Philippians 4:2-9 Gentleness

 

Paul writes this letter to the church in Philippi while in prison in Rome. He’s facing a trial with Caesar and there’s no guarantee he’s going to be set free. Paul’s letter to the church here is one focused on encouraging and building them up; you can tell that he really cares about the people in this church. He reminds them of what being a follower of Jesus looks like, encouraging them in chapter 1, “to conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ,” which is quickly followed by describing what the attitude of Jesus is in chapter 2. Running through this letter is the theme of joy, in spite of persecution and difficult times. Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” This is not meant to make those who struggle with depression or mental health feel guilt, Paul simply wants to point us to the good news of Jesus, and a reminder that when Jesus returns there will be healing and release from the chains of depression and mental health struggles.

Growing up, gentleness wasn’t necessarily something I was taught as a boy, it always felt like a girl thing. Boys were supposed to be strong; they didn’t cry or show weakness. I know, sounds old-fashioned and chauvinistic, but that was the culture I was raised in. Gentleness was also not seen as a positive character trait in the time of Jesus and Paul. They were being ruled by Rome, a military power that preferred strength and saw gentleness as a weakness. Yet Paul calls on the people of Philippi to “let their gentleness be evident to all.” Gentleness is outward looking, it’s about humility, and being considerate of others. Paul talks about gentleness because two people he cares about are in a big disagreement.

People today often focus on strength rather than gentleness. Omid Safi, an Iranian-American professor at Duke University, writes, “Ours seems to be a world that values “strength.” We want “hard” bodies, “strong” minds, “tough” wills, “hard as nail” determination, “rugged” personalities, “sturdy” character, and so on. I wonder if we have confused hardness with the strength it takes to truly give and receive love. Let us praise softness. I’m speaking here of hearts, of soft hearts, of gentle spirits. I’m speaking of the gentleness to give and receive love.”

Gentleness is a quiet strength with the power to change how other people act and react to the things happening around them. Teachers know this well. When dealing with children who are angry and on the edge of getting out of control; a gentle voice, a soft touch, along with patience, calmness, and love are usually able to help the child settle down and even see things differently. I have seen this in hospitals with families in panic, families who are angry and frustrated, often because they don’t know what’s going on, and then a nurse or chaplain or pastor comes alongside them, gently and compassionately helping them find calmness, strength, and ability to face the situation they’re in from a place of more strength. In a hospital waiting room I watched a physically powerful man filled with deep anger move back from his anger when a nurse gently talked with him, addressing the situation, showing a willingness to listen, and the compassion that shows they truly cared for the man and his wife. Gentleness sees the person before seeing what they’ve done or what they’re going through. Gentleness is one person’s soul reaching out to another person’s soul who is struggling.

 

The Preaching and Worship website reminds us that “true Christ-like gentleness is rooted in strength and assurance. Christians are gentle not because they lack all conviction but because they are so convicted of the truth of the gospel that they feel no need to scream about it or foist it onto others in brusque and brash ways. Gentleness may conjure up the image of a lamb and, if so, that is apropos to Christ as the Lamb of God. But Christ is also rightly depicted as the Lion of Judah. The gentleness of Christ as Lamb is rooted in the power of Christ as Lion.”

Paul calls Gaius to gentleness as he guides Paul’s friends.  Euodia and Syntyche’s disagreement is serious enough for Paul to call Gaius and the church to help the women to work their disagreement out. Focusing on gentleness and joy feels strange, especially when dealing with conflict; yet gentleness seems to just slip in unexpectedly. Why rejoice and be gentle? Because the Lord is near!

Paul is a wise and educated person and knows a lot about how people work emotionally and spiritually. He doesn’t quote Proverbs here, but the emotional wisdom of Proverbs 15:1, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger,” shapes his call to Euodia and Syntyche to reconcile.  Paul writes in Ephesians 4:1–3, “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Mark D. Roberts writes about the importance of unity in the church and explains the importance of humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance. “If a Christian community is going to be unified, in reality and not just in theory, then its members will need to be humble, gentle, and patient. They will need to put up with each other. We begin to "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit," not by grand pronouncements, nor by focusing on the oddities of others, but rather by acting humbly, gently, patiently, and tolerantly.” This is true for all relationships: family, marriage, friendships, at work or school.

