Caring for the Lonely

Dr James Miller
Jan 4
18 min read

You will never truly be lonely if your faith and your hope is in Jesus— never alone because he will stick closer to you than any other.

Psalm 139:7-12 -

⁷Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

⁸If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

⁹If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

¹⁰even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me.

¹¹If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light about me be night,”

¹²even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

In 2024, the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, gave an advisory and it said that loneliness has become a public health epidemic. We know that the American Association of Retired People has issued a statement as well and they have stated that 40% of US adults 45 and older feel lonely. 45 I don't think that's retirement age but 40% say they experience loneliness.

And we're also told that these feelings of loneliness are amplified during the holiday season. That's right. Now, so I don't know if you're feeling lonely today, but I'd like to think about this topic for a little bit. I've developed a little series as I have opportunity to take the pulpit. I've brought some messages on caring. I'm the care pastor. It's what I do. And so I thought I would take this opportunity to challenge your thoughts with the concept of caring and in a variety of of ways.

And so today, the topic is caring for the lonely.

So I thought today we would look at some people from the Bible and see what we can learn about loneliness from the experiences of people in the Bible.

Elijah’ Loneliness

Elijah was a person who experienced loneliness and we know Elijah is the prophet who had the great contest between the prophets of Baal that the people were all going after and challenging them that the Lord God, the God of Israel, was the true and almighty God and that he alone was to be worshiped. We remember how Elijah set up this contest between the prophets of Baal and himself and how they were to call upon Baal to bring down fire from heaven and ignite their offering on the altar. And of course, it didn't happen. Elijah calls down fire on his altar and the offering was burned up. A great victory. The prophets of Baal, they were done away with. But it's the after story where the where the loneliness sets in.

After this great victory, we pick the story up for a little bit in 1 Kings 19:1-18, “¹ Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. ²Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” ³Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

⁴But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” ⁵And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” ⁶And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” ⁸And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

⁹There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁰He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” ¹¹And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. ¹²And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.^[^a^] ¹³And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁴He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” ¹⁵And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. ¹⁶And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. ¹⁷And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. ¹⁸Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” ”

And so the Lord, what does he do? Does he chide Elijah? Does he say, "Oh man, you're a crummy prophet. What are you doing laying down in the dust feeling miserable and alone?"

Oh, the Lord doesn't do that. He saw that he was fed and that he had rest.

And he tells him "Oh, and by the way, I've got 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal."

He reminds Elijah, tells him what apparently Elijah didn't know— that the Lord had preserved a remnant of 7,000 people that he was aware unaware of.

And then the next thing he does, the Lord gives him another job to do because he says, "You go out and I want you to anoint this person, king, and I want to anoint that person." God had work for Elijah to do.

Out of his loneliness, Elijah receives a new perspective on his purpose. He thought after a great victory over the prophets of Baal that maybe this was the pinnacle of his career and he’s over, done, and finished.

No, the Lord gives him a new perspective on his purpose and without scolding him. He takes care of his physical needs.

By the way, the two are connected, aren't they? Our emotional needs, our spiritual needs, our physical needs, they're all kind of mixed up together. And if you're not getting sleep and if you're not eating right, it can affect you in other areas of your life.

And I'm sure as God is the designer and creator of us and understands our needs. God saw that Elijah’s needs were met and then gave him a new purpose. He says, 'I got more jobs for you to do and I want you to call another prophet to work with you.” A new perspective on uh on his purpose. We can learn from that, can't we?

David’s Loneliness

David was person who expressed himself so well in the Psalms. And if we turn to Psalm 25:16-17, David writes, “Turn to me and be gracious to me for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses.”

The psalmist was lonely. He uses the word there. He spells it out. He identifies his problem. He says, "I'm lonely." And so, what does he do? Well, he teaches us something very important. He tells it to God, doesn't he? When you are lonely, do you tell it to God? Do you say to God, "I'm just feeling this loneliness. I wish there was somebody there in my life. I wish my life was different.” ”

Whatever you wish, tell it to God. That's what David did. And so, we need a new perspective on the presence of God. That's what that's what David found. After he writes Psalm 25, he writes these words in Psalm 139:7, “Where shall I go from your spirit?" He's asking that question, a question of loneliness— where am I going to go from you?

And here's the answer in Psalm 139:7b-12, “Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in shall, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me and the light about me be night." Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as day, for

darkness is as light with you.”

That was a new perspective on God's presence, wasn't it? In Psalm 25, he's bemoaning his loneliness. But in Psalm 139, he's declaring the fact that wherever I go, all of the extremes— if I go to the grave, if I go up to heaven, it doesn't matter. Wherever I go, you are there. How can you be lonely when the Lord is there?

And so, David attains a new perspective on the presence of God in his life. That's something that we need to do as well to gain a perspective, a new perspective on the presence of God.

Maybe you've been lonely. Where shall I go from your spirit? I remember when I was a young man, I was still single, hadn't married yet, found the call to ministry that the Lord was placed a call on my life. And so I planned to prepare for ministry. And the seminary that I chose was in Denver, Colorado. That's 2,000 miles away from here. I don't think I'd ever been out of the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania area up until that point in my life. Even when I went to college, I went with other graduates of my high school class. Six or seven of us went to college together. It was a big campus. I didn't see all of them very much, but at least there was people that I knew.

