Paradox of Loneliness, Part 1

The impact and cure for loneliness.

Next, on Leading the Way Audio. Have you ever been alone in a crowd? I know that sounds kind of strange, but you're worshiping in a packed church and yet you feel shrouded with loneliness. You're working around a lot of people in the office, but you feel like you're all alone.

Hello. Welcome to Leading the Way Audio. Coming up next, Dr. Michael Youssef helps you understand how heightened feelings of loneliness can lead you to times of aloneness with God that will change your life for the good. Remember that Leading the Way is listener supported, relying on your generosity to help fund worldwide ministry. Learn how to partner when you visit ltw.org.

Now I hope you'll listen with me as Dr. Michael Youssef takes us to Genesis chapter three. If you look at the dictionary that are printed pre World War Two, you're going to find that the definition of loneliness is being alone, of being isolated, of being in a state of solitude. Yet in our modern day, a person can be in the midst of 50,000 people and he is so desperately lonely. Modern day loneliness is different from aloneness or solitude.

In fact, that is why it is so difficult to identify. It is so difficult to define. Someone defined it this way. It is a feeling of emptiness inside. Others have said it is feeling of a dark tunnel. Others yet said that it is a period of life when you go through a feeling of defeat and discouragement.

Yet others still identified as a feeling of longing to be completed. Whatever modern definition of loneliness may be, it is no longer means just physically being alone. Because I have seen it, there are lonely singles and there are lonely merits.

There are lonely saints and there are lonely sinners and everything in between. There are a number of causes of loneliness. But in this short series, I like to deal with the paradox of loneliness in terms of three causes.

One, which I will deal with today. Loneliness that is caused or based upon feeling of guilt and sin. Secondly, we're looking to the loneliness that stems out of separation, out of alienation. And then thirdly, we'll look into loneliness that is rooted in the spirit of despair. Whatever the cause of loneliness may be, it is accompanied by anguish.

Anguish that I believe the word of God would teach us today how to deal with and not to dwell upon. Loneliness cuts across all social barriers. Loneliness cuts across all economic strength. It cuts across all age status. It cuts across all the marital status.

It cuts across cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I believe that the scripture teaches us that loneliness is both positive and negative. The root of loneliness, of course, is not positive.

It's negative. The cause of loneliness is often not good. Yet the Bible teaches us how to turn something negative into something positive. The word of God teaches us how God can turn bad situation and bring a blessing out of it. How if you would allow God to work in your life, he will exchange the anguish of your loneliness for the blessing of his presence.

I believe that one of the most important lesson in the Christian life is this. It is how, with God's power, to turn our loneliness into aloneness with God. How to exchange the pain and the anguish of loneliness for the blessing of being alone with God.

How to defeat the anguish of loneliness and receive the victory and the joy and the blessing that God wants to give you. And as we look today into the loneliness that comes out of guilt and sin, we cannot begin without beginning with our first parents. Adam and Eve have failed to understand this important lesson.

God, in his mercy, wanted to transform their loneliness into aloneness with God that they bombed out. And you know what? Consequently, every generation have inherited that.

Everyone. Adam and Eve deliberately and premeditatedly disobeyed God. And you know what? Deep down, as soon as they did it, they knew they did it. Their sin and guilt created a barrier between them and God.

Their sense of shame caused them to try to cover up, to hide. That sense of guilt drove them to try to run away from God and be alone from God. Adam was alone before Eve, and God said it is not good for Adam to be alone. He never said that Adam was lonely. And the reason Adam was not lonely, though Eve was not there, is because God was with him. He was fellowshipping with God, but God gave him a human companion. You see, disobedience to God does not change God.

Did you hear that? Disobedience to God does not change God. It changes you. It changes me.

We change. It causes you and it causes me to run and to hide from God. It causes us to feel separated and alone from him. And you and I know that we can't run away from the all-knowing God. We can't run away from the all-seeing God, but somehow in our foolishness we think we can. Adam and Eve did, too. So when God called Adam and he said, Adam, where are you? God was not playing hide and go seek with Adam.

He knew exactly where he was. But he was calling Adam and Eve so that he was trying to get them to deal with their sin. He was trying to get them to deal with their guilt. He was trying to get them to face their sin. He was trying to get them to confess their sin. He was trying to get them to repent of their sin. But because God knew that this was the only way that loneliness from God can be turned into aloneness with God is by confession, is by repentance, is by turning around, changing your life, turning your life over to him. Because God knew the only blessing you're going to have in life that is worth the name is the blessing of forgiveness and the joy of salvation.

And when our ultimate relationship with God is broken because of our sin, we suffer loneliness, we suffer fear, we suffer anxiety, we suffer sorrow, we suffer anger, we suffer period. And when God is calling Adam and he said, Adam, where are you? He was giving him an opportunity not to make a half hearted commitment, not to give half truth as he did. Not in order that he may evade his responsibility as he tried to do. Not for blaming God for his disobedience as he did, but rather that he might confess and repent. And that's the opportunity that God gives you and God gives me all day long to deal with our disobedience.

