PASSAGE: Date, Mate, Consummate | Lesson 10

PASSAGE: Date, Mate, Consummate | Lesson 10

Dating Won't Cure A Lonely Heart: Finding Peace

July 13, 2014 | Gerry & Suzie Gee

Discussion: What is the difference between being alone and being lonely?

Dating won't cure a lonely heart.
“It’s not about being alone but rather about being disconnected in a heart relationship from others.” – John Tasowery (Univ. of Chicago) – that’s why a person who is in a crowded room can still feel lonely.

God created in our heart with a need for relationship:
Genesis 2:18 (NASB) Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” First thing that God called “not good”.

• Loneliness occurred before the Fall – before anyone sinned. 
• Definition: “alone” – Hebrew: feel isolated, feel separated, feel apart and alone from interaction with God and with others.
• The base word is בד (bahd/vahd) meaning a “stick.” The ל (le) is a prefix meaning “to” and the ו (o) is a suffix meaning “his.” So לבדו means “to his stick.” A stick is a piece of a tree that is separated from the tree. The phrase “to his stick” is a Hebrew idiom meaning to be “alone.”

God created us with need for relationship.

• God-head: relational God – Father & Son one before the world began. John 17:11, 21, 22 “one as We are one”.
• Loneliness is not sin because God created us with that feeling. Okay to be lonely because heart called/piece God created for yearning for connections – two holes that only God can fill and people can fill. Avoid both or one or the other, will have loneliness in heart. Sin magnifies the effect of loneliness in our lives – we look for connections in our lives i.e. gangs, Facebook, etc. OR we fill holes in illegitimate ways i.e. pills, etc. We run away from God and fill with the “God-hole” with people instead.
• Yearning/emptiness because disconnected in relationships with God and with others.

Steps to take regarding loneliness:

1. Himself (Christmas-God pursued us by sending His Son, Jesus, Gospel)
2. Others (the Church; Darren’s lesson “The church is already something wonderful”:  share, serve, fellowship (summer sizzle, college camp), espm (3^rd Wednesday – Scoops)
• The local church/body is God created as a conduit to share with others.
• Galatians 6:2  ^“Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ”. – a command, not a suggestion.  Church is not just about Sunday morning:  find a group to connect/share heart with.
• Serve:  if serving/thinking of others, can’t be thinking of yourself. 
• Acts 20:34-36 “You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my own needs and to the men who were with me. ³⁵ In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He Himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
3. Jesus Himself:  knows loneliness (separated from God i.e. sin of the world)

Conclusion: Take HOPE in the examples of others and hang on to Jesus – during the darkest/deepest time of loneliness, God uses that time to work on your heart about Him.  i.e Jacob – Gen 32; Moses – wilderness – 80 years; Paul – in prison; told Timothy, “all abandoned (deserted) me”. – 2 Timothy 1:15

Bonus: other wrong reasons to seek a relationship

• You are not ready; don’t date until you are “mature” i.e. know yourself, your values, God’s values, etc.
• You idolize idea of being in a relationship.
• You think someone will help you grow.  Cloud/Townsend (Boundaries In Dating):  p.52  “depend on a person/date to give them a relationship with God rather than owning the relationship with God for himself.”