Gospel House Ministries

Pastor Dr. Herbert Ward, Sr.: Our topic this morning is overcoming loneliness. As our world population increases by the second—every four seconds a new baby is born—the hearts of people are growing colder and colder. While people are growing older, our families seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Consequently, people are getting more and more lonely. People died at alarming rates during COVID, but with COVID came an increase in the use of technology.

Yet, with all of our advances in science and in technology, we are lonelier today than people were in past generations. I believe it is safe to say that technology is behind much of our loneliness. Technology has encouraged us to shop online by ourselves and seek a mate online. You know about eHarmony, dating.com, ourlove.com, and for the wannabe cougars, date-my-age.com. We use our phones to order food right from our kitchen tables instead of cooking.

We’ve gone from blasting boomboxes to sharing music with those around us to AirPods, keeping our music private and shutting out the world. I know I have a problem with Pastor Herbie. If he doesn’t have his AirPods with him, he just plays it wherever we are at the gym, and I tell him I'm hearing his phone. The people around you are not interested in hearing your phone. They don’t even want to hear what you're doing. But there was a time when people had boomboxes, and they didn’t care who was listening. They were walking down the street with that boombox, and now we don’t want to hear one another.

Back in the day, we would buy a little hooptie or a Volkswagen and try to fit as many people in it as we could. I remember going to a church, and they had a little Volkswagen, and nine people got in there. You would never even believe it. We were all bunched up, but we were all in there together. Now, we have big SUVs just for ourselves.

Let’s take television, for instance. The size of a screen went from when 13-inch TVs were the thing to 25-inch floor model TVs or consoles. You were really doing something with a nice big screen. Some of the neighbors would just come and watch television at your house because you had the big screen. Now, we have screens as large as 100 inches. Who would ever think of that? It encourages us to movie binge at home for hours rather than talk to one another, to the point that we’ve almost forgotten how to have a conversation, which results in the widening of the generation gap. Get this: our young people want to watch television on their phones. Ann Landers said television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

To top it all off, we go to foot-stomping, hand-clapping, tongue-talking churches online, enjoying the convenience of Bedside Baptist Church, content that you don’t have to ever step foot into the sanctuary of God—the sanctuary that God set aside for His dwelling place. All of this reduces our desire for up-close and personal human interaction. All of this technology has not made us happier, but has made us more lonely. Too many people prefer to be alone because they don’t want to be bothered with the pain that comes with interacting with humankind. They figure they can do bad by themselves.

Yet, the Scripture declares in Ecclesiastes 4:10, "Woe to him who is alone." Quite often, we think loneliness can be defined by the absence of people, so we think to ourselves what we need to do to fix our problem of loneliness is to have more people in our lives. When that starts to cost a lot of money, or it doesn’t work out, we just decide maybe we need more considerate people in our lives. I warn you not to get too excited because you have a lot of friends and family, because you can have all that and a cute little puppy dog and still be lonely.

Loneliness can be more of an internal sense of isolation rather than external. It is often more of an emotional experience than a physical one. Somebody may say, "I'm not lonely. I wish certain people would leave me alone so I can get some rest." To you, I say keep this message handy so you can refer to it when the time comes, because everybody will, at some juncture in their lives, face loneliness. It doesn’t matter how many people you have in your corner today; tomorrow could be a different story.

Psalm 136:4 says, "To Him who alone does great wonders, for His mercy endures forever." It’s talking about God, saying that God is the only one who does wonders by Himself. His created beings, which is me and you, need each other to survive and to thrive. Look at somebody and tell them, "I need you to survive." Loneliness is a common human experience. In fact, the Bible says that loneliness is the first thing that God said was not good. After creating the light, the dry land, the plants, the trees, the fruit, the moon, the stars, the birds, the fishes, the land animals, and everything imaginable, God looked at it and said that it was good.

