The Loner

[00:00:18] Hello again, and welcome to Become A Competent Biblical Counselor. I'm Dr. Dave Jones, and today's episode is entitled The Loner.

[00:00:30] Well, you know, there may be one out there. I don't know. I'm sure there must be one who's listening, or sometimes that's exactly what he does.

[00:00:39] He's a kind who holds up somewhere in his own room, or in his own apartment, or his own part of the house, and just sort of lives by himself with his radio.

[00:00:49] There are Christians who are recluses and hermits, people who are loners, who think that they can get along without other Christians, and who voluntarily shut themselves in and shut others out.

[00:01:01] Well, how about it? Can you really be a loner as a Christian? Can you really get along in this life by yourself?

[00:01:10] You say, well, now wait a minute. I'm not by myself. I'm with God.

[00:01:16] After all, I think that talking with God and spending time with God alone from all of those, well, those kind of irrelevant people out there,

[00:01:25] whose lives really have nothing much to contribute to me, and I have nothing much to contribute to them.

[00:01:32] I think that being alone with God and His Word and the radio broadcasts that I hear that are biblical,

[00:01:38] these things are much more profitable and much more edifying than going out there with all sorts of people

[00:01:44] who want to talk about this and that and the other thing that isn't very important to me.

[00:01:49] So, really, yes, I think I can get along quite well without other people.

[00:01:56] Well, let me put it to you this way.

[00:01:59] To ever take that attitude is to take an attitude that is strictly non-Christian.

[00:02:05] And you may be a Christian, but it's a sinful attitude that you have if, as a Christian, you think that you can get along on your own, just you and God.

[00:02:15] And the reason why I say that is because God Himself makes the point in many ways in the Word.

[00:02:21] For instance, when Jesus Christ summed up the whole of the Old Testament law, summed up the Ten Commandments, He put it this way.

[00:02:30] You can sum it all up in two commandments, He said.

[00:02:34] First, that you love God with all your heart, mind, body, soul, and strength.

[00:02:40] All right, you say, that's something I can do as a loner.

[00:02:44] Well, that's questionable.

[00:02:46] But let's let that pass for a moment.

[00:02:50] Look at the second commandment, which is like the first, Jesus said.

[00:02:54] And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

[00:02:57] You see, no loner can really obey that.

[00:03:00] No person who thinks that he can shut himself out from others, who thinks he can get along very well without others,

[00:03:08] can really obey the second commandment to love one's neighbor and himself.

[00:03:12] Because, you see, love is not just something that we feel in our hearts.

[00:03:17] Love first and foremost is a good attitude toward others that motivates us to action toward them.

[00:03:25] And you can't be involved in doing things for others and acting toward others unless you get out there among others.

[00:03:32] You can't shut yourself off from others and withdraw from others and be holed up in your own little corner of the house or the room or wherever it is

[00:03:41] and expect to really obey that commandment to love your neighbor.

[00:03:45] Because, you see, love means like the love of God shown to us, not that you just sit in the heavens and feel warmly toward us,

[00:03:53] but that you become one of us.

[00:03:56] Just as God, when he sent his Son, walked on this earth among us,

[00:04:01] and Jesus Christ did not think that it would be much better to just stand off from the crowds,

[00:04:06] there he was in the middle of the crowds with all the irrelevant talk and thoughts.

[00:04:12] He was there bringing something to them.

[00:04:14] And if you don't think that others have something to give to you, of course they do.

[00:04:20] But you must remember that you have to at least something to give to them.

[00:04:25] You see, the love of God, that love about which the Bible speaks,

[00:04:30] always materializes in doing, in some form of action.

[00:04:37] It's always a love that moves out of one's own life into the life of another.

[00:04:43] God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

[00:04:47] He loved us and gave himself for us.

[00:04:51] Galatians 2.20

[00:04:52] Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

[00:04:58] If you want to love your enemy, you give him a cup of cold water.

[00:05:02] You give him something to eat.

[00:05:05] So, love means getting in contact with others and giving to others

[00:05:10] whatever we have that they need.

[00:05:13] And so, here we are, facing then a real issue with the loner.

[00:05:19] And of course, if you really claim to know Jesus Christ is your Savior,

[00:05:24] you know that Paul says about the body of Christ.

[00:05:27] He says the eye can't say to the ear,

[00:05:30] I have no need of you.

