May 24, 2026 | A Handful of Peace

A Handful of Peace | Ecclesiastes 4:4–16

Ecclesiastes 4:4–16

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.

Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.

Again, 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.

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, if 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—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. For he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been born poor. I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king’s place. There was no end of all the people, all of whom he led. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after wind. (ESV)

In A Handful of Peace, Jed Gillis teaches from Ecclesiastes 4:4–16 that a life driven by envy, control, and endless striving cannot give the peace people are chasing. Solomon does not call us to laziness or ambition for its own sake. He calls us to pursue good work with one hand while receiving peace from God with the other. That kind of trust frees us to love people instead of using work, success, and achievement to protect ourselves. The sermon shows that true community gives purpose to our work, helps us when we fall, strengthens us in weakness, and protects us in times of attack. Instead of chasing control or settling for shallow connection, believers are called to pray for and pursue real relationships with specific people in the body of Christ.

Transcript of A Handful of Peace | Ecclesiastes 4:4–16

Ancient, Eastern Writing is Different Then Modern, Western Writing

Jed Gillis: How many of you would say, "I love to read novels"? Great. So, uh, hang on, keep your hands up. Everybody look around the room, see what that looks like. Great. Now put, put your hands down. How many would say, "I love to read textbooks"? I suspected I would have fewer hands up for that. As it turns out, that's true.

A novel and a textbook are not the same thing. We all know this. And in fact, it's similar to one of our challenges around Ecclesiastes because also ancient Eastern writing is not the same thing as modern Western writing.

So when you go read a novel, take whatever your favorite novel is. Now, I don't mean-- Some of you may say, "I love to read novels where I don't think about anything. I just read and the story goes by." Sure. But I would imagine many of you would say, "No, I actually like it when the author of the novel is, is communicating something, is telling a story, and he doesn't come out and just say it."

J.R.R. Tolkien writes Lord of the Rings. He doesn't come out and give you, "Here's three propositions about power." And yet you get to the end of the book, and you really do kind of have an idea of what he thought about power. You might have to work to get there, but you have an idea.

In a similar way, Ecclesiastes is more literary than textbook. Some of you probably love the Apostle Paul when he writes things like Romans and he says, "Here's one premise, and here's premise two, therefore conclusion. Therefore, next premise, conclusion," right? He writes like that. Solomon does not do that, in case you haven't picked that up so far in Ecclesiastes. He's more like a novel, more the way an Eastern mind would think about it.

Now, one thing that I put on your bulletin today, if you picked up a bulletin, if you didn't, you might want it afterwards 'cause this will be a little bit different for you. On the back section where it has notes, essentially what I've tried to do is take what Solomon has said in the first three chapters of Ecclesiastes and give you kind of a Western summary of what he's actually saying. There's a reason God doesn't give us that to start with. That's because Solomon wants you to hear the story and wrestle with the feelings that he's talking about.

When Solomon says, "Vanity, all is vanity," he's really not communicating like a textbook, right? He's not saying, "Here is exactly what all of these things are worth. They're worth this, and it's not." He's not doing that. When he says, "I think it might be better, seeing all the injustice and oppression, it's better for the person who's never been born," is he really wanting you to have a premise that says, "Okay, Solomon is making a specific comment about unborn people," or is he wanting you, like a novel, to feel the weight that says, "This is hard"? That's his real point.

So I want to, and I wanna briefly, because it leads us into our section today, I'm gonna talk through that Western summary a little bit. So if you have your bulletin, you can follow a little bit along there. Uh, if not, that's fine, or if you wanna get up and grab one, you can go get up and grab one too. That's okay.

Ecclesiastes' Foundational Premise

Jed Gillis: If you were gonna say a foundational premise, he says we as humans long for certain goals, like meaning in our lives, like purpose, like safety, like connection with other people, like legacy, something that outlives us, like joy. We, we long for certain goals. And for each of those goals, for it to feel like real lasting gain, it needs to be at least somewhat unlimited.

