The Folly of Isolation

The Folly of Isolation

Proverbs is, of course, many sayings of wisdom, and here we have one wise saying for us. Please stand for this very brief reading of God's word. Proverbs 18 .1. Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.

He breaks out against all sound judgment. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for all the wisdom that you've given us, especially here in the Proverbs, and God, I pray that you would show us your wisdom, that you would reveal it to our hearts, that you would open our eyes, that we might understand everything that you have for us here, and Lord, I pray that we would turn away from isolation, that we would find true family in all that you have provided.

In Jesus' name, amen. So I came across this Bible verse in our family Bible reading a couple of weeks ago, and it's really sat in my head and niggled away, and I thought it would be good to bring this and present it to you because I really do think that it addresses one of the more major problems of our generation.

By our generation, I'm not referring just to millennials because I'm a millennial, but everyone who is alive today, although if you look at statistics, it is a problem with younger generations more so in Gen X than with boomers, more so with millennials than with Gen X, more so with Gen Z than with millennials, and that is, of course, the problem of isolation.

They've been measuring statistics on this since the 70s and found that the problem has increased linearly since the 70s until now, and now on surveys, more than half of people who respond, especially men, say that they consider themselves lonely.

Now, this is a word that would characterize them. It really is a problem of our time, loneliness, and while much loneliness is something that we are a victim of, very often it is something that is self-inflicted because we have pursued isolation and then been very disappointed when we find ourselves lonely, so I'd like to spend some time contemplating this, contemplating the wisdom of not isolating, the folly of isolating, and the wisdom of gathering together and how that is provided, especially in Jesus Christ, so beginning here with this statement.

Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment. For starters, I'd like to go ahead and explain that not every Bible translation says it this way. If you're using a King James Version, and I'm not sure which other versions, but it's only a very few set of versions, says something different.

King James says, through desire, a man having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom, which may not be very clear what I just read, but the suggestion is that the isolation is in pursuit of wisdom and is actually a good thing, and this is the standard interpretation of the Pharisees and of the Qumran community.

If you aren't familiar with the Qumran community, that was the area where they found all the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you've heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that area, those people were the Qumran community, and so what is a Pharisee?

Does anyone know what a Pharisee means, what that word means? It's one who separates himself, right? So they highly valued separation from the world, as we should, but this was kind of a principle thing was that idea of isolation, and so it was a common thing for them to interpret this, given some of the ambiguities in Hebrew as referring to the goodness of isolation.

I'm no Hebrew expert, but I don't think that is the, from my own understanding, I don't think that's the sense of it. Most translations do not think that is the sense of the words, and even the Septuagint, the Greek translation of scripture that Jesus would have used, doesn't consider that the sense of the words, and that what you have before you in the ESV is the correct sense.

Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment, and regardless, this, of course, accords with the rest of scripture that says this in other places many times. So the one who isolates himself seeks his own desire.

It is a very selfish move to isolate oneself. Now, that might not seem, isolation sounds bad, it's got this negative connotation, negative tone to itself, so maybe it doesn't seem clear why it is that that would be selfish, something that people would desire to do.

Why is that attractive? Well, think about it. If you isolate yourself, you don't have to worry about others burdening you, you don't have to care for others, you don't have to worry about performing or living up to any obligations or worrying about anyone else's judgments.

If you've got serious sin in your life, you can hide your sin. There's all kinds of things that are very attractive about isolation. Of course, there are times when it is reasonable and necessary to be alone for a while.

Now, if that is exacerbated, of course, then it becomes the folly that you see here. People isolate themselves seeking their own desire, seeking this selfishness, and so they seclude themselves, they break themselves off from others, they don't let anyone into their home, they don't let anyone into their lives.

Maybe they'll have short conversations, but they're very walled off and they build this temple, these hard walls, these temples to themselves and just sit in that temple. This is, of course, foolishness, but why is it that this is such a growing problem in the world?

I don't have authoritative statements from the Word of God, but I can make a few observations that may be helpful to you. Why is this a growing problem, this problem of loneliness and this problem of isolation?

