Cameron: 00:02

This past weekend this weekend, we hosted, the, marriage conference. And, you'd heard a lot about that throughout the last few months. It was a I I I think it was an incredibly fruitful time, of pursuing, the covenant of marriage with a new level of vulnerability and honesty and emotional health and forgiveness. And trust that it was, a blessing to those of you who were able to make it and hope that, in, in future years, we're able to host similar things where more of you can make it as well. But as I had said a couple of times in the lead up to that, it wasn't just gonna be something that we led that we're partnering with the ministry from Louisville, Kentucky called Crosspoint Ministry.

Cameron: 00:47

And, 2, 2 of the the staff members of Crosspoint Ministry, Rodney and Cliff, came up to help lead and facilitate that. Both, just fantastic men, men who love their wives, love their families, love the Lord, love the church, love his word, and, are really advocates for, the health of Christian leaders. The the the emotional health and spiritual vitality of Christian and Christian leaders in their churches. And so, Cliff, especially, this is my first time meeting Rodney as he's come into town this week this weekend. I had a joy to meet him.

Cameron: 01:30

But Cliff and I have had a relationship for several years now, and he's become a very close friend and someone that I love and honor and trust, both implicitly and explicitly. And so I'm eager for him to come and share the word with you this morning and, and and and trust that you will be a blessing, that you will be a blessing to him just as he will be to you. So let's, let's center our hearts again in prayer and then invite our brother Cliff up, and, we'll hear from the word. Heavenly father, again, father, we we seek your face this morning and pray, lord, that in the seeking, we may find you when we seek you with all of our heart. Father, I thank you for Cliff.

Cameron: 02:22

I thank you for his heart, his heart for you, Lord. Thank you for his heart for the word, his heart for pastors, churches, ministry leaders, and just people. Lord, we thank you, lord, for the opportunity to, hear your word this morning. Pray, lord, that as Cliff, Cliff shares it, that either through him, Lord, or in spite of him, your Holy Spirit may use the truth of your word to transform our hearts and that you would plant within us once again, Lord, a deep hunger and passion to seek you. In Jesus' name.

Cameron: 03:04

Amen.

Cliff: 03:09

Alright. Am I good? Come on? Awesome. Awesome.

Cliff: 03:13

Wow. I'm tall up here. Yeah. You guys are short, I guess. It is, really a joy and a gift to be here this morning and to, see and meet you.

Cliff: 03:26

I have prayed for you, prayed for this church for many years now, and, I've been in the building before, but never seen the church before. And so, it's a joy to see the church this morning, to be with all of you. It's a real gift. As Cameron said, I work with an organization called Crosspoint. And Crosspoint was founded by my mentor about 30 years ago and our mission as an organization it's a it's a nonprofit organization that works with pastors and Christian leaders across the country and our mission is that we advocate for the relational health, spiritual vitality, and resilience of pastors and Christian leaders.

Cliff: 04:04

And we focus on on things like relational health, emotional health, sexual health, spiritual health, and and organizational health to try to make sure that, you know, in our culture, the the church, and the trust in what the church is, I mean, it's changed a lot. Let's just be honest. I mean, there's there's not as many trustworthy churches as maybe there used to be. Maybe that's true. I don't really know for sure, but what I do know is that trust is the currency of all relationships.

Cliff: 04:35

And if we want to see the gospel of Christ go forward, we need to have trustworthy communities of faith in our country. And trustworthy communities of faith, trustworthy churches do not happen apart from trustworthy leaders who are leading those churches. And so that is our passion at Crosspoint is to be present to the lives of Christian leaders, so that they may be more trustworthy people, and then we have more trustworthy churches. And my goodness, just being with you for this weekend, I would say I trust this church. I I was just thrilled to be with everyone over the last couple of days.

Cliff: 05:12

Of course, it's a joy. I get to be with Cameron on a pretty regular basis, and I trust Cameron as well. And so to be here with you all and just and sing with you this morning, this is a fun building to sing in. My gosh. It's really beautiful.

Cliff: 05:27

And you guys did you guys sang out, which was wonderful and kinda unique. And so, just wanna say thank you for being trustworthy. And thank you my wife says this line all the time to our kids and to me. She says, trustworthy people do trustworthy things. And, man, just to hear and, again, hear all that God is doing through Conduit, you're doing trustworthy things.

Cliff: 05:52

And I just wanna affirm that and encourage you, to keep on to keep on. Stay with it. And when you grow weary, stay with it. Because god is god has called you and equipped you, and he is so glad that you're participating in his mission with you, and he wants you to to stay with it. So stay with it.