I want to, I'm gonna illustrate what I mean. If your goal is safety, if I tell you, "Yes, you can have your goal of safety for the next week," probably most of you don't go, "Oh, good. I have safety." Most of you are like, "Wait, for the next week? What happens next Monday?" Right? The, the whole point is if you shoot for safety and somebody tells you, "Well, you have safety from all of your friends and your enemies who don't live in Knoxville. You're perfectly safe from them, I promise," you see, that limit ruins it, doesn't it? You start saying, "What about my friends who are in Knoxville or my enemies who are in Knoxville?"

As soon as you take a goal like that, you say, "Your life can have meaning and purpose, but only for the next 10 years, and after that, none of it matters at all, that doesn't solve what we want, does it? Because when I say I want meaning or purpose, I mean more than just I want a purpose for this moment. I mean I want a purpose that actually matters. I mean more than I wanna be safe right now, I want safety that lasts. So we long for these goals, but they don't feel like gain unless they're unlimited, at least in some senses.

We pursue these goals through various means. Solomon's given you some. I listed some on your bulletin. Knowledge, pleasure, achievement, wealth, work, relationships. We could keep going. And you can take each one and put a goal with a means.

So you could say sometimes I pursue safety through knowledge. Sometimes I pursue safety through wealth. That's-- we call them savings accounts because we save to get them and also because we feel safe when we have them. We take these means and we pursue a certain kind of goal.

Here's the problem Solomon brings up. All of those means, knowledge, joy, achievement, wealth, work, relationships, all of those means are limited. You go, "I'm gonna pursue it through knowledge." Well, nobody knows everything, and there might be something out there you don't know that really changes the way you view life. You say, "I will pursue purpose in life by accumulating wealth so that I can get the things I want and have joy."

I was reading some-- I, I read an article, the headline was something like, "Even billionaires have things they can't buy." And he didn't mean like you can't buy happiness. It was like this... It was some interview with a billionaire who said, "Oh, I can't just go buy a $400 million yacht," or something like that. There's a limit. All of our means are limited, but all of the goals we want need to be unlimited for us to find satisfaction and fulfillment in them.

That's the problem Solomon keeps pointing at. So what Ecclesiastes is doing is saying, if that's true, if you have goals that you in fact are too limited to guarantee that you get them, like meaning and purpose and safety, then instead, the problem isn't in the goals. He never said the goals were bad.

Which by the way, if you haven't heard me say that, I wanna make sure. Solomon doesn't say safety is a bad thing. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say meaning is a bad thing or purpose or joy. In fact, he says the opposite. Joy is a wonderful thing. Pleasure is a wonderful thing. Solomon never says the goal is the problem. Solomon says there's a problem in the way we pursue the goal, and that is we have a fundamental, like we, we just tend towards depending on ourselves to control the outcomes to make sure we get the goal. The goals are good.

Even the means Solomon talks about, at least for the most part arguably, through the book are good means. Knowledge is a good thing. Achievement is a good thing. He praises good hard work. He says these are all good. The problem is I want to use these means to get this goal, and I want to rely on myself to make sure I can get there. Which is what I have been saying when I use words like control. I want to control my life to make sure I am safe like this. I want to control my life to make sure it's lasting and meaningful. I am the final guarantee that that happens.

And Solomon says every time we act like that, like I am the final guarantee of my desired goal, we find frustration and anxiety and dissatisfaction, or what he calls chasing after wind, striving after wind.

We cannot control life. We know it if we stop and think about it, but we still spend a lot of our time trying to. We cannot secure the future. Sometimes people talk about having a fear of the unknown, and I think we just forget how much is actually unknown. I don't know that I will walk out of this building. Not planning on passing away on stage. But I don't know, and you don't. We assume it because it happens so often. That's not the same thing as knowing it. There's so much that we don't know. We cannot make our brief, fleeting life carry the weight of eternity. It's not meant to do that.

So instead, what Solomon's doing over and over, and he'll get more to this later in the book, he says, "If you receive these things, these gifts, knowledge, joy, productivity, work, if you receive them as gifts as you trust in a good God who gives them, then all of these things become real sources of joy even in a fallen and limited world."

