Reliance - It Is Not Good for Man to be Alone 2026.07.23

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now, the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees gro out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed into Eden. From there it was separated into four head waters. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man. You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Lord, thank you for your word, Thank you for your thank you for your presence. Thank you Jesus for everything that you have done. You are worthy of all honor, of all glory, of all praise. You are mighty, You are ruling and reigning. You are the prince of peace and a perfect king. Lord. You have created us for service and for work. You have declared that it is not good for us to be alone. Lord, you have sent us the helper. You have sent us a comforter. You have sent us a counselor Holy Spirit. Thank you for being with us, Thank you for speaking to us through your word. Thank you for leading us and guiding us. God, Would you help us? Would you minister to us? Would you speak to our spirits? Would you bring forth the things that need to be addressed? Would you search our heart? Would you adjust our attitudes? Would you continue to transform us from image to image, and from glory to glory according to your will and according to your promises. Lord, Your word will never fail, Your promises will never fail, Your goodness will never fail, Your mercy will never fail. You endure forever. You have always been, and you have always been good. You have been so good to us, giving each and every one of us a testimony. Lord, I pray that you would bless my brothers and sisters in Christ who are hearing this, I pray that you would encourage them. I pray Lord that if any of them experience loneliness, Lord, not just isolation from people, isolation from you, a sense of isolation in their own minds where they are vulnerabilities of whispers from the enemy. Lord, would you come alongside them? Lord? Would you be a father to the fatherless? Lord? Would you be an ever present help in time of need? Lord? Would you be close a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Lord? Would your presence comfort and envelop my brothers and sisters? Lord, continue to lead us, continue to nourish us. Lord. Thank you for your spiritual, supernatural provision. Lord, and thank you for everything you do for us. God. Would you redeem this time? Would you use this message God for the edification of your people. Would you bring us together? Would you help us to believe? Lord, for your power to be displayed. God, strengthen our faith, Strengthen our belief, strengthen our understanding of who you are. Help us, Lord, we can't do it without you. All glory goes to you. Nourish us Lord. In our hearts and in our spirits. We thank you, Lord, and we bless you in Jesus's name. Amen. Now, at the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we have the Creation, and God says several things about the creation, first that it's good, then examining the totality, he declares that it's very good. But here in Genesis two, verse eighteen, it's the first time that the Lord God says it is not good. And his words are, it is not good for man to be alone. And yes, you can look at the earlier portions and say, okay, it's reasonable to infer that God decided that there was something lacking about the primordial darkness, there is something lacking about that state of affairs because God chose to create. That's a fair implication. It is also fair that you could say it wouldn't be good, according to God for Adam to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because God prohibits it, he warns against it. But the first time in scripture this phrase not good is uttered is before the fall. It is before rebellion, it is before sin. God makes the observation it is not good for man to be alone. And of course that observation isn't like God coming to some realization. It is instead a declaration God already knows this is the case. It is just extremely purposeful and poignant that the first thing that is called not good is loneliness in the soul of a person, and God decides, of course, to make a helper suitable in this case, Eve. But I want to focus on this loneliness aspect and notice how God didn't say it's not good for a man to feel alone. He says it's not good for a man to be alone. And I think that is a key differentiating factor that I want to unpack here. Now, there are many people who feel alone and are alone. There are also people who don't feel alone but who actually are. That's a little bit less common. More common these days are people who feel alone but actually are not. And of course the aspiration is to not be alone and also to not feel alone. And if we can transform people, not we meaning myself and us here in the audience, If we, the collective body of Christ, can support through our prayers and through the action of the Lord, transform people from the category of feeling alone but not being alone, to the category of not feeling alone and not being alone, then there's a great victory that has been won, because one of the most pious lies of the enemy is to speak into a man's heart and to say you are alone. There is no one who is for you. You have to bear all of the burden yourself. You are the one tasked with the responsibility that you will never fill. You have not been able to amount to what you want to amount to, and as a result, you have not been successful. You have not