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Better Together

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September 1, 2024
Ecclesiastes 4:7–12
Josh Bremerman
Pastor for Discipleship

Friendship & Community

Wisdom & Discernment

Joy in God

Transcript

0:16Good morning everyone. Good Morning. It's a joy to be together. I'm Josh Berman, as Steven mentioned, and I serve as the pastor for adult discipleship here at the North Church, which means that one of the areas that I oversee is our small group ministry. And I know when uh, when the small group guy comes up, you expect a certain type of message. And when the missions guy comes up, you expect to get called to go overseas and the outreach guy comes and you think, okay, I'm gonna be told to, uh, go do evangelism to my next door neighbors. And so I just wanna say that this sermon is not a 35 minute pitch for you to join a small group, but I do want to be unabashed and unashamed about my aim in this sermon and that aim is to preach the value of belonging together.

1:12And we're in a three week gap of sermons. We just finished preaching through the book of Genesis and now we're gonna start preaching the book of Matthew next week. And so, uh, I we're, we're taking this time to preach focused sermons. And so last week, pastor Stephen preached on Isaiah chapter 61 and our vision for the people of this church to grow into mature oaks of righteousness. And this sermon is following up on that by saying that one of the things we value is being together as a garden city of oaks that spreads the glory of Christ to our neighbors and the nations. And so my hope is that you'll leave this morning with your heart irresistibly drawn to two things.

2:01First, my hope is that you'll be drawn to fellowship with Jesus Christ, enjoying life in him. And second, I do hope that you'll be drawn to the pleasures and joys of life together with the people of this church. And for some of you, that will mean walking out of those doors and signing up to join or perhaps even lead a small group. For some of you it will mean coming next week from watching on the live stream. And it's also where our this morning comes into the picture. So before we're looking more deeply at Ecclesiastes four, I'd like to pray to the Lord that he would help us to understand this text, to feel rightly about this text and then also to live this text appropriately.

2:44So would you pray with me? What is it? And Father in heaven, we praise you for overflowing the joy that you have with the Son and the spirit into the creation of humanity. All glory be to you, God. We ask that you would by the spirit of Christ at work in us, Lord, that you would help our hearts to be drawn to what you would have for us in this text and that you would help us to respond as well and pray that you would do that for the glory of Christ to whom all glory is owed. And it's in His name we pray. Amen. So I want us to listen to these American proverbial sayings. God helps those who help themselves.

3:33Fortune Favors the bold. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself for better and for worse. Our country loves the idea of someone going out and doing incredible feats on their own, Conquering The world. And so for the better, this is the mindset that actually has led to some of the greatest innovations that our world has ever seen in history. Uh, American ingenuity in the face of being laughed at has led to the automobile, the telephone, the airplane, the light bulb and the computer for the better.

4:23This is the mindset that stands up against raging mobs of wickedness and ill intent that are saying bow the knee to idolatry and saying, here I stand. I can go no further with you also for the better. This is the mindset that's left us with some pretty sweet survival TV shows, uh, which I enjoy personally, but for the worse, even though we occasionally weigh out our individualism with sayings like No man is an island, or it takes a village to raise, raise a child, our practice has left us as a country feeling alone and isolated. Did you know that 36% of all Americans feel lonely? And if we're just talking about younger generations, that number skyrockets to 61%.

5:14And so perhaps you're sitting in the room this morning, perhaps you are at home watching on the live stream and you're feeling lonely right now. I wanna say that our text has a word for you this morning or maybe you don't feel lonely, but you should feel lonely because if the storm of life hit, no one would be there to serve as the bootstraps by which you can pull yourself back up. And our text morning has a clear aim, a clear goal, the wisdom literature of our Bibles, Ecclesiastes Proverbs job, these books want to help readers to hate something and then to love something better.

5:57And that's the clear aim of our text this morning. Ecclesiastes four, seven through 12, it wants to expose the frustrations of a, uh, unbridled individualism of a life alone. And it wants to draw our hearts toward togetherness. And since this is the first sermon in a long time on Ecclesiastes, just a side note on that book, that's the goal of that book as a whole. The goal of Ecclesiastes is for us to see the frustrations of life in a broken world and then to love something better. And so for our text this morning, the specific frustration is being alone while the specific joy is life in community.

