Isolation is Dangerous

Pastor Jonathan Cargill speaks into the issue of isolation and how the enemy uses disconnection to weaken people in their faith and relationships. He shares practical biblical insight on community and accountability. There is tremendous importance to staying connected in the body of Christ. If we feel isolated, it's time to let the walls down and allow others into our world. On the other hand, for those who are connected, it's time to be diligent in reaching out to others who are disconnected!

Our heart at Celebration Church Rarotonga is that this message will greatly bless your walk with Jesus and help bring you closer to Him. We pray that you would be stirred to live a life that is passionate about loving Jesus!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to this week's podcast by Celebration Church Latatoga. We believe this message will empower and equip you to live a life of breakthrough. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I want to talk today about the spirit of isolation quickly. The spirit of isolation. And uh it is a social issue today. You could be in a big, big crowd and still be emotionally or mentally or even circumstantially around your life, isolated. I want to speak into that this morning and provide some uh keys for us, but provide hope. I want to break the shackle of um isolation. Can I say this as a shepherd of the church here? Is it very important that it's not us for and no more? We have to reach out of our social parameters. You say, Well, I'm not a social person, I get that, but Jesus is alive inside of us, and if he's alive inside of us and we're allowing him to live through us, things change. Seriously. Our focus when it's just us four and no more, it's really on our own life, our own self. I think God wants to break that and just increase the borders, the borders of your social network. I want to speak into this area of our isolation. It's a it's a key area that that people are facing today more than ever before. Okay, Ecclesiastes 4 9, how about this? Racing through the topic here. There are two, two are better than one. Isn't it amazing? Two people a lot better than one. Matthew 80, 19, it says, Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven. There is something about two people plus, or one person plus. Leviticus 26, 8 says, Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight. Western culture is obsessed with hyper-individualism. The fences go high, it's about my life and and how this affects me and all sorts of stuff. But I one of the things I do like about the Cook Island community and uh and culture, if you like, it's more than that. It's more than that. We have shared values, yeah. In other words, we break that, it's how it affects mom and dad. It's a foul, it's how it affects my sister, and there's a strength in that, it really is. And I think that uh we can uh thank God for that. That that's that's really through Pacifica, really. But the kingdom of God I've written here is relational by design. Have you ever thought of that? It's relational, man. It's totally relational. But what is it about um uh uh what is it about this that I go to the beach with Atasha, would sit down there, and the beach says, wide, goes for a long stretch. Nobody else is on the beach, we're just her and I. And then a car rocks up, and they could sit anywhere. But how come they sit? They don't even sit anything, but they want to be close to somebody else. Have you ever noticed that? Have you ever been to a restaurant where the waitress says, Ah, sit where you like? She just said, Well, then we're the first people here, we'll go sit over there. And you're sitting down, and that's all good. And then somebody else comes in in here, sit where you like, and all of a sudden they're on the next seats. Why couldn't they sit somewhere else? They sat next to you, they don't want to talk to you, but they want to be with you. There's something about community. We're wired that way. Hey, in Christchurch, and I'll put it on those guys over there, and I guess it's indicative around the place. We have a place at the north of in the Tasman, Abel Tasman called Kai Terry Terry. Beautiful place, Modjueka, Nelson, Modjueka, Kyteri, Terry. And um, and so anyway, you hear this, you hear this thing. I want to escape the city, I want to get away, I want to just go and you know, just just just get away from the rat race of it all. So they head towards Kai Terry Terry. Kiterry, that particular camp, there's two camps, there's the Bethany camp, and there's the Kiterry uh camp itself, two different camps. They have round about 250 uh tents that you could be in, and you can hire them out in some of powered sites. That's not in counting, really, the cabins, not in counting caravans. But around about 250 tents, and so people, what did you just say? You said you want to escape it all, you want to get away, and you want to get away from your network and people and just be by yourself. So, okay, you go from that city, you head towards