Then He made man. I don’t know how much time passed between the forming of Adam and the making of Eve, but the Bible tells us that after God formed man from the dust of the ground, He planted a garden and gave Adam instructions, essentially telling Adam to go to work. After surveying Adam at work—he wasn’t idle; he was busy naming animals and taking care of the landscape of the land—Genesis 2:18 records that God said, "It is not good for man to be alone."

This was the first "not good" declaration in the Bible, highlighting that humans are designed for companionship, community, and partnership. These words emphasize that meaningful relationships are essential for support, for growth, and for combating the negative effects of isolation. Anything with life ought to be producing more life. Look at your neighbor and ask them, "How much life are you producing by yourself?"

Notice that Adam may have thought that he was doing all right. After all, what was he to know? He was the first and the only human being at the time. He may have had a macho, alpha "I got this" attitude. Maybe his mind was so occupied with doing what God told him to do that he didn't even think he needed any help. Whatever God assigned to his hands, it didn’t even come into his mind, although he was looking at animals and saying, "There’s a female and a male of these, but I don't have..." Maybe he didn't even think about that.

How many have to admit that sometimes we don’t even know what we need? But God does. Before Adam even had a chance to mention it in prayer, God threw a blessing his way. He does the same thing to us. He tells us, "Take that, because I was thinking about you. I’ve been watching you, and I think this little bonus is going to help you. It's going to lighten your load, put a smile on your face, and make the work that you're doing a little more pleasurable." God is thinking about you.

I’ve had plenty of times when, before I could even get the words out in prayer—you know, sometimes we want to get on our knees and get in the posture to make sure this is serious—there have been times when I didn’t have a chance to do that. I never got a chance to get on my knees or fold my hands, and God answered a prayer that I didn’t even know needed answering. That’s the kind of God that we serve.

God said it is not good for man to be alone, not because Adam was lonely and not because Adam looked around at his workload and proclaimed, "I could sure use a little help around here. It's going to take me forever to get this work done." I don’t believe Adam had something to say under his breath. We don't get it out of our mouth, but God knows what’s under that breath. God knows your thoughts.

However, I believe that God, after watching Adam, said it is not good for man to be alone because one man acting alone cannot and will not produce and glorify God to the fullest. We were not designed to do the Lord’s work by ourselves. When it was time for God Himself to form His crowning creation—that’s you and me—even God called on all parts of Himself, the Trinity, to participate in creating His masterpiece.

In Genesis 1:26, God said, "Let us make man." He didn’t say "Let me." He said, "Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness." Genesis 2:18 says, "And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to himself.'" God’s creative work was not complete until He made woman. You ought to slap a sister a high-five and say, "I know that’s right." It was after the completion of making a woman that God looked over all He had made, and in Genesis 1:31, He exclaimed not that it was just good, but that it was very good. That ought to make you feel special. You are somebody.

God created an entire race of people to glorify Him. Using our gifts and our talents is essential if the church is to function as God intended, and that is with everybody being part of the help. You get to be a part of the help, and you get to be a part of the help, and you get to be a part of the help. We all get a chance to be a part of the help.

While God has always called forth leaders to carry out the work, God never called forth Lone Rangers. The job of the leader is to take orders from God and develop systems that will provide support, guidance, and direction to encourage their followers to follow hard after God, so that they can develop their leadership skills by hearing and knowing the voice of God, be obedient to the will of God for their lives, and fulfill the destiny that God has appointed for you.

So, no matter what your marital status, your economic status, whether you're an extrovert or an introvert, or you're the life of the party, we all deal with loneliness. Loneliness at its root is a spiritual issue, and it is also the presence of pain. Loneliness can stem from a whole lot of things. It is not just the absence of people which causes pain. I want to focus our attention this morning on loneliness being the absence of love and separation from God, who is love. This morning, I want to talk to you about a woman in the Bible who dealt with loneliness and how she shifted her focus to overcome it.

