The Blessing of Walking Together

Introduction

Today starts our gospel meeting, and we are blessed to have with us this week, Brother Andrew Roberts. As I said in a Bible class period, Brother Roberts dwells and works with the hang on just one minute here. I have failed him already. There we go. Works with the Livingston Avenue Congregation in the Tampa area. He and his wife Julie have three children, Aaron, Olivia, and Owen. And they work in labor in the Tampa area. We are blessed to have Aaron with us. Aaron is a gifted speaker in the Word of God. We appreciate his passion, not just for the Word of God, but for God’s people and God’s Word.

And so we’re so blessed to have him with us. We encourage you to be a part of this, whether in person or online, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, every night at 7 o’clock. Andrew will be bringing us lessons from God’s Word, and we appreciate so much his ability and his willingness to be with us. Andrew. Good morning, church. I hope that you have a Bible. And I invite you to turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 4. We’re going to be looking at the scriptures together this morning there. I am so grateful to be able to spend some time with this congregation this week, and particularly Brother Ken, and to renew our friendship and time together and to work in this effort, the series of gospel meetings.

And we’re doing a couple of uh lessons today to kind of prepare us for that teaching. We spent some time in the Bible class hour looking at Ephesians 6 and thinking about what it means to be God’s soldiers and to put on all his armor. We want to go now to the book of Ecclesiastes and appreciate how important each one is in this cause to one another, and how precious you are in the sight of the Lord.

And redeem me and make me part of his family, and that makes you my brothers and my sisters. And you’re precious to me. And this time is precious to me, and I hope it’ll be a great encouragement to you as well. As I was preparing this talk and to share these things with you this morning, the blessing of walking together, somewhere along the line, I feel like this uh it kind of shifted somewhere from a sermon to a bit of a thanksgiving, uh, quite honestly. And if by the time we are done, you are thankful for being part of the family of God and even the family of God at this place, I think our time will have been well spent together. One of the greatest blessings God has bestowed upon his people is his people.

The people of God are blessings to one another, and I believe that.

We are given traveling companions. Others are on the journey with us. For a few moments, I want to take you to a beloved passage of Scripture in Ecclesiastes 4. I love it. I will tell you that usually I study it or talk about it when I want to do a lesson on friendship or peers for the young people. I love to read it in weddings.

But maybe I don’t always, or we often don’t always think about it in connection to the fellowship we have in Christ and His church. But I think we ought to.

1. Two Are Better Than One

Ecclesiastes 4 in your Bible. The scripture says in verse 7, that I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun. There is one alone, without companion. He has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good? This also is vanity and a grave misfortune. Here the wise man looks out and peers, and what does he see? Well, he sees a lonely man. We’re told here that he has no companion, literally, no second. But what does he do? He looks around and he says, Oh, I guess I don’t have any friends. I guess I’m just kind of alone. I guess it never worked out for me to find that spouse and have that kid.

I guess. Does he roll up in a ball and suck his thumb and have a pity poor me party till he just dies? No. Solomon says this man goes to work, and he works hard, and he achieves success, and he has wealth, and he has all of these things. He works and works and works and works. And I read some commentaries that had suggested, well, because this fellow was so given to his work and amassing all of this wealth and success, that’s why he has nobody around him. But I can’t help but notice it is presented in just the opposite order in this text. First we see a fellow, he’s got nobody around him. He goes to work, he has all of these things. And someone says, and he never asks, why am I killing myself?

Why do I have all this stuff? And who’s it gonna be? And what a vanity, what an emptiness this is. It is life’s struggle, isolation, loneliness. John Milton wrote, loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good. And Warren Wearsby wrote, We all need solitude, but no one can be independent. This fellow works in the masses, and what he realizes is that all of those things are not going to fill certain needs. That all of those things are not going to fill a hole that he has in his heart. And that is a loneliness. That is an isolation. That is not good. And stuff will not fix it. But God’s solution. God’s solution comes to this man’s aid. And God’s solution? Two are better than one.