When I went to Denver, Colorado, guess how many people I knew in Denver, Colorado? Nobody. I was alone. And I have to tell you that the presence of God, I gained a new perspective on the presence of God going 2,000 miles away. I, in those days, pick up the phone, it cost you money every minute. Every single call you made, they kept track of how many minutes you were on the phone, so calling home wasn't even much of an option. I was alone. I was alone.

But you know, I gained a new perspective on that, too. I was kind of randomly assigned to a room with three other single students. And one of the three of them became, to this day, who I feel one of my closest friends. He's a missionary that the church supports. He's my close friend. We don't talk very often. Oh, we were blessed when email was invented. I think we've communicated a lot more since we've had email.

But new perspective on the presence of God and out of that presence of God, the Lord brought to me a close friend.

We need a new perspective sometimes on God's presence and what it will do for us.

Paul’s Loneliness

Now, we know the Apostle Paul's life wasn't always an easy life. We know that he had many difficulties. But if we turn to 2 Timothy, which it's very obvious from the writings, he really expresses that he knows he's at the end of the line. He knows that the Lord isn't going to release him from his prison this time. What he writes in 2 Timothy 4:16 is his defense in the emperor’s court, “At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them!” Wow. Talk about loneliness. There's loneliness. Here he goes before the court to be judged and all of his companions, they're gone. They're nowhere to be found. They all deserted him. That's the depth of loneliness, isn't it?

But 2 Timothy 4:17, giving a new perspective, says, “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So, I was rescued from the lion's mouth.”

Paul had a new perspective on the proclamation of the word of God, didn't he? That even though he was imprisoned, even though this was the end of his life, that God made it evident to him, he still has this new perspective that one way or the other, the Lord was going to rescue him.

And listen to how he finishes it up in verse 18. He says, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

Does that sound like a lonely person to you? No, he was victorious. He has this new perspective on how the gospel is going to be proclaimed. And that is perspective that we need that God has called us to live our lives before the world. And there's many things of the world that we don't do. And that in itself tends to make us lonely because if you got people that you know and they're doing all sorts of crazy stuff and as a believer in Jesus, you just can't do those things. And you devote your time to other things like caring for the poor and reaching out with the gospel. Well, that can make you lonely.

And we have to be willing to stand alone if we're going to live our lives firmly planted on the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have to be willing to do that. Whether we're in a great throng of other people or whether we're alone, what what's important is our perspective that the job we have to do is to live our lives before the world. And sometimes that becomes a lonely thing, but it also becomes a victorious thing, doesn't it? Because that's what the Apostle Paul experienced.

Jesus’ Loneliness

We’ll look at one more person from the Bible and that's Jesus in his loneliness. Luke 5:16 says that Jesus often went to a lonely place. He opted for it. He chose loneliness. Why? To pray. He chose loneliness. And in his loneliness, he drew near to the Father in in prayer.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus sympathizes with us in our human condition. He took on himself humanity. We can't say, "Oh, Jesus, you don't know what it's like to be lonely." Yes, in his humanity, he did. It tells us that he sympathizes with us in our weaknesses. He sympathizes with us in our human condition. That's the whole point of him taking on flesh and becoming as us to experience the fatigue, to experience pain, to experience weariness, to experience loneliness. Jesus experienced all of this. He sympathizes with us.

But there's an aspect of his loneliness that none of us has experienced nor can we. And we read of that in Matthew 27:45-46, where Jesus is on the cross, the loneliness that he experienced there is like none other. It says “⁴⁵Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

That's the ultimate in loneliness because at that moment on the cross, Jesus is taking upon himself the sins of the world, your sins, my sins. He's taking those sins upon him. And God in his holiness, the Father had to turn aside because he cannot look upon sin. And as such, Jesus felt forsaken. The ultimate, the pinnacle of loneliness, forsaken by God. And why did he do that? He did that for us, didn't he? That our sins could only be atoned for in what he did on the cross which meant for him the ultimate of loneliness that you and I will never experience in the way that he did.

But there's another verse of scripture, Hebrews 12:2 which really gives us Jesus perspective on the whole matter, which says, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

That was Jesus perspective on his loneliness. The loneliness of taking the sins of the world upon himself was this perspective of paradise populated by all the people who would turn to him in faith.

Jesus was thinking of that when he experienced loneliness forsaken by God. He's thinking of each of you who have put your faith in Jesus Christ because you will populate this paradise that Jesus sacrificed himself to create— a paradise that would include lost sinners who've been redeemed and cleansed.

And I hope you're one of them, one of those who will populate this paradise that Jesus envisioned. That you are one who has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, not believed in just doing things. The song we sang earlier talked about Matthew 25 and the things that we do for the poor. Yes, we do them not in order to be redeemed, but because we are redeemed. We become righteous with the righteousness of Jesus, which is why we would do any of those things because we reflect the righteousness of Jesus to other people.