There's only one way. It's the blood of Jesus Christ. In verses 11 and 12 of Genesis 3, you notice God continues his cross-examination.

Why? Because he wanted to bring Adam's sin out in the open. In order that Adam and Eve will deal with that guilt which was the source of the loneliness.

It is the cause, it is the core of the loneliness and he wanted to deal with it. Adam, did you eat from the tree that I told you not to eat? Adam gives him a lame response. But before you rush and blame Adam, how many times you and I give a rational response to God for our disobedience? How many of us, when we are at the point of drinking from the consequences of our disobedience and our sin, shake our fist at God, how many of us will blame him for the consequences of our disobedience?

Think about it. And the more you try to pass the buck, the more you're going to stay in your loneliness of guilt, whether you admit it or not. The more you try to pass the buck and the responsibility on somebody else, the more you'll continue in the separation from God's blessing. And from that moment of Adam's refusal to face to his disobedience, we all have inherited saying no to God and rationalizing our sin.

We have inherited it. I mean, just like you inherit your father's blue eyes or curly hair, you've inherited this sin of disobedience. With disobedience came loneliness and guilt and sin. And you know that I looked at several studies, every one of them on the average says that about 6% of the population say that they never get lonely.

Now my personal opinion is either they're lying or they're just so godly. Because knowing it or not, sin and guilt are at the root of loneliness. And the Lord Jesus Christ cannot deal with you until you come to him and you say, Father, I have sinned, please forgive me. That is the day when the Lord says you are forgiven, you have eternal life. Thanks be to God that he has provided a way out of this to turn our loneliness from God into aloneness with God.

For the Bible tells us as in Adam, we all have died, so in Jesus Christ we are made alive. God has provided a way of escape from the loneliness of guilt. It is called the confession. It's called repentance. It's called turning your life over to him and ask for his forgiveness. He came from heaven and when he hung on that cross, he carried the root of loneliness in your life and in mine.

And he made it possible for us to commune with God, to fellowship with God, never to be broken again. Well how come Christians still suffer from loneliness? How come those people who have put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ still feel the loneliness of isolation from God?

A dear friend told me recently that every time he prays, he felt like heaven is like metal and the prayers are not going anywhere. I said to him, have you examined your life lately? The scripture said if I incline a sin in my heart, God will not answer my prayer. But you see because we live in this fallen world, there are occasions for our disobedience to God. And when we disobey God, we cut ourselves from him again and again.

Watch what I'm saying. He does not get cut off from us, we cut ourselves from him. And only when our loneliness becomes so unbearable that God uses the occasion to speak to our heart.

And he calls us by name. He said John, Michael, Jane, Susie, why are you hiding in your loneliness? Come, let me speak to you.

Come, let me commune with you. God in his mercy turns our running away from him, our loneliness away from him into aloneness with him. But often we're so stubborn, often we're so stiff necked that the only way that God can get us alone with him is he waits until we feel the anguish of loneliness. Adam refused to deal with his guilt of sin and he made his loneliness worse. And he spent the rest of his life outside of the garden, outside of fellowshipping with God, outside of communing with God. Yet the Bible gives us examples, even in the Old Testament, of others who have faced the core of the loneliness of guilt and sin.

I'll give you one example. In the book of Genesis chapter 32, we read how Jacob has stolen his brother Esau's first birthright. And he lied to his father. And then he had to run away from home out of fear. That's what sin does.

It gets us on the run. His sin cut him off from his family, from his mother, from his dad, from his brother. And he was surrounded by fear and anxiety and insecurity.

Yet for 15 years, what would he do? He got so busy, he would not face the core of his loneliness. He would not face the root of his loneliness. He got so busy burying himself into his profession. He got so busy burying himself in romance and marriage. He ended up with two, one he liked and the other one he didn't.

He buried himself into accumulation of a large net worth. All, listen please, all to avoid the core of his loneliness. But when Jacob began his journey back home, he sent his family ahead of him. And he was behind all alone. And God wants to get his attention. You see, as long as he was busy building his net worth from his uncle Laban, as long as he was busy doing something good, God was not able to get his attention. But now he's all alone.

His family way ahead of him. He knows his brother Esau and his troops are on the other side. And God said, hey Jacob, I've been looking for this moment for a long time. I want to talk to you. I want to speak to you. I want to speak to your heart. Just you and me.

Just the two of us. And Jacob was all alone. But as he got in the depth of his loneliness, his aloneness with God began. And he began to wrestle with God. He began to wrestle with God's messenger.

Jacob had to be alone. But even in his wrestling with God's messenger, Jacob was wounded. During his time of wrestling with God, Jacob was scarred for life. But in the pain of his woundedness, he received a blessing. And the blessing was the change of his name from Jacob to Israel, the one who strives with God. And with that new name, Jacob moved from aloneness before God to aloneness with God.