And it’s Ecclesiastes 4, verse 9, two are better than one. Two are better than one. God is going to provide community. God is going to provide relationship. And in the fullness of his plan of redemption, we see that there is a church, an assembly of people, a called out assembly of people, a body of people, who are, in the words of the New Testament, God’s family. In 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 15, the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, right? But it is the family of God. It is the household of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. He provides that. We who have been all alone, we who realize that we have a deep need under the sun. This need is fulfilled by God in his church.

It is a blessing to walk together. Two are better than one. This fellowship, this blessing is provided us in his church. And his church is called in the New Testament, Jesus’ friends. Why in the Gospel of John in the 15th chapter? John chapter 15, on the night of his betrayal, he speaks to his disciples at that last supper. And John 15 and verse 13, greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all things I heard from my father I have made known to you.

Oh, to be friends of Jesus. In 3 John chapter 14, there’s not a you’re going to keep looking if you go to 3 John chapter 14. In fact, you might even hit Revelation before you find it.

It’s the last verse. And I think about all the names that we are called by God as his people in Scripture. You know we’re disciples. You know we’re saints. You know we’re Christians. But 3 John 14, you know we’re friends. We’re called friends. And that’s as much true of the people of God as it is saints and Christians and disciples, the friends of Jesus. And while Christianity might call for great sacrifice, it is God who is going to bless you with companions along the way. Brothers and sisters along the way. Jesus is the one who taught those that would follow him to count the cost. It was never some easy believism, just come on and jump on the wagon. And the apostle Peter came and told the Lord, We have left all to follow you.

How did the Lord encourage Peter in Luke chapter 18 and verse 29? He said to them, I surely I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time and in the age to come, eternal life. I’m gonna give you the family. And whatever it might cost, I’m going to supply and I’m going to bless you. You follow me. For some people, this is such a wonderful news because they feel the pain of loneliness and isolation. They feel it often. But for other people, this is troubling. You mean to tell me that being part of the church of the Lord is more than just showing up somewhere on a Sunday?

Making sure the attendance box is getting checked. It is. Some people are very frightened at the idea of a fellowship that is close. I mean, truly a brotherhood. Why? Well, look, if I get too close to people, then I risk disappointment. People will let me down before. Maybe these people in the church will let me down. If I get close to people, I might be risking hypocrisy. What if these people are doing things other than uh what they say they do? What if they really are something else and they present themselves? I don’t know if I can handle that. If I get close to people, I might be risking a broken heart. If I get close to people, I might be risking getting, they might take advantage of me.

People I know have always been taking advantage of me, and I’m tired of that. I’m scared of that again. And so they put up walls. They think that it’s better to pursue isolation. But it is not so. That two are better than one, and we are not better off on our own. We are better off together. There are no lone wolves in Jesus’ flock. We’re all a flock. In fact, if you think that you’re a wolf and the flock of Jesus, your metaphors are just all mixed up. No, we’re we’re all his flock. Brothers and sisters in Christ, friends of the Lord, friends of one another. This is a good thing. Two are better than one. This is the beginning of the blessing of walking together.

2. The Potential of Shared Labors

Well, why is it that two are better than one? How is it a blessing to walk together in life? And there are four reasons given in this text. I believe speak right to us in our relationship as God’s people in his church. So it’s number two in your notes. The blessing of walking together. We begin to learn about the potential of shared labors. What’s the blessing of walking together? It’s the potential of shared labors. As we go back to our text this morning, which is Ecclesiastes 4, and we find in verse 9 that two are better than one. Why? Because they have a good reward for their labor. They have a good reward for their labor. He had just seen a fellow who was working all by himself.