But you see, we come in faith. Jesus wants you to populate that paradise that he created. And you only get there through confession of your sin and your faith that what Jesus did on the cross will take those sins away.

That's the only way. You can't buy your way in. You can't convince God that you're good enough to be there. God knows that you're not good enough to be there, which is why he gives us grace.

I was reading somewhere, that the idea that we have to receive our salvation by grace is the ultimate insult to our pride.

Pride says we got to earn it. Pride says, "Oh, if you can't pay the price, you can't have it." No, we can't pay the price. And that's what grace is all about. That in his grace, he gives us eternal life. And that's the way to eternal life through faith in what Jesus has done for us. And then we reflect the righteousness that we're given through our faith. We reflect that in the way we live before other people. So Jesus gained that perspective.

Applications

And so let's think about how we can apply these things to our lives.

What You Can Do for Somebody Else

The first application, maybe you know someone who's experiencing loneliness. So the first way you apply this is to take some initiative. If you know or suspect that they're lonely, give them a call. Remember it doesn't cost you for every minute when you pick the phone up anymore, right?

Take some initiative in the life of a lonely person. That's the first thing that we need to think about. What are you going to do about it that someone else is lonely?

Ah, but I hear some people saying, "Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold, hold the phone. I'm the one that's lonely. What about me?"

Well, that's our second application— the first application is what you can do for somebody else and the second application is what can you do for yourself?

What You Can Do for Yourself

I have seven initiatives to do the second application of what you do for yourself.

This is going to sound familiar. Take the initiative to call someone who is lonely because it will help both of you. If you are lonely and they are lonely and you call them then maybe, possibly one or both of you won't be lonely. Take the initiative to call someone.
Stop saying no to invitations. People say, "Oh, hey, you know, I hear you're going through a rough time and whatnot. Why don't you come over?" and you say, “No, no, that's all right. I really need to be alone.” You're doing what Elijah did. Elijah isolated himself by leaving his servant behind. And when you say no to an invitation and yet sit in sulk and wonder why you're lonely, don't do that. Take the initiative to say yes to an invitation that you receive. Don't isolate yourself.
Help someone who's worse off than you. When you help someone who's worse off than you, you will you will be better off for that because that leads to initiative number four, which is practice gratitude. See how the two of them go together? If you know somebody's worse off than you and you go help them, that can make you more grateful.
Practice gratitude. Be grateful. We should be grateful for the things that we take for granted. Don't take them for granted. The more you are expressive of your gratitude to God, I think the less we feel loneliness. We feel that if we're grateful for what we have, we realize that God is taking care of us.
Take the example of David. Tell it to God. Express yourself to God. He just might bring a friend along for you like he did to me. God brought me a friend when I knew nobody. And I mean nobody. Tell it to God.
Get out of the house if you can. I realize some people can't and that is often the cause of loneliness. You don't have the mobility. You can't get out. But a lot of people that are lonely are people that have mobility and can get out and go and do things. I always deposit my checks in the bank because it gets me out of the house. I was in the bank one time and usually not like the old days when there were lines and lines. Now, I walk in the bank and there's nobody there or maybe there's one person. One day I got there and there were several people and one of the people from the back said, "You, are you just making a deposit? You know, you can do that at the ATM out in the lobby here.” I said, "I know," but I want to talk to a person. Why do people get lonely? Because they don't talk to people, right? The technology is great and sometimes it's great to not have to go to the bank or have to do lots of things, but one way to combat loneliness is to be amongst people. This isolation of people has a negative effect on you. So go out.
And I do have chapter and verse for this. For the others, I couldn't give you a Bible verse, but for this one I can because in in Hebrews 10:25, it says, " Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together..." The initiative is go to church. And I realize some people can't go to church. You're blessed if like you are able to go, but if there's that tendency to say, "I'll stay home today." No, that can multiply your loneliness— go to church. God knew that was for our own good. Just like giving food and sleep to Elijah was good for him and is good for you, so is going to church; good for you because it gets you out amongst people. And sometimes when you talk to people, you find somebody that's worse off than you. And sometimes when you talk to people, you find somebody who’s lonely. But if you take the initiative, you will be helping both them and yourselves.

Closing Thought

So we need new perspective like Elijah; get a new perspective on God's purpose. God just might have another job for you to do. Get a perspective on that.

Like David, tell it to God. You might get a new perspective on the presence of God.

Like the Apostle Paul, get a new perspective on the proclamation of the gospel. That what you're here to do. And even though you have to stand alone sometimes and even though you are left lonely as a result. No, when you have an understanding of what God wants me to do, it gives you a new perspective.

And then the perspective of Jesus— His perspective was the possibility of a new paradise populated by people who in faith have come to him, all that he endured for you so that you might share eternity with him. You need that perspective.

Another scripture says there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother and that's Jesus. You'll never be lonely.

As the psalmist said, "Where can I go from your spirit?" You will never truly be lonely if your faith and your hope is in Jesus— never alone because he will stick closer to you than any.

So I pray for you that this day from the word of God you might derive a new perspective on your loneliness. May God's word today bless you with this.