These are my notes and a few personal thoughts on the rebel's guide to joy in loneliness, in particular gospel partnership:
The success of any relationship is a Jesus centered relation. But unfortunately most of us are looking for a relationship, friends, partner, family, etc. that will satisfy our selves or fill the void of loneliness that we constantly feel in our life, but how much satisfaction can we find in a relationship like this?
Not long ago I was talking to a friend that has tons of friends and knows a lot of people, he never seams to be alone, and he is always doing something with someone. But in an honest conversation that we had he told me that whenever he comes back home and he is alone the void and loneliness is very real it is always constant, some how it never goes away despite of multiple friends. I realize that we are meant to have something more that just community and relationships with others. More so, I am still trying to discover what this means and what it would be if I center all my relationships in Christ alone.
What it is not
First let me explain what a gospel center relationship does not mean. It does not mean that I am bashing my friends in the head telling them about the bible, it does not mean that I will be talking about Jesus and the gospel every time I open my mouth, or scream hallelujah, praise God, or Jee-zus every time something good happens, It does not mean I will stop hanging out with them if I see patterns of sin in their life, or if I loose my interest in them because all of the sudden I realize they where not the great person I was looking for in a relationship so I “dump” them, or because they hurt my feelings or said something I do not agree, or they just do not meet our standards, or we just do not want to give them the benefit of the doubt when a problem comes along. There is a hundred other things that I could mention here, but these are only a few that I know I have done in the past hurting others or other hurting me.
We should not be alone
We are not made to be alone: "Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”" (Ge 2:18). We are made for relationship, first and for most with God, and second with people, and in the case of the man and the woman to be with each other. But I am not literate enough in this last point so I will not talk about it. I know most people crave relationships and companionship, they don't want to be alone, the problem is that most of us look for self centered relationship and not a gospel centered one. I will try to explore this as best as I can since I am just learning about it.
Mark Dirscoll explains loneliness as a separation from God and from each other because of sin; it creates spiritual death, physical death and relational death. There for when we experience this feeling of emptiness we have a continual struggle with loneliness. As a result of loneliness we look for friends, but most friendships are not deep and meaningful enough to be the answer to loneliness. Most friendships happen because there is proximity and affinity: friends have similar things in common that bring them together and/or happen to be physically near. Another way to fill our emptiness is to look for a spouse, or a romantic relationship. A gospel center relationship applies to any kind of relationship, because it is not centered on us or the need to fill a void.
The Cure for loneliness
Gospel partnership is the cure for loneliness, because Jesus died and rose from dead for our sins and to bridge our separation from God, we are reconciled with God and we can be reconciled with one another. There for when two sinners get together to start any kind of relationship, it is predestine to not be what we dream of. Two sinners will sin against each other, the sin will come in between the both of them and it (sin) will kill the relationship. But if Jesus is the center, and he takes away the sin and they both agree to have a Christian relationship, the result is a behavior toward one another that resembles the way God has treated us. If we sin, we repent. If they sin against us we show grace and mercy there for reconciliation takes place
Sin with repentance and grace = peace
In sin we are at war, but in repentance and grace we reconcile and we are at peace, and we experience this in our human relationship when we repent and grace is given there is peace. But when this does not happen, we ran away from relationships and it does not feel right. If you ever wonder why you feel like you do not want to see any more a person that you have had problems with, or why, when you see this person you feel a knot in your stomach? Why do you feel like you need to run away from the person that you sinned against or that has sinned against you? There is sin with no repentance and grace. At this point two questions arise: first, do you feel like you are not at peace with some one? And second do you need to repent or give grace? Take a moment and look at Joseph’s life when his brothers come to him for help in
This will only work if both of the parties agree to have this kind of relationship. I have always said this: “a relationship is a two way street”, but it will not be this way if we do not define the relationship in terms of the gospel, repentance and grace; to be honest when it comes to defining what kind of relationship I have with others is where I fail the most, not because I do not define it, but because I fall short to be like Jesus.
Many times gospel partnership do not need proximity or affinity, because the center is Jesus, we can be friends with the “undesirable ones”, we can keep a long distance relationship with family and friends because our motivation is different, and we can be more like Jesus who hang out more with sinners than with righteous men.
A good example of someone that had gospel partnerships was Paul, he was a man that experienced extreme loneliness, but in several occasions he said that he had joy in the midst of imprisonment and adversity, he had joy because he had gospel center relations and the progress of the gospel was the source of his joy. “Joy is not a feeling; it is a lifestyle that celebrates the forward progress of the gospel.”(Mark Driscoll)
Today is a good day to start
Start today repenting of your sin and giving grace to those who have done you wrong, restore your broken relationships and don’t just dispose them as a piece of trash that is not good for you any more. Center all you relations on Jesus.
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For more information listen to the following sermon.
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