This entire series has been about addressing the reality of loneliness and isolation in the human experience. Jesus and His people are the answer to the loneliness epidemic that people are beginning to open up about.

• Today, in our final message in this series, we will see that

experienced loneliness. His experience is definitive and informs our understanding of loneliness and isolation in a way that is ultimately hope-giving.
• As believers, we will experience similar rejection, loneliness, and abandonment as Jesus did; we can

Reveal Answer

more upon Jesus in those moments, knowing he is familiar with the experience.

Matthew 26:36-44

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” 37 And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” 40 And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? 41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” 43 And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
• Jesus had a

for Peter, James, and John to be by his side in prayer, but they didn’t rise to the occasion. The loneliness and spiritual need of Jesus was not met by his friends.
• Jason Gaboury >> Jesus asked Peter, James, and John to stay awake with him to pray during his darkest hours. However, they fell asleep and left him alone in his grief. “How could Jesus have been in such obvious distress and his best friends leave him wailing in prayer, in a state of anguish, after being explicitly asking to sit and pray with him? … Jesus’ response to his friends’ sleeping shows dizzying amounts of compassion and self-control. He does not lash out at them in anger and spite, nor does he withdraw from them in bitterness. Jesus reaches out to them, confronting their failure and inviting them again to share in these hours of anguish with him”

Matthew 27:46

And 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?”
• David Guzik >> “The agony of this cry is significant. It rarely grieves man to be separated from God or to consider that he is a worthy object of God’s wrath, yet this was the true agony of Jesus on the cross. At some point before He died, before the veil was torn in two, before He cried out it is finished, an awesome spiritual transaction took place.
• Jesus experienced the ultimate forms of loneliness and isolation so that those who are in Christ always have

to deliver them from their feelings of loneliness. Jesus’ loneliness and isolation mean that believers never have to abide in loneliness and isolation again. He has poured His Spirit into us and given us His truth so that we are never truly alone.

// Matthew 28:20 | …And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
// Hebrews 4:14-16 | Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Psalm 34:16-19

16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. 18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
• David writes about God’s tender

to our needs in Psalm 34:16–19. He reminds himself—and now us—that God hears and rescues us when we call to him. We aren’t left alone. He is close to us and will rescue us and will not crush us. David also cries out to God, begging for mercy and help from the dark problems causing him deep distress and loneliness (Psalm 25:16–17).
• Susan Mettes in “The Loneliness Epidemic” interview podcast >> “Loneliness is really a gauge, and what it tells us is pay attention to your relationships, there’s something wrong with your relationships. And so that attention that we pay … in response to loneliness of going deeper with people that we already know, of initiating new relationships, those are good things. Loneliness also gives us urgency to some things that need urgency. … I will say that is also helps us, I think, to turn inward in some ways, that’s not always bad. But to think about, ‘Is my life on the track that I want it to be on? Are my relationships in the place that they should be?’”
• As a church, we must grow in our understanding of spiritual friendship and biblical fellowship

Could God call you into a season of isolation and loneliness? God is able to

Reveal Answer

you if your calling presses you into isolation for a season.

• Amy Carmichael >> Certain it is that the reason there is so much shallow living—much talk but little obedience—is that so few are prepared to be, like the pine on the hilltop, alone in the wind for God.
• Thomas Merton >> As soon as you are really alone, you are with God.