Cliff: 06:15

I admit that this morning I am a little lonely. I traveled so, you know, this is kind of a weird thing. I just just say it. I said it to the to the marriage conference too. You know, like, when you come to do a marriage conference and you're traveling to, like, speak at the marriage conference, it would be fun to do that with your spouse if you're married.

Cliff: 06:33

Right? And I didn't do that. I did that with my friend, Rodney. And it's kinda strange, like, why would 2 guys show up at a marriage conference to you know, it's kinda weird. But we, you know, we push through.

Cliff: 06:43

We pushed through and there was a lot of really beautiful things that I think came from the 2 of us getting to do it together. Rodney, I've been friends for many years. I was able to do his premarital counseling. I officiated his wedding. So if that matters, like, that made it less weird.

Cliff: 06:56

Right? That we have that history. But I will say, it it it was it was poor compared to, if my wife was with me here to do to be with me this weekend. So I felt lonely for her and for my kids. So I wanna show you a picture of them.

Cliff: 07:11

Here they are, Sally, Violet, Caroline, and Laurel, and I miss them dearly. And I will get to be with my wife tomorrow, thanks be to god, and my kids later this this next week. But, you know, as I just thought about loneliness in that sense, you know, it's a really important part of of I think being a healthy person that I'm lonely for them. Like, if I didn't feel lonely for them, something would be wrong. And so I'm glad that I feel lonely, though it's kinda painful and it is sad that I feel lonely.

Cliff: 07:50

I wish they were here. I wish I was with them, but that's kind of what I wanna talk about this morning is is this this idea of loneliness. This idea of loneliness. It it's really sparked a lot in me. And over the last couple of years, I've been on a a pretty profound journey in my own personal experience of loneliness.

Cliff: 08:09

And I kinda wanna share that with you because not just because I wanna share with you my personal journey, but because I believe that the scriptures teach us a lot about this idea of loneliness and why it's important for us to have some sort of understanding about it. I read in a book, that my mentor wrote about 10 years ago. I read this book and in the first chapter was this line and when I read the line it sort of stuck with me and it it's never left. In the book it said that loneliness is the most universal human experience. Loneliness is the most universal human experience.

Cliff: 08:49

Now, what I took that to mean is that loneliness has been experienced by all humans in all times and in all places. So I don't care if you're in the deepest darkest corner of Russia or you're in South Africa or you're in Australia or you're in Florida or you're in New York or you're in California. All people, all times and all places have felt lonely. I don't care if you're black, if you're white, if you're if you're, Asian of Asian descent. I don't care your nationality.

Cliff: 09:20

I don't care what language you speak. I don't care if you're a male or you're a female. You felt lonely. I think it's true. I don't I mean, I've never met a baby infant who hasn't felt lonely.

Cliff: 09:35

I've never met a senior citizen who's not felt lonely. I'm 42 and I feel lonely. So it seems like all through life and all people, all times, in all places have had this experience. I think it's true. And the more I've contemplated that I'm like, wow, that's kind of a big deal.

Cliff: 09:55

So we should probably talk about this a lot more. Interestingly enough, last year, the surgeon general of the United States of America pronounced that we have in our culture and in our country a loneliness epidemic. Now when you hear epidemic, you don't think positive thoughts, do you? No. Since COVID, anything that were ends in the word dimic, right, is a bad thing.

Cliff: 10:23

Epidemic of loneliness. And there's a lot of studies that's been done. So that that sparked a lot of people's interest in this topic, and it became very popular. It's become very popular, and you can find article after article after article about the loneliness of our culture, the loneliness with, with technology, the, the loneliness in homelessness, the loneliness in addiction. Loneliness is across the board still considered and is currently the most universal human experience.

Cliff: 10:54

Interesting study that was done recently, and I find these stats fascinating, that when Americans who feel lonely were asked how they report easing these feelings and they were given a list of options, here is how it stacked up. 6% of these people who feel lonely said they ease their feelings of loneliness by volunteering. 9% said they connect to a therapist or a counselor. Probably put pastor in there as well. 13% said to ease their feelings of loneliness, they use drugs or alcohol.

Cliff: 11:27

I would venture to say that number is probably significantly higher, but at least 13% of the people that took the survey said that's definitely a way that they ease their feelings of loneliness. 26% said they eat more than usual. I can relate to that when I'm lonely. 31% said they connect to a pet. 31% said they exercise.

Cliff: 11:50

Pretty good ideas. 38% said they reach out to their friends and family when they're lonely and that helps ease their feelings. 41% go for a walk, but the most astounding stat to me and I think sobering stat, which I also believe is probably significantly higher, 50% of people said they find distraction like TV, podcasts, or social media. So at least 50% of the people that took the survey were self aware enough to say, when I'm lonely, I distract myself from my loneliness. That's how I ease the pain.

