Luke 10. You know, Christ often went through these particular ancient understandings with those who were gathered, bringing a slightly different understanding to maybe what they had traditionally understood or had traditionally been taught. Luke 10. And we'll see that a question is posed to him in which he turns and uses a parable to explain the situation. Luke 10, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 25. Luke 10 and verse 25. You know, it's kind of fascinating to consider.

As we go through life, we encounter various laws. You know, Oregon's got a whole bunch of random laws on the books sometimes. A number of other states. I don't know if you ever looked up crazy laws that are up in various states. It's kind of interesting to read some of the different crazy laws. But there's some laws that are on the books where you just think, oh, this is stupid. This is a ridiculous law. It is the law. It is absolutely the law of the land. We are to follow the law, but you sit and you look at it and you go, this is ridiculous. This is a ridiculous law.

Again, the fact is it's law, but we're not always privy to the reason why the law was written.

We don't always have the underlying understanding of the law giver that gave that law to be able to look at and to understand why it was given. We just have the end effect. But what's really fascinating about Luke 10 in this section that we're looking at is those who were gathered to listen to Christ had a very unique opportunity. Not only were they interacting directly with the Son of God, they were given an opportunity to speak with the law giver and to understand the reasons why the law was given in such a way and why it was provided for them in such a way.

Again, in Luke 10, we see an interaction recorded between Christ and an individual that was an expert in the law. It's, again, difficult to determine from the text whether this individual was being hostile in his questioning or not. It does say that he tested Christ. It does say that he justified himself. That doesn't necessarily imply hostility, but it may have been a slightly hostile question in an attempt to trick him. It may also have just been a genuine question.

But the man who asks it gets a question in response. Luke 10, verse 25, says, Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested him, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Verse 26, he turns it back on him. He says, What's written in the law? What's your reading of it? This man's a lawyer. He's an expert in the law. He says, What's the law say?

What do you interpret the law to say? Verse 27, so he answered, and he said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Verse 28, he said to him, You've answered rightly, Do this, and you will live. So he asked Christ specifically, What must I do to obtain eternal life? Christ turns it back on him. He says, What's the law say? What's your interpretation of the law say?

So he responds. He cites the two great commandments. We recognize our categorization of the 10, kind of splitting it up into how we love God and how we love our neighbor. But Christ tells him, Yeah, you're right. You got it. Now go and do it, and you'll obtain eternal life.

Verse 29, we see the continuing discussion here in verse 29, but he, wanting to justify himself, wanting to show his own righteousness, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, Well, who is my neighbor? And who is my neighbor? Then Jesus answered and said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. A particular road he's referencing here is a pretty dangerous road. It was known to be a place where robbers and bandits were, but he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. So they'd beaten this guy, you know, really wrecked him and taken his things and left him for dead. Now, by chance, a certain priest came down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So he kind of went, nope, going over here, going down the other side of the road. Just going to avoid that.

Verse 33, a certain Samaritan—or I'm sorry, likewise a Levite, verse 32—when he arrived at the place, came and looked and passed by on the other side. So same thing. He kind of at least went a little closer and kind of, uh, uh, no. All right, going over to the other side. And why? And there's extenuating circumstances on this. We're not going to be labored. We're not going to dig into it fully, but I want to bring the point that Christ made to the lawyer here. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him, and he bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine, and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out tutonari, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to them, take care of him, and whatever you spend, when I come again, I'll repay you. Says, So which of these three do you think was the neighbor to him who fell among the thieves? He asked the lawyer. And the lawyer says, He who showed mercy on him, and Jesus said to him, Go and do likewise. You know, the original question that was asked was, Who is my neighbor? In other words, whom am I obligated to do these things to? I mean, you certainly can't mean everybody. You must mean a certain small group of people, right? The ones who live either side of me, or the ones who are my own people. By this point in time in history, Israel understood the instructions in Leviticus 19 by a very narrow interpretation.

They believed it to only be applicable to those who were of Israelite descent.

That means Gentiles. That means Samaritans, other outsiders. The rules did not necessarily apply.

And so Christ's point to those gathered was the Samaritan in this case, who again were generally thought of as less than by Jewish standards. He had the right attitude. He had the right approach.