6:42So in other words, if you're a note taker, Ecclesiastes four, seven through 12, the message is this life alone leads to frustration, But life and community leads to great reward or to put another way, if you want a life done right, it's better together. So let's look at this idea in two parts. First, let's look again at verses seven and eight. Life alone leads to frustration.

7:12Again, I saw vanity under the sun. One person who has no other either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil and his eyes are never satisfied with riches so that he never asks for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure. This also is vanity and an unhappy business. So the first line again, I saw vanity under the sun. Solomon, the author of this book says again, which normally would tell us as we're reading our bibles, I need to go back and see what he said the first time. But that's not exactly how Ecclesiastes works. He uses, again, sort of like saying onto my next point, it's a string of wisdom sayings where he is saying, again, I saw this frustration again.

8:03I saw this frustration again. I saw this frustration. So he is moving into a new idea and he starts with vanity. So here's another clue for reading Ecclesiastes. Vanity doesn't mean pride in Ecclesiastes. Vanity doesn't mean thinking too much of yourself. Instead it's a figur of speech. And so I just want us to think about some figurative figurative speech for a moment. This baby is our pride and joy. We all understand that what that person means is not that this human that I'm holding is my pride encapsulated. What we know is what they're saying is this baby affects my pride and joy. This baby causes my pride and joy.

8:51Or listen to this figure of speech from two kings four 40, oh man of God, there is death in the pot. We know it's not exactly death in the pot, but we know that what is in the pot would cause death. And vanity is the same way in Ecclesiastes, when we read the word vanity, we're reading Solomon's description of what is being affected in him by a specific frustration he sees in the world. So a common image in Ecclesiastes is this idea of chasing the wind. Can you imagine that? Uh, if your family goes on a monarch butterfly hunt and you bring a butterfly and you swoop that butterfly up, you've got the butterfly.

9:36But can you imagine telling your kids, let's go on a wind hunt. Here are your nets, we're going to catch the wind. It would be a vain activity. It would feel impossible, and ultimately it would cause frustration. And so when we're reading Ecclesiastes and we see vanity, we want to ask a follow up question. What is causing the feeling of vanity in this passage? What is Solomon frustrated by? And sometimes he says, vanity. When the righteous receive what the unrighteous deserve, sometimes he says vanity because uh, he can't control how his, his heirs are going to spend their inheritance. There's a frustration that's causing him to feel like life is frustrating.

10:26And for our passage, it's very clear. Verse eight, one person who has no other either son or brother. And then he lists three reasons why life alone is frustrating. Number one, there's no end to all his toil. Number two, his eyes are never satisfied with riches. And number three, he never asks, for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? And I want us to notice this word. Yet, yet, there is no end to all his toil for Solomon in his eyes. It should be that the man who is alone can go fast. He's unbridled. He doesn't have these people holding him back. Yet all of these frustrating things are happening.

11:16So you may have heard the saying, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to get there, go together. And that's what Solomon's getting at. He's gonna talk about the frustration. Why is life alone so frustrating? First toil, and this isn't just referring to our vocation or our workplace. Uh, Solomon asks the question at the start of the book, what gain is for man in all of his toil? In other words, all of life's toiling the day to day of life. He's saying it's frustrating alone. And some of you are feeling the weight of that toil this morning. Life alone is hard. Life on an island is difficult.

12:00That's the first reason why life alone is frustrating. The second reason life alone is frustrating is because of discontent. His eyes are never satisfied with riches. So I want us to think here of the, the young man in Mark chapter 10. He's got it all and yet he's still searching for something. He wants to inherit eternal life. He knows the commandments. He's kept them from his youth and he's wondering, Jesus, what do I need to have more? And Jesus tells him, go sell all that you have and give to the poor. And what happens? He leaves disappointed. He's still searching. He's got the riches, but he's still unsatisfied.

12:47And rather than following Jesus, he goes back to stacking more riches. Or perhaps we could think of the famous story of Ebenezer Scrooge. The guy has it all. He still feels like he never has enough. He doesn't have anyone to spend his money with. He doesn't have anyone to spend his money for. And so what option does he have left? He keeps stacking coins.

13:18Now you can be together, you can be in community and you can still be discontent, but people to spend your life with and uh, a mission to pour your life out for that kind of community can change your perspective on what you have in life. I might not have a lot, but I have my people. And so my question for all of us who are feeling discontent this morning is this, could some of your discontent actually be rooted in a lack of life-giving community.