built, you have not constructed. These are lies. These are lies, and we rebuke them and refuse to accept them in the name of Jesus. Why do I know that there lies even someone who is feeling this dramatic intensity of isolation. There's a reason why solitary confinement is considered a punishment, not just a punishment, but a torture when it's prolonged. Now, it's because this pain of isolation is something that is so powerful, so poignant. It can remove our sense of self, our sense of belonging. It can completely warp and destroy our own confidence, our own ability, our own lives. It can take everything away from us, this feeling of being alone. But how do I know that it's a lie? How do I know it? Well? Speaking to my brothers and sisters. In Christ, we know the promises of God that he will never leave us nor forsake us, that He is for us and not against us, that no weapon of the enemy formed against us will prosper. That He has sent his Holy Spirit to be with us, to reside inside of us as a deposit, as the first fruits, as the guarantee of our inheritance of eternal life. In Christ, God says all these things, and he never declares to us you are alone or we should feel alone. He never speaks that over us. In fact, he speaks the exact opposite. So, just like back in the garden of Eden, we have a choice of who we are going to believe. Are we going to believe the word of God or are we going to believe our own feelings when they come into conflict. Now, note in the Bible, the Lord says that he has not given us a spirit of fear, and three hundred and sixty five times he says, be not afraid, don't fear, don't be afraid. Notice in that situation, it doesn't say that we shouldn't feel afraid. At times, feelings are different than ontology. Feelings are different than the reality of the situation. It is like an emotional set of lenses that in many cases can distort our view of what is actually taking place, and this is where some very challenging battles are fought. Loneliness, the feeling of being isolated, the feeling of being abandoned, The pain and the fear and the tumult that arises because of that has led to many a disastrous and tragic outcome. It leads to bad decisions, it leads to bad habits, it leads to instability, it leads to even further disconnection, and it can even function as a self fulfilling prophecy in that the lonelier someone feels, the more difficult it is going to be to restore and cultivate and develop relationships that will do heavy lifting of fighting against that. And the more isolated and alone someone feels, the easier it is to succumb to lies about ourselves, the easier it is to speak negatively and to have the power of our own tongues even be aligned against us. The easier it is for us to lose touch and to lose grip and to lose focus on what matters. Keep in mind, the ultimate isolation was experienced on our behalf, something that we could never understand. And here, of course, we're talking about the cross. When Jesus in an utterance that is not capable for us to grasp, we just can't even come close to understanding the genuine experiential significance of something like this, When Jesus declares and cries out from the cross, Father, why have you forsaken me? This indication of separation, even amongst the members of the Trinity, should not be seen just as a symbolic recapitulation of the prophetic scripture. There is a notion there is an actual reality to this being part of the punishment for sin that Jesus was bearing on our behalf. Now, I don't want to speculate or read too much into it or go into the weeds on this kind of study, but just know that if you know someone who's feeling lonely or isolated, or if that is your story yourself, know that Jesus has experienced it. Jesus has experienced an isolation from the most valuable, perfectly loving bond. Jesus experienced the type of loss of infinite magnitude, and it's something that we will never experience, though we lose every single thing in our lives and would look at death as a comfort to free us from the pain and the grief of the loss that we feel. Jesus's experience of loss on the cross, being forsaken by the Father, even for a brief time, is of an infinitely greater magnitude, and He bore that for us. He bore that so that we would be set free from the curse of loneliness. Remember, it was the first thing that God said it is not good about. There are many things, many things that God declares as not good, but the first thing was it is not good for a man to be alone? So how do we combat this? How do we understand this? First, I want to share a word for fathers, for people who are the heads of household, people who are living with their wives and their children and are working towards the will of God, who genuinely want the will of God in their lives. It is certainly the case that even in a household where there is love, where there is communication, where there is coordination, that it is possible to feel alone at times, either because of the weight of the burden and the responsibility that has been placed upon you as the head of household, or because it doesn't feel like everything is quite together, it doesn't feel like everything is flowing in that everyone is on the same page. It can feel like the communication is stunted, and in that case, the degree of loneliness, the degree of isolation that is felt, is that much stronger when it feels as if there's a separation from the people who you love the best and the dearest, and who are under your covering and