The priests in Levite did not. And again, extenuating circumstances, uncleanness, other issues. Okay, we look at this parable. There's a lot of different ways and a lot of different eyes and angles to look at it. But I think the moral is sufficient. Christ illustrated the narrow definitions by which people of Judea had held to at this time in history were not appropriate. They simply were not appropriate. That our neighbor could be anyone. It could be whether we knew them or not. Their race didn't matter. But what was important was that they showed that person mercy and love in their time of need. So in defining the recipients, the words that we see recorded in Leviticus 19 that that lawyer alluded to, they take on new meaning. We're not to have impartiality for anyone. We're not to judge with unrighteousness anyone. We're not to gossip about anyone.

We're not to take the stand against the life of anyone. Because all rich, poor, Jew, Greek, Samaritan, male, female, all were considered our neighbor. It was all inclusive.

Galatians 6 and verse 10, we'll reference it. We won't turn there. It tells us that we should do good to all people, especially those of the household of faith. In other words, those who are fellow believers. Again, Galatians 6 and verse 10. But it doesn't mean that we stop there.

It doesn't mean that we extend our efforts to the folks that we know and the fellow believers that we have. And then that's where our obligation ends. That's not the case at all. Our obligation extends beyond our local congregational borders. It extends beyond our church borders. We're expected to be a neighbor to all, to be someone who is merciful and loving to all. You know, one of the things I've observed over the years in the church, we tend to do a pretty good job of ensuring that people's physical needs are taken care of.

We have work parties. We have, you know, a variety of things to ensure that people's physical needs are taken care of. We clean up areas. We take care of that. We chop wood. We, you know, get wood to them. We have cleanups and special building projects and a lot of those kind of things, you know, that are put together. And we do a pretty good job of that over the years.

And they're all good things. They're beautiful. The people who receive them are so appreciative and so thankful. But quite frankly, brethren, where we as a church have dropped the ball over the years are the times in between. They're the times in between. Maintaining those connections beyond the immediate emergency time of need. Ensuring that we're getting out and seeing people. Ensuring that we're visiting. Ensuring that we're connecting in a variety of ways. And I want to be clear. I'm not saying this in a corrective fashion. I want to be abundantly clear. This is not corrective. Okay? What I'm saying is this needs to be on our radar. We need to consider these things from a standpoint, not just of the physical needs of our membership, but of the emotional needs of our membership as well.

The example that we saw earlier with Wanda and Marlene, Wanda reached out and it made all the difference. And sometimes, frankly, quite often, individuals don't want to reach out. They don't want to take the time to reach out. And I think there's a feeling societally and in some ways, a feeling that expressing any and all emotion is weakness. That we are somehow lesser individuals for not being stoic and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. There is no shame in being lonely.

There is no shame in missing a spouse of many years. There's no shame in desiring to have a more personal and meaningful connection with people. But it's really, really important to recognize that even someone with significant levels of connectedness can also experience a great deal of loneliness. And even if a person doesn't reach out, even if a person is not necessarily going to take that first step of writing out a note and putting it in somebody's mail slot, often as you talk with them, you can read through the lines and get a feel for what they might be experiencing. Again, on our radar, if it's on our radar and we're paying attention, we can read through the lines on those things. You know, we began this message talking about the importance of connectedness and this loneliness epidemic that's occurring in today's day and age. And when we think about, again, who our neighbor is and the obligation that we have to those individuals, both physically and emotionally, I'd like to spend the rest of the time that we have today taking a look at three specific things, hopefully simple and easy solutions, that can help alleviate the loneliness that we might be experiencing or alleviate the loneliness that someone else might be experiencing. The first of those steps is we have to identify the problem.

It always starts with identifying the problem, figuring out what the ultimate issue is. And there's a lot of reasons why somebody might be lonely. Some of the more obvious reasons that we might think about is someone's experienced a loss. They've experienced a loss of someone near and dear to them, whether it's a family member, whether it's a spouse, whether it's a close friend.

The absence of that person in their life leaves a hole that is very difficult to fill. And I think at times when you're looking at a situation, the longer the time period, it's harder. It seems to be harder. But that's not the reason, that's not the only reason that people are lonely. We saw earlier millennials, that Generation Z 18 to 22 are some of the loneliest subgroup in the country.

It's not that they're, you know, starving for lack of communication. They've got communication all over the place. Social media, they've got this, they've got this, they've got friends, they've got... But the problem is what they're craving and what they want is less superficiality and more meaning.

Deeper, stronger relationships that aren't just casual acquaintances.

Sometimes people experience loneliness as a result of pushing everyone else away.