And uh boy, he’s amassed a lot of wealth. But to what end? Now he sees two are better than one, and there’s a good reward for the labor. Two are better than one, and a good reward for the labor. I think about the Lord Jesus Christ, how he sent out the apostles and their, or actually the disciples and apostles and their limited commission, and he sent them out two by two, two by two. I think about uh Paul and his missionary journeys or evangelistic journeys in the book of Acts. And uh most of the time, he’s traveling with a Barnabas, or he’s traveling with a Silas or a Luke, or a group of preachers together. There was a group of them. There was a good reward for their labor.

And our labors can be large, and our labors can be difficult in the Lord. And who will encourage us? And the answer is the church. It’s a blessing to walk together. We’re taught in 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 11. Therefore, encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. So we accomplish more together. Tell you, encouragement is so important. A few years ago, I was holding a uh a gospel meeting with a church up in Georgia. And after one of the evening services, service was done, we’d sung the invitation song, and I’ll be honest with you. I, in all honesty, I thought it was a pretty good sermon, and I thought I did a pretty good job with it. Okay? So that’s where my head was.

And I walked to the end of the auditorium, and uh one of the elders is there to greet me, and he shakes my hand and he goes, Oh, Andrew, how do you do it? And I said, Well, brother, I, you know, with all the humility I could muster. I just, I try my best. I appreciate that. No, I’m not talking about your sermon. Because your sermon was fine, but I how do you do it? You you get up there and you preach your heart out, and you’re you’re you’re pleading with people to come and obey the gospel and nobody comes.

And then you get up the next night and you do it again, and nobody comes. How do you do that? Isn’t that discouraging? Now, at the time, I just kind of wanted to go and crawl under a rock. I didn’t really need him to observe that. I guess the answer was uh try not to think about that part. Uh we’re planting the seed, and you don’t know uh when the seed will grow. But I did begin to think about it a little bit. Well, what is it that I do? What encourages me when there are, and honestly, there are seasons and times of discouragement. And I begin to realize that every so often the people of God bless me. I just get a little note in the mail that I didn’t ask for and wasn’t solicited.

Just a member of the church, just out of the blue, writing a little note, thanking me for this, observing something about that. And I’ll tell you what I do with those little notes. I put them in a file and I keep them. And when I’m getting discouraged, I’m feeling a little blue, I’ll get that file out and I’ll open up and I’ll read two or three of those notes. And it’ll be a great, great encouragement to me. Don’t ever underestimate the value of taking that time to write a little note. You don’t know how people hang on to those things and what they mean to people. It’s a great tool of encouragement. And I’ll tell you, when we encourage one another, we have tremendous, tremendous potential in our shared labors.

Sometimes something happens and you appreciate what a small piece you play, but an important piece that you play, that we all play in God’s great work. I was uh preaching in Tennessee a few years ago. That’s when I met Brother Ken, and we got to be friends. There was a brother in the congregation who had a little lawn service company. You know, he went and cut grass. When I say little, it was him and his lawnmower. But he saw a fellow uh a neighbor fella who seemed like he really ought to go to work, and he offered him a job, and that fellow’s name was Daniel. And so Daniel and Clyde, Brother Clyde, they’d be driving all around town cutting grass, and Clyde could do the mower, and Daniel could do the weed eating, and they get to be talking about spiritual things.

And we were going to have a gospel meeting that week. Kind of like y’all are having a gospel meeting this week. And Clyde said, Daniel, you just need to come on. You need to come on to church with me. And Daniel’s like, well, all right, I will. And so Daniel came as the first time he’d been in the church. Brother Buddy Payne was there and he was preaching a sermon. It was a fine sermon. And Daniel left that day and he told Clyde, he goes, I don’t know everything there is to know about the Bible. He goes, but I know everything that man was preaching was the Bible. And I want to know the Bible. And I want to follow the Bible. And Clyde said, Oh, Daniel, that’s great.

