There are like over seventy studies pointing to a startling conclusion: Loneliness (social isolation) is dangerous. Says the American Psychological Association. Says the American Association of Retired People. Researchers consider loneliness a public health hazard. Premature death is being attributed to loneliness just as much as obesity, as smoking, as high blood pressure! Pain, stress, anxiety… everything is harder alone.
How many times have you said, “My life would be so much better, if only I didn’t have to deal with people!” On the surface, social isolation may sound like a prescription for a wonderful life. But haven’t you ever watched that Tom Hanks film, Castaway? He’s stranded on an island, and his best friend becomes a volleyball he names Wilson! I bet if you watched that movie, you were like, “Sign me up!” {sarcasm}
I’ve seen people go through really hard stuff. When you’re surrounded by love, you can get through about any crisis. But alone, that same crisis would devastate you. Remember how, when God created man, he declared “It’s not good, for many to be alone.” Two things can break us: Obviously, #1) sin can break us. #2) But so can loneliness! It’s not good, we’re not better, alone! Says God!
God as RELATIONAL (Father, Son, Spirit)
One of the biggest paradigm shifts I’ve had regarding God, was realizing it’s not enough to think of God as merely “God.” God isn’t just God. God is a Father. The name Father implies relationships. The name Father implies there is a family. In heaven, there isn’t just a Father, there is also the Son. And there isn’t just the Son, there is also the Holy Spirit. There are a multitude of angels, a heavenly family.
God doesn’t exist as some lone, isolated, impersonal, cosmic Deity. God is triune, communal. God is in Himself, a community of One… Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
When we see God’s name in the Old Testament, it appears in the plural not singular form. When God creates Adam, He doesn’t say, “Let me create Adam in my image…” No, he says, “Let us create mankind in our image.” And he says, “Let them (plural) rule, multiply, flourish...” I mean, look at creation. Everything our communal God created is communal. He creates humans, male/female. He creates families, schools, herds, flocks, packs, prides, swarms, nests, hives, broods, lairs. The only anti-social creature on the face of the earth are cats…
God didn’t just create us… he created everything, to function within relationship. If we shed relationships, we become dysfunctional! “It’s not good!”
I teach a course at LCU on interpersonal leadership. I have my students take a personality/ temperament assessment that measures things like depression vs. light-heartedness, anxiety vs. composure, hostility vs. tolerance, impulsivity vs. self-discipline, subjectivity vs. objectivity, etc. It also measures a person’s sociability. **The strongest possible correlation exists between a person’s sociability—their relational health—and their ability to cope well, adapt well, live well. We’re better and live longer, together.
Now we don’t only need human relationships. Life without people is hard; Life without God is infinitely more impossible. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the resurrection and life. He is the bread of life. In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind. “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son, does not have life.” God didn’t create you any more for life without people, as life without himself. We’re not right unless we’re in right relationship with the Father and in right relationship with God’s family.
True spirituality is vertical and horizontal. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body, soul...” But also “Love your neighbor… love people…”
God As LOVE.
Another thing to realize is that God is love. Love exists eternally within the Godhead. “The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.” But then God loves people. “For God so loved the world He sent only Son into the world, that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life.” God exudes the very love he commands us.
God as REDEMPTIVE
Speaking of love, what does it tell us that God sent his Son to die, that we might believe on him and have eternal life? How could we ever, even in a lifetime, get our mind around this idea that someone would willingly die that we might live, even God! But just as surely as God is Father, just as surely as God is relational, as God is love, God is also redemptive. He doesn’t wish that anyone perish, but all come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). God wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).
The reason I am telling you all of this, is because relationships are God’s design, and the very essence of his being. The Early Church in Acts (and Churches of Impact)… totally take their cue from God. The Early believers devoted themselves to God-centered way of life… of loving God and loving people. They found strength and power and joy in relationships. Even when relationships were messy (and they always are), the Early Church understood “messy with people” is infinitely better than “isolated/alone without people.”
A Relational, Loving, Redemptive Church
Acts 2:42-46 describes a relationally vital church: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Where did they get the crazy idea to live this way? They got it from God. How do we know? Because for God, “messy with people” is eternally better than “isolated/alone.” God would rather suffer and die, in the most horrible imaginable way, even by crucifixion, even by torture… than to live a tortured life without us. For God, relationships are worth any mess, any suffering, any inconvenience, any cost, any frustration, any headaches… and this is why relationships should matter to us too.