under your responsibility. If you're walking through a city and someone who you don't know walks by on the other side of the street, you don't have this distinct sense of loneliness because you are not in their presence. You don't experience these pangs of anxiety and loss because you feel isolated from that particular person. But inside of a home, when the communication isn't there, when people are not on the same page, there is dramatic isolation. It can take place. It can take place for times and for seasons, and I want to share a word of encouragement for people who will go through those seasons, or perhaps who are going through one of those seasons right now, and perhaps at a certain point in my life. I will return to this message and it will be a distinct message for me as well. It is not good for you to be alone, and you are not alone. It is also not good for you to feel alone, but you are not alone. So there is a disconnect between your reality and your feelings. First, go to the Word of God and go before him in prayer. Remind yourself in courage, yourself in the Lord that He has promised never to leave you or forsake you. If you have to take care of some business before the Lord, if you have to confess things, if you have to seek forgiveness, remember that God is just and faithful to cleanse you of all unrighteousness and to forgive. Remember that Jesus taught his disciples that as many times as someone sins against you and then comes asking for forgiveness, you are to forgive them. Will the Lord put a standard upon us that he is not willing to stand by, that he will not follow, that he will not establish. He is our exemplar, he is our king, he is God, he is our Savior. He will not instruct us in that path and instruct us with that behavior if it is not the way he is, If it is not who he is and how he demonstrates his love for us. Now, we can have many different excuses, we can have many different explanations, We can have all these things. But this is a call to responsibility. When we look in the scriptures, when we go before the Lord in prayer, let us make sure that there is nothing in our hearts, nothing unresolved, no unforgiveness, even towards our loved ones, No situations that the Lord needs to address and needs to get our attention about. We can pray, God, search my heart, try me, and know my thoughts. The Lord is there for us. He is our advocate, He is our helper. He is the only one who can set us free from the bondages that we have found ourselves in. For all sorts of things. Submit. Let us all submit ourselves to the Lord, to his correction, to his instruction, to his word. Let us be obedient. When we look to the New Testament and we see the apostle Paul saying, follow me as I follow Christ. That is the way that we are supposed to lead our families, to tell them follow me as I follow Christ. Now, if we have gone before the Lord, if we have receive forgiveness and cleansing. If we acknowledge what the Lord says about our sins, that he has forgotten them, that as they are forgiven, that they are as far from the east as from the west, then we are being disobedient if we do not receive that forgiveness, if we do not allow the Lord to do his work, if we would try to override it with a sense of pride or a sense of religiosity, or a warped sense of justice. The Lord decides what we deserve. And the Lord has already decided what we deserve, eternal separation and isolation from Him, and he poured that out on his son on the cross for our behalf. Some people will make a judicial statement about what they deserve, and they're right, but they are wrong to continue bearing the punishment for it. When we continue to punish ourselves for our sins that God has forgiven, than what we are saying is that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was insufficient. I have more to do in order to achieve penance. I have more to do to make myself rite with God. This is not the gospel of grace, This is not the gospel of truth. This is not what Jesus teaches, This is not what the Word of God declares. We have to be open in our hearts to receiving what God has for us, and when we do, when we do, we need to know that we know that we know that the Holy Spirit is with us. You can look at the words of God. You can say, oh, yeah, God's says He'll never leave us nor forsake us. But it doesn't feel like there's an open heaven right now. It doesn't feel like God is there for me the way that I want him to be, be, the way that I need him to be. God is for you. He is not against you, He is with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Have you placed your trust and your faith in Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, for your cleansing, for your redemption, for your salvation. You are a child of God and God is for you. He is with you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. Are those words true? Are those the words of God inspired by the Holy Spirit? Is that the actual truth? If we rest and know that that is the truth, then we have a powerful antidote to the feelings of isolation that can come about the feelings of loneliness even when we have those around us. So let us rededicate ourselves to an outpouring of love, even if it is not requited, even if the people around us, those who we care for, those who we trust, even if they get on our last nerve, even if they push our patients to the brink, even if we don't feel like we are being honored the way that we should. Let us show love. When we are showing love to