Jesus points us to his own gentleness in Matthew 11, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It’s the gentleness of Jesus that creates trust in him, confidence that when we come to him, that he will give us strength when we are weak. Jesus is the gentle soul who attracts children, with whom outcasts feel comfortable, and who is the gentle shepherd who describes himself as gathering up lost sheep in his arms.

What does gentleness in the Bible look like? In Titus 3:2 “slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone,” gentleness cam also be translated as humble or meek, while in James 3:17 we read, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Here the word considerate can also be translated as gentleness. Then in 1 Peter 2:18 we read, “Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh,” considerate can again be translated as gentle and is contrasted with harsh. But at its heart, gentleness sees the image of God in everyone and humbly comes alongside people to help them see Jesus in their lives and find hope in God’s love.

Gentleness in the Bible is multi-faceted, meaning that there’s a lot to this word. Gentleness is seen as part of our character, part of who we are; it’s not just something we do, it’s who we are. Gentleness is important in growing a strong unity within the church which is made up of very diverse people. In many cases, we call people brother and sister who we would never have built relationships if it wasn’t for the Holy Spirit bringing us together in the church. It takes gentleness, humility, and consideration for each other in order to grow the trust needed to be family together. Gentleness takes hard work inside our own hearts to grow, and it takes hard work to practice regularly and consistently with others, both in and outside of the church family. Following Jesus means growing up and becoming mature people who are consistently focused outwards with grace towards others instead of ourselves. There is little room for selfishness as a follower of Jesus.

Richard Mouw writes that “many convicted Christians place a central emphasis on the harsher side of the Bible's portrayal of God's character: sovereignty, holiness, power, wrath, and the like... God is a sovereign ruler — but in Jesus Christ, he made it clear that he is that rare kind of ruler who comes to his people in the form of a servant. God is holy — but his holiness is revealed in his love for us. God is all-powerful — but his supreme power is displayed in the weakness and vulnerability of the cross... As agents of God's righteousness, we are called to imitate the divine character. In our efforts at public discipleship, we need to cultivate the traits that are associated with God's own kindness and gentleness."

Gentleness, a characteristic of God himself, part of the fruit of the Spirit, may you experience the gentleness of Jesus and reach out in gentleness into our community and touch everyone with God’s grace and love.

3 John Faithfulness

 

Have you ever had a friend who hurt you? Maybe they shared something unkind about you with someone else, or maybe they ignored you at school or at a party and made you feel sad and like you’re not even their friend anymore? Faithfulness is one of those character traits that we look for in people because it shows that the person is mature and trustworthy. The Dictionary of Bible Themes defines faithfulness as “commitment to a relationship with God or fellow human beings, seen in that loyalty, devotion, and service which is a reflection of God’s own faithfulness. Scripture points to the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as an example for believers.”

Our faithfulness flows out of God, a reflection of his faithfulness to us. All you need to do to get a sense of how faithful God is to us is read the Bible, beginning in Genesis, especially Genesis 3 and then follow how God sticks with humanity even though we keep throwing his faithfulness to us back in his face time and again as we keep choosing other gods over God. I say ‘we’ because we’re no different than the people in the Bible. Tim Keller says that we tend to take the good things that God blesses us with and turn them into gods by making them more important in our hearts than God himself. As I look at my own life, I realize that it’s done so easily, without even knowing it at the time. It takes a deliberate choice each day to follow Jesus above everything else. It kind of hit me as I was studying for this sermon, that just as I feel hurt and betrayed when a friend or loved does something that makes you feel unloved or small, that God must feel hurt too when I’m not faithful to him and choose other things to love more than him. I think that many people forget that God feels things too; Jesus lived life deeply and emotionally. Faithfulness is a 100% commitment. For those of you who are married, can you imagine the response if you told your spouse that you figure 85% faithfulness is good enough? Yet we do that to God pretty regularly.

In John’s third letter, John’s writing to a dear friend, Gaius. We first meet Gaius as a travelling partner of Paul in Acts 19 and 20. Paul also mentions Gaius in his first letter to the church in Corinth, where we discover that Paul had baptized Gaius into the faith, “My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”  Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name.” Paul challenged the people in Corinth to remember that Jesus is the center of our faith, not Apollos, Cephas or even Paul. Paul’s calling them back to faithfulness to Jesus.