Go with me to Genesis 29, starting at verse 16. "Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were delicate, but Rachel was beautiful of form and appearance." The Scripture says that Leah had delicate eyes. What are delicate eyes? When I asked Uncle Google, or Uncle Doctor Google, whichever you want to call him, what female body part guys notice first, Uncle Google said "eyes." They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. There must be some truth in it because both men and women fix their attention on the eyes when they want to meet a person.

Let me tell you something. I was at a church a few years ago, and I was looking around, and it was a packed church. So many of the brothers in the sanctuary had on shades. I was trying to figure it out; it just caught my eye because I said I've never been in church with so many people with shades on. I came to the conclusion that there was something shady going on. The eyes are expressive and often say much more than our words. Brothers, watch out for a woman who has seductive eyes. Some men say, "I didn’t want to do what she says, but she looked at me with those eyes. She knew what to do. Looked me up and down, looked at me with them eyes, and I just got weak."

Leah obviously was not born with those Bette Davis eyes, the eyes that were mesmerizing and captivating men with her gaze. Leah’s eyes were weak and dull, had no sparkle. Somebody might say that she was a sight for sore eyes. That’s why I'm so happy that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The smile and the eyes are often highlighted as key for initial attraction and connection. But the Bible tells us that Rachel had a beautiful face. Not only did she have a beautiful face, but she also had a beautiful body. Her form was beautiful as well.

Verse 18: "Now Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, 'I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter.' And Laban said, 'It is better that I give her to you than I should give her to another man. Stay with me.' So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, 'Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go into her.'" We're talking about Rachel, who had everything going—beauty and the love of her man. Ladies, your beauty doesn’t guarantee that a man will love you.

But Rachel was loved. Listen, I have plenty of friends who would consider themselves just drop-dead gorgeous, and others would too. They wear the finest clothes, have a house and car, but acquiring a man that will love them doesn’t seem to be happening. But Jacob’s love was so strong that he was willing to wait and serve seven years so he could pay the bride price, which is the dowry. Seven years seemed like nothing to him. I mean, you know that some men are not willing to wait seven months, or seven days. Some men won’t even wait seven minutes for you. Yet alone wait seven years to marry somebody. But here’s the thing: if you love them, you’ll wait.

So, now Jacob completed his agreement, and so he tells Laban, "Now give me my wife." He said, in other words, "Uncle Laban, I did my part. Now do your part." Let’s see what happened in verse 22. "And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. Now it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah his daughter and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her. And Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as a maid. So it came to pass in the morning—oh Lord, in the morning—that behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, 'What is this you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I have served? Why then have you deceived me?' And Laban said, 'It must not be done so in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill her week, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve with me still another seven years.'"

There was a little cultural clause in the agreement that Laban did not disclose to Jacob. You’ve got to read the fine print. Many people got jacked up because they didn’t pay attention to the fine print. The fine print was that the older daughter had to be married first. By giving Jacob Leah and not Rachel, Laban technically tricked him into promising another seven years of hard labor. Sometimes people get mad when bad seeds they’ve sown come back to bite them.

This was the case of one deceiver meeting another family member deceiver. Remember that Jacob deceived his brother, and now his own uncle deceives him. You reap what you sow. Don’t get mad; you reap what you sow. Verse 28: "Then Jacob did so and fulfilled her week. So he gave him his daughter Rachel as wife also. And Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as a maid." With the thought of his true love in mind, Jacob agreed to work another seven years to get Rachel. A week later, they were married. Leah had a maid, Zilpah, and Rachel had her maid, Bilhah.

Here’s where the problem comes in. He gets his long-awaited wife, but then he shows favoritism. He loved Rachel more than he loved Leah. Somebody might think that was understandable. He didn’t ask for Leah. He was duped. He was tricked, set up, and deceived. I imagine it was emotionally traumatizing to know that she had a veil on, and when she woke up in the morning, Jacob realized she wasn't who he wanted. But let’s read on to see what God thought about it.