others, as we are called to do by the Lord, we will not feel alone. Oftentimes, we have this major misconception that in order to feel like our relationships are strong and solid, we need to be receiving. We need to see the evidence, We need to feel the love from others in order to say this is good. I am not alone. I have someone who cares for me. Now that is a good thing. Those are all good things to have. But I would suggest a reframing. I think that the godly antidote to feeling alone is what we give, is the love that we provide to others, rather than what we receive. We love because Jesus first loved us, there were many people who didn't love Jesus during his earthly ministry. There were people who wanted him gone. There were people who knew him well when he was growing up who could not place their faith in him because of their familiarity. There were people who wanted him done away with. But Jesus walked with the Father. He obeyed the will of the Father, and the love that he poured out to those around him is the example that we need to walk by if we are feeling alone, if we are feeling isolated, then the answer is to pour out in love. When we do that, when we make that declaration, when we determine that we will love, what we will realize is our grandiose and inescapable dependence on the power of the Lord to see these things take place in our lives. Because we can only love others out of the overflow of love that God gives us. It's not something that we can encourage and stir up within ourselves without the power of God. Because the love that we need to show is a Godly love. It is something that is only available through Him, and it's something that has its origin in Him. So encourage yourselves in the Lord, go to Him, seek him and seek first to pour out and love others, and that will serve as an antidote to this feeling of loneliness, even the kind of loneliness that can arise in your own households. Now, for others who do not have people around them who they are responsible for or who they feel like they are supposed to love, there are many people who are legitimately alone in their human relationship situation. They feel misunderstood, they feel cast out, they feel isolated, and there's a better case to be made to say that they are They actually are alone. After all, in the Garden of Eden in Genesis, God said it's not good for man to be alone. It wasn't just a feeling. Even though God was there and God was with Adam, God still declares this that we need these human relationships, we need this camaraderie, we need this fellowship. I would encourage people who have been hurt by people in the church, who've been hurt by people sinning against them, who have chosen to isolate themselves from that kind of fellowship because of wounds, perhaps even grievous wounds. I would encourage you bring it before the Lord and really deal with it, really deal with it. It's a shame what can happen when people are hurt in the church, because the reaction can be a complete isolation for not just a short season, but for an extended period of time. That's not just feeling alone, that's being alone. We need to be in the company of other people. We need to be serving alongside others and serving one another. We need to be worshiping the Lord together. If we are not, it is so much easier for us to be driven off course by our own minds, by anything that we come across. And yes, it is true that we will never be alone to the extent that we have trusted in Jesus. God is for us, He is not against us. But God also calls us to not neglect the assembly of ourselves together. So I want to encourage you, even if you know you're not going to find a place that's perfect, even if you know it's going to be a challenge, even if it requires bravery to allow the Lord to deal with the woundedness you've experienced. It's time to return to fellowship. It's time to return to service. It's time to return to being with God's people in God's house. Now it's easy for me to say this, but again, this is just what's coming from scripture. We should be together so that we can bear one another's burdens, so that we can show love one for another. And many we may protest saying you don't know how they treated me, and I don't. I don't know your story, I don't know the testimony. But I want to encourage you that if all we're doing is complaining and isolating ourselves, then we're missing out. We're missing out on an opportunity for the Lord to bring life out of our testimony. We're missing an opportunity for the Lord to redeem the time and use it to speak into other people's lives. If we bring our pain and our hurt before the Lord, and we receive the spiritual strength to arrive at a place of forgiveness and love, the kind that disarms and and undercuts the whispers, the lies, the tendencies, the habits, the poisonous root that can grow up inside of us, that is born out of pain and betrayal and hurt, and especially that kind of betrayal, if we can get to the point where we will allow the Lord to use that for his glory, if we will allow the Lord to use that to minister to someone. If we will allow the Lord to bring life where there was death, to bring light out of where there was darkness, to bring fruit out of where everything was barren, then what we will see is a move of power and of love and of impact. And when you you have served someone else and loved someone else by sharing your testimony with them and helping them move forward in the Lord, it's hard to feel alone. It's hard to convince