13:52So we have toil, we have discontent. Third reason, Solomon says life alone is frustrating. Aimlessness, he never asks For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? And here I think of memorial services and I think of the the sort of well-known article on eulogy virtues. In short, when your memorial service comes, no one reads off a list of all of your impressive accomplishments from your resume. And if they do, it's because they're probably not talking about your connection to others and your life of faith.

14:29And uh, I was watching one of those survival shows with my wife and I think the scene really pictures this idea of eulogy virtues. Well, Uh, we're we're sitting there. I'm telling her I think I could make it at least two weeks. She's saying, no way. You could not make it two weeks. And one of the contestants in the game, actually, he has it made, he's got a nice shelter, he's got a steady food supply, he's spending his free time making these side projects. The the uh, it washes your own laundry for you and all these other games. He's carving things and then they go to some other contestants and they come back to him and he's sitting on this hillside and he's looking at a picture of his family.

15:09And you could see in his eyes, this guy is quitting. And so I'm thinking as I'm sitting on my couch with my wife, what are you doing? You're gonna win. And he's thinking, what am I doing? Not being there is losing. This guy has a moment of clarity. He wants to invest his time on what he wants to be remembered for. He wants to invest in his family, he wants to invest in his community. And that's because without a mission, your efforts are going to feel empty. And a mission without people lacks substance. And so that's how we see life alone leads to toil, to discontent, and to aimlessness. Life alone leads to frustration.

16:03I just wanna stop here before we move into the next four verses and acknowledge that some of you really feel the pain behind this text. You really don't need me to continue reading the next four verses that are all about the glories of community. You felt this frustration. You're convinced there's something better. You desire this togetherness, you desire belonging, but you're left with two hands full of vanity.

16:32Some among us have lost spouses. And you feel the frustration of a broken world having had a close companion and then lost them. Others among us are deeply desiring this marriage relationship. You feel the frustration of thwarted desires and others are married, but you feel like you have no real friends outside the home. All my friends are eight and under no tribe, no 2:00 AM friends that you can call when the crisis comes. And many of you might feel like this church is actually really friendly, but you still have no friends, nowhere to be fully known and fully loved. And so I just wanna say that we love you.

17:22I wanna say that the reason we have small group ministry is because of the frustration of this text. And then I wanna say that the Lord loves you. And the fact that Solomon inspired by the spirit of God wrote this text in this book shows you that God cares about this frustration and it shows us all that God is working something better. And so stick with me and let's see where the text is headed here. Verses nine through 12 two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up again.

18:12If two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. So we have this idea of two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. And that's the main idea of the following verses right there. Life alone leads to frustration. But life in community leads to great reward. If you want a life done right, it's better together. Now, St. Augustine once said, in this world, two things are essential. Life and friendship both should be highly prized and we must not undervalue them. What a profound statement right next to the air that I breathe and the food that I eat is friendship.

19:09So how does Solomon value friendship rightly in these verses, what is this good reward and toil that comes to those who live in community? He gives three examples, but I think they all boil down to this idea of perseverance. First, persevering through weakness. Verse 10, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up in many ways, Ecclesiastes is just a commentary on the book of Proverbs. Proverbs tells you how life should be and Ecclesiastes tells you what to do when it doesn't look like that. And this verse sounds a little bit like Proverbs 27, verse 10, better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away.

19:58What does that proverb telling us? It's telling us that the friend who is close will be there when you fall. They'll help pick you up. And I think of this image of Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings. They're just about to destroy the evil ring of power. They've arrived at the bottom of Mount Doom. The volcanic fire is pouring forth and Frodo can't make it a step further. So Sam looks at him and he says, anyone know it? It's in your head. Come Mr. Frodo, I Can't carry it for you, but I can carry You. And Mariah, everyone who's watching this in the theaters or reading their book is just like, yes, Get Him. Sam.

20:42When we fall in weakness, our friends cannot take our place, but they can carry us through what is the good reward of those in community? It's it's persevering through weakness. Both weakness of failure and weakness in sin. When we sin, we need iron to sharpen our iron and tell us, no, that is not the life God has for you. Friends, help friends persevere through weakness. Second, friends help friends persevere through adversity. Verse 11, A again, if two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? So I want us to look to Proverbs again this time, chapter 17 verse 17, which reads, A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.