Verse 30 says he also loved Rachel more than Leah, and he served with Laban still another seven years. "When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren." God didn’t see it as favoritism. The opposite of unloved is hated. Some translations said "hated." Don’t try to sweeten it up. Leah was hated. God put a plan in place to counteract her rejection, the hate that was directed toward her, the pain that she suffered, and the loneliness that came with it. God made her fruitful by opening up her womb and closing up Rachel's womb.

Verse 32: "So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, 'The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore my husband will love me.'" How many times women get with men hoping to have a baby and that he will love them? Verse 33: "Then she conceived again and bore a son and said, 'Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.' And she called his name Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son and said, 'Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.' Therefore his name was called Levi."

Today, parents name their children a name because it sounds good or sounds cute. Sometimes they name them after celebrities, or the name has a sentimental value. But the Old Testament portrays a more purposeful use of names. Parents often chose names that reflected the situation at the time of the birth. Some parents do that today. The baby born on Tuesday, they name the child Tuesday. Speaking of name changes, even Jacob’s name was changed. God changed Jacob’s name from meaning deceiver to Israel, meaning one who struggles with God.

It’s interesting to note that all of the great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—all of their wives had difficulty conceiving children. But God wants us to be fruitful and multiply because He wants that righteous seed in the earth. With all the wickedness going on in our world, we need some righteous seed in the earth. The Bible tells us to be fruitful and multiply, and the world is suffering because of our disobedience.

You can tell by Leah’s words after giving birth the state of mind she was in. She named the first one Reuben. "The Lord has looked upon my affliction" is what his name means. She hoped that her husband would now love her. The hurt and the pain of not feeling the love was not a figment of her imagination; it was very real to her. She named the second one Simeon, which means "the Lord heard that I was unloved." Having sons was then and still is a blessing.

The question is she said, "The Lord heard that I was unloved." I was just wondering: Who did God hear that from? Was it common knowledge, or could it be that Jacob was so upset that he had to fulfill his husband duties that he went into Leah begrudgingly and then complained about it to Rachel? If Rachel heard it, who else heard it? The Lord heard it. Leah knew it, and she said God heard that I was unloved.

Don't you know God hears everything? When people plot against you, God hears it. When they make plans to try to trip you up, God hears it. You don’t have to worry about what God is hearing and God is seeing. He sees and He hears. Then we get to Levi. "Now I think," she said, "I'll have his love, and he won't just leave me." Maybe he'll stay the night and hold me until the morning. Just maybe.

Her loneliness kept her hoping for change in Jacob, the one she was hoping to fulfill her. After that third child, the resurrection power of the Almighty God hit her, and there was a mind shift, a spiritual shift. Verse 35: "And she conceived again and bore a son and said, 'Now I will praise the Lord.' Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing."

Regardless of her husband's feelings toward her, regardless of the hate and the jealousy that she was feeling from the community, she came to the conclusion that regardless of the situation she was put in, that God was with her. That God loves her. God is blessing me, and I'm going to give Him the praise. Judah. "Now I will praise the Lord." She fixed her gaze on God, not on her husband, not on the naysayers and the haters. Just because God is blessing you, you never have a reason to hate on your haters. You never have a reason to look down on them.

Never forget that the good hand of God is moving in your life. You don’t have a reason to complain. Don’t ever forget how God lifted you up. Don’t ever forget how God dried the tears from your eyes. Don’t ever forget how He worked a miracle in you. Chapter 30, verse 1: "Now Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister and said to Jacob, 'Give me children, or else I die!'" Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?"

So she said, "Here is my maid Bilhah. Go into her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I may have children by her." Then she gave him Bilhah, her maid, as wife, and Jacob went into her, and Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, "God has judged my case, and He has also heard my voice and given me a son." Therefore she called his name Dan. Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.