I’m going to introduce you to Andrew, and we’ll have Bible studies together. And for the next, I don’t know, four or five weeks, six weeks, Thursday mornings, me and Clyde and Daniel, we’re having Bible studies together. And one morning Daniel said, I want to do it. I want to be baptized. When now, now let’s go right now. So me and Clyde and Daniel, we go down to the baptistry and we put the water in, baptize Daniel, and he comes up out of the water and he looks at Clyde. He looks at me and he goes, I feel good. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I knew I would. I wasn’t prepared for that, but those kind of things happened. Okay? And it was an exciting thing.

And here’s Daniel, and he’s he’s obeyed the gospel, and I got to thinking about it. I thought, you know, Clyde did his part by getting to know a neighbor and help a neighbor, inviting him to church, and Brother Payne did his part, preaching the word of God forcefully and making that impression that this place is about the scripture. And I had a little part to play too, coming along behind and having some Bible studies with him and Clyde. Just encouraged him along. And it was just everybody was just doing their parts. And God blessed it. And here was a brother who came to Christ. And actually, Daniel wasn’t very alone for this world. About six weeks after that, one morning when we were supposed to meet together and have Bible study, him and Clyde weren’t there.

And I come to find out, Daniel passed away in his sleep that night. This is the most amazing thing. He was an 11th hour worker. We didn’t know that at the time. But he was obedient to the word of God when he heard it, and there was just a whole lot of faithfulness about all of that. What I’m talking to you about is the potential of shared labors. And so I’m so encouraged that you’re here today. And you different ones have been told me, oh, I’ve been handing out flyers and talking to my neighbors. I’m gonna be here every night. And when you see the church come together for an effort like this, it’s an encouraging thing. It lifts me up, it lifts us all up.

3. The Protection From a Fall

The potential of shared labors is a blessing of walking together. Let’s go back to Ecclesiastes 4 and notice with me, verse 10. There’s a great blessing in walking together because of the protection from a fall. The scripture says there, for if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up. I was excited to be able to have an opportunity, it’s been a few years now, but back in 2015 to get to go over to Israel and uh walk around and see some of the different roads and different paths. And uh going there and seeing it. I’d think that what they grew there in the fields was rocks. I couldn’t get over the rocky terrain everywhere you went.

Now there’s other places where they’re irrigated and they’ve done beautiful gardens and the nation’s done very well, but it is an arid place. And it is not hard at all to imagine the perils of trying to travel roads in Palestine. These windy, rocky, hidden dangers in the roads. And that’s before you get to the thieves, right? All the things that might befall you on the road. And you trip and you fall, and down you go, down the crevice, down you go, down the hillside, down you go on your face. And who’s gonna pick you up? And there are things that trip us up in our lives. There are things that suddenly and shockingly bring us down in our lives. Unexpected hardships, unexpected tragedies in life, and who will come to our aid?

Who is there to pick us up? Who is there to help? And it is the church. It is God’s people and our local church and church family. It’s a blessing to walk together. And the local church and brethren beyond it need to be picked up at times. There are unexpected falls. I think about the apostle Peter, who was unexpectedly arrested in Acts 12 and verses 4 through 5. You probably remember some of that, how the apostle James had been unexpectedly arrested and even executed. The people were pleased by this, and so Herod goes and grabs Peter. What does the church do? They meet together and they pray. And that is a tremendous powerful thing. Let us never underestimate the importance of our willingness to pause and to pray for one another, of our willingness to gather and even have dedicated special times of prayer about situations, about our brethren, about the needs.

Prayer is not plan B. Prayer is the plan for the people of God. Right? And so we can pray for one another to lift one another up in unexpected times of hardship and the sudden fall. I look at the Bible at Acts 11, verses 29 through 30, as we are told about the wonderful hearts and the wonderful activities of this church in Antioch when they learned that there was going to be a famine in Judea. A lot of them, some of them knew people back in Judea, but a lot of them didn’t because they were Gentile converts. But what do they do? They determined to take up a collection and to send their means to go and help and to relieve needy saints. Strangers in many ways, except, well, actually, their family in the Lord.

Actually, they’re our friends in the Lord. Actually, they’re our brothers and our sisters in the Lord. And so they moved to relieve those needy saints. Sudden hardships and brethren spring into action.