21:44A true friends rejoice with those who rejoice. And true friends also press in to weep with those who are weeping. True friends walk through seasons of prosperity and adversity until they see it through to the other side. And to some this verse might sound like a marriage, verse two, lying down together and keeping warm and marriage is one powerful example of this kind of companionship. But I think that uh, the picture of this type of friendship is more than that. And so here I think of the the fifth Star Wars movie.

22:23Luke Skywalker is locked out of the good guy's base on a frozen planet and everyone's concerned about his life. Where's Luke? What happened? And then they say, it's time. We've gotta close the gates. We've gotta close the base. We're all gonna freeze. And there's one guy, Luke's best friend, who says, I'm going out. I'm going out into the cold. I'm gonna find him. And he finds Luke and he cuts open the belly of his own animal to crawl into the guts and the muck with Luke to stay warm for the night. That's what this verse is saying, that when the adversity comes, when the freezing winter approaches, when the job is lost, when the diagnosis is given, the friend stays close through it all.

23:11And then from that season of adversity, a deeper bond is formed. Friends turn into family through the refining fire of adversity, which is the second benefit of though life in community. First persevering through weakness. Second persevering through adversity, but third, persevering in the face of opposition. Verse 12. And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him.

23:47And when the pronoun mob shows up at the door of your workplace or your house, the good of individualism is being able to stand up no matter the cost. But to triumph, it's better together to land on your feet. It's better together biblically. We can think of Jonathan's loyalty to David as saving David's life when Jonathan's own father, Saul wants to kill David and rage. And Jonathan says, no, I'm not letting that happen. We're persevering together in the face of opposition. Or we can think of Barnabas and Paul, uh, when no one believes that this guy Paul could have possibly had the transformation that he said he had.

24:34This guy was killing Christians. Barnabas steps in and he vouches for Paul. Friends withstand opposition together. And we know this is true. We go to it when we wanna brand things like the military or sports teams or even homeschool co-ops, they all pitch the value of community for navigating a difficult season of life facing difficult things. In the end, we know if you want a life done right, it's better together.

25:11So the great trade of living in community is trading toil, discontent and aimlessness for the strength to face weakness, adversity, and opposition. Which leads to the conclusion at the end of verse 12. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. The imagery here is that two is good and if two is good, three is even better. And that's why this is more than a marriage text. The three strands are not you, your spouse, and God, what Solomon is getting at is this idea of a community together persevering in the face of great difficulty. Community matters, togetherness matters. And God uses these relationships, marriage included to help us persevere without breaking.

26:06And we can see in this verse that Solomon is a realist. He knows Proverbs 1824, which reads a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. It's not a 100 fold strand of cord friendliness toward many companionship with a few. That's what we want to press into. If you want a life done right, it's better together. And so the question is how should we respond to this text? And I wanna encourage us to have two things leaving this morning. And the reason I want us to leave with these things is because of what we read in Proverbs 18 verse one. Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.

26:54He breaks out against all sound judgment. So I wanna encourage us to have friends and to have a mission. And I wanna encourage us that we can pursue both of those things right here in this church body. Our text this morning points to the value of community, the value of belonging, the value of togetherness, that friends persevere together. Friends sharpen one another, friends counsel one another. So have friends. They have something to offer you. And I want to tell you, you have something to offer them. And the question is how? It's not just uh, how God gave Adam Eve and he, he woke up and there she is, friends is a little bit harder than that.

27:47So how, first I wanna encourage us to pray that we would actually pray in the morning that God would unite our heart with two or three other people in this church family to face life together. God is the one who brings these things about by His spirit at work in us. And so first we pray, then we act. I think the first thing we can do is if we're able show up, come on Sundays, come on Wednesdays. And then initiate with those who you see, those you serve with, those you're in classes with. Ask someone for coffee. Take your kids to the park together. Go rock climbing, go hiking, hunt for deer. That's Minnesotan. Don't be fearful of asking for someone's time.

28:34Instead, honor that person by showing them that their time is something you desire. And let's together pursue life. And we can do that by sharing this mission. We see that friends are needed for times of weakness, for times of adversity, and for times of opposition. So a life spent avoiding all of those things doesn't actually amount to much rather a life with those things will birth friends into family. And so let's have friends and invest together in God's mission. One of the ways we can do that is by joining a small group so that your life overlaps consistently with others in our church body.