Loneliness is not limited to the misfortunes or the rejects of society. Folks that seemingly have it all together can face loneliness. Rachel had everything. She had the looks, the husband, the love, but she envied her sister. To carry envy or to be envious is to be resentful, to have bitter dissatisfaction with another person's blessings. Proverbs 14:30 says, "A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones." According to Galatians 5:21, envy is considered a dangerous work of the flesh. It stems from insecurity and lack of trust in God’s provision.

Don't you know that what God has done for somebody else, He'll do the same thing or more for you? You never have a reason to be envious or jealous of somebody. I can only imagine how Rachel made her older sister feel. She was desperate for a child, to the point that she takes her desperation out on her husband. Then she offers him her maid and Bilhah conceived, giving her husband what would be considered our method of artificial insemination in a sense. The child really belonged to Rachel; Bilhah just had the kids.

Then Bilhah conceived again. So Rachel is looking like, "Well, what’s wrong with me?" Verse 8: "Then Rachel said, 'With great wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and indeed I have prevailed.' So she called his name Naphtali." When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took Zilpah, her maid, and gave her to Jacob as wife. And Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Then Leah said, "A troop comes." So she called his name Gad. And Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.

Wrestling is a tiring sport. It pulls on every part of your body. So, there was this back-and-forth struggle with Leah and Rachel. They were locked into a cruel contest in their race to have more children. Leah said, "I got me a troop now. I'm so fruitful even my maids are having babies." They both gave their servants to Jacob as concubines, which was an acceptable custom of the day. It’s not for today. Just because something was acceptable, it doesn’t mean that it's wise and the right thing to do.

Verse 13: "Then Leah said, 'I am happy, for the daughters will call me blessed.' So she named his name Asher. Now Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest and found mandrakes in the field." Another name for mandrakes is "love apples." It’s like an aphrodisiac, which promotes fertility and aids in conception. Rachel says to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes." But she said to her, "Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away my son's mandrakes also?" Rachel said, "Therefore he will lie with you tonight for your son's mandrakes."

This is scandalous. When Jacob came out of the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said, "You must come into me, for I have surely hired you with my son's mandrakes." And he lay with her that night. And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. Leah said, "God has given me my wages, because I have given my maid to my husband." So she called his name Issachar. Then Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. And Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good endowment. I may be hated, but God has endowed me with a good endowment. Now my husband will dwell with me, because I have born him six sons." So she called his name Zebulun. Verse 21: "Afterward she bore a daughter and called her name Dinah."

This is something else. The contention got so bad that Leah accused Rachel of taking away her husband. Rachel is playing "let’s make a deal" with Leah. Obviously, Rachel was controlling the situation, the relationship. Rachel said, "I'll let him sleep with you." Catch that control. "I’ll let my husband and your husband sleep with you if you give me some mandrakes." In verse 17, God listened to Leah and gave her a fifth son. Rachel thought that trading mandrakes for a night of pleasure with Jacob was a good deal, but God thought otherwise.

Whatever man thinks is good enough to pay you, God has greater. So put your time in. God is listening to your heart. You gave me mandrakes, but guess what? I got another son out of this. Leah is still hated, she's still lonely, but her eyes are on the goodness of God. She recognizes God has been good to me. Six sons. I'm a baby-making machine. It doesn’t matter that Jacob hardly comes into me, because every time we do, I get a baby out of the deal.

And God completed His work in Leah by lastly giving her a daughter. After having all those boys, what mother wouldn’t want a baby girl? Leah had eight sons for Jacob out of the 12, which included the two from her concubine. That’s two-thirds, over half of the tribe of Israel, came from Leah and only one-third came from Rachel. Leah experienced loneliness as a result of her circumstances. Not all loneliness is our fault. Sometimes we're thrust into it. She was forced because of her culture and by her father to marry a man who did not love her.