Solomon says, "Enjoy all these good things, but if you think it's going to guarantee and make you a master of your life, you're sadly mistaken and you'll be frustrated. But really enjoy them. They're not ultimate, they're gifts, but gifts are best enjoyed when you receive them from a giver, when you recognize the giver gave this to me.

Talking with a brother who's, who's not here today, he shared a, a previous sermon series he'd heard, and someone illustrated it this way. They said, "If a husband comes home on Valentine's Day with a dozen red roses, there's three ways the wife could respond to that. Probably more. Three big categories.

She could respond and say, "You got me flowers. I don't care." She throws them in the trash can. "I just want you And the husbands are like, "That's not really what I meant. I mean, I appreciate it sort of, but it's not really what I meant."

She could go, "Oh, these flowers are so wonderful," and not pay attention to the husband the rest of the day 'cause she stares at them. Again, not the point.

Instead, the husband wants her to enjoy these flowers as a token of his love, as a way of enjoying that he's the one who gave them.

Solomon is driving us at that and saying, "God has given you knowledge. He's given you relationships. He's given you work. He's given you energy. He's given you all of these things. So don't be like, "Well, forget that. I just want God." It sounds all spiritual. That's not what Solomon's pushing us to.

Don't say, "Oh, money, knowledge, all, all these things, that's what really matters. Forget God." Instead say, "These are good gifts from God. They're limited. They don't guarantee that I walk out of here today under my own power, but they're really good gifts, so enjoy them.

That's what Ecclesiastes is doing so far in the book.

Reading Ecclesiastes 4

Jed Gillis: And we get to chapter four. Solomon's gonna give you a little bit of a different summary, similar, a little different summary than what I just did in verses four through six. Let's read together. "Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind."

In those three verses, he is in some ways pointing back to a summary of what he's done so far, and he's going to remind us that control or self-trust in the way that we're pursuing these goals, trusting that I'm the ultimate guarantee, control and community are connected.

Grasping for Control with One Hand or Two?

Jed Gillis: Now, the first place he goes in verse four sounds a little weird to us. It can sound like Solomon, are you saying all work is bad 'cause it comes from envy? Like that's-- is that how it works? That's what it sounds like for sure, so we have to wrestle with that. Before we look at verse four though, let's look at five and six 'cause I think it explains the context of what he's saying.

Solomon's using this picture of, of a handful of something to represent your efforts and your control. So he uses it when he says you have the fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. So the fool says, "I'm not going to work to get any food," and he ends up consuming himself and dying of starvation in the picture.

The same thing happens in Proverbs. Solomon uses a similar thing. He says, uh, the, the sluggard, the lazy person won't even pick up the food and bring it to his mouth, so he starves. It's the same kind of picture. He says the fool doesn't have one handful of anything. In other words, right now you could get to the point you could say, "Well, if I don't control my life through knowledge or through work or through productivity, if that doesn't control my life, why do it at all?"

Solomon knows you might make that conclusion. That's why he says the fool doesn't do any of that. He just folds his hands and finds himself, he consumes himself.

The flip side of that picture isn't the fool, but we could say our modern word is the workaholic. It's described at the end of verse six, someone with two hands full of toil and striving after wind.

So everything you do, I'm gonna control this in my life. I'm gonna make sure I, I'm more productive than anybody else. I'm gonna make sure I achieve in the corporate ladder. I'm gonna make sure my kids turn out exactly the way I want them to. I'm-- And there's two hands just grasping it all the time That's the workaholic with two hands full of toil. And this isn't just about food. It's about all the means Solomon has been talking about.

One of my kids who will go nameless has jokingly, I'm pretty sure he was joking, said about this Ecclesiastes series towards the beginning, I said something like, "Knowledge brings sorrow." You can imagine where a student goes with that. "Why do we do school? I just get more sorrow." Not the point. But you can understand why you would think that way.

That's what Solomon's doing here. He's saying, "No, the point isn't to throw it all away. The point is to intentionally," if you use your hands to represent the way you pursue things in life, instead of I'm gonna get it and make sure it's exactly right. No. Instead of, well, forget it, I just won't try. Whatever happens, happens.