And then when they look around and when they're finished, they look around and realize that there's no one around. That can be a challenge as well. Other people can be in a completely committed relationship for a number of years and as a result of avoidance or a lack of connection, can still be lonely, even though they're married to somebody and have been for a number of years.

Loneliness is not a one-size-fits-all situation from a standpoint of what causes it.

Though at its core, if you really break it down, the primary issue is the same.

There is a lack of deep, meaningful, personal connections with another human being.

Whether it's a loss of a spouse, whether it's a loss of a close family friend, whether it's a distant marriage, whatever it might be, what is being craved is a deep, meaningful, personal connection with someone else.

And sometimes I think as humans we often confuse communication and connectedness.

We confuse the two, communication and connection. They're not the same thing.

We communicate with people regularly. I'm communicating with you right now. I may not be connecting with you, but I'm communicating with you.

We communicate with people all the time, but we don't always connect. We don't always reach the people that we're communicating with. Connection itself, not communication, but connection, implies an exchange of humanity, an exchange of emotion, something meaningful, while communication is just the dissemination of information in an organized way. What people crave is not communication. They crave connection. And so even if we're someone who communicates with a lot of people all the time, you can still miss that connection. We have to recognize they're not necessarily the same thing. For someone who's experiencing loneliness, calling and having a superficial conversation about the weather and what's going on in so-and-so's life, may not actually do anything to make them feel less lonely. Because it's not the communication they desire, it's the connection. It's the personal connection at a deeper level. And it seems kind of counterintuitive. Again, it seems counterintuitive up front. But if communication were the only need for loneliness, then social media, casual relationships that occur in Generation Z would be enough to solve the problem. But it's not. It's a problem of connection. We as humans are hardwired to seek community. We look for people who are like us. We look for people who enjoy the same things as we enjoy, who think in the same way that we think. Right? We're all gathered here because we believe the same thing. I don't know if you've, I'm sure you had to have thought of this before. We would never have known anyone else in this room if it were not for God's calling. We are so vastly different from one another in so many different ways. If it were not for the calling of God, this room of people would never, ever, in a million years, ended up in the same location. But because we have something similar, because we have something that binds us together in this way, we are brought together in this fashion. There's a study that's been done for, it's going on about 80 years now, it's the Harvard study of adult development that has shown that over an 80-year period, one of the primary predictors of living a longer and happier life is a sense of community, a sense of connectedness. It's that important. It's that important.

Belonging to something, being connected to something, being connected to a community that really matters is important. Let's go over to Acts 2. Acts 2.

Acts 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in the latter part of Acts here, Acts 2, verse 41.

Again, we'll take an example here from the early church. Following Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, the brethren in Jerusalem were cut to the heart, they were baptized, they received God's Holy Spirit, they had 3,000 added on that day as a result of God working in their lives.

And in Acts 2, verse 41, we'll pick up their story, kind of what happens afterwards.

Acts 2 and verse 41 says, then those who gladly received His word, speaking here of Peter's sermons, were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. And then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Verse 44, now all who believed were together, and they had all things in common. They sold their possessions and their goods, and they divided them among all, as anyone had need. Verse 46, so continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and with simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Here, look at the example of the early church. They continued steadfastly in doctrine and in fellowship, in the time in which they spent with one another. In fact, such that Luke, who was putting together this overall story of Luke 1 and Luke 2, also known as Luke and Acts for Theophilus, took the time to specifically write this. He wanted Theophilus and ultimately us to know what was going on and what had happened at the beginning. He wanted us to realize these things.

In their time together, in the meals that they shared, the prayers that they prayed, they remain strong in the teachings of the apostles, in their fellowship, in their quinonia, which is fellowship and participation. They belong to a community of believers who were of like mind and connected with one another. This is why we do socials. This is why we do potlucks. It's not just to add one more thing to the calendar. It's to provide an opportunity for connectedness, to provide an opportunity to get together with one another and to get to know one another and to strengthen and encourage and exhort one another.

Is true fellowship a how-was-your-week sort of conversation?

No, it's not. It starts there, but it's not. It goes deeper than that.

Fellowship implies participation. It's a verb. It's a verb and a noun.

Fellowship implies participation. It describes a shared experience, something that you are experiencing together with one another. You'll have opportunity for that tonight. Get a chance to mix it up with the teens and play volleyball. Right? There's an opportunity for that in the gym this evening as part of our gym night, as part of our opportunity to have snacks together and to talk with one another. These opportunities are there. The big question is, will we use them?