Cliff: 12:24

Now, I would say again, that stats gotta be higher because one of the things I know about myself, if I'm honest, is I'm often distracting myself from my loneliness and I don't even know it. Because I'm pretty disconnected from my feelings at times, if I'm honest. And I stay distracted, so they don't have to feel them. So, this has sent me on this wild journey. And, I I talk about feelings a lot because I talk about emotional health and I'm kind of one of those counselor type people.

Cliff: 12:56

Right? So, it's kind of my job to think about and to process ideas and also strategies to help people be more emotionally aware and emotionally healthy. And and I'm I'm kind of passionate about it too. I kinda like it. I like my job.

Cliff: 13:09

I like to do that. So I do wanna enter into that space partially because I like it and because it's what I think about a lot. But I also wanna be very clear with you that I believe if we go to the scriptures that from the beginning we see that this is not that feelings are something we need to talk about because God made us with these things. These things we call emotions and it's important for us to be aware of them. And I would I'm going to argue and I won't die on this hill, but I believe that loneliness is probably the most important feeling that we have because we were created with it.

Cliff: 13:46

I don't think we were created with sadness. I don't think we were created with fear. I don't think we were created with guilt or shame. But I do believe that before the fall, God made you, he designed you, he wired you with the feeling of loneliness in your body. So, I actually think, and I disagree with the surgeon general, loneliness is not the epidemic, isolation is the epidemic.

Cliff: 14:12

Loneliness is actually something that we need to feel and need to pay attention to, because if we don't do it, if we distract ourselves from it, we actually distract ourselves from the very way that God designed us. So that we could we could be who we were made to be and ultimately do what we were made to do, which is to live life in love. Love the lord your god with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. You can't love if you never feel lonely.

Cliff: 14:42

And if you never feel lonely, you won't be in love. This is all over the scriptures, but one of my favorite, as you could imagine, if you like feelings, then the Psalms are like one of your favorite things because it's just this book of somebody expressing over and over and over what they feel toward God and and the relationship to themselves and the relationship to the world, what they feel about their enemies. Sometimes they pray some pretty harsh prayers against their enemies in the Psalms and it's kinda wild. Sometimes they're just desperate prayers crying out to god. What we sang this morning, a lot of those songs were just, like, rewritten Psalms from the scriptures is what they were.

Cliff: 15:24

Expressing our hearts to god. One of my favorites is Psalm 42. I wanna hear I want you to hear these verses. Psalm 42 1 through 3, it says this, as the deer pants or longs as the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, oh god. I thirst for god, the living god.

Cliff: 15:48

When can I go and stand before him? Day and night, I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taught me saying, where is this god of yours? The psalmist expresses deep emotions here in these words, longing, thirst, sadness, hurt. And these feelings in this text are are not a hindrance to his faith. They're actually driving him towards god.

Cliff: 16:26

Did you catch that word, I long? Like the deer longs for water, I long for god. That word longing sounds a lot like another word I'm talking about. Right? Longing equals lonely.

Cliff: 16:44

So I kinda wanna shift the paradigm for you. I want to change maybe some definitions. I want you to start to think today even, maybe, in a different way than you've thought before. I I, kind of, want to paint a new picture, or give you a new representation of this idea of loneliness. And I want you to hear me saying that lonely equals longing.

Cliff: 17:04

I mean, if I had 2 options up here for you to choose, lonely or longing, most of you would want to choose which one? Longing. Who wants to be lonely? Right? Because we naturally associate loneliness with pain, because we think about loneliness in terms of isolation rather than loneliness as a feeling that's a gift that's taking me toward my longings.

Cliff: 17:31

And so what we do just like the statistics said is we distract ourselves from it. So when we distract ourselves from our loneliness, we're actually distracting ourselves from our longings. Do you see how this works? It's important that we kinda have a little bit of a shift in our understanding and maybe even in the way we talk, because most of us talk about loneliness like it's this plague, like this enemy that I need to avoid rather than an ally, or sort of something that's gonna help me move toward the way I was created to be. Is loneliness painful?

Cliff: 18:11

Yes, it is. And, I'm not gonna deny that, and I'm gonna talk we're gonna talk about that in very clear terms, the pain of loneliness. But what's so important to me is that you understand that loneliness equals longing, And when we deny our loneliness, we deny the very way we were created. It would be like you denying the fact that you're hungry and never eating food, you'll die. Denying the fact that you're tired and never taking rest, you'll die.