Entertainment, Social Media, and Smaller Families

The first, I think, would be entertainment. The kind of entertainment that we have available really does make comfortable isolation, and it's really easy to drift off into more and more self-indulgence and entertainment, a way where before, if you needed entertainment, you really did have to interact with others.

You couldn't do that in isolation. There weren't a lot of ways to entertain yourself in isolation. Now, there are many ways to entertain yourself in isolation. Another one is social media. It's easy to interact with others without really being truly transparent about who you are, and I'm not just talking about people who post all the happy pictures on Facebook and things that have been photoshopped to not accord with reality, but just in general, when you're interacting online, you're not interacting with the way you would normally interact in terms of having a transparent facial expressions, all your tone.

There's a lot that is hidden and that you're able to carefully craft before you send your messages out to the world, and so it provides a lot of what you want out of interaction without a lot of the things that you don't want, a lot of the vulnerability you don't want in interaction.

There are other problems too. One would be smaller families. As people have opted for smaller families, they become very used to not being around many people. In addition, you have the growth of government.

The kind of governments that we have in the world and all the various nations are so much larger than the governments of the past. Just as one illustration of this has just come to mind, this morning when we read in Genesis about Joseph gathering up the grain and selling it to people, a lot of people think of that in terms of our modern governments, and they imagine this as the state gathering these things in the name of the public and taxing them on these things.

If you look at what's going on there, Pharaoh is gathering these things as an individual. He's selling them as a very wealthy individual. This is not what we imagine with our state that has grown so large to basically replace the need to rely on brother and sister.

Instead of these person-to-person interactions to meet our needs, a lot of our needs are met by the government. And so you have all these various things that have come together in order to make isolation this growing and growing problem in our world.

So one thing you should take away from that is really consider how much you are a product of your times. There are many temptations that are particular to our generation, to our Western world, and you should consider and not be so stuck in your world that you don't realize that you are more susceptible to some temptations than other people at other times, other places have been susceptible.

And one of those is this temptation to isolate. Now it says that this is foolishness. He says he breaks out against all sound judgment. Well, why is this foolish? Why would we call this foolish? Well, it's foolish, first of all, because it leaves you unable to help people.

And why would helping people be good? If your actions and anything that you invest in is all focused on yourself, then it has very limited meaning. In fact, it has almost no meaning at all. It's only through shared truths, shared things that real meaning exists.

You know, a lot of people become very depressed because they feel like they have no meaning in their life because they aren't investing in anything outside of themselves. Spending a lot of time on thinly veiled misanthropy that goes under the name of self-care often does not lead to feeling like you've invested in something meaningful.

Investing outside of yourself is more meaningful and so leaves you feeling like you've done something more meaningful. Additionally, it's foolish because if you have isolated yourself, not only can you not help others, others cannot help you.

There's really no help you have when you finally need help. You might isolate yourself because you feel like others are a burden, but one day you will be the burden. You will be the one who needs to share your burdens with others.

And if you have isolated yourself, you will have no one. We must resist this temptation to isolate and instead gather together. You know, this applies in many different ways. First of all, it applies in your own earthly family.

Many people have found it much easier to ignore their family because they're too difficult. I would encourage you that if God has placed you in a family structure that you find difficult, he has placed you there for a reason.

And if you still have the ability to remain connected with them, you 100 should. Additionally, there is also the family that you could have, not just the family that you have now, but the family that you could have.

So many people have delayed marriage to seek their own desires. One piece of advice I got while I was growing up really surprised me because if anyone's ever talked to me about my experience with dating and proposing and marrying Sarah, one thing I'll often say is I really felt like my dad gave me a lot of good wisdom, a lot of good information to help me figure that out.

But one thing he said to me that really surprised me is when I asked him whether or not he thought that I should propose, he said, well, I think you'd really enjoy traveling the world and having the freedom to do that for a few years before getting married.

And I asked him, now, are you saying this because you really think that or because you don't think I'm mature enough or what is it? And he says, I think you're mature enough. And I said, okay, then I'm going to get married.

Yeah, the idea of delaying family and life to pursue your own desire, it breaks out against all sound judgment. And this is true, not just with the delay of marriage, it's so common in our culture, but even avoiding having children.