He gives you this picture in verse six. "Better is a handful of quietness." I'm gonna, I'm gonna say I really don't like that translation on a, on a small thing. A handful with quietness is probably a better translation. Some of the other translations use it that way. Can work either way, but a handful with quietness, the idea is pursue knowledge, pursue productivity, pursue relationships. It's okay. Pursue money through good God-honoring means. Yes, pursue those things with one hand. Not trusting I've got it. But I have peace as I pursue this. Better to have one handful with quietness, with peace, than to have this kind of striving two-handed toil.

I wrote originally in my notes, "The workaholic tries too hard," and then I realized that's not it. So don't hear it that way. I'm not saying the workaholic works too hard. Solomon's not saying that. He's saying the workaholic trusts the wrong thing. He, he trusts too hard in the wrong thing. It's not that he tries too hard. Solomon's not saying, "Don't work too hard." It's not moderation like that. It's saying, no, intentionally. Notice the language, one handful and then peace also.

He's not saying, "If you work too hard, that's two hands, so work less and try to find that sweet spot in between that and laziness." That's not how it really is working. What he's saying is intentionally in your soul, take steps to say, "I am pursuing knowledge so that I can s- have success in life," but I'm also orienting my soul to say, "But my trust is in God so that I have rest."

That takes work. It doesn't just mean you work less, it means you intentionally bow yourself in trust before God. That's by the way why he does in verse four when he says, "All toil and all skill." Admittedly, this is a hard verse to translate. Commentators go back and forth on a lot of things here. He could be saying simply kind of what it looks like, well, every kind of skillful work comes from envy, and he's making this kinda obvious overstatement because Solomon was skillful in his work. He's not saying it's bad to be skillful in work. So commentators can wrestle through it that way.

I think with the context, and you can wrestle through this yourself, I think with the context, the best way to understand it is when he says all toil and, and forget the other word he uses in verse four, all toil and skill, when he puts those together and then goes on to explain in the next, I think he's talking about this kind of two-handed striving. So every time we go, "No, I'm gonna get it and I'm gonna figure it out," that comes from envy.

I think instinctively we would know this if you, if you have a workplace context and you have the guy who's just, he's driven. "I am going to be the best person in this job. I'm gonna make sure I get the highest promotion, and I'm gonna get it before this other guy," right?

So that kind of striving, that kind of grabbing toil comes from envy. I'm gonna beat him. Solomon's saying that's not good. The two-handed kind of I'm gonna control this. So I wanna, before we move to the next section Is your life characterized by two-handed grasping? Or by I'm gonna pursue these good things and recognize I need the peace that only God gives?

Is your soul okay if you don't get the promotion? Is your soul okay if your best parenting efforts don't turn out quite the way you wanted them to? That's gonna take work because we all go, "No." There's something in your life you wanna hold onto with both hands. And Solomon says you're gonna find frustration if you do that. So intentionally go, "I want the grace and peace that God gives.

Two-Handed, Envious Striving Hurts Your Relationships

Jed Gillis: And in this context, as he goes to talk about community, he's reminding you that kind of two-handed grabbing, striving hurts community because of envy is where he goes first.

It hurts your relationships. Where does-- I phrased it a minute ago like you, you'd say some of us would have two-handed and some of us would have one-handed. No, the reality is we all battle and have this temptation, and we all have to come back to this posture. We all have that.

So where does your two-handed striving impact the people around you? Especially if you work outside the home and you have stresses in your job, and you go, "I've gotta make sure I accomplish all of this stuff so that the bosses are pleased, so I get the promotion, so that I get the bonus." You're doing all that stuff. Do you ever come home and be slightly less than godly towards those in your family? Or maybe a lot less than godly? We've all been there. You, you're talking with somebody in your family and you're so desperate to control your safety and your reputation with both hands that they say something and you instantly respond with defensiveness . Why? 'Cause I'm grabbing right here as hard as I can, and they threatened it. Now my striving is impacting that community, that relationship. It happens over and over and over again.

So I want to encourage you, be intentional. Make a plan about how you can cultivate this posture of your soul that pursues good things, but to you-- I love Solomon's picture. Admittedly, it's a little less Western and a little more novel.