Kai Terry Cherry, you go straight into that camp, you steering it up, open up your eyes, man. You are now in an intense environment of 250 families, some are drinking late at night, you can hear their conversations. Seriously, I've had some pretty shocking conversations because my tent is 1.52 meters away from the next tent. As it is, their tent is 1.5 two meters away from the next tent. And so we're actually closer now. The getting away from it has now been translated. You've got now more intimately involved with people you don't even know. And here's the thing is as soon as you arrive there, it's like this. Hi, haven't seen it till last year, and I don't know your name, and you're right into the social stuff again. What is it about people that we love people? Because we're wired that way. You look at Luke 11, it says, forgive us our transgressions as you've forgiven us. Deliver us from temptation. There's five or four users and one we in Luke 11 on the Lord's Prayer. It's about us because God thinks in communities, He's intimately involved with the individual on the solo. I understand that, but God loves it when we get together. He loves it when we get together. He loves the family, the families. And in England right now, they're saying that um uh they've been plagued with social isolation. Our our um well their uh parents, if you like, grandparents are living home. There's literally tens of when I Google search this, I look further, and it's right through Europe. It's not England. Kevin, you've been to England, eh? Stayed there for many years in professional sport. You probably even saw this as you went downtown and that, but they say just buildings, accommodations, where people, apartments, where people, older people are by themselves living. Solitude. And they say this the average person will be very lucky to actually intergage personally with one conversation, a sentence in one week. Relatives don't ring them, people don't come and visit them, they've lost networks of friends as they've got older, husbands or wives are by themselves. They say it's actually a big concern. And then it went on to say, some of them, some of them out of that in Europe in England be lucky if they have a conversation, one conversation. When I'm saying conversation, that's not backwards and forward, that's just like a a phrase like, How you doing, sir? Great, how you doing in four weeks. Isn't that incredible? That's called isolation. They say this one in five teenagers are suffering, particularly in the Western world, clinical depression. One in five. Can you believe that? One in five, or or or or anxieties, should I say anxieties? One in five. You know, eh? One in five. And how about this? The loneliest social group in the world, worldwide, the globe on average, what what kind of community, what what kind of people would you think it was? What gender? Teenagers. They're saying teenagers are the most lonely of all. Zach was saying something the other day. He said, What's happened is when you get you call guys out uh to to come and do stuff at that age, but they're at home on gaming by themselves, but with their friends who live in other houses. So it's not like the old days we were all shoved in one room now and doing it all together and warring and you're able to talk and dialogue and communicate and back in there in the machine and did-da-da-de-d-d-no. It's now that down the road, man. You're by yourself. It's like, well, we've got some issues. But God, I believe God wants to break that. Now, here's the church, us. Did you know one of the things we could do? I think we could do better at reaching people. I do. I do. Eh? I think we can. I can do it better, you can do reaching out to people, giving people a text. That's a lifeline for somebody, midweek. If you haven't seen someone, you say, well, I don't really know them well, text them. I mean, men or men and woman and woman and be sensible about that. Go visit them, take your bike, drop something off as many as you do. But I think we should bodybuild the church. Because a lot of people can fall off, fall off because the enemy picks us off in isolation. He isolates us emotionally, he isolates us because we become incredibly busy at work. The demands, the pressures mean that we can't attend to some relational meetings and meaning uh meetings that are meaningful. And what ends up happening, we find ourselves disconnecting, and we're a sitting duck from the enemy. And the enemy moves through calculation and good planning, good strategies. The Bible refers to the schemes or the methods of the enemy. So it's so it's not coincidental, it's not pot luck from the enemy. He works to overbusy us, overtire us, and we commit out of our own insecurity, doing this and doing that, and being here and being there, and our own performance and and whatever, and and respectfully, I say that, self-included, and and therefore it's it's like we're so busy we we forgot the main thing. People. The main thing is Christ, but the expression of people. We're so