You can look that up. Phil Campbell, Alabama, and a good friend of mine named Sean Wallace was a preacher in that little community, him and his wife Dora, when an EF5 tornado blew through that little town. Now you’ve seen pictures of similar destruction to an EF5 tornado because some about that power have passed through Mississippi lately, if you’ve been watching the news. But basically, an EF5 means the winds have gotten so fast, they’re really beyond counting them. And I’m watching the news and I see Phil Campbell is getting hit by this tornado. And of course, the lines are all down and communication is difficult. And it was a couple of days later when I could finally make contact with my friend Sean and say, How are you?

And how are the brethren? And he told me, he said, Andrew, he goes, it was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. He goes, when that tornado came through our town, it sounded like someone was trying to park a 747 in my driveway. He said, My wife and I got down to the lowest part of the house that we could. We got under a bed together, we held each other’s hands, and as the tornado blew by, my ears exploded. There was this suction and lift in the house. The bed came up, we came up off the ground. He goes, and we told each other goodbye. He goes, just as soon as that had happened, it passed on, and we we dropped back down to the ground. He said, When I walked out my front door, he goes, I thought I’d walked into another planet.

My house was standing. The house across the street was standing, but the rest of the neighborhood was gone. All the houses were gone. The big mature trees were all laid over on their sides. It was incredible. I said, Sean, what do you need and how can I help you? He goes, tell you something about that, Andrew. He goes, before the National Guard got here, or even the first responders. He goes, the brethren from the church up in WrestleVille, which was a town a little north of there, they came in four-wheelers and pickup trucks with chainsaw and water, and they came looking for us right away. And they were able to help me clear a log off of my car. And once they found me and Dora, we started driving around the community looking for the other brethren.

4. The Promise of Warmth

He goes, and I’m really excited to tell you, he said, uh, the brethren all survived. We all lived. He goes, but the people who were there first, the people who came looking to be first, the people that offered the aid first, it was the brethren. It was the members of the church. And then the others came in later and then they had their hand. And I’ll tell you, it’s just such an example of the protection from the fall. Nobody saw that tornado coming. But the brethren were there for quick and important relief. It’s the blessing of walking together. The blessing of walking together. In Ecclesiastes 4 and verse 11, we are told that it is a blessing to walk together because the promise of warmth. In Ecclesiastes 4 and verse 11, again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one be warm alone? We live in a cruel, cold world. It is sin. Sin that makes the world a selfish place and a violent place. And would keep us isolated and alone. And by yourself it is difficult. And by yourself it is cold. But the church is a place of warmth, a community of love and warmth. It’s a blessing of walking together. I’d tell you a quick story. I hadn’t lived in Florida for very long. And there was this lady who just, every room you walked into where Sister Nita was, she lit up the room. She was an elderly lady, but she was bigger than life. And she had an opportunity where she needed to go to the hospital and to have a surgery.

And I knew I needed to go down to the hospital, visit with Sister Nita and have prayer with Sister Nita, and I was certainly glad to go and do that. But when I got there to that hospital, so many folks from the congregation had showed up to wish her well, to have prayer with her, to encourage her. Sister Nina wasn’t in her room. They had moved her down to the chapel of the hospital so all these people could be together and have prayer. I think we even might have sung a song and be all around Sister Nina. Now can you imagine that? Taking them down to the chapel before they take you off to have your surgery. And I thought this is such an incredible example of the warmth and love of the church because none of that was coordinated.

This all just happened. And what a testament that was, and an example to the unbelievers there who were the nurses and the doctors and others in the hospital. There’s something different about this group of people. There is a warmth in the family of God seen on this day. It’s a tremendous promise of warmth. And how do you get there? How do you get there with that kind of warmth and fellowship within a local church or family? Will you spread warmth with hospitality? Why we’re taught in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 9, be hospitable to one another without grumbling. And that’s always just such a curious verse for me to read. You know, to be hospitable without grumbling. Maybe it was a hassle to clean up house in the first century too.