The Bible says much about the value of children. People find children burdensome. They want to seek their own desire. I have all kinds of friends I see post all kinds of things online just about how they're enjoying their life, even often flaunting the fact that they chose not to have kids and maybe saying angry things against family members who have questioned their decisions.

But it's very sad because one day they won't have the youthful and vibrant lifestyle that they currently do and they will find themselves exceptionally lonely. And then most importantly, the family that you have right here in this church is even more important than your physical family.

It is something to be heavily invested into. Do not neglect to gather with the fellowship. There's a statistic from Lifeway Research that says 25%, and this is recent too, 25 of people have yet to return to in-person church services.

There are about 25 of people who are still considering themselves a member of the church, still watching online, that have not returned to in-person worship. There are a lot of people who don't think that there's much to be valued in connecting with others and not being isolated.

Bible has much to say about this. Now consider the wisdom, alternatively, the wisdom of gathering together, of having friendship and being connected with others. Well, first, remember that meaning that I spoke of that you have while you invest in others?

You know, this is one of the things that a lot of counselors prescribe to those who come to them for counseling. To their counselees, they'll give them homework. A biblical counselor will often give homework in reading the Bible and memorization of a Bible verse and prayer, and also in doing some kind of active service so that you're not just surrounded by yourself.

You know, there's a lot that happens when you are only around yourself. I was just talking about the folly of it. One other thing that I forgot to mention is also how it affects your worldview. The reason I believe that you see things so morally unhinged right now is in part because of the increased isolation in the world.

These things go hand-in-hand. There's something incredibly valuable about being around others, especially about being around believers that just makes you touch grass. Otherwise, yeah, otherwise you are just outside of reality.

Hebrews 3 .13 says, "'Exhort one another every day, "'as long as it is called today, "'that none of you may be hardened "'by the deceitfulness of sin.'". There's a lot baked in right there. Exhort one another every day.

How many commands does the Bible give us daily? Even Bible reading and prayer, I would argue that the commands where we would derive that we should do these things daily. Don't say that you need to explicitly break out a paper Bible and read it.

They talk about a lifestyle of prayer, not necessarily time that you need to sit down and pray aloud, although it seems clear that that would be the obvious implication. However, exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that's a very direct command that it says to do daily.

People don't consider that nearly as important as other things that they might consider important in their daily life, that we be exhorting one another every day. Why, what does it lead to if you don't?

Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We're hardened, deceived. The reason why so many people have such broken worldviews, cannot understand the world around them and take what is darkness and call it light and take light and call it darkness, is because they have divorced themselves from those people who would be sound sources of wisdom to them.

Now, I was talking a second ago about how you can invest in others. Well, others can also invest in you. Obviously, if you are surrounded by others, they can help you, especially brothers and sisters in Christ.

Galatians 6 .2 says we are to bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. James 5 .16 says that we are to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another that we may be healed.

We are to pray for one another that we may be healed. There's something about doing this together that is far more powerful than doing it alone. Consider also, and this might be the most popular verse on this topic, Ecclesiastes 4 .9 -12.

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A three-fold cord is not quickly broken. Have you ever seen a ship's rope that's about that big? It's huge. There's no way you could, if you were to buy your hands, just take it and try to snap it.

There's just no way. In fact, a boat can't snap it. That's the whole point of this being a rope for a ship. Yet each little piece of that is so fragile. It's so fragile. It just breaks apart like that.

The difference between having your own strength and the strength of the Lord, which he provides through the means that he has given you, including this community in Christ, is night and day. It's the difference between that ship cord, that ship rope, and utter fragility.

Now consider also how this is baked into nature and creation itself. Does this apply to God? Is God isolated? He is not isolated. He is three persons. Our one God and three persons has never been alone.

He's never isolated himself. And then out of the overflow of his blessedness, his happiness, he has created us. So he has created a people, not that he is alone, but in order to share himself with others.

And then on top of that, to illustrate to us the importance of having each other, he told, he said of Adam that it is not good that man should be alone. There are just many ways that you can look in the nature of the way God created the world and God's own nature, how baked in it is that isolation is evil, that isolation is a calamity that's not good and that we should pursue togetherness.

