Loneliness

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. I had never read through the book of Proverbs, just sat down and read through it. And I still haven't. I've been preaching out here for a while, and I've never had a sermon series in my entire ministry when I was active in the ministry to do that, because I would read a few Proverbs and then get stuck. Go, what? How? Cross-reference. And all of a sudden, it just doesn't read with and as a narrative. So we're going to, John has given me, I think there's nine or eleven different Proverbs that we're going to weave into a mosaic and create a picture that God would have us understand today around the area and the nature of friendship. And this will serve as the last of our wisdom literature foci. And I can't digest these Proverbs en masse. When John presents them, he lists about 10 or 12 in a row. And I'm going, stop, I can't think that fast. John's a professor at FGCU, and he thinks like a professor. I don't. So I got them woven into the series, woven into the sermon. And we'll take a look at them as we go, because I can only take one Proverb at a time. It's like one bite at a time kind of deal. So Proverbs, and then we're going to start next week with This Is Us. We'll take a look at Old Testament characters and how they really reflect our characters and our spirits and our truths. Looking forward to participating in that. Ordinary people called by extraordinary God. Yeah, that's great. Let's see if I got control of this thing now. The gift of friendship. Loneliness displaced by holy communion. John sent this to me. I didn't get a chance to get it into the PowerPoint. He sent it to me kind of late. It turns out that the surgeon general of the United States has decided and declared that there is a loneliness epidemic. Who to thunk it? In fact, the surgeon general declaring there's a loneliness epidemic has said that at least 50% of the population has recently experienced or is currently experiencing loneliness. Huh. I thought, well, I appreciate the surgeon general giving that some airtime and some time and attention and our tax dollars put to work. But my thought ultimately was. You are kidding me, right? 50%. I would offer to you that 100% of us at one time or another have experienced loneliness, are currently experiencing loneliness or its offshoots. Loneliness is the nature of our nature and what our Lord has desired to overcome. All of eternity and all of heaven is seen not as a destination, not as a place to get, but as a relationship to be offered. A relationship to be connected. When you witness as navigators and disciples that we witness in our Christian life, it's really about the nature of the people's need for forgiving relationship. In fact, somebody just wrote somebody wrote a lot too long ago. Relationships aren't something, they're everything. Oh, that was me. That's right. Books are available in the lobby for $14.95. So the gift of friendship is what we're going to take a look at today. And it is essentially an antidote to loneliness to erase it forever. And it's more than anything else. It's a holy communion. And I mean a couple of things by that. But let's let's go on and see what's going on. So loneliness. Genesis 2.19. It is not good for man to be alone. That was God. And that's why he was created. That's why there was connection. That's why there is proximity. Intimacy that reflect is reflected in everything from sexual relationships to emotional to spiritual relationship. All oftentimes uses the same language because it is not good to be alone. We've been designed to be connected, but we disconnected. It's like walking to the wall, pulling out the cord and then going, man, it's dark in here. How come it's so dark in here? Who made it this dark in here? Why is it so dark? We're walking around in darkness, pointing the finger at others when we're the one who pulled the cord. So I wondered, well, I thought, well, let's see if there's any recent research about this phenomenon. It is not good to be alone. And here's what I found. Our synthesis of the published findings shows abnormal structure and or activity in the prefrontal cortex, the insula, the amygdala, the hippocampus, the posterior superior temporal cortex. Loneliness alone was related to biological markers associated with Alzheimer's disease. Article of Neurobiology of Loneliness from the Journal of I love this neuropsychopharmacology. I want to grow up to be a neuropsychopharmacologist and put down my business card. The brain is ill affected by loneliness in very specific ways. By the way, I don't know what any of that means, really. I just put it up there because it was sounded kind of cool. But it's also more my language. The feelings of loneliness and its impact on physical health, weight gain, sleep deprivation, poor heart health and a weakened immune system. How can we agree? From the beg...