Lack of love and living with haters caused her to be lonely. While she kept hoping things and Jacob would change, it never changed, but God changed her in the process and shifted her gaze to Him. The one who was blessing her and proved to her that He could be more to her than any man could ever be. Too often we're more focused on what we don’t have or who we don’t have rather than what we do have or what we have.

We have the lover of our souls, the one who looks at us and sees the beauty that He created, the one who sees us when everybody else turns their head, the one who understands the depths of our pain when others throw us away like trash. He chases after us and lavishes His love on us and calls us His special treasure. Not because we're so good, but because He is good.

King David even cried out in Psalm 142:4, "I looked on my right hand and beheld, there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul." But then in verse five, he said, "I cried unto the Lord. I said, 'Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.'" David was lonely, but he said, "God, I know that You are the only one who can satisfy this ache in my heart."

God is the only one who's going to love you with perfect love—no strings attached, unconditional. Loneliness is a spiritual issue. We all have a heart problem, and we need a doctor. We can’t be talking about, "I do bad things because I'm lonely. I need somebody to keep me company to make me feel better. I need you to go with me so I don’t drink as much. I need you to come with me to mama's house so I don't curse nobody out." He’s the only one.

We can invite more people into our lives and we can invite more quality people into our lives, but the problem is they won’t take care of the root problem of loneliness, the root pain of separation that is there. We have a spiritual heart problem, and we don’t need medication. We need a new heart, and that takes God, Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals us. And our deep cry should be, "I'm lonely because I was born a sinner. I was born in this dark world, this fallen world, and only God can help." Stop thinking man can help you; only God can help you.

Let me give you these quick keys before I let you go. Five keys to overcome loneliness. Number one is don’t believe the lies, the lies of loneliness. You are loved by God, who will never fail you or reject you. He'll never kick you to the curb. You are never alone, for God has said Himself, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." You can take that to the bank. Regardless of your challenges, your financial struggles, your mental or emotional distress, God will always be there for you.

In Matthew 28:20, Jesus’ parting words, His very last words before He left us, He said, "And be sure of this, I am with you always, even until the end of the age." So when you feel yourself slipping into loneliness—the loneliness of unanswered prayers because some of us think God doesn't hear you, He's just not paying me no mind, I still have these prayers I need answered—it can get lonely. But remind yourself of God’s truth because the Father knows best. Train your thought life to be in alignment with God’s word, despite how you might be feeling in the moment.

The second thing is learn to forgive. We're called to forgive. Forgiveness is the cornerstone to life-giving and effective friendships. Ernestine is my oldest best friend. We’ve been together since second grade. I love her; she loves me. We never fell out with each other. She can tell me whatever she feels like telling me, and I'm going to still love her. I can tell her whatever I feel like telling her, and she’s going still love me. That’s why we still together. We need friends, but while I have Ernestine, that don't block me from getting more friends. I'm still looking for somebody I can befriend, and you should be looking for that as well.

Forgive people because God forgives you. Forgive them when they're sorry and forgive them when they're not sorry. You know some people will step on you with high-heeled shoes and won’t say a thing. Forgive them when they know they hurt you and when they don’t know they hurt you. Don't you know there are some people that don’t know they hurt you, and you're sitting around here all mad and puffed up? Forgive them when they were spitefully and vengefully excluded you.

You can’t be a 40-year-old mother with three kids, working a full-time job, and still festering over a girl in middle school who bullied you. Get over it. There’s a young lady who visited the church sometimes who we were in middle school together as students in the seventh grade, and we had a fight. Yes, I had a fight. I wouldn’t start fights, but if you start with me, I'm going fight you. That’s the way that works.

This is the interesting thing: that happened when I was in the seventh grade. That was so long ago. She goes to the church—she’s a minister in the church—and she still won’t talk to me. This is real. I have tried to say hello. She won’t let it go. I'm like, "Are you serious? We were in seventh grade. I wasn't saved, and you probably wasn't saved either." Forgive these people. Forgive the teacher that belittled you, the dean that suspended you, your mother, your ex-husband, your baby daddy who abandoned you, the pastor who overlooked you, yourself when you have failed, your children when they fall short, and those who said the wrong thing to you when you were down.