busy doing stuff that we forgot our neighbors. We rush to church and they're in front of us. I hurry up, get over the road, man. I gotta get to church and praise God. It's like, man, what happened to the person? And I think even in conflict situations and intense environments, we lose the value of people. People matter to God. And I feel like, you know, we and I'm gonna talk about this a little bit, but we become insula pretty quick. And I think God wants to break that. We should be the friendliest people, and we need to we need to break that thing where we're just so comfortable with the three and four people we know. He wants to spread our wings somewhat, make us great with relationships. Amen. All right, so that's the introduction, going real quick. I think some of our most of our battles are to be fought together. Jesus of the Garden of Gethsemane, notice this, he brought the disciples right up to the mix. And he says, Stay there, pray that you don't fall into temptation, and then he goes on before the Father and bows his knees. But he brought them in the mix. Interesting. Most of our battles. Uh, the biblical intention is togetherness. 1 Corinthians 12, 26, reading from the Bible here, and if one member suffers, all members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all of the members rejoice with it. Because why? Because your success becomes my success. My success becomes your success. You look at your neighbor right now, someone. If they are down, we can empathy or empathize with them. You don't have to look that long. Just a quick look would have been good. But if, but hey man, that's your husband and wife. But but it's the same thing when someone rejoices, man, it's kind of high five. I'm I'm in that. That's part of my, I know you. You know, it's just like that's part of all we share, not share the glory, but we just say share the success, okay? Uh Romans 12, 15, it says, Rejoice with those who rejoice, and we weep with those who weep. Okay. Now, Paul the Apostle must have understood this because in 2 Timothy 4 9, he says, before he dies, getting older, he says, Do your best to come to me soon. Isn't it amazing? Do your best to come to me soon. Paul understood relationships. Even though he was an intense prayer and a writer or a scriber, he understood the value of relationships, the value of people. Very, very important. Now the the main scriptures found from the Easphi, it's Proverbs 18, verses 1. I'll read it. Whoever isolates himself or herself seeks his own desire. He or she breaks against all sound judgment. I'll read it one more time. Whoever isolates him or herself seeks his or her own desire, he or she breaks out against all sound judgment. I'll read it as it is. Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire, he breaks out against all sound judgment. In other words, there's soundness about being together. Lack of soundness, destructive about isolating ourselves off. It says it right there. Supposed to be operating in divine wisdom, Solomon, when he's writing these things. The Hebrew construct or the Hebrew words is parad means to separate. Isolate oneself means to separate, to withdraw oneself. So you're in, now you're out. You were together, now you fly solo. Or change crowds. It means to break away from others. This is not talking about solitude and prayer. Jesus would withdraw himself and pray in the wilderness as a great model for us. No, this is not talking about that. This is talking about relationships, kingdom relationships, loving one another, being tender towards one another, building the community of God with the counsel of his presence. And yet we become so busy, we become so preoccupied, we become so burdened, we can get upset, we can get offended, and so we what? Isolate ourselves. You could be sitting this morning and isolated, emotionally isolated. Ever had that where you're just in a big crowd, but you just feel insular, isolated. Well, people live that way. When I look at a fence, uh block fence or block building, and um you'll always find that there's one block underneath and then two to the side and one above. That's pretty much the formula, okay? But isn't that an interesting mix? It's great to have people under you that you're lifting up. In fact, we should have really had the picture of that, but the block that sits directly underneath the two vertical blocks is the block that pivots on. That's taking the main weight bearing, or weight bearing. And then you've got two side by side. It's a picture of life. We're pulling people up. We've also got horizontal pairs that we could do life with, we can share, and we can be totally real with. And also we've got a leader or somebody else above us. That's how we should live. Quite interesting. The enemy pushes us into isolation. Ecclesiastes 4 10. It says, Woe to those. Woe to him who is alone when he falls. It reminds me of my mother, my brother um nursed my mum before she died. And to her, I think she's 90 when she died. And he said I'd come home and ring her through