If “together” isn’t in your vocabulary, you’re not learning to speak God’s love language! There is no “me and God.” There is lone ranger, spirituality. There is only the “Father and Us.” There is only the Father and His family “together.” It’s a package deal. There isn’t any of this, “I love God but hate his church” stuff. To love the Father, is to love the Son and the Holy Spirit. But to love the Father, is to also love God’s Family, Christ’s bride.
1 John 4:20 says, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” This isn’t a “I love God, but people are optional,” kind of faith.
Groups and Teams
One practical way we translate these truths into action is serving together within “groups,” “teams,” and “classes.” By Biblical definition the smallest kind of group consists of “wherever two or more gather in Christ’s name.” God himself is a Trinity, that’s three in one. When Jesus was on earth, he surrounded himself most closely with the companionship of three men… Peter, James, and John. That a total of four! But beyond these four, Jesus surrounded himself with a larger group of twelve men. And beyond the twelve we read about 70, and 500. The early Church met in homes “together.” They gathered by households, and smaller congregations, spread geographically across entire cities, regions. But they were always coming “together!”
This week small groups meet “together” to explore what the Bible says about groups, and the things small groups are uniquely designed to accomplish. There isn’t any question that groups were the primary mode of organization in the early church. How can you obey God’s command to love “one another”, if you never get connected to any tangible, identifiable, practically sized group of like-minded believers?
Serving in Grace and Truth
I want to talk for a moment about the purpose of groups. The primary purpose for groups is for us to grow in the grace/knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. What do we do together? We share the grace we’ve received in Christ. We share the truth we’ve received in Christ with one another. The Bible says, Jesus came from heaven full of grace and truth. We come “together” the same… full of grace and truth.
So what happens when we don’t bring grace/truth into relationships? Well, its not good. Without grace/truth, groups can cause more harm than good. To explain what can go bad in groups, allow me to share a “military term” that is making its way into popular culture. The word is “weaponize.” When you weaponize something, you use it to destroy something else. In our cultural climate, we’ve weaponized facts, people’s stories, their gender, their sexuality, their race, their suffering. But in the church, we’ve sometimes weaponized grace and truth. What am I talking about?
When we weaponize truth, we let truth destroy any semblance of grace. As believers, are we supposed to act like a bunch of elitists? Are we to act superior and over-bearing? Are we to condemn and judge? Are we to be little Pharisees, separating ourselves into clicks, because we imagine ourselves more righteous than others? Are we to be little Zealots, so on fire for God, we write off everyone else because they’re not living at the same octane of spiritual life we are?
You weaponize truth when you use truth for any other purpose than to be redemptive. You weaponize truth, when you imagine there is a way to love God, without also loving people. i.e. “I love God, but not my neighbor.” “I love God, but I hate the church.” “I love God, but I’m not going to forgive.” “I love God, but I’m going to wallow in my anger, my hate, my racism, my hurts, the injustices I feel toward people.” “I love God, I just don’t care about people.” **Jesus used truth to serve people. And if we use truth for any other purpose than serving we’re doing harm.
Conversely, when we weaponize grace, we let grace destroy any semblance of truth. Nowadays, churches have become safe spaces for safe, anemic spirituality. We’re so concerned with pleasing people… we’re so afraid of being accused, of being misunderstood, of offending people with the truth of God… we refuse to challenge one-another’s beliefs, attitudes, values, behavior, thinking, logic, ideas, rhetoric, ideology, greed, idolatry, racism, self-centeredness, sin. We say, “I love people, no way am I going to be controversial.” “I love people, no way I’m going to stand on principle, stand on the word of God, stand in faith, throw in with God, be insulted/persecuted in His name…”
Extending grace/grace/grace at the expense of truth is not an act of love, it’s an act of spiritual violence. Extending grace at the expense of truth might make us feel good, it might win the applause of culture, it might make us feel safe, but it doesn’t change anything. Not a single person’s character, not a single person’s destiny.
Our whole aim in relationships, our whole aim in groups, is to serve God and serve people. Our whole purpose is love God and love people. Our whole purpose is to share truth and share grace. Walk in truth, walk in grace, together. We don’t ever have to choose one at the expense of the other! Here is my definition of healthy-spirituality. We come together to share in truth and share in grace.