We should pursue fellowship and so do that. So grow closer to those brothers and sisters here in this community. Grow closer to those who might not have others to rely on here. In addition, you can also like God out of the overflow of his goodness, sharing himself with others.

Out of the overflow of the joy that you have received in your salvation, bring others to be part of this community. We should be a growing community of friends. You know, the Quakers called themselves a society of friends, but we truly are a society of friends.

If we share this love of Christ with others, it should be something that overflows. The one who isolates himself and seeks his own desire, what does he find? He does not find what he desires. He does not find happiness because true happiness is an overflowing happiness.

True happiness is like God's happiness, which is overflowing and we can have all this in Christ. Consider Christ and his relationship to isolation. First of all, he did not isolate himself. He chose to come and be around us, to be around men.

If anyone had the right to say, oh no, other people are too burdensome, who else but Christ? And yet he chose to humble himself and join together with humanity. In addition to that, he surrounded himself with disciples.

He shared the love of God with others. And then, what did he receive in return? He was accused, essentially, of isolation, of separating the people of God, either with his sectarian ideology, as some might have termed it, or by trying to break up the people of God so that they would be dispersed across the land when the Romans became fed up with Jesus's growing movement.

The people accused Jesus of isolating people, of removing them, when instead, he was gathering people together. And then the punishment that he received is the punishment due to one who isolates himself, utter loneliness.

On the cross, after being abandoned by his friends, forsaken by others, experienced the wrath of God, says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He suffered isolation in the place of those who had isolated themselves and deserved that ultimate loneliness, that ultimate wrath of God.

In doing so, he has provided a way for us who have engaged in the sin of isolation to have forgiveness, to have restoration, and union with God, and to have true friendship with both God and man. Consider just how much the Bible says about this.

There are several verses I'd like to read for you here. Regarding friendship with God, and this is James 2, 23, and the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.

John 15, 15 says, no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you.

This is one of Jesus' demonstrations that we are truly his friend, is that he has revealed to us in his word what his plans are, and more than that, he has by his spirit communicated that truth to our heart in such a way that we're spiritually enlightened by it.

We can have true friendship with God through Jesus Christ. And then, more than that, we can have friendship with each other. In Luke 18, 28 says, and Peter said, we have left our homes and followed you.

And he said to them, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who will not receive many times more than this.

Excuse me, many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life. You know, many of the promises of the Bible are not things that you get to experience in this life. They are things that come later.

This one, this one of having a family, having a greater family than even your earthly family, is one that Jesus promises even in this lifetime. The one who is willing to leave his family to pursue Christ will receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

That is talking about the family that you've left behind, you'll receive much more family, even in this life. And Jesus, on the cross, spoke of Mary being John's mother. He said that the ones who are my family are the ones who do my will.

There's such a theme of family in the words of Christ that one of the things that he was accomplishing through his death and resurrection, like we heard of unity this morning, is in creating this family, this people who are not isolated, individual, but bound together like that ship cord that cannot be broken.

And this is something that we should, yeah, that we should wholly pursue because it is so valuable. And it is something that we can enjoy perfectly in Jesus Christ. Whoever isolates himself, seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment.

But the one who is wise gathers together with the people of God and experiences a perfect fellowship with Jesus Christ that will last forever. You know, the nihilists have said that everyone dies alone.

But that's not true. You don't have to die alone. You can live together with this family here and then when you die, go to be united with all the saints that have gone past and then beyond that, on the day of judgment, both groups unite as a whole together with Jesus Christ forever and ever for all eternity.

And that is the great hope of the wisdom that we have here in Proverbs 18 .1. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that we would not isolate ourselves, that we would gather together, that we would find your strength and the means that you have provided.

Lord, I pray that you would protect us from the temptations of this generation and from this, even this area where we live, where this seems to be even more exacerbated. Lord, I pray that by this wisdom, by our love for each other, the people would see your love and that they would be transformed as they hear your words that speak of this love.

In Jesus' name, amen.