the day. He was working at the library in uh Wellington, Victoria University. He said, I'll ring mom and make sure three times a day she's okay. But he said, one time I came home and she says to our mum, she says she was uh in the bathroom. She said, I don't know how long she was there for, but she was semi-unconscious. She had fallen about 89 years of age on her face. And I thought, you know, my dad was a marvellous father. And that would break his heart. He died uh several years before Mum passed away. But I thought, man, you know, it's just like the scripture's quite interesting. It brought a little bit of reality as uh being alone. Now, I uh how many of you love your own space? I do. You probably think you probably think that you know sanguine and doesn't love a space gotta be no, no, I love my space. I love you gotta you gotta detox, you gotta clear your head, you gotta have a perspective, re-evaluate, reset regularly. So that's a healthy thing. I tell the story with guys, it's Dunkirk. Mem seeing the movie Dunkirk, and the producer Nolan and somebody else is really interesting, but they were on the beaches of Dunkirk. Uh three names, French names for that beach, but we just call it beaches of Dunkirk. They had 338 Allied soldiers, including French soldiers, that retreated from Germany. Mate, they were on the back for just walking back. And uh, so anyway, so the movie's really interesting because the morale is low. In the real life, the English from England pretty much they bought a thousand boats, fishing boats, yachts, and vessels to pick up all these people apart from the Navy. About a thousand boats, they reckon, and to collect them. 40,000 were left in the the the Nazis or the Germans um uh pretty much put them into camps and so forth. But what is interesting in the movie, I like this because they put a the guy who's flying the Spitfire runs it low and he runs it low on purpose. The morale was so low. In military terms, this is how this works. Basically, you've got a platoon or a company of people in the jungle or in the desert somewhere. The last thing that needs to happen is lose your communication. You can't lose the communication. Once you lose your communication, you don't feel you're seen, you don't feel you're heard, you feel you've been forgotten. And then the morale of the soldiers, they say it goes down lower and lower, lower, and they begin to complain, they begin to isolate, they begin to emotionally go low, they consider how much rations they've got, how much munitions they've got, and then they begin to calculate the strength of the enemy and they begin to shrink back into their souls. Okay? So the communication radio, once that goes down, that's like the worst thing that could happen because the radio communication is a lifeline. And they would say things like this is okay, they know where we are, they know exactly they're coming for us, they'll be here in about two days. And they, you know, they're just keeping the morale high, high, high, high. It's survival stuff. So this going back to Dunkirk in the movie, what he did, he dro he flew. You love this, David. Remember this? He dropped the zero, not the zero, he dropped the spitfire low over their heads over the 338,000 soldiers supposed to be there, and yet they throw up their hats and get excited because they've been heard and because they've been seen. You know what I mean? That's exactly what happens. And so sometimes they feel like they've disconnected from their artillery, disconnected from air power, and they're just in the jungle or just in the desert by themselves. But the communication factor is important. Hey guys, they know where we are, they've identified our spot. We're not alone, we're coming for us. We've got backup, we've got air support within 24 hours, and it lifts up the morale. And I liken that because often I think in uh war or military terms, but I like that because that's what life is like. You need somebody in your story. You need somebody just to take you sometimes and say, hey, we're praying for you. We're with you. I hear you, I understand you, I'm with you just to say if you need any help, I'm here for you. We constantly need that. Pastors need that. There's a whole lot of isolated ministries or isolated pastors that have lost connections somehow. But let me tell you this. I believe God wants us to link arms, go back. Two of us are more powerful than one. I think that what we should do, we've got to strengthen the church as we've got it, but I want us to be very strong in this. Let us carry a great reputation in the realm of the spirit, man, that we love one another. We're reaching out to one another. Even if people, you ready for this? Uh uh cut us off or don't want to, that's fine. You reached out. Let it go down on the record, you were reaching out. Let it go down the record that you were there. Let it go down the record that you are right there with them. Amen. Okay. And invite people into your life. People try and push people out, don't come too close. What is it? What's wrong with this? Do we not want to be Knowing? We're knowing that way. Sometimes, and I don't know how to say this, but I think sometimes it's it's the I'll get to it. It's right here. Genesis 2.28, it's not good for a man to be alone. Hey, you're in a sinless environment, Adam, and God has created you sinless, not righteous, but innocent, and it's not good for you to be alone. So you created a counterpart, Eve. Isn't that incredible? Look at this, Elijah, two people, two separate people, real quick. Two separate people in the word of God. Great responsibilities and great pressure on their lives. One is a prophet Elijah. 