Charge it to their head. You know you at the funeral and they saying stupid stuff, and you're thinking, "I'll never forgive them for what they did, what they said at the funeral." Get over it. You were hurting, but get over it. Stop harboring unforgiveness and stop piling every little thing done against you. Learn to forgive freely and often. It is a critical component of your spiritual growth journey and it hinders new relationships from forming.

The third thing is learn how to fight for your community and unity. In other words, stay connected to a local church. Proverbs 27:17 emphasizes that believers or friends sharpen us. They sharpen us in so many ways. They sharpen us spiritually, mentally, and socially. They enhance our spiritual and natural lives. The Lord would have us and He created us to be in community. He wants us to fine-tune one another. He wants us to learn to love one another, pray for one another, and disciple new believers.

These relationships and fellowships do not happen by themselves; they must be intentional. It’s easy for us to go home and put on a good movie with that big-screen TV for the weekend and not push ourselves to come to church and actively engage with others. However, when we do that, we don’t reap the rewards of community. God is calling you to go out and make disciples and to give back to the community that He set up. This is the community God set up where He said He’s going dwell. We’re so busy trying to be with this club and that club outside of church, but we won’t be with what God set up. God set this thing up to advance the kingdom.

Another key to overcoming loneliness is to pray about it. Tell God about your loneliness. Ask God to bring godly friends your way and for opportunities to be a godly friend to somebody else. Don’t just ask them to come your way; you be a friend to somebody else. The Scripture says if you're going have a friend, you ought to show yourself friendly. You standing in a corner somewhere expecting people to come to you. No, you go to them.

Maybe because of previous pain, unresolved drama, trauma, and heart wounds, self-absorbed know-it-all spirit, or complaint—you might be a complainer or a killjoy—people don't want to be bothered with you. But pray about it. Ask God to remove anything in your heart that does not align with His word and that hinders you from forming real, meaningful friendships.

The fifth thing is to learn to praise God and be content with where you are. Just know that you are right where God wants you to be. You may not like where you are, but you're still right where God wants you to be. And God wants you to draw closer to Him right where you are because He wants to grow you. Praise God when you feel like it and when you don’t feel like it. Praise Him like you trust His plan for you rather than your own plan.

Loneliness is a common human experience. Feelings of loneliness can be due to separation by death, sickness, a broken relationship, being misunderstood, or the fact that we might not fit into the life mold that everybody around us thinks we should be in. We might be a little bit different. That’s all right. Tell somebody, "It's all right to be different." That’s the beautiful thing. God knew He needed to make different people because He needed to elevate our level of love for one another. Some people only like to love people that’s like them. Well, you're not loving like God wants you to love.

Lonely because we don’t know anybody we can relate to. It’s not good for man to be alone. Renowned men of the Bible experienced loneliness. Elijah fled from Jezebel to a cave on Mount Horeb suffering from burnout and believing he was the only faithful person left. "I'm doing the work of the Lord, and I'm doing this all by myself. Ain't nobody helping me. I'm the only one left." No, you're not. Stop lying. You ain't the only one trying to live right. You ain't the only one trying to do the work of the Lord. God got a whole whole heap of people that's loving Him and trying to do what’s right.

Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet or the prophet of loneliness. He was forbidden to even marry or take part in social gatherings, which was a part of his calling. Now, you know that’s a lonely thing. But you know what? He gave his gaze on God. Job suffered the loss of his family and health, feeling isolated even from his friends who were supposed to come there and comfort him, and they were miserable. They made the situation worse.