But the picture, I wanna pursue these good things as hard as I can, but with one hand here while I'm also holding peace from God and trust in Him.

I wanna give you a specific example of something I did this week a couple times to try and put this into practice in my life. Might look like this for you, it might look like something else, but I wanna encourage you, make a plan to do it. 'Cause by default, you're gonna grab with both hands, or you're gonna be the fool going, "Never mind, I just won't do anything."

So one thing that I did this week, a couple times I got to the end of my work day, I'm sitting in my office. If you know where I live, it's a 48-second commute. It's not really a long enough time to unwind. So I'm sitting there and a million things are running through my head, and I intentionally just said, "I'm gonna take out a little notepad, and I'm gonna jot down all the anxiety things, the things that I want to grab and control right now." For me, I intentionally wrote them down, closed it, put it in my office, and walked out.

Now, could I carry those things with me in my mind when I walked out? Of course. But I did it personally as a step to say I want to, because I was studying this too, and God works on me all week in preparation. Because I want to say, "No, I'm pursuing these good things. I do want them to turn out a certain way," but I intentionally go, "God, you work in this. It doesn't depend on me." And I don't want my two-handed striving to come out in short-temperedness with my family when I get home or distractedness, preoccupation.

You could do it like that. You could do it like a million other ways, but intentionally cultivate this posture that says it's not me controlling everything, but me pursuing good things and trusting God for those outcomes.

Community Gives Purpose to Our Work

Jed Gillis: So that thought that this two-handed striving breaks community, Solomon knows what we could do is say, "All right, if I fight and claw to make sure I'm safe and productive and all these things, it's gonna destroy community." Some of us might say, "Do I really care if it destroys community?" Does community matter that much or is it really just, "No, I want the promotion even if it destroys community. I've got to make sure I'm in control of my life even if it hurts people"? We might think that.

So Solomon goes to praise relationships or community after this. You go to verse seven. "Again, 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 a vanity and an unhappy business."

He says-- Notice he doesn't just say if you have a son, but if you have a son or a brother. He's like, "You have nobody that you are going to benefit from all this work. You're trying to make sure you get all this money." He said, "Wait, I'm not doing it for anybody."

Community matters because it gives purpose. It's interesting. You know, we could say this too, by the way, from Ephesians when he says, "Let him who stole steal no more," but instead what? "Let him work so that he has to give." The same principle, which is that work is most meaningful, it's best, when it's pursued not for self, but for others.

That's what Solomon is pointing to us here. He says, "If you are only working so you can accumulate for yourself, that's not enough purpose and meaning to make worth ac- work actually worth doing." Instead, he says, "You can pursue it in a way that says..." So in this example, if he has someone who's a son or who's a brother, and he goes, "I'm accumulating these things so that I can give to someone else," that makes it a more meaningful proposition for him.

Community gives purpose for that work. When you say knowledge, I wanna have more knowledge so that I can just know how to help people better. Maybe you say, I'm gonna study in business, or you have someone who's a medical doctor. I wanna know more and more about medicine. Why? If it's only so you can make money, that's gonna feel really empty. If it's because I wanna help somebody...

people go through long education. Someone like Elijah Parkhurst over there who just finished his law degree. You know, why did he do that? And I've talked with him enough to know I can say this. Not so he can make money. So he can help people. That's what he wants. That's what we should all want.

That's what Solomon points to. He says, "Look, work is valuable if work is done for good reasons." If it's done out of this two-handed striving, no. So community relationships give purpose, the ability to do good, good for others.

Community Gives Better Opportunities

Jed Gillis: Look at verse nine, "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil." Community gives better opportunities. You might say, "I'm gonna go start out and run a business on my own." Good, and that's perfectly wonderful. But what if it's too much work for one person? Then you say, "I really need somebody else so we have better reward for our toil." Community gives us opportunities to work together to find better results.

Our two-handed striving tends to undermine community. I gave the example earlier, the guy who says, "I am going to get the promotion at all costs." Is that your favorite coworker? No, it's never your favorite coworker. I would even go far enough... Now, I realize sometimes this might be hard to see, but I'd even say if you have two guys who think like that, it is not going to work out best for the company.