Cliff: 18:47

Denying the fact that when you put your hand on a hot stove, it burns. If you don't feel the burn, you'll die. Denying our loneliness is denying the very way God created us. And if we don't feel it, if we can't move through it, if we only associate it with something bad like isolation, we will die. So loneliness equals longing.

Cliff: 19:21

I also wanna tell you a little bit about what we're what we're lonely for. Okay. I maybe I've convinced you loneliness is the same thing as longing, and maybe it's a good thing and isolation is a bad thing. Alright. Maybe you're logically following the argument here, and you're with me.

Cliff: 19:37

You maybe you agree. Okay. I can get behind that. Okay. I get it.

Cliff: 19:41

We don't wanna deny our loneliness because it's the thing that takes us to to connection to relationship. And I wanna talk about that piece here for just a second. What is it that we're lonely for? What are we longing for? And maybe these are obvious things and maybe you already know the answers to these questions, but I think it's important that we just kinda go back to the beginning and remember how we were created from the beginning.

Cliff: 20:04

So I want to read you this story, and I want you to kind of use your imagination. I think the words will be on the screen and you can kind of follow along. But try to get out of your head a little bit and just kind of use your imagination, sort of engage your body in the story for a second. Like, try to see yourself in the story as if you were there watching this sort of play out. I don't know what it was like exactly.

Cliff: 20:29

Some people think they do. I don't know how it all played out in the beginning. But what I do know that is that in this narrative, in this story, something beautiful comes to light. And I really want us to sort of narrow in on it here for just a second. This is God's design for your loneliness.

Cliff: 20:47

So, god created the heavens and the earth. Right? Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, god created the heavens and earth. He made this beautiful world. And then the lord god planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man that he had made.

Cliff: 21:06

The lord god made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground, trees that were beautiful and they produced delicious fruit. And in the middle of the garden, he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Later in the in the story, it says this, the lord god placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. He gave him a job. But the lord warned him, you may freely eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Cliff: 21:41

If you eat this fruit, you're sure to die. So God gave him a job and God sort of gave him a limit, a boundary, and he said, hey, everything is good except that. Stay away from that because you're not a god, you're a human. And this is here to remind you that you're a human. So don't violate the mystery of your humanity.

Cliff: 22:01

Just stay with it. That's the best plan. Don't try to be a god. It's not gonna go good for you. Stay stay away from that.

Cliff: 22:10

Then the Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper who's 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. Can you see this in your imagination?

Cliff: 22:27

All the animals, he brings them to the man we call Adam 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 of the sky, and all the wild animals. And remember why they were coming in front of him? Because he was to try to find a companion, a helper.

Cliff: 22:57

Because God said it's not good for you to be alone. So he was trying to to find the one that he was longing for, the one that he was lonely for. And as all the animals passed before him, giraffes weren't that good, zebras weren't that good, dog, man's best friend still wasn't enough, cats definitely weren't enough. Hey. Right?

Cliff: 23:27

I mean, hamsters. Not I mean, they're great. Cuddly. Bunnies. Cuddly.

Cliff: 23:34

Not enough. There was no helper. He couldn't find anyone just right for him. And how do you think Adam knew they weren't right? Just because he was doing some sort of, like, biology lesson in his head?

Cliff: 23:52

No. I think he felt it. What did he feel, you ask? Well, I don't know for sure, but I think he felt lonely. So loneliness didn't happen after the curse, after sin entered into the world.

Cliff: 24:13

Loneliness was here before sin entered into the world. Because loneliness is a part of how we were created in the beginning, And we were created good. And we were made good. And you were put together good. And and god makes Eve and he makes her good.

Cliff: 24:32

And Adam's like, at last, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman because she was taken from the man. This explains why we give up a whole lot of things to be together with each other. And the man and the wife were both naked and they felt no shame. That's the way we were made to be.

Cliff: 24:55

Lonely, longing for connection, and that longing then takes us into the connection, into the communion with God, and the community with each other for which we were created. And then we fast forward in the story a little bit and things kinda take a turn. Remember the mystery of humanity and that whole thing that I talked about just a minute ago? God said, hey, don't violate the mystery of humanity. You stay with that because, man, it's like, it's not good for you to be a god.

Cliff: 25:26

It's good for you to be a human because that's how I made you. I made you in my image, but you're a human not a god. But that didn't that didn't last and they were tempted to become gods, and they tried to become gods. And they violated the very mystery of their humanity, and instead of engaging maybe with their loneliness for god, they sought to distract themselves from their loneliness for for god and their loneliness for each other and somehow find a different way. And they tried to save themselves from their loneliness by themselves and it went bad.