[00:05:32] He can't say, he says that you can't say as a foot to the arm,

[00:05:36] I have no need of you.

[00:05:37] You are a part of the body.

[00:05:40] You're a part of the body of Jesus Christ if you have trusted him as your Savior.

[00:05:45] And every part, other part of the body needs you.

[00:05:49] If you withdraw from the rest of the body,

[00:05:52] it's like amputating the hand or amputating the foot.

[00:05:55] The whole body suffers.

[00:05:58] And so, you see, a very unloving attitude for a Christian to become a loner,

[00:06:05] to withdraw, to try to go it on his own,

[00:06:07] an attitude that God condemns from one end of Scriptures to the other.

[00:06:11] In one of my past episodes, I was talking about those

[00:06:15] who were forsaking their assembling together.

[00:06:18] It had become a habit for them.

[00:06:20] They were becoming loners,

[00:06:22] or at least they were withdrawing from the fellowship of God's people.

[00:06:26] And you see, they were missing out on some very vital things.

[00:06:30] They were neither giving nor receiving that which every Christian needs.

[00:06:35] For example, he says in verse 24 of Hebrews 10,

[00:06:40] Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

[00:06:46] A person has to not only do this, but even give hard thought about how best to do it.

[00:06:53] And then he has to go where the brethren are to stimulate them to love and to good deeds

[00:06:58] and to encourage them, as it says in verse 25.

[00:07:01] Not only does he stimulate other believers as he fellowships with them to their responsibilities

[00:07:07] to love and to do those things that please God,

[00:07:10] but also he needs that stimulation.

[00:07:13] The loner inevitably, as much as he may protest to the opposite,

[00:07:19] inevitably becomes lethargic, loses his zeal,

[00:07:23] loses the kind of ability to love and do the works

[00:07:26] that God says that he must perform in order to please him.

[00:07:31] He also fails to be encouraged.

[00:07:34] He becomes brooding and full of self-pity.

[00:07:37] He is a person and feels himself to be superior to others

[00:07:41] and feels sorry for himself.

[00:07:43] These are the kinds of things that happen

[00:07:45] when we don't have the stimulation to love and good deeds

[00:07:49] that comes from assembling together with God's people.

[00:07:53] These are the things that happen

[00:07:55] when we don't have that encouragement of the preaching of the Word of God

[00:07:59] and the stimulation that comes from being thrown together with others who,

[00:08:03] in like precious faith,

[00:08:05] are experiencing the joy of Christ's work in their lives.

[00:08:09] No, you need us and we need you.

[00:08:13] To be a loner is to be a sinful Christian.

[00:08:17] But, of course, the most terrible way to be a loner of all

[00:08:20] is to be such a terrible loner in the midst of a crowd

[00:08:24] that you do not know anyone really in depth at all

[00:08:27] because you have never become a Christian.

[00:08:30] And very seriously, it is a serious question

[00:08:34] whether one who, for any period of time at all,

[00:08:37] withdraws his fellowship from other Christians

[00:08:39] really is a Christian

[00:08:41] because a Christian is someone who desperately knows

[00:08:44] he needs all that the Church of Jesus Christ

[00:08:47] and Christ through His Church has to offer to him.

[00:08:51] Go ahead.

[00:08:52] Find your way into the people of God

[00:08:54] and find the joy that comes from that fellowship.

[00:08:58] Lord, bless those who may seem to be alone and think it's best.

[00:09:03] Lord, help them to find their way to the people of God

[00:09:06] and to the fellowship and the joy that comes from that.

[00:09:10] For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.

[00:09:12] So I hope this was a blessing.

[00:09:14] You might have some people talking to you

[00:09:16] relative to the issues that they're having in their lives.

[00:09:21] Maybe they are lonely.

[00:09:23] Maybe they need to change their actions,

[00:09:26] change their attitudes,

[00:09:28] and get along with the idea

[00:09:31] of becoming a part of a Church body.

[00:09:35] Encourage them to do so.

[00:09:37] If you have further questions,

[00:09:38] just send me a note

[00:09:39] at BibleHelpForYou,

[00:09:41] BibleHelp,

[00:09:42] the number 4,

[00:09:43] you,

[00:09:44] at gmail.com.

[00:09:45] I'd be glad to respond.

[00:09:47] In the meanwhile,

[00:09:48] make it a blessed day

[00:09:49] and I'll talk to you down the road.