Will we take that opportunity? Will we take that time? Hebrews 10 and verse 24 through 25—we won't turn there, but if you want to just reference it in your notes—it specifically states that we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. And why? Well, because as things get more difficult to the time of the end, because we will need to exhort and to encourage one another as things become more difficult. But all of this requires us to open up and to become vulnerable with one another. To share our struggles, to share our difficulties, to share what we're dealing with, and to connect at an emotional level. Not just simply, how was your week.

Not just simply, you know, how you doing? I'm fine. Good chat. Cool story. But really connecting with one another in a much deeper way.

That has to be done very carefully. It takes a degree of trust. It takes a degree of faith.

And sometimes it's hard to dig into all of those things, you know, in a single conversation, right? It's hard to get to some of those deep things in a single conversation.

But where does it start? Well, it starts with point number two. It starts small. It starts small.

How do you eat an elephant? You don't. They're unclean. How do you eat a really big cow?

One bite at a time, right? You know, think about some of the closest relationships that you have. And I want you to think for just a second. Think about some of the people who are absolutely the closest to you as anyone else. How did that relationship begin?

Think back to how that relationship began. How did that relationship begin? Of the individuals who are the closest to you, whom you can talk to and share things with and they'll sharpen you. How did that relationship begin? You know, if you take a second and you think back to your first meeting with that individual, chances are really good that that level of connection that you share right now was not immediate. Chances are really good that that level of connection that you share right now was not immediate. It took time. It took time to build to that point. And that might not take much time. You know, some people you can talk to and it feels like you've known them for your lifetime. You know, the first time you ever met them and you're like, wow, we met before? You know, this is kind of uncanny. You probably all can think of individuals who have come across or who you've come across in your life like that. But we run across people occasionally. They're just really good listeners. They ask great questions and you connect very quickly. But chances are really good that the conversations that you had with that individual whom you're so close to now at the beginning were more subdued. They probably were more of a basic greeting, a little bit of small talk. But it didn't stop there. As time went on, you'd have a few more conversations over a period to kind of establish that you enjoyed one another's company. Right? It turns out if you don't enjoy one another's company, it's kind of difficult to get along. And as time went on and as you got to know one another a little bit better, you kind of push through that, I don't know, that veil of perfection sometimes that people have and you realize, no, this person has some idiosyncrasies.

You know? And they drive me a little crazy sometimes, but I still love them and I still care about them. And I can look past those things, right? As the relationship develops, so does your capacity to then connect in a deeper and more meaningful way. The point is, it started small. It didn't immediately start with the level of connectedness that you share right now. It started small. Honestly, chances are real good you can count the number of relationships that you have that are like this on one hand. They're not a lot. Not typically. They're typically not a lot.

Sometimes less than a half a dozen individuals whom you know, to this degree, whom you can share anything and everything with. But, brethren, that doesn't mean it can't be more.

It doesn't mean we can't develop more. It doesn't mean we can't take that opportunity to get to know one another and, you know, we don't reach the number of five and go, I've got enough. I'm good. You know, I'll shut this down. No. We have opportunity to continue to grow and continue to get to know people. For older individuals who have lost a spouse, that person was that person in their life. That person was that person whom they could share anything and everything with. Person who they confided in, who they had years of shared experiences with and who'd gotten to know very deeply but now are gone.

For individuals like Wanda that we'd heard about earlier, she lost all of her friends. She outlived all of her friends. She outlived everybody. She looked around and she went, what's left? So she took the step to make a new friend who was 37. That was a great experience for the both of them. In fact, Marlene Brooks started a program called Pen Pals for Seniors as a result of that. And there's a place where you can send letters to and they will put them to a senior somewhere that doesn't have connection. And you can get to know somebody by letter, it's not the same as in person, but it's better than nothing.

For younger individuals that are experiencing the same thing, they may not feel like they have the social strategies or the time to invest, especially when you're in college, it feels like you don't have the time to invest in anything but your degree. Connecting with people, it's like, yeah, that can wait. I've got to finish this program. But it can be daunting. And not to mention, often, depending on your level of maturity, you're often not the same level as some of the people you go to school with, right? But everyone, regardless of whether you're older or younger, can take that first step. You can reach out. Let's go over to Luke 6.