What you want are two guys who go, "Yeah, let's work together and make this company better." And maybe you get the promotion and maybe I get the promotion, but we're trying to honor God in what we're doing and work together for this good. It's better for everyone. That's Solomon's principle here. He says community gives you better opportunities.

So in light of those two, I'd ask you two questions. The first one, why do you pursue the biggest achievements in your life? Is it for you or for others?

And how are you helping others to find reward for their work? For whatever they pursue, how are you helping others to make it better? Because Solomon says that's what relationships are supposed to do.

Community Gives Safety

Jed Gillis: And he goes on then to give you even a deeper reason for why community is important in verse 10 through 12.

"For if they fall," two people, "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, if 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. The threefold cord is not quickly broken." Community gives safety.

Now, I think we don't feel this as much in a modern world as an agricultural world did If you were going to go on a walk for 40 miles for a business proposition, you probably would say, "I don't know if walking by myself is the best plan." Especially if you're taking with you, you know, goods to sell or cash to buy with or something like that to, to barter. In their context, they felt that differently. We have this illusion of, well, I'm driving my car 40 miles, that's not a big deal. But especially in that context, community gives safety, and it still does.

Many of you, if I were to say, uh, "Let's go walk down Broadway into downtown Knoxville at 3:00 AM. And why don't you go do it by yourself and I'll meet you there? Some of you probably say, "Sure, fine, I can do that." But most of you would be like, "No, let, let's not." 'Cause we still know actually community gives safety.

Community Restores You When You Fall

Jed Gillis: So he gives you these three pictures. Community, relationships restore you when you fall. Now that's literally, in his case, you fell in a ditch and somebody helped you up, sure. But we can say not only just literally but metaphorically, when you fall, when you fall into sin, when you fall into despair, when you fall through your mistakes, when you fall from hurting somebody else, is there somebody there who can pick you up?

And yes, husbands and wives, you do that for each other, but you're not enough. You need more community than family.

Community gives you safety. That means how much you value community depends on how confident you are that you won't fall So somebody who says, "Well, I don't really need community," that just means you don't think you're ever gonna need somebody to pick you up when you fall. And that's a pretty arrogant place to be. I know I need it. I know everybody I talk to needs it. You could fall in a lot of different ways. Relationships, community is part of how God says, "This is the protection for you when you fall."

Community Strengthens You When You are Week

Jed Gillis: Not only does community restore you when you fall, it strengthens you when you're weak. Here's the picture. He says, "How can-- If, if one lies down, he's not gonna keep warm."

I'll read it the way it says, "If two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?" Again, that may sound weird to us, but if you're walking outside and it's cold enough, as much as it would be awkward, if it's cold enough, we're gonna huddle together for body heat. We know that, right? Why?

Because my body is not strong enough. If it's cold outside and I'm stuck outside, my body is not strong enough to produce enough warmth to keep me alive. In other words, there is a limit. There is a weakness of, of a limit here. Community relationships strengthen you when you are weak.

Sometimes you're weak and you say, "This week, this day has been really hard, and I don't know if I can get up and put another foot in front of the other. I don't feel like I have enough emotional energy to handle the next step in front of me." That's a weakness. It's not a sin, by the way, to be limited. That just means you're human. But God intends for relationships, for brothers and sisters around you to help in that weakness.

Community Protects You from Attacks

Jed Gillis: Relationships matter because they restore when you fall, they strengthen when you're weak, and then they protect when you're attacked.

A man might prevail against one who is alone. If you walk down Broadway by yourself and one person comes out trying to do you harm, they might succeed. If it's two people, they're less likely to try and less likely to succeed. If it's three people, it keeps getting less likely There's strength in numbers.

False Communities of the Modern World

Jed Gillis: So Solomon points you and says, "Community matters." Again, put it back in the big framework. Why is it that I don't strive for control with both hands in every area of my life? Because it hurts community. And if you're tempted to say, "Do I care about that?" 'Cause let me tell you how good community actually is.

We live in a digital world of people who long for community and who have a whole lot of fake communities. We can have our, our Facebook algorithm of all the people who agree with us. That's not community. That's seeing a snapshot of a bunch of people's lives. That's not actually interacting with each other in life.