Cliff: 26:07

And when the cool evening breezes were blowing through the beautiful garden of Eden, the man and his wife heard the lord god walking about in the garden. So they hid from the lord god among the trees because they were ashamed. And then the lord god called to man and he said, where are you? Where are you? And it strikes me that god asks this question.

Cliff: 26:33

Because I think he asked the question because he knows that they were lonely for him. He was connecting with their loneliness. He knew they were lonely for him because they were hiding from him. He knew they were lonely for each other because they were hiding from each other in that moment as well. And he was like, where are you?

Cliff: 26:50

Where are you? Where are you? And from the beginning of time until now, god is continuing to ask this question of his creation. Where are you? Where are you?

Cliff: 27:03

Come home. Come home. That's the call of all repentance and faith is is to come home to trust. Come home to your you're lonely for me. Come home.

Cliff: 27:14

You're lonely for yourself. Come home. You're lonely for each other. Come home. And that's where we find how that's where we find out how to be who we were made to be, so we can ultimately do what we were made to do.

Cliff: 27:32

So we understand that that loneliness equals longing. It's this it's this gift that god gives us. It's kind of like the GPS system of your heart, if you will, that god gave you. And if you pay attention to it, it will guide you to relationship with god, with yourself, and with each other. And I think that's what ultimately we're longing for.

Cliff: 27:52

We're longing for personal connection. From the moment we're born, we instinctively no one has to teach you to reach out, cry out, receive love and attention. We instinctively seek someone who is paying attention to us, looking at us, and acknowledging our existence and saying I see you and what do you need? In other words, we instinctively are looking for someone asking the question, where are you? And no one has to teach us to say I need, I want, here I am, come get me.

Cliff: 28:32

You hear that little baby right now? It's happening. It's happening. No one has to teach him that. It's instinctive.

Cliff: 28:41

It's part of our DNA. It's part of being created in the image of god that we are created for personal connection. And, again, I think we're created for personal connection in 3 ways. We're created for personal connection with god. We've we've been singing about that today.

Cliff: 28:57

We we read the Psalm from the very beginning. God made us for connection with him. Genesis 127 says, he breathed the breath of life in us. You can't get much more connected to god than carrying his very life breath within your body. He is the giver of life, and he is the one who takes life.

Cliff: 29:18

And that reminds us that we were created for connection with the God of the universe. That's kinda powerful. Genesis 127 says that we were created in his very image reflecting his nature. Genesis 39 says, where are you? Like, all of these are indicators that that this connection with god is something that's written on every human heart.

Cliff: 29:50

So again, loneliness, forgot, the most universal human experience. All people, all times, and all places as CS Lewis says, have a God sized hole in their hearts looking for connection with the creator of the universe. And the good news is, he's looking for you too. Where are you? And we respond, here we are.

Cliff: 30:18

And we're saved. We're reconnected. We're also lonely for personal connection with ourselves. Now, we live in a world that is shrouded with, I think, false narratives about how God made us. One of those false narratives I'll call the religion of humanism, which has at its end human fulfillment for the purpose of individual fulfillment.

Cliff: 30:51

And humanism, kinda, can sound like Christianity sometimes. It's it's, kinda, tricky. And I think the evil one likes that for us because it's it's it's sometimes confusing, like, am I reading a Christian book? These people sound like they really, you know, they're really they really got it. Because at in the Christian religion, we are about individual or personal fulfillment, human fulfillment, but for the purpose of love, for the purpose of relationship with God, for the purpose of being who we were made to be, so we could do and carry out the mission that God gave us from the beginning.

Cliff: 31:24

He said he he said, I I have a job for you. And so individual personal fulfillment is a part of the Christian faith. It is a part of the Christian religion, but it is not for individual sake. It is for the glory of the god who made the world. And it happens through Jesus Christ our lord who took on the form of humanity himself.

Cliff: 31:52

So so we do feel lonely, not just for each other, we actually feel lonely for ourselves. And and here's what I want you to understand about this. From the very beginning, everything that God creatively put together when he made Adam and when he made Eve, everything God creatively put together, the evil one from the beginning has been seeking to tear it apart. Everything. That doesn't just mean the relationship between you and god, that means the relationship between you and you.

Cliff: 32:23

Between you, your heart, your head, and your body. God made you to be integrated, put together. He made you good, and the evil one wants to tear you apart. And we're all coming out of the womb fighting that battle, not just in relationship with each other, but in very relationship with our own selves. And if we don't understand how god made us and that he is for us, if it it here here this way.