Scott Hoezee writes about 3 John, “The major, major theme of John, and in the Gospel of John, too, and in I John, this whole idea of the truth; and the truth is, as we know, and as we will learn from other parts of this letter, the truth is the truth about Jesus, and the truth that He was God’s own Son, and the truth – that is the right teaching about Jesus – orthodoxy – leads to orthopraxis, which is to act in a right way. So, orthodoxy leads to orthopraxis – right teaching leads to right practice; and in Gaius’s case, this is an exercise of hospitality. Love – sacrificial love of Jesus – showing itself in hospitality to these people who have come to him and he has taken in.”

John shares with Gaius, “They have told the church about your love. Please send them on their way in a manner that honors God. It was for the sake of the name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought, therefore, to show hospitality to such people, so that we may work together for the truth.” Faithfulness to Jesus leads to faithfulness to others who are also followers of Jesus. We are called to live together in community together, to be family together as the church, to show the world what faithful healthy relationships look like in the kingdom of God. This is why John calls out Diotrephes who puts himself and his place in the church above being a blessing to others, even other followers of Jesus.

In John 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is saying that our life needs to be formed on his teaching and example, he is the way we should live; our life is based on the truth, on being faithful to him alone; and Jesus is the life that he talks about when he says in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Gaius, as John says, is faithful to the truth, walking in the truth. Gaius’ faithfulness to Jesus is seen in his faithfulness to these people who have come in Jesus’ name to bring the good news of Jesus to those who still haven’t heard of Jesus, or haven’t committed to following Jesus yet. This is what being faithful to Jesus is all about; it’s not simply believing the right things, it moves into doing right things; it’s about taking the command to go make disciples and making it central to our lives as we follow Jesus. It’s about commitment and faithfulness to the local church, committing to work with each other, using our gifts and resources to share the gospel, to be a blessing in our community, seeking justice and mercy for those overlooked and oppressed and being faithful to our community. Faithfulness is all about relationships of trust and commitment to God, each other, and the people of our community. This is at the heart of our faith and faithfulness to Jesus.

Faithfulness, as part of the fruit of the Spirit, and our character, shapes all our relationships. This is why marriage is often used as an image of Jesus’ relationship with the church, because marriage is a relationship fully rooted in faithfulness to each other. Some one asked me once why the church insists that couples get married instead of simply living together, at least at first to see if they fit together and I told the person that marriage is rooted in promises to each other, it’s a relationship based on commitment rather than feelings because feelings change, but commitment doesn’t, and because it shows that you recognize that marriage is about loyalty, devotion and serving each other. Living together only shows the other person that their commitment to your relationship is based on how long it satisfies them, makes them feel good, instead of faithfulness and sacrifice for the other person.

Faithfulness builds up the other person, leading us to say like John the Baptist does about Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” The band Casting Crowns says it this way,

“Cause I’m just a nobody

Trying to tell everybody

All about Somebody who saved my soul

Ever since You rescued me

You gave my heart a song to sing

I’m living for the world to see Nobody but Jesus.”

Because we are all created in the image of God, we’re all called to be encouragers and builders up of all people, pointing them to Jesus where they can experience Jesus’ love and faithfulness to us. This is part of showing the world what the kingdom of God is all about, what faithfulness to God looks like.

Faithfulness to our communities flows out of our faithfulness to God. God has placed us where we are for his reasons, in a place to live out our faithfulness to him. We are all human beings created in the image of God. Faithfulness to Jesus means loving God with everything we are, seriously studying and knowing his Word so that we can live out his image and values in our community out of God’s love for them. By living out Jesus’ truth in love, we show our community what truth is, what truth looks like in a world muddied with many opinions based on how the person feels at the time, or on how it benefits them over others. Jesus reveals truth: we’re all broken sinful people who need a perfect saviour who is God and human to take our sin away and make us right again with God and each other. This Saviour, who is Jesus, then calls us to live out his truth love to Him and to each other through acts of sacrificial love through the good works prepared for us to do to show our faithfulness to God.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Song of Songs 1:4-7; 2:2; 2:14; 4:1-7; Psalm 139:13-14 Wonderfully Made

This is a difficult message for me because I have a wonderful wife and great kids and grandkids, some of whom have wrestled hard with images of self-worth and respect because of how they’ve been treated. The message this morning is about brokenness and hurt: how we’re hurt and how we hurt each other. We have all been impacted by what we are going to be talking about this morning. We live in a good country, but there are areas where our culture fails us. Companies hi-light all our flaws and then offer their solutions to our failure to not be beautiful or cool enough. They have hyper-sexualized our youth and women and this creates low self images as the images of women and girls online and on tv are so photoshopped they never even come close to showing a real woman or girl.