And then there was Jesus. We’ve got to look to Jesus. He experienced extreme isolation, from His 40 days in the desert to crying out on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" He was never separated from the Father, but He knew that that was the worst kind of loneliness anybody could ever experience. What He did was He experienced that loneliness so that you and I would never have to experience being alone. Because God said, "I'll be with you always, even until the end of the earth." Just know that God has a wonderful plan for your life. When you give God your loneliness, you begin to sense God’s presence working in your life. He knows how to fill the void, because in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. Overcome that loneliness with gazing on God.

Guest (Male): Amen. The title of this sermon was Overcoming Loneliness. Pastor Brenda started off by saying how the hearts of people are growing colder, and thus an increase of loneliness. She mentioned that technology is also a big factor of loneliness, and how we're having church in our houses instead of going into the house of the Lord.

The key point she mentioned was that loneliness cannot be fixed by surrounding yourself with people. It’s more of an emotional issue than a physical issue. She said that loneliness is a common experience and everyone goes through it. She took us to Genesis, where through Adam, we learned that isolation is not God’s will. We need people in community to be encouraged, to grow, and to be challenged. She mentioned that one man acting alone cannot and will not glorify the Lord in the fullest.

She took us to Genesis 2:18, where she made the point that loneliness at its root is a spiritual issue; it’s the absence of God's love. She took us to Genesis 29:16, where we see the story of Rachel, Leah, and Jacob. She mentioned that the opposite of unloved is hated. Jacob hated Leah, but God turned it around for Leah by opening her womb. Leah looked to Jacob to fulfill her desire for love, but in the end, Leah came to an understanding that only God could fill her desire for love, and so she praised Him.

She also mentioned that through this story we see how Rachel became jealous of Leah because her womb was so fruitful, but Rachel’s was not. She made a point to say that those who so-called have everything can still be lonely, because Rachel had beauty, the body, and the man, and she was envious of her sister’s fruitful womb. She felt left out.

This story teaches us that nobody can love you like God. God hears your faintest cry. He is the only one that can love you with an unconditional love. God is the only one who can help you, so we have to stop looking to man. The root problem of loneliness is your heart. Whose hands are you placing your heart in besides God?

She gave us five beautiful points on how to overcome loneliness. The first one being: Don’t believe the lies of loneliness. The second one being: Learn to forgive. The third one being: Learn to fight for community and unity. The fourth one being: To pray about it. And the fifth one being: To learn to praise God and be content with where you are.

I also just want to thank you, Pastor Brenda. This sermon was definitely for me. As you all know, I've been going through a season where I've just graduated. I'm coming from college where I'm surrounded by nothing but my friends, and you know, I had a basic where it's a bunch of young people my age where we just come together to listen to sermons and to glorify God and all the good stuff.

From coming from a place like that and coming back home, a lot of things changed and they changed quickly. One of my closest friends moved to Georgia. Another one of my closest friends, we had a bit of a falling out. And so I was just left in a season of loneliness. Truly I was, and I was like, "Lord, I need some friends," etc.

I prayed about it, Pastor. And sure enough, I was like, "Lord, and I need friends who live in Brooklyn, because they all live in Long Island over here, or Queens over there, one in Georgia." Have mercy, Jesus. And sure enough, I had gone to the dry cleaners one day to get a dress that I had fixed and altered, and I struck up a conversation with the seamstress that was there, because she looked young. Sure enough, she’s also a believer. You know, she’s looking for a church home and things of that sort. She’s starting in her relationship with the Lord.

So we just strung up conversation. We’ve gone out together like twice now, and so we’re in the process of becoming friends. I thank God for answering my prayer. I thank God for sending me a friend who also believes in the Lord, that's also in Brooklyn. Amen. So yes, I just thank you, Pastor, for this sermon, because I've definitely or I'm coming out of a season of loneliness, and in the midst of it, I'm just learning to praise God. I'm learning to not look to man to fulfill that hole in my heart, but I'm looking to God. Amen. So yeah, just continue to pray for me, and I thank God for you again, Pastor Brenda. So let's give God some glory for the word again. Hallelujah.