1 Kings 19:10, God asks him because I think it goes like this. In Mount Carmel, he basically been the instrument to slaughter the false prophets, ran about 800 worshippers in Baal. Ahab the king goes and tells his wife, the queen, and she says, Within 24 hours, you are a dead man. The Bible says, when he saw it, what did he see? Nothing. The mind. When he saw it, he fled. He goes from there about 180 kilometers, okay, into Bathsheba, goes there, drops his servant there. Remember, Jesus took in, he drops his servant there and goes a day's journey into the wilderness by himself. And God says, Elijah, what are you doing here? And this is what Elijah says. I've been very zealous for the Lord, God of hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with a sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. God immediately on the spot corrects him and he says, You're not alone. For I have raised up 7,000 others. Now, Israel is not a big nation by any means, a landmass. Somehow, Elijah, who's the prophet for Israel, from Tishbai, the spokesperson on half of God, couldn't see 7,000 others that had bowed, not bowed their knee and kissed the uh bowel and so forth. How don't you see that? Surely one of your neighbors would have said, Hey, I'm with you, I'm standing. No, no, no. Somehow, because he's got isolated in the war. That's what happens. But this is isolation talk now. God was putting truth and a sensibility. Here's the counterpart, Nehemiah. He's also in a terrible situation. Gonna build the war. Sambat and Tobias, uh Tobias, Sam Balat and Tobias are after him, discouraging, writing letters. He said they actually want to do me physical harm and so forth. And what does it say? He says this. He says to the people, look at the difference. One's isolation, this is togetherness. Okay. He says, Then I said to them, You see the distress that we, all of us now, it's not just me, we are in. How Jerusalem lies at waste and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us together build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach. See the different terminology? He's allowing people into the battle. Sometimes we've got to allow people into our life. We know how to live life professional, how's work? Yeah, work was good, all sorts of stuff. But we've got to go that next level and be known for who we are and start to trust people because love trusts all things and allow people into our own space. That would be it's healthy living. Seriously, that's healthy living. And then the people respond in 2.18 and they say, Let us rise and build. There's the buy-in. Then they set their hands to do the great work. Why do we get isolated? Very quickly, and finishing on this pretty much. We're self-guarded, we've got a wounded soul. We developed a lifestyle and a pattern of not allowing people to get close to us. We live guarded, self-protected mode. And sometimes we actually don't answer calls or cut people off. It's a story inside of our life. Sad. Love us, but it's sad. People live that way. Maybe you that's you this morning. Number two is independent. I don't need others. It's an interesting way to live. I don't need others. I don't know how best to say that, but I think sometimes that's rooted in self-sufficiency and it's rooted in pride. You will need people, and there will come a time when God will arrange your circumstance where you have to cry out for help. But all of us need people. To say we don't need people is one of the more ridiculous statements that human beings can make. We all need people. Who does your lawns for you? I do. Who changes your car? I do. All right. Who does the mechanics on the car? I do. Okay. Who flies you from Raratonga to Brisbane? I do. Who performed the operation on you last month? I did. Who tested your ears and your eyes? I did. Okay, mate, male. I'm talking about. Who gave birth to your daughter? I did. No, no, no, we've got it all wrong. No, you were involved. You were involved with somebody, all right? Ah, number three is sometimes we don't value people. 