Luke 6. Luke 6 is one of those places in Scripture that parallels the teachings that Christ provided on the Sermon on the Mount. So he's going through and he's kind of challenging some of these, again, common teachings of the day, really expounding on their meaning, giving the reasons why the statement was made in the first place, giving the underlying understanding of why it was written in the first place in the Old Testament. In verse 27 of Luke 6, Christ states the following.

Luke 6 and verse 27 says, But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.

To him who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also. From him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. And then verse 31, And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. We have a terminology for this in our modern vernacular. We call it the golden rule. And no, not the men with the gold make the rules, though that is also unfortunately true.

But it's the idea that if what we want done to us, the various things that we would like to be done to us, that we should ensure that we are doing those things to others. If we desire love, if we desire blessings and prayers, we must then provide love and blessings and prayers to other people.

If we desire others to give to us, we need to be giving as well.

If we desire connection, if we desire relationships, if we desire a chance to connect and to build a stronger, more deep and meaningful relationship someone, if we desire that someone should reach out to us, then we too should reach out to someone else. Wanda took that first step and it panned out for her. We have to identify the problem. We have to invite the individual over. We have to be hospitable. We have to take that opportunity to get to know them. And then if we desire deeper connections, doesn't it stand that we should also begin to open up and to experience that deeper relationship with that person. But reaching out doesn't always happen. In fact, it's pretty infrequent that it happens. So it's important we keep our eyes out for a need and see what we can do to help fill it. Because human communication is a two-way street. Connection is a two-way street. It requires give and take. It requires a number of things that require this kind of back and forth among the two individuals that are involved. But the important thing that we have to recognize is that to kind of maintain and to keep in mind as we go through this, the first step in that process is small. Say hello. Sit down. Ask them some questions. Genuinely ask them some questions about their life. You know, people can kind of see through somebody who really doesn't care from a mile away. You have to be genuine. You have to truly want to know more about them. But you'll be amazed if you sit down and start that process. What can potentially blossom? Last point today, is that we need to be present. We need to be present. You know, when we as humans are invested in an experience or an event, we do everything that we can to participate in that thing. You know, where we could have a slight sniffle and decide, that's it, I'm not going into work today.

That same slight sniffle, we go do the thing we wanted to do, no problem.

I will find a way around it if we want to go do something bad enough.

When we're looking forward to something, we are all in. We are all in. And we wouldn't miss it, whatever that thing may be, we wouldn't miss it for the world. But on the other hand, if we're not looking forward to something, right, if we're not looking forward to something, what do we do? Well, we look for every possible excuse why we can't do it.

And we come up with reasons why we can't do that thing.

We have to be present. We have to be present. We have to show up. But being in the room itself is not enough. If we're not present in the moment, if we're not actually present in the moment itself, that experience is vastly diminished. These two things are two very different things.

Being present and being present are two very different things. Let me give you an example.

I spoke on this before. I won't belabor the point. My dad and I had a pretty strained relationship growing up. He wasn't absent in the traditional sense of the word. He wasn't absent in the traditional sense of the word. He was home every night. He didn't travel for work. You know, he wasn't gone all the time. He was home every single night. But he was still not present.

Does that make sense? There are two different things. Physical presence versus emotional presence. He was home. He was present, but he was not present. And so when we're dealing with these two things, when we're talking about human relationships, both of these things are crucial.

You have to be present. You actually have to be there, physically. But you also have to be present emotionally and mentally and focused on that conversation and focused on that individual as if you're not. It's not going to go anywhere. You know when my kids have musicals and presentations at school, you can look at the group of kids and say, you can do it for children's choir. Same exact thing for children's choir. They are up there and they're looking. Where's mom? Where's dad? Where are they at? Oh, there they are! Hi! You know, big old toothy, awkward kind of grin, you know? And they're waving and they're excited because they're looking for their family. They're looking to see where they are. They're looking to see that they're there. And not only that, that they've seen them. That they are there and that they have seen them. Sporting events. When I used to coach, it was the same thing. I coached football for a few years when I was at Waldo. You know, you have kids and they make a good hit and they hop up in the first place they look.

Mom and dad on the sidelines, did you just see what I did? Huh? Look at that, mom and dad.

They're looking for their family. They're looking for someone who saw what happened. Again, we get the awkward wave from the stage or from the field. Oh, look at that! Hey, look, I got him!