yourself that you are alone when you are actively engaged in bearing fruit for the Lord, even if it's through a testimony of challenge and saying I am still here because of what God has done. Many people are in that situation, isolated, pulled back, pulled away, and the quarrel and the difficulty has been reframed so many times in their mind. And it's not necessarily just even a church. It can be family, it can be work, it can be any of these core relationships and functions that we have. Will say, oh, it's because of this that the other thing, what someone said, what someone did, what some people believe, what some people have done to me, and all of those things may be true and valid, but they are poisonous. The only thing that we can do, the only thing that we should do, is to bring everything before the Lord, to submit totally to his word and hopefully, prayerfully God willing this idea of allowing the Lord to continue and finish the process of redeeming the time of using what has happened to help others and to show the love of God and to demonstrate his power and his testimony. Again, I say, it is impossible to truly be alone when there are others who you are lovingly serving. It is possible to feel alone those circumstances, but that's a lie that needs to be rebuked and combated. But it is impossible to be alone. So brothers and sisters, remember how serious this is. Remember how seriously God takes loneliness. It's the first thing that God said wasn't good. And when God speaks it so it is. It is indeed not good for man to be alone. We need one another, we need the Lord, we need forgiveness, we need love, We need the opportunity to serve those around. That is the antidote, and we can only do that through the power of God. Remember, Jesus bore the penalty of isolation of loneliness on our behalf, the kind of isolation, the kind of outer darkness that is the just punishment for sins against a holy God. Remember Remember, God said that a man being alone is not good. And if God has declared it as such, nothing we can do will make it different. Remember, even if you feel alone, you are not alone. Remember that an antidote to loneliness is to lovingly serve others. Remember that God is there as an ever present help in time of need, to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness, and to forgive us and to help us. And remember that if once we have received forgiveness, if we still harbor unforgiveness for others, or if we refuse to accept that forgiveness and we override it with some other concern, some other consideration, some other feeling, then we are out of order. We are out of alignment. We are being disobedient to what God has said. So let us come before Him in faith, declaring our dependency upon him, declaring that his promises are true, declaring that we know it's not good for a man to be alone, asking the Lord to search our hearts, asking the Lord to help us, relying on his promises that he has sent his Holy Spirit to take up residence in our hearts to guide us through these things. It is not good for man to be alone. Lord, help us. We thank you, Lord, We thank you that you are here. We thank you Jesus that you said, ask and you shall receive. Lord. We want to follow your word. We do not want to be alone. We don't want to feel alone. Would you help us, God, Would you deal with whatever needs to be dealt with in our hearts. Would you break down things that have even taken years and decades for the lies of the enemy to construct. Would you break down the strongholds that bring about lifeliness and isolation and intense fear and dread and anxiety. Lord, you know what we were created for, and we were not created to be alone. It is not good that we find ourselves in that position. But you are good, Lord, You are full of mercy, You are everlasting in your righteousness. You will never cease, you will never change, you will never fade. Lord, your power is real in this moment, to break those bonds in the name of Jesus. Lord, your authority is real in this moment, to break those bonds in the name of Jesus. Lord, your spirit is real in this moment to speak into people's hearts in the name of Jesus, to remind them you are not alone. I am for you, not against you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Lord. That's a promise you make to us. You didn't even make that promise to Jesus because on the cross he was forsaken because of our sin. He bore that punishment so that you could make that promise to us, that you will never leave us nor forsake us. We bless you, Lord, we magnify you, We glorify your name. Jesus, You are good, and your mercy endures forever. Have mercy on the lonely, Give grace to the broken hearted. God, hear the cries of your people. Soften our hearts for your solutions. Help us, Lord, to understand that love and an outpouring of love for service of those around us, that that is the answer. Reconnect us men broken relationships, in families, in churches, in communities, in neighborhoods, in whole societies. Lord, where there is unity, God, you command a blessing. Lord, you have declared it is not good for man to be alone. It was the first thing that you declared through your word that was not good. God, we believe you, We submit to your word. Help us, heal us, deliver us from this prison of loneliness. Soften our heart's Lord for one another, Help us motivate us to reach out to one another. Be with us, Lord God, as you promised, so that we would know that we are her alone. In Jesus mighty name, we pray Amen.