I don’t know. Why is it you’d grumble about sharing your things? But I know there’s a temptation to do it. And yet when we have people in our home and we share what we have, or we go in their room home and they share with us, we really get to know each other, don’t we? And we get closer, don’t we? And that warmth grows. Hospitality is the love of strangers. When I made my move from this six and a half years ago, as Brother Ken reminded us, but made that move from Tennessee down to Florida. Has anyone here had to make like that big interstate move? And you got to get all your oh, several of you made that big interstate move. And you got to get all your possessions together.

It’s got to go on the big truck, and then you don’t see them for a while. And man, I thought I had things all figured out, had this door to door, man. It’s going to be a great, great move. But of course, we, me and the wife, the children, we arrive at the house, you know, probably a week before anything we own. So we got a house, that’s good. And that’s a big empty house. And I thought, what are we going to do? But an amazing thing happened. There was a family that rolled up in their own pickup truck, and they just started unloading a family from the church. Air mattresses, linens, a couple pots of pans. I mean, all the stuff we needed to keep house for a week until our things got there.

Can I tell you how loved I felt? How warm that was? And the next day we had to go out for some things, and we come in, and somebody broke into my house. Can you believe that? Nothing in that house. But these people, when they broke into the house, they actually filled up my pantry with food and my refrigerator with food. And it was the brethren. Now I’m not saying it’s right to break in houses. But if you do bring stuff.

Hospitality, I’ll tell you. And we learn this in the scriptures. Spiritually cool hearts need what? Need assembly. We need to come together. We need to come together. And worship in edification time, assembling together. In Hebrews 10, verse 24, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Now forsaking the assembling of ourselves together is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. There are a lot of lessons to be taken from the last couple of years of pandemic and the way different congregations dealt with those various challenges. A lot of lessons to be learned. But I’ll tell you one of the big ones that I took away from. That when we come together, we want to have the word and we want to take notes and we want to learn the word of God.

And that is as it should be. Can I tell you what I learned? Can I tell you what I learned? When we were provided or hindered for a time from coming together as a church, there is so much more to our assembling together than just downloading content. There is a difference watching sermons and listening to podcasts and learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. And a sermon’s an important part of learning, but there’s a difference in that and just getting content and what you have in the fellowship of the church. When we’re seeing one another, when we are singing together, when we have the proximity so that we can shake hands and hug necks and the tears of joy and the laughter. And I know that when I was a younger preacher, and before all that pandemic stuff happened, before it was, I mean, even a concept.

5. The Power of Unity

I’d preach sermons on this verse. And I kind of had a bad attitude, honestly, as I reflect. Like I had to twist Christians’ arms into going to church. My attitude’s greatly changed about that. Because once it was taken away, and even for a little while, and I was missing out. It’s just so precious. And I think there’s a generation of us here that are going to look at passages like this a little different and see just how important it is that we assemble together. It’s a blessing of walking together because this is where we gain our warmth. The promise of spiritual warmth. And God bless you all for being out this morning. Number five. The blessing of walking together is the power of unity. In verse 12, the scripture says, though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.

And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Wow. One may be overpowered by another. Here’s the idea of an enemy has come upon you, has come upon one. And an enemy might get you all by yourself. But when someone’s with you, oh, you turn the tables on the enemy. And how many of us understand? And by the end of the week, we sure will understand that we have an enemy, that we have an adversary. There is a devil. It may be the devil you don’t know, but there is a devil. And in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 8, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.

You’re not alone. This adversary is after you, and after all your brotherhood. And there’s hardships that you’re facing, but you’re not alone in that because it’s also being experienced by your brotherhood by the people of God. He’s after you and your brotherhood.