Please listen carefully. How you deal with guilt, how you deal with sin of disobedience, whether it is dark as crimson or gray, it doesn't make any difference. God is colorblind. Sin is sin to God. How you deal with guilt will determine whether you will be alone from God or alone with God. Being alone from God has a curse written all over it.

But being alone with God has blessing overflowing. When God reveals to you and to me our disobedience through his word, spoken, written, whatever it may be, God's deepest desire is to wash you clean, is to cleanse you before God the Father, is to present you as holy and spotless before God the Father. That's his desire.

That's what he died for. When God reveals to us our disobedience, will you say, God, I repent, help me that I might not turn again. You and I can run away from God.

We think. We can, in our mind, think that we're covering up. But no matter how much you try, you cannot hide. No matter how much you try to blame somebody else for your sins and disobedience, it won't work. You can't blame somebody else. You know, we are a society that have learned very well how to blame somebody else for our trouble.

That's sad. Well, my mother didn't do this, or my father didn't do that, or my teacher just didn't brush her teeth, or my government wasn't kind to me, or just the church wasn't good and kind to me. The church was not really supportive of me.

Stop it. In Jesus' name, I tell you to stop it. Unless you come to terms with your sin and your guilt, God is not able to work on you. When you stand before God, all excuses will melt away.

You will stand naked before God without an excuse. And if your response is mere sadness or regret or just denial or anxiety or rationalization or even hiding, it will not help you because guilt is the experience of ultimate loneliness. You must know how to deal with guilt quickly and decisively if you want to overcome loneliness. You see, loneliness exists as a form of judgment upon our guilt. If we try to do anything to escape from that loneliness of guilt except the way that God has provided, we prolong the pain. We prolong the pain. Some people try to deal with it by getting themselves all caught up.

They're giving money to charity to assuage their guilt, or doing some involvement in civic activities to assuage their guilt. Others will go to great lengths to help others and even deny themselves the hopes and the dreams that are theirs, all of which only lead to further loneliness. They do everything except the one thing that can truly liberate them, turn their loneliness from God to aloneness with God. I remember a desperate time of loneliness in my own life.

It was a time of backsliding and disobedience. And after 18 months of intense pain and anguish of loneliness, God turned my loneliness into aloneness with Him. And I believe He can do the same with you today. And as I wrestled with God in the night of my loneliness, God revealed to me in no uncertain term that regardless of what my older siblings think, regardless of what I feel, He's calling me to preach the gospel for the rest of my life, and that I will not have peace until I surrender.

Is it something that you're not surrendering to God that's troubling you, that's causing the root of loneliness as you come alone with God? Let Him speak to your heart. Tell it to Jesus. Tell Him about your loneliness. Tell Him about your anxiety. Tell Him about your pain.

Tell Him about your disobedience. Tell it to Jesus and Jesus alone. My loving father, I thank you as a one individual who has learned the lesson that in the depths of loneliness and despair, you can speak.

In the midst of anxiety and fear, you can speak. And your word has been clear to us today. I thank you for your restoring power.

Thank you for your willingness to forgive. You know the hearts of your people who are bowing before you, and I pray with them and for them as I pray for myself. Empower us to be obedient. Show us the blessing of obedience. For I pray this in Jesus' name. salvation. For I pray this in Jesus' name.

For I pray this in Jesus' name. My name is Augustine Park. I'm in my last year studying statistics at the University of Waterloo. When I started my first year, school was extremely difficult. I had trouble making friends. I just got so burnt out, and I ended up failing some courses. God's word is saying to everyone here.

My mom's been an avid listener of leading the way for many years. Choose life. And when I went back home to BC and told my mom what was going wrong, and she told me to just go and listen to a sermon by Dr. Michael Yusef on the leadingtheway.org, I listened to one of his sermons on being joyful in all circumstances. It felt like that he was talking to me individually as if he was talking directly to me. Because happiness depends on the circumstances.

You pass that exam, you've got that bonus. Something happens, it makes you happy. But joy is dependent on what is true about God. You rejoice always.

I was listening, and I just began to cry. It was just the realization that God had been with me. I just had this overflowing joy and thankfulness.

Even through the ups and downs, there's this constant steadiness. These past three years, God has really blessed me with friends. As you learn to give everything to God, your will will begin to align with God's will.

You will just have this inexplicable joy and peace in your life. I'd like to thank Dr. Michael Yusef for preaching his uncompromising truth that comes from the word of God. There are so many more people that he's impacted, people like me. I would just like to encourage Dr. Michael Yusef through this story. Friends of Leading the Way have seen how lives have been changed at home and around the world through the gospel, and they've given generously to Leading the Way. To maximize their gifts, they're challenging you to give to Leading the Way this month as well. Your combined gifts will allow Dr. Yusef and the team to be ready for growth, ready for any ministry opportunities when they become available in 2025. Just call one of our representatives today to learn how you can participate in this month's giving challenge. Call 866-626-4356. And online, we are at ltw.org. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Yusef.