Cliff: 32:51

If we cannot agree with god about ourselves, then we can't agree with god about each other. And one of the reasons we have so much racism and sexism and ageism and all the isms is because we have lost sight of what god believes about us. And we're more focused on trying to figure out how to do this when we're not doing this, and we're not paying attention to what's actually in here and what we've been made for. And I think one of the reasons we distract ourselves from our loneliness is because we're trying to distract ourselves from ourselves. You'd rather watch maybe I shouldn't accuse you.

Cliff: 33:33

Excuse me. I would rather watch someone else's drama than pay attention to my own. I'd rather read someone else's biography than tell my own story. I would rather distract myself from my pain, my wounds, my sins, my weaknesses. I would rather distract myself from me than actually stop and pay attention to who god made me to be and what I've lived and what I've done and who I am.

Cliff: 34:02

Can anyone relate with that? Because I do feel lonely right now. You know what I'm talking about. TV drama is not because I mean, it it it They they make it because it sells. Because everybody wants to be distracted by other people's drama instead of deal with their own.

Cliff: 34:22

We are lonely for ourselves. And if we distract ourselves from ourselves, we cannot be who God made us to be and do what God made us to do. We will be less than that. The third way that we're designed or the third thing we're lonely or longing for is personal connection with each other. And I don't have to spend a lot of time on this because I think you get it.

Cliff: 34:52

God made us to want close connections with other people. We come out of the womb instinctively looking for a face, looking at us. As I'm talking, I'm making eye contact with some of you, and it feels kinda weird if I stay too long. Right? But at the same time, it's like, man, that feels good.

Cliff: 35:08

I I I want to connect with you. I want to be with you right now. It feels right because this is how god made us. And if I didn't look at any of you, it would be weird too. Personal connection with others is something we're lonely for, we're longing for.

Cliff: 35:25

Even after all the animals and all the trees, and all the stars, and all the beautiful creation was made, and it was good, it wasn't enough. We need each other. Now, I think there's other things we can be lonely for, but those are the big ones. Connection with god, connection with ourselves, and connection with each other. I'll mention 2 more just because I like to give you some bonus points.

Cliff: 35:55

One is, we're lonely for place, we're lonely for home. God gave us in the beginning a home, a place to live with boundaries, with with rivers. They were like, this is your home. There's a big world out there. This is your home.

Cliff: 36:10

And that was good for us And homelessness is not good for us. Homelessness and and here's the beautiful thing, is that when we understand how we were created and wired relationally, we begin to understand what it means to have a home. Because a home is not just a house, a home is a place to belong. And when you don't have the relationships, if you if there's a breakdown for you relationally, ultimately it starts to show up in a breakdown for you physically. If you don't have any love in your life, you won't have a home.

Cliff: 36:49

You won't have a house. And if all these things you've done to begin to distract you or you've learned to begin to distract you from the pain of your loneliness for good reasons because we're raised sometimes in really traumatic and tragic circumstances. And from very early ages, many of us learned the patterns of how to distract ourselves from our loneliness, and you get going down that path and you burn your relational bridges, you end up without a home. And then you end up without a house. And and I I mean, this is little I'm from Louisville.

Cliff: 37:23

It's kind of a decent midsize city. We got a lot of homelessness. I took a walk in Jamestown, small town. There's a lot of homelessness. You guys see this.

Cliff: 37:33

You guys care about this. I saw the food truck thing, the the food thing. You care about this. You know we were made for home. And when we don't have it, we feel lonely.

Cliff: 37:44

And when we distract ourselves from lonely, we distract ourselves from the very way that god designed us to belong and to matter to a home. Another way we can feel lonely is sort of lonely for purpose, lonely for, like, a passion, lonely for a mission. God gave us a from the beginning, he gave us a job. Be fruitful, multiply. Go out there and get it done.

Cliff: 38:07

Get it done. He wants you to work. He wants you to have purpose. He wants you to feel connected to something that makes you feel like you matter. And when that's not in your life, you might feel lonely.

Cliff: 38:21

And if you distract yourself from your loneliness, you distract yourself from the very way god designed you to find a way to belong and matter, because he wants you to have a job. I don't just mean like a job get where you get paid. I just mean a a passion in life, something a purpose. Sometimes jobs can give us that. But some of us need to reevaluate why we feel lonely.

Cliff: 38:45

And it might be because we've not ever connected to a true purpose in life, a passion in life. Something for which we are willing to be in pain because it matters more to us than the pain. One of the most important questions you can ever answer in your life is what are you willing to be in pain for? Because whatever that is, it's probably connected to your purpose. And we're all lonely for that because god made us for that.