When we are told we aren’t beautiful enough or good enough, when we’re told that we need to value ourselves by what we look like or by what we have, we need to remember who we are: deeply loved children of God. I know it can be hard to remember that when you look into the mirror and all you see are your faults, when you look at your accomplishments and wonder if that outfit, that car, that boat or house might make you feel like you’re somebody, remember that none of that is important to your heavenly father; all that’s important to God is that you know you’re loved and valued by him.

Today we’re looking at a couple of issues that the church has always found it hard to talk about, pornography and gender issues. Yet if we don’t become comfortable talking about these things from a Biblical approach, our youth are left to learn from media and impressionable friends who want to be loving and not say that any kind of lifestyle is wrong because they might offend someone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a grandparent or parent or unmarried, our youth need us to become comfortable talking about these things. They are being exposed to these things already as young as 9 or 10 outside the home. They need us.

Pornography tears us down, especially women, making them into objects to serve our lusts rather than as beautiful and precious people created in the image of God. Our kids are encountering it earlier and earlier. Porn hurts people. It promises easy relationships with no ties, but then wraps our hearts and minds in powerful chains of lust and shame. It destroys our relationships, taking away the image of God in each of us. Porn turns our real people relationships into things to be used and thrown away. If you no longer please. I’ll swipe left.

The Song of Songs is a love poem in the Bible. It’s part of the wisdom literature that tells us how to live wisely in our relationships as men and women. Because we’re being conditioned to see others simply as objects for our own desire, the Song shows us how a man and woman should show and express love and respect to each other. In the Song of Songs, the woman feels down about herself, her skin is too dark, she works at a common job, she’s not pretty. She turns to one she loves, calling him to tell her where he grazes his flocks so she can come to him in the daylight as a respectable woman, one with honour and pride in herself, even though her looks may not measure up to the daughters of Jerusalem. She knows she’s precious. She respects herself, refusing to be like a veiled woman beside the flocks of his friends, a reference to prostitutes and an echo to the story of Ruth and Boaz and how Ruth trusted that Boaz would treat her with respect and honour when she came to him at the threshing floor in the evening.

The man responds to her and builds her up, encouraging her. This is how we are supposed to respond to each other, building up and encouraging them to be whom God has created them to be, showing respect. Pornography takes our dignity away from us; the ability to really get to see and know the other person and the image of God in the person. As you read through the poem, the woman speaks highly of the man, expressing her admiration for him, showing him respect and honour. The man responds with words of admiration, expressing his love with beautiful words, using the beauty of creation to describe her beauty. He proclaims it to the world. Last week we touched on how men and women are created equal but different; men needing respect and women needing love. This is expressed in the Song of Songs.

The discussions on gender and homosexuality are tied to the porn epidemic because it all revolves around our image of ourselves and how our identity is rooted in our sexuality. We live in a so-called tolerant culture that says you have to accept everyone, that we have to embrace and endorse the other person, even if we disagree with their values. This is especially true about moral issues. If you disagree with someone over the moral values, you are declared wrong, intolerant, and then shamed. The tolerant quickly become intolerant of those they disagree with. This is what our youth face when they say they hold onto a historical Biblical interpretation of sexuality. They’re told they don’t fit in today’s tolerant society. There are a lot of our youth and adults today who are walking wounded, wanting to fit in, tempted to change what they believe and accept what our culture says is right because they’ve been rejected and even shunned.

I’ve been wrestling with our culture’s definition of tolerance. This is where the Bible comes in. I believe a healthier approach to working through moral issues is not tolerance, but love. It begins with knowing where our identity comes from. Our culture tells us that our sexuality, ethnic roots, and gender are our core identities. When I turn to Scripture, God reminds us of who we are: we are people created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, masterpieces in the eyes of God, precious to him, valued greatly by Jesus, loved enough to die for as King David reminds us, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well.” We’ve been adopted into God’s family: beloved daughters and sons of God, princesses and princes in the kingdom of heaven. This is our first and primary identity, this is where we find our strength and life direction. As children of God, we choose to trust him and what he teaches us in the Bible.