You can watch content creators. My kids and I like to watch Mark Rober sometimes, does engineering videos on YouTube. And you watch enough of those videos and it can almost feel like you know Mark Rober. But I don't. He doesn't know anything about me, and I only know what he puts out. He can't help me when I fall. He can't strengthen me when I'm weak. He can't protect me if someone attacks physically or otherwise. I don't have community with him, but I can feel like it because I can see what's on YouTube.

We live in a world full of fake relationships, and we think somehow that we've succeeded in, in having community that we need.

Or the other thing we can do is we can think being around people automatically means we have community. We're all around each other right now. If we went around the room and I passed out a piece of paper and I said, "Just look at all of these faces and even just tell me how many of them you know their name. Some of you would do really, really well at that quiz. Others of you wouldn't, and I'm not, I'm not scolding you for that. I'm just pointing out that you can show up in the same place without ever having this kind of community.

Not only here, you can show up at a small group and not have this kind of community. You can even go have somebody in your house or go out to coffee, and if all that is is you showed up in the same place and talked about stuff that everybody knew anyway, and then you moved on, I would just ask, is it the kind of community where you can truly protect each other? Where you, when both of you are weak, 'cause that's the picture of keeping each other warm. It's not that one person has infinite warmth in them, the strong person helps the weak person. No, the picture is you're both weak and you help each other

Do you have community where you can protect others when they're attacked by, by people or when they're attacked and they're under spiritual attack? Spiritual warfare. Do you have people in your life who can really give you that kind of community? And are you doing that for them?

Cultivate Real Relationships

Jed Gillis: I wanna encourage you to make a plan to cultivate that kind of community, not just to show up and be in the same place, although that's a good start. To say, "No, I don't want just that. I want real relationships.

If you're married, make that plan with your spouse, who should be the closest community in your life, sure. And maybe that's not true for you right now. Okay? Make a plan to work towards it. Make a plan so that your relationship in your marriage or your family with your kids, that you're pursuing the kind of relationship that says, "When one of us falls, the other one helps restore them. Sometimes that doesn't work like that. Sometimes one spouse falls and the other one starts sniping. Shooting your wounded is a really bad plan.

Make a plan with your spouse, with your family to say, "This, this community in my family is one where we strengthen each other when we're weak. Not where I get irritated at you because you're weak. That's easy to do. Where we strengthen one another when we're weak. Where we protect when you're attacked.

If you're married, you know there are times that your spouse is under spiritual attack and you know it. If you're a believer in Jesus, the Holy Spirit knows how to communicate those things. You know they're under attack. So how do you help?

First, Pray

Jed Gillis: I would suggest if you want this kind of community, first, you must pray. Pray about those relationships, your family relationships, your church relationships. At every level, when you say, "I want this kind of real community," pray about it. Pray that it would be that kind of community. God, open my eyes when a brother or sister around me is teetering on the edge and about to fall. Help me stabilize them. Open my eyes when they have fallen. Help me restore them. Open my eyes when they're weak and let me not see it as an irritation, but as something I can help strengthen. Open my eyes when they're attacked.

God has to do those things because we're not just talking about random human relationships. We're talking about what Paul says in Ephesians, "Be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and God's Spirit has united us. You have relationships because we are in Jesus.

Now, how do I live them out like this? Pray.

Make a Plan

Jed Gillis: Plan to pursue this kind of community with others. That means there's opportunities. Showing up's not enough, but there are opportunities to show up. One of the things that we do here is we intentionally have a spot between our Berean Bible Institute classes and our worship service time. 10 o'clock, there's a lot of people who walk around out in the lobby and talk or sit in here and talk. You don't have to do it at that slot, but it is an opportunity to get in the same place as other people. There are things like small group or like Grace Marriage or things like Wednesday Bible studies.

But it doesn't have to be formal things we put together. Some of the best community I know of in our church happens when a brother or sister talks to somebody else and says, "Hey, let's go eat lunch. Let's go have coffee. Come over to our house, eat dinner." All of those are opportunities.