29:17We can engage in community outreach together by signing up for Together for Good or Arrive ministries and saying, this is not just something for me. It's not just something for my family. I wanna do it with others. Here we can serve in the kids or the youth ministry to invest in these little saplings to grow up into mature oaks of righteousness. But we do it together. We join a Bible study with some men and women and we study together, invest together in the life of this church, Not only so that we have life hacks to maximize our individual capacities, but so that we're together facing the mission that God has for us.

29:59I wanna encourage you that as you're investing in your togetherness, you're investing the pleasures and joys of togetherness. It's good to be together even when it's hard. And so these are all legitimate applications to this text, but I think they fall flat without taking this text ultimately to where it needs to go. I can stand up here and beat the drum and muster up the community to say, let's be together. But we have a deeper question that we have to ask. Why ultimately is life alone so frustrating? I think the simplest answer is for two reasons. First, God did not make us to be alone. And second, we live in a broken world.

30:52So listen to Genesis two, verse 18. God has created this perfect world. He's created a perfect man, Adam. And yet he says it is not good that the man should be alone. How is that possible Before the fall, before sin has entered the world, God says this. And the reason is this, as humans, we were created in the image of God. And that means we are made to resemble God and we're made to reflect God and our God is a triune God from eternity past. God has enjoyed perfect fellowship in himself, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, perfect community. And so Adam created in that image should live in community.

31:48It's not that added Adam needed a wife. It's not that singleness was his problem. It's that in God's wisdom, he has designed for Adam to enjoy perfect sinless fellowship with God and then enjoy fellowship with others just as God does. And when we live against God's wise design, it always ends in frustration. It's like a fish trying to go for a hike.

32:19We live in a fallen world also. That's reason number two, why life ultimately is so frustrating. And that's where it's important to remember that a God intended for Adam to live in community, but he didn't need Eve. He was enjoying perfect fellowship with God. So in God's wisdom, he brings eve to Adam. And the marital relationship is vital, particularly there for accomplishing the mission of being fruitful and multiplying. But loneliness did not enter the world until after sin. Loneliness entered the world because of relational separation with God.

32:59We love because he first loved us. And so if there's a relational fracture here, inevitably there's a relational fracture here, and that's what leads to a frustrating life of being alone. We need our relationship restored with God before we can find relational restoration between one another. And that's where Jesus enters in. What an amazing savior we have the friend of sinners. Why did the religious leaders grumble at Jesus? Because he was the friend of sinners. What drew Matthew and Zacchaeus out of their tax collector profession and into the footsteps of their Lord and Savior, that he was the friend of sinners.

33:54Jesus declares in John 1513, greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends. Yet the love of Jesus surpasses any kind of love that we know for our friends because not only does he die for his friends, he dies to turn his enemies into friends. After Jesus makes the proclamation of dying for his friends, every one of his disciples abandons him on his way to the cross. He is left alone and yet he faces being alone with the names of his disciples on his lips. He faces being alone with us in mind. Romans five, eight says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

34:36That is how God shows his love toward us still sinners. Jesus invited himself for dinner and we said, my calendar is full. He reached out and we ghosted him in our sin. We wanted nothing to do with Christ's friendship, nothing at all. And yet he still hung on the cross. He Pursued us. And that's the song of the gospel, isn't it? Alone in my sorrow and dead in my sin, lost without hope, with no place to begin. Your love made a way till the mercy come in. When death was arrested and my life began, he canceled my debt. He called me friend. It's through faith in Christ's sacrificial blood that we now stand right before God.

35:35We enter the presence of our Lord as friends because of his finished work on the cross. And this is where we pause before we enter community with one another. It's from this relationship that we can now live in community together. Rightly, we love because Christ first loved us. So brothers and sisters, let's press into that truth together. May we pursue fellowship with Christ, with every ounce, that the spirit of God enables us to do so and then let us overflow in love for one another. If we north church want a life done right, it's better together. Let's pray.

36:25All glory be to you, Christ Jesus. We thank you for dying on the cross to turn your enemies into friends. We honor you, we worship you for your greatness. And I pray that as we go forth from this place, you would unite our hearts together by your spirit at work in us, so that we can call one another friend just as you have called us friends. Pray that you would do it for our joy and ultimately for your glory. Amen.

Jump to live

Jump to live

Sermon Text

Ecclesiastes 4:7–12

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