Why? Well, a cord is woven together. There is great strength in unity. You’re not going to tear that when it’s woven together. I put this quote in your notes, I believe, from Thomas Liao. Quote Unity in the church gives strength to faith, increases charity, strikes awe into the enemy, and is the pledge of final victory. Oh, the blessing of walking together is the blessing of unity, that we might stand together, united to withstand the devil. We spent some time talking about this in the last hour, and we’ll be talking about the next couple of days. But how important it is that we put on the full armor of God and that we are willing to fight and to pray to see his victory. When we are uniting together, we are those who can help one another to escape temptation.

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, and he will make a way of escape common to man. Again, when we are lonely and isolated, the devil has ways to lie to us and tell lies on us that we’re the only one who’s ever been tempted by this thing, or we’re the only ones that ever struggle with this thing, or no one’s coming to our rescue. But in the church, we understand that, well, actually, I’m not wrestled with anything that isn’t common to man. If I’d be a little more transparent with a couple of my brothers, I might find out. Yeah, I’ve been there. Yeah, I’ve been dealing with that. Yeah, I’ve worked through that. Yeah, here’s where there’s victory.

Yes, I’ll help you to overcome temptation. We unite to do that. We uh unite to go and to seek the wandering. In James chapter 5 and verses 19 and 20. It is not good that people go and wander off and leave the church. If you are missing, who looks for you? And the answer is the church, the brothers and sisters in Christ. Because you have a place in the house of God. Because you’re a friend of Jesus. So you’re my family. And so you’re my friend. You’re going to turn your back on your friend? We’re going to come looking for our friends. We seek those who wander from God’s way. We want to restore those who are overcome in sin, who are losing some struggles, spiritual struggles in their life.

Always to consider ourselves lest we be tempted, lest we be fall. But it is a responsibility, and we unite together to do this. We are united to withstand the devil. I’ll tell you one other thing, we’re united to do, and the lesson is yours. We are united to evangelize the lost. What is the mission that God has given his church? It is to go into seeking to save the lost. That is Christ’s mission. And we are his body today in order to do that. And so the church is to be a place of love. Because there is a great drawing power in love. In John 13, verse 34, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And that’s talking about the way that that love will impact non Christians. That’s incredible. When non-Christians see the blessing of walking together, they want to have a part of that. And to see the love of Christ. Likewise, we are united for this purpose. In John 17, verse 20, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. Again, there is a drawing power. There is a testimony to the world when the church is as it should be and united.

Conclusion

The power of walking together. When we are standing together like a threefold cord. And about his work of seeking and saving the lost. Oh, I read this text in Ecclesiastes, and there’s tremendous, tremendous blessing in walking together. If you want to put your notes away, put your Bibles away. I know our brother’s going to come and lead us in an invitation song in just a moment. Before he does, before he does, I just like you to consider the truth of God’s word. That truly two are better than one. God has given us his church, his body of people, so that we understand. And in a morning like this, we look around and we understand we’re not alone. We’re not alone when it comes to fighting the spiritual warfare against the devil or about the great commission of the Lord and seeking saving the law.

We’re not alone. We need one another. And we’re here for one another. We’re brothers and sisters, and we’re friends in Christ. It’s a blessing to walk together. And let me ask you this. Are you a part of his church? Are you one of these friends? Are you a brother or a sister in Christ? You need to be in Christ. Maybe you identify a whole lot with that fella at the beginning of our reading. Isolation. Loneliness. It’s not kept you down in many ways. You’re working and functioning just fine. But there is a real hole in your heart and your life. And that’s the way God made us. That need becomes real and God really meets it in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you can confess your faith today that Jesus is a Son of God who died for your sins and rose again.

Repenting from sin in your life, and you can be baptized today. That means immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins. When you’re immersed in water, he adds you to his church. The scripture tells us that he added to the church daily those who were being saved. Would you be saved by the gospel of Christ? Would you be added to his church? You may have walked in here alone, but you could walk out together with the people of God. We can help with any spiritual need, to be baptized into Jesus or pray for you about anything else. We invite you to come forward and make your desire known as we stand and sing together. Won’t you please come?