Cliff: 39:11

God made us for that. I could go on. I like to talk about this, but I'll kinda stop there. Here's the thing, you can distract yourself from your loneliness but it's a dead end. You can even use Christian language to distract yourself from your loneliness, but it's a dead end.

Cliff: 39:33

You can use addiction to distract yourself from your loneliness. You can use social media to distract yourself from your loneliness. You could even come to church hoping to distract yourself from your loneliness. But the beautiful thing about god's covenant family is it it is the very container in which we can be honest about our loneliness because our loneliness is what takes us to him. Our loneliness is what takes us to god.

Cliff: 40:03

Our loneliness is the gift. It's like the lantern that lights the path. So when we come here, this is the safest place on earth. I think it's supposed to be at least the safest place on earth to talk about your loneliness. And it's not gonna go away.

Cliff: 40:17

If you come to church thinking you're gonna get rid of your loneliness, I've got news for you. It comes with you because you are here, and god made you in his image with longing for connection. So don't come in here thinking it's just gonna magically make it go away. You come here, you find how actually the loneliness takes you to the gift of community. It meets your needs, but your need buckets got a hole in it.

Cliff: 40:40

And you're gonna need to come back again and again and again. If we don't feel lonely, we don't pray. If we don't feel lonely, we don't come to church. If we don't feel lonely, we don't need anybody. If we don't feel lonely, we don't love.

Cliff: 40:53

God made you this way. Last thing, I just wanna remind you, Jesus felt lonely. And he kinda paved the way. He he kinda he kinda, like, charted the trail. He, like, pioneered the trail to give us permission to feel our loneliness and to stay with it rather than distract ourselves from it.

Cliff: 41:26

In Matthew chapter 26 verse 36 through 46. I'm gonna read this, and I just want you again use use your imagination. Don't just hear the Bible as as a bunch of words to tell you what you should and ought to do. It's so much more than that. This is an invitation into a story because as the apostle Paul said, your life is hidden with God in Christ.

Cliff: 41:56

So Jesus, as he's feeling his loneliness in this story, you're actually in the story because you're in him and he is in you. You're in this story. And this is a powerful image, a very palpable image of what it's like to feel lonely in this world. Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and Zebedee's 2 sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed.

Cliff: 42:29

Anybody ever felt anguished and distressed? We'll just say stress. Anybody ever felt stressed? Okay. Just making sure.

Cliff: 42:37

Jesus felt stressed. This was a deep kind of stress. He told them, my soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here. Keep watch with me.

Cliff: 42:56

He he hadn't been to the cross yet, and he's already feeling the weight of death in his body. He's already feeling the pain of grief in his body. And and he says, just stay here. And and he takes himself up by himself to pray. He went a little farther and he bowed his face to the ground and he prayed, my father, if it's possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me.

Cliff: 43:21

Do you hear what he's saying? I don't want to be lonely. I don't want to be sad. I don't want to grieve. I don't want to do this pain.

Cliff: 43:33

Sounds like me, sounds like you. Jesus was human, And he felt human emotions. If it's possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet, I want your will to be done, not mine. In other words, I'm not gonna distract myself from it.

Cliff: 43:53

I'm gonna go through it if that's what you want me to do, but I would much rather a different path if there is one. Then he returned to his disciples and he found them asleep. You ever been there? You try. Maybe you've been the one falling asleep.

Cliff: 44:13

Okay? But maybe you've tried as best you can to express your heart to God, and to express your heart to other people, and you come back to find them, and they're snoring. Must be nice. I can't sleep a wink. Must be nice.

Cliff: 44:33

Must be nice to just go on about your life. I'm over here struggling, trying to find myself, trying to figure it out. And I've told you about it and you just kinda feels like nobody sees. Jesus felt that. And I think he kicked Peter, and he said, couldn't you watch with me for even an hour?

Cliff: 44:57

Do you hear the pain in his voice? I mean, we think of Jesus like this, like, oh, he's perfect little man. He was mad. Couldn't you watch with me for an hour? Keep watch and pray.

Cliff: 45:12

Now he's not worried about himself. He's like, for your own sake, so you can avoid temptation. Don't just be here to support me, you need to pray for yourself. For the spirit is willing and the body is weak. You have good intentions, guys.

Cliff: 45:29

I get it. But my goodness, this hurts. Jesus left the second time and he goes back and he prays, my father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, then your will be done. Again, a second time, if there's any other way. I don't wanna drink the cup of suffering.

Cliff: 45:51

Is there any other way? Nevertheless, not my will, yours be done. When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping again. They couldn't keep their eyes open. Must be nice.