Both of these things, being present in the moment and being physically present, is important. You know, meetings aren't the most exciting thing in everyone's life. In fact, from an education standpoint, honestly, they're a nightmare. Professional development meetings are a nightmare. Those who have taught, they're a nightmare. And it was one of the things, once I kind of moved to the other side of the table and began to become a person who planned those meetings, which was rough, my team and I constantly talked about what it was going to take to make the meeting worth coming to. I'm okay! But we asked the question of what would make this meeting worth coming to. And the reality is, it was mandatory. They didn't have an option. They had to be there.

But they didn't have to be present. They had to be present, but they didn't have to be present. They didn't have to listen to a word we were saying. They could sit there and doodle on a piece of paper and put in their time, get the checkbox next to their name, renew their license for the following year, and not listen to a word that was actually said. And so, as a team doing professional development, we said, what is going to be something that's actually important to this group of people in this room? That they will want to listen and that they will want to be a part of.

You could look out as a presenter over the group and know who was there and who wasn't. It's not hard. It's really not hard. You can look out and you can see that person is checked out.

Could doodle in on a piece of paper or this or that. They're gone. They're not even listening.

And so, it's not hard to see sometimes who's present and who's not. Everyone in that room was present in that they were physically sitting there. But a few of them were not present from a standpoint of listening or paying attention. But it's important for us to be present in both of these ways when we have opportunity to build relationships with others. Because being present in someone's life, it's a choice. It's an opportunity. It's a chance to be intimately involved in someone's life. It's incredible. Let's go to John 15. John 15. Kind of begin to wrap this up here today. John 15. We'll pick it up in verse 12 of John 15, and we'll read through verse 14.

John 15 and verse 12, again, is part of this series of things that Christ was giving to his disciples on the night of his betrayal. Kind of his final instructions to them and opportunity to teach a number of things. But John 15, and we'll pick it up in verse 12, he said, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Verse 13, greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. He says, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you, speaking here to his disciples. He says, love one another as I have loved you.

Greater love has no man than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. How do we lay down our life? I mean, yeah, it's specifically referencing dying for someone else. Certainly, that is a reference in this passage. But how often does that opportunity come up? Not real frequently.

But how often does the opportunity come up where we're asked to give up something that we may want for someone else? A lot more frequent. A lot more frequent. And sometimes those are the hard things to lay down. Laying down our life in that way, putting aside our wants, our desires, for someone else. Isn't that laying down our life, too? It is not in the traditional sense of taking a bullet for somebody, but it's important. Being willing to put aside our wants and our desires.

Being there and listening and being present in that moment, even if you're not being present and listening and putting down the phone or putting down the turning off the television or whatever it might be. And being there for that moment. We all have this opportunity on a daily basis.

We have a chance to be vulnerable, to invite people into our lives. We have a chance to be invited into people's lives who have been vulnerable and have said, I'm lonely. I'm struggling with connection. I'm missing people. We have a chance to step in in those opportunities and to help. And it's incredibly important that we do. You know, even our relationships between two committed folks, they require maintenance and upkeep. You know, they require maintenance and upkeep. They require the time to be taken to ensure that we are showing love to one another, that we are serving one another and helping one another as we're able. But I think it's really important to recognize, too, you know, we've been talking a lot about what do we do here with our own brethren and those of the household of faith. But it's important to recognize, again, the command that we're given is to love our neighbor. And that definition is larger than just the household of faith. We've had a house across the street from us for a number of years, down on the corner of, I won't say where, but I don't want to pick on the house itself.

We didn't think anybody was living in it for the longest time. We never saw anybody.

We never saw anybody come outside. We never saw anybody. I mean, they were, somebody would occasionally come above the lawn, but it wasn't that person. For a number of years, it was an older woman who lived in there on her own. And I think she ended up in a nursing home or something like that. We had no idea. But you know what? We also didn't take the time to walk over there and knock on the door either. We should have. We absolutely should have. But we didn't.

Why not? I don't know. I'm not sure why. Something that we all need to consider and something that we need to look at. But we interact with people all the time, whether it's at work or school or, you know, through clubs and social commitments. But we all have opportunity to step into people's lives in a variety of ways. We all have an opportunity to help combat this epidemic of loneliness by really keeping our eyes open and looking for these opportunities, looking for these chances to step in as needed. You know, be able to identify these issues, be able to reach out and to connect with other people. And really, during those opportunities, being present, making sure that we are there and being present in that process. It's essential in our marriages, in our families, in our spiritual community, and again, the greater local community. Because only through meaningful human connection, in a variety of ways, can we truly combat this epidemic of loneliness.