It’s important to learn to see ourselves and each other through the eyes of God. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 3:16–17, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” Paul carries on this same theme in Ephesians 2:22, “And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” God has made us his home! When we hear the Bible with ears of love, we can engage our critical culture and keep our hearts and lives strong when meeting people who believe differently than we do about homosexuality and the other gender issues our culture and church are wrestling with. But it begins with us being clear on what we believe, talking about what we believe, and basing it on God’s word. Culture keeps changing while God’s Word has remained a strong firm foundation for thousands of years.

It’s not about convincing others that what we believe is right and what they believe is wrong, that seldom makes a difference. When we root ourselves in loving God and loving our neighbour, we engage our culture best by being determined to see the image of God in each other, engaging them with respect and honour while sharing with them God’s love. I always seem to come back to Jesus, to the people he encountered and how he treated them. Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. He knows that she’s been married 5 times before and now is simply living with a man, but he treats her with respect and honour and she becomes his first missionary; all because he treated her with basic love. then there is the woman that is thrown down into the dirt before Jesus because she was caught in an adulterous situation. Jesus gets down in the dirt with her and starts writing in the dirt, and when her accusers slink away, Jesus asks her where her accusers are and she tells them they’re gone. Jesus then tells her that he’s not going to judge her either, but he also adds, “Go and sin no more.” Jesus shows compassionate love to her and he wants what is best for her, which is why he told her to go sin no more. We need to be talking with each other and with our youth and children about sexuality, as uncomfortable as it may be at times for us. We study the Bible, we study science, and we humbly engage in conversations with each and our culture about who God calls us to be as his children.

People are changed when they see what we are for, rather than what we’re against. As we trust in God’s love for us, we trust that what God has revealed in the Bible about what healthy relationships and identity are, is what’s best for us. We also acknowledge the brokenness that sin has brought into the world.

We, without apology to our culture, shape our lives and loves on how God has called us to live, based on love rather than the intolerant tolerance we encounter today. One thing we do need to remember is that we are called to love those who believe differently than we do, we need to treat them with respect as people who are wonderfully made as they work through who they are.

We are wonderfully created, loved by God, and challenged by God to live as his people in the way of Jesus. Through Jesus’ love flowing through us, we show it looks like to be free to be who God calls us to be. Being a follower of Jesus is not about what we are against, but about who we are and what we do as Jesus’ followers: love each other and all our neighbours in active ways, serve our community in love in real practical ways, and sharing with them who Jesus is and how much he loves them, and how Jesus is calling them to follow his way: to trust his truth so they can experience and full blessed life.

 

 

Genesis 2:15-25; Ephesians 5:21-33 It’s Not Good to Be Alone

 

Creation is a beautiful story of how God created everything “good” and “very good.” Genesis 1 and 2 shows us a God who is intimately involved with creation, making sure that everything fits beautifully together. Then we come to Genesis 2:18 where we come to the very first “not good” in the Bible, “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” We are then given the story of the creation of Eve, the partner for Adam that makes God’s “not good” “good.” Adam responds to the gift of Eve, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” Adam is no longer alone.

There’s a great deal of loneliness today. Angus Reid in June 2019 showed that there’s a lot of lonely Canadians. The survey asked: How often do you wish you had someone to talk to, but don’t? 41% of Canadians often or sometimes feel this way. 47% feel lonely and wish they had more friendly human contact, 35 % wish they had more good friends, and 62% wish their own family and friends would spend more time visiting and socializing with them. One notable pattern is that women under 35 tend to express greater feelings of loneliness than other age groups. Four-in-ten Canadians say that they sometimes or often wish they had someone to talk to but don’t, this sentiment rises to six-in-ten among young women.”

It’s not good to be alone and people will search for a relationship to ease their loneliness, even choosing relationships that may be unwise or even unsafe. I’ve walked with too many people who have found themselves in such relationships and find the hurt is greater than the loneliness. Same-sex marriages, couples moving in together before marriage, those who are in polyamorous relationships are all searching for someone to ease their loneliness because they’re experiencing the “not good” of being alone that God responds too in Genesis 2. We may disagree with their choices, but it’s important to understand why they make these choices: they’re looking to feel wanted and loved, a relationship where they’re accepted and belong.