Cliff: 46:10

So he went to pray a third time. And what did he say the third time? Okay. No. He prayed the same thing.

Cliff: 46:20

Is there another way? This is hard. Not my will, but yours be done. Then he came back to his disciples and he was like, go ahead and sleep. Have your rest.

Cliff: 46:34

But look, the time has come. The son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Let's get going. Look, my betrayer is here. He went through.

Cliff: 46:45

He went straight through it. He didn't distract himself. He went through it. And he washed the feet of the very people who he felt like we're gonna who who betrayed him. He went through it and he died because on the other side of that death, there was life.

Cliff: 47:11

He died so that we could go through our pain. And he rose from the dead so that we could experience life to the full with him. And he ascended to the father because he was lonely for his father. And he's praying for us. I don't think God's lonely like we're lonely necessarily.

Cliff: 47:31

He doesn't need anything, but he wants us. And I know he wants us because he's been asking from the beginning, where are you? And he's still praying that prayer right now next to his father. Where are you? I want you.

Cliff: 47:46

And the way we feel the connection with God is this thing in our bodies called loneliness. And sometimes you feel it in your heart. Sometimes you feel it in your neck. Sometimes you feel it in your shoulders. Sometimes you feel it behind your eyes.

Cliff: 47:59

Sometimes you feel it in your arms. Sometimes you feel it in your legs, but you feel it. And if you pay attention to it, it will take you to life and life to the full. I know you didn't come to church to be more lonely. Okay?

Cliff: 48:16

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I feel less lonely right now. If you need to know what to do with your loneliness, let me give you three things very simple. Pray. That's what the Psalms are.

Cliff: 48:31

If if you don't know what to pray, go read the Psalms. There's lots of prayers about loneliness in there. Lots of them. But just pray. Turn your loneliness into a prayer.

Cliff: 48:41

God wants to hear about your loneliness. Connect with him about it. Tell a person. Is there someone in your life you trust enough to tell about your loneliness? Tell a person.

Cliff: 48:52

Tell a pastor. Tell a friend. Tell a counselor. Tell someone about your loneliness. Get in touch with your story of loneliness because that's the one that matters, and that's the one that's gonna give you life.

Cliff: 49:05

Not the one you're watching on TV. Maybe you're like, I don't know if I trust God enough to to pray like that. I don't know that I trust people enough to tell them what I've actually lived. Well, then my 3rd p is get out a piece of paper and write it down. Your story of loneliness was not meant to stay stuck in your body.

Cliff: 49:32

That's called isolation. And that's an epidemic. Your story of loneliness was meant to be told. Someone needs to hear it. And if no one else will listen, then listen to yourself.

Cliff: 49:45

Tell the story. Guess what? If you do that, God hears it. It's like praying. But just put it on paper.

Cliff: 49:54

If you don't trust god to pray, just put it on paper. Just write it down. Burn it if you want. Throw it away. You don't have to give it to anybody.

Cliff: 50:00

Just get it out because you're lonely for yourself too. And that that'll be good. That'll be good for you. Lord, I'm taking a deep breath because this is lot. It's heavy.

Cliff: 50:17

And, sometimes I feel like I'm the bearer of bad news. But I'm lord, I I pray that somehow these people hear the good news of who you are and how much you love them and how how for them you are, that you are not against them, that you're they're looking for them, you're calling for them. So, lord, even though this is sometimes like a heavy thing and a painful thing to talk about, I I pray that in your mercy, you would let this pain just like it was for Jesus be a portal into life and life to the full. May we walk through the pain of our loneliness into resurrection. And one day, lord, may we ascend to be with you fully known, fully accepted the way it was meant to be naked and not ashamed.

Cliff: 51:04

That's so amazing to think about. So lord in your mercy grant these people that kind of picture, that kind of image that they may actually live their real lives, their actual lives, feel their actual feelings, and agree with you about their actual selves because there is freedom in the truth. So lord set us free by the power of your spirit and the power of the truth. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Cameron: 51:36

Lord, we sing and we'll continue to sing lord. Believing by faith, lord, that your name will be lifted. The highest praises of a 1000 generations, both before us and after us, Lord. May the seeds of the gospel planted here, Lord. Scream off into a 1000 generations of faithfulness.

Cameron: 52:00

Lord, you are worthy over all. We praise you father. We thank you for your son, Jesus. Thank you for sending the spirit to guide us, to comfort us, to fill us, to reveal your truth in us. We worship you, Lord.

Cameron: 52:29

In Jesus' name. Amen. God knew it. You are loved. Have a great week.

Cameron: 52:37

We will see you next time.