1 Corinthians 12, 21, the I cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you. We need the prophets, huh? We need the worship leaders, we need the servants, the administrators, we need the songwriters, the scribers. We need those who have a business brain on them, those who know how to market and present things and design things. We need the tidy up cleaning people. We need everything. Those who love children, we totally love it. We need the the girls that can produce, and we need the everything. Number four is I don't feel apart. I don't feel wanted, I don't feel seen, I don't feel involved, I don't think valued. That's sad, that breaks our heart. Man, if you feel that way, come and see me or text me or get a hold of me, and we're gonna change that. But I think sometimes there are spirit powers that get around our rejection. Seriously, they get around our mind, and we've got to deal with the issues. And let me just say this, and I've put it in my notes to say this, and I'm so glad I remember it. We've got to deal with our issues, we've got to deal with our stuff because as we get older, it doesn't go better, it just magnifies it out, and that's why you've got can I say this, older people down the road, and it's like, get out of my way, out of my way. I'll have this, please. What happened to you? Seriously, what happened to you? Who was nasty to you? But that's how it often goes. I want to encourage us when you have the opportunity, never hold back. Seriously, if God is speaking to us about pride and we can't respond to an old call, that's pride right there. Just come. All people are gonna be looking good, but just come anyway. I've got a message on envy and jealousy. I haven't brought it out yet. I don't know whether to bring it out here or Canterbury at some point, but that's a compelling message, it's a demanding message, but it gets to the root of the soul, and it's like respond. If you got it, you gotta own it. You lose your dignity for five minutes, but man, you'll get rid of the demons forever. And and and I I think I want to encourage us, deal with this stuff, don't hide it. You you're walking up the mountain, man. The Bible talks about going with light weights, then those things that entangle us, but we're hanging, we've got the bitterness, we've got that old bag there, we've got that that old guy we can't stand, we've got the neighbor issue, we've got this, we're just like, let it go. My yoke is easy and light, I'll take it, bang, I've got it for you. I'll put it to the cross with your permission. That's how we should live. I want to encourage us to break isolation. Break it, break it, break it, break it, break it over your life, increase yourself, increase your network in Christ, increase, get to know people well intimately, value Holy Ghost relationships, value, have other relationships, but value people that are on fire for God. Value those relationships because they don't come easy. Those that really are kingdom focused, value them, bring them into the mix and become it too. Don't forget the bricks. You got the bottom brick, reach down and pull them up. Text, I didn't see you on Sunday. Hey, you never turned up to man up or men's combine. Hey, I never saw you last week. Are you okay? All it is is a text. It takes a minute less than to put a text to somebody, but it's a lifeline that I've been heard, I've been seen, I'm valued for somebody. Then you've got these ones, develop really good peers, left and right of you. But don't just live in that realm and have nobody to pull up. Please, we've got to pull people up constantly. And then you've got somebody above you that can speak down and help you and encourage you. We often cut ourselves off at the left. You notice that we love to pull people up because we're in control. We love to have friends because we need the friends, but we don't like this because that's accountability. That's like someone might point a blind spot out. They might point something. I I need to change it. Yes, what a good thing. And you would pay $150 an hour, $200, $300 for a psychologist to say the same thing, and yet your pastor can say it for nothing. Or the person next to you. And I think let me tell you this: don't build, don't build relationships on people that you just agree on everything. Some of my best relationships outside of the church here are people that completely disagree with me on theological stuff. We just don't talk about it. Yeah, we do actually, we do. And I love the debits, and I hope they love me too. But it doesn't, you know, they're kind of like these things don't matter so much. They're not the breakers of life, they're not the orthodox Christian principles of the word of God, but there's stuff in there. It's okay, it's okay. So, in other words, I don't try and condition and control my world, I allow people in. I think we should do the same. Let me pray for you this morning. Father, in Jesus' name. Thank you, James. Thank you, Lord. Father God, I just pray for the church right now. Lord, I pray for the loving, tender mercies to come upon people in Jesus' name. Give us capacity to love one another, give us capacity to reach out, give us capacity, Lord God, to forgive one another. Give us capacity to be bigger on the inside in Jesus Christ's name.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

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