They're not enough by themselves. Being in the same place doesn't guarantee that you develop this kind of community, but be- not being ever in the same place does guarantee you won't. So come together, make a plan. Make a plan to connect with people in church times or outside of church activities, and then I want you to think about how am I going to practically pursue deeper relationships when we do get together?

Ask Deep Questions

Jed Gillis: Ask people questions. This, this sounds weird. I, I wrote it down this way and I thought that sounds weird, but I don't have a better way to say it, so I'm gonna say it anyway and you can just figure out how you wanna word it if it's better. You say, "I'm gonna meet somebody for coffee." Pray and think, how can I make that time a bonding time? Sounds weird, guys, I know especially. Sounds weird. How do I make it more than just we sat in the same place? Think about the kind of questions you can ask.

This will get awkward, but it'll also take you to a lot deeper que-- deeper relationship quickly. Ask things like, "Where have you felt weak lately?" 'Cause remember, we want the kind of community that strengthens in weakness.

Now, it's even better if you walk alongside them and you already know where they felt weak, so you try to walk with them in that. But at first, and you go, "I haven't done that with everybody." Where have you felt weak lately? What dangers have you felt lately?

If you know them better, maybe where have you fallen lately?

I know it feels weird and awkward. I know we might sit here and say, "I don't know how those conversations would go," and that's a little bit scary. Sure. But if you want the kind of community that is like Solomon describes, that's the kind of thing it takes.

Don't Pursue Community as an Abstract. Pursue People.

Jed Gillis: And in all this conversation, I wanna conclude with this specific point. Don't just pursue community as an abstract. Pursue people, specific people. I hear a lot of people who come to church, not necessarily Berean, different churches, people who say, "Well, I've been in a church and I tried to find community, and I just really didn't find it."

And sometimes you can ask them, "What did you do to try to find it?" That's a wonderful question that sometimes is difficult. But I've kinda stopped asking that. I would just say, "Can you list some specific people you've tried to connect with?" Because most of the time we want community broadly out there, this thing that would feel good for us. But when we start going, "No, I'm gonna go to lunch with Joe," that feels different.

So pray for specific people. Pursue specific people. You say, "I don't know who to pursue." That's okay. Ask God to show you. Try with somebody, and if you say, "This just really didn't work that well after a couple of times," try with somebody else. The body is full of different people. We don't all have to be each other's best friends. But we do have to all be part of the body building one another up in love. Ask God to show you how to pursue specific people and specific relationships, not just the idea of community.

And by the way, this isn't just within age barriers. Got a front row of young people up here. I know, good to see you. The front row of young people up here who needs some 65-year-old community. And I've got some 80-year-olds back there who need some 10-year-old community.

Yes, it's wonderful when you have people within your stage and you can relate and all that. Sure. Good. Pursue those. But pursue the kind of relationships where you strengthen each other when you're weak, you restore each other when you fall, and you protect each other when you're attacked. That's the kind of community that's worth it. That's the kind of community that says, "I'm not gonna try with both hands to govern my life. I'm gonna say, God, you know exactly how to put me with people, so I trust you. I pursue good things, and I want to love the community, the people you have put me with."

Closing

Jed Gillis: I'd encourage you, if you can take a minute to respond in prayer. If God uses His Word to point you to something, relationships, to peace, to specific ways that you can pursue that in your life, if God used His Word to do that, I would encourage you right now when you respond in prayer, try to come up with a specific way you can respond. I've listed some of them. You may have a million others. Don't let it be that you came in and said, "Yeah, that community sounds really good," and then you go out and just forget it.

Ask God to show you specific ways you, this week, leading into this month, leading into summer, you can pursue those kinds of relationships. I would encourage you, John mentioned our Wednesday schedule. I'd encourage you, one of the things we wanna do on Wednesday nights, we'll do it about every other Wednesday through the summer. You'll see more details on that. We're gonna have a time just to gather, to eat together, to pray and sing a little bit, and if you wanna hang out and play games afterwards or hang out and talk afterwards, you can stay as long as you want to It's a great opportunity to say we could get in the same place.

How can we continue to grow real community with one another? So I invite you to respond to God in that, and then we'll sing together to close.