God responds by creating a “helper suitable for Adam,” who turns out to be Eve. This is the foundational verse that the church turns to when it defines marriage, “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” This is one of the ways that God gives us to find a way out of loneliness. There’s a beautiful image here of becoming one again after Eve was created out of the side of Adam. It shows the strength of the marriage relationship. In Ephesians 5, Paul teaches about marriage where both the husband and wife are built up and encouraged to become who God has created them to be. Because men and women are equal but different, Paul has slightly different approaches to marriage for them. He starts by reminding them that a strong marriage is one where the man and woman submit to each other. In such a marriage, both partners are focused on making sure that they are focused on helping their partner become the person God has created them to be. In such a marriage, there’s no focus on rights, but on responsibility, on encouraging and building each other up. A strong marriage is one where each partner is focused on supporting the other partner to discover and develop the potential God has placed in them.

Paul recognizes that men and women need slightly different things from each other. Men need to feel respected by their wives. This may be sexist, but most men want to be their wife’s hero, to be her protector and provider. Most times, a husband who feels disrespected feels like a failure, especially if his wife is critical of him around others. Most women seek to be loved, cherished, and desired by their husbands; to be precious in the heart of their husbands and loved for who they are, not simply for what they look like. This is why Paul calls the husbands to love their wives with a sacrificial love that is willing to give up everything for their wives. Paul uses Jesus’ sacrificial love for the church, a love so strong that he willingly gave his own life for our sin so we could be washed clean and made right with God again, as an example for the husbands to follow. In such a marriage, there is no loneliness.

Another relationship God gives us so we don’t have to be lonely are deep strong friendships, especially same-sex friendships. Not everyone is created for marriage. The Bible speaks highly of those who choose singleness over marriage; Paul even encourages us to be single in 1 Corinthians 7, but the possibility of aloneness and loneliness is high when you’re single. Throughout the Bible we see examples of friendships where people find the support, encouragement, and intimate relationships we all need. Intimacy in these friendships is not physical, but a depth of relationship where you are able to safely share the deepest parts of yourself, it’s a relationship where you can be vulnerable about what you feel, believe, and even doubt and know that you will be supported and encouraged. In my experience, women are more comfortable with these kinds of friendships, though the number of young women who experience loneliness surprised me. Many men seem to fear these kinds of deep friendships. Part of that fear seems to come from being misunderstood. This is mostly a North American thing as men in most other cultures are more open to these kinds of close deep male friendships.

These are friendships where you know you’re loved and accepted, where you know that you’re an important part of their life. In the Bible we see this in David and Jonathan’s relationship, where Jonathan, son of the king, knows that David is going to be the next king instead of himself, and yet he fully supports, encourages, and even protects David from his own father. We see it in Barnabas and Paul’s friendship where Barnabas puts his own reputation on the line because he believes in Paul and his call from God to bring the Gospel news to the Gentiles. Even Jesus has a closer friendship with John than with any of the other disciples. Ruth leaves her own country and people for the sake of Naomi. All these friendships involved sacrifice, encouragement, acceptance, and love.

A third relationship God gives us so we don’t have to be alone or lonely is the church. One of the ways the Bible describes the church is as a family. Robert Frost writes, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” This is because you are connected through blood and committed relationships, even if they can be strained at times. We’re connected through the blood of Jesus, who has chosen us to be his own; placing us together in the church to help us grow more into who God calls us to be. The person you don’t particularly care for in church is there because God knows how embracing that person as your family can help you become more like Jesus. Family is also the place where you can be yourself, a place to take off the masks we wear outside the family in order to belong and be accepted. I do wish the church family can be such a place for everyone, even though I know it’s hard because to do so you need to feel safe. Everyone needs family. The challenge in many churches is to move from cliques and small circles of friendships to being family, to deliberately inviting others into our homes and circles, to care deeply enough to make those sometimes uncomfortable first invitations to those on the fringes of the church, to those who are alone, to honestly accept people and create places for them.

The reality about people is that we will all fail each other at times. Yet we keep reaching out to each other, practicing reconciliation when needed, because it’s not good to be alone. God offers us one relationship that will never fail, a relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us in John 14, “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” God promises us he will be with you. Part of my life journey has been learning and embracing this, knowing that there are times I may feel alone but don’t have to feel lonely because Jesus is always with me through the Spirit. This fills me with strength and hope that loneliness can be conquered, beginning in the church.