Pastor John here welcoming you to our service. You know, one of the character traits of our early nation was the rugged individualism that caused us to move out into the frontier and experience new experiences and expand our nation. It was a great thing, but the question is, was it a good thing? We may find the answer today as we look at the second half of the chapter four of Ecclesiastes. This is part five of Catching the Wind. I'm going to ask you to turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 4. We're going to be in verses 7 through 16 this morning. Again, I saw vanity under the sun. One person who has no other either son or brother, yet there's no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, from 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 can 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 will not quickly broken. Better was a poor and wise youth from 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 to 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 the wind. Word of the Lord, brothers and sisters. Frederick J. Turner was an American historian, lived in the last part of the 19th century, the early 20th century. And he was primarily noted for an essay he did on the American frontier. And in that essay, he wrote that the national benefit of expanding our borders westward, you gotta remember we weren't the United States completely back then. So the national benefit of expanding our borders westward would foster what he called rugged individualism. And that would make our country great. And you know what? That's kind of been a philosophy of the United States for quite some time, rugged individualism. It sounds great, and Herbert Hoover rode that wave into the presidency, and his presidency was doing really great until the Great Depression came. Oops. And the whole nation found out that we needed each other to get through those hard times. It's truth. Rugged individualism is a great idea, only until trouble comes. And we find out that that philosophy can destroy the unity the nation needs. And if we allow it to creep into the church, it will destroy the unity that the church needs in order to walk in the calling that's been given us to be God's ambassadors. So at its very core, the concept of rugged individualism, of individualism itself, aside from some political implications it had early in the 20th century, tells us that we really don't need anyone else at all. That we can do this on our own. We can do it all by ourselves. It's a very worldly teaching, and it's a teaching that the teacher of Ecclesiastes would say was under the sun, apart from God. Last week we heard that the world can rob you of joy. This week we're going to find out that there's at least one other way that that can be done. The world teaches us that self comes first. And this is particularly strong here in the United States. I mean, our advertising and everything is geared towards how you can make yourself happy, how you can complete yourself. And it is self-defeating in our efforts to find peace and joy. That's what's in this coming passage. So this is Catching the Wind, part five. Our time in Ecclesiastes has been, for me, has been revealing. The book's written by a descendant of Solomon, somewhere in the fourth or fifth century, who was trying to warn a prosperous and upcoming generation of the dangers of being seduced by the material things in the world. So that descendant who calls himself preacher or teacher, he also calls Solomon the preacher or teacher, but he's using Solomon's fall from grace to describe life in a godless world. And the book calls this living under the sun. So I'm gonna keep telling you about this because it's endemic to what the book is teaching us. So in our last passage, we found out that the world was wicked, gasp, and oppressive, even more gasp, and filled with wicked people who were trying to satisfy themselves at the expense of the people around them. And it was happening everywhere, from the highest levels of the government all the way into the church. Can we sympathize with that? We heard of the hopelessness of a world without Christ. And the truth of the matter is that the emptiness of a world left in flawed human hands is overwhelming. And our only rescue from that can be found in Jesus Christ, who's promised to deliver us, to deliver all those who believe in him, from all this garbage that we see around us. And the key word here is us. The key word is us. God's people are meant to be a body. They're meant to be a family, a corporate entity that works together for the glory of God and for each other. And our passage carries this message deep within it. And what we're gonna see is that one is bad. I'm gonna make this simple, verses seven and eight. Two are better. verses nine through 11, and three are best, verses 12 through 16. So let's take a look at this. One is bad. And so the beginning of verse seven says, again, I saw vanity under the sun. Now this is Solomon reflecting on what he had just said in verses four through six about toil. He told us it's better to work than not to work. But he also warned us not to be consumed by our work, not to make it our highest priority in our lives. So he's going to use this better than phrase a couple of times in this passage to kind of amp up what he's trying to say. He reflects on our motivations and methods of working as we go forward. You're looking at what drives us, what motivates us, what keeps us moving forward, and what keeps us in our existence here under the sun apart from God. He starts out by saying there's no value in working alone. No value in working for our own selfish interests, our own selfish motivations. And here's what has occurred to Solomon, verse eight. One person who has no other, either son or brother. Now he's drawing a picture here. And the picture that we should be able to see in this is there's one person alone. There's no second person here. This person works by himself for his own personal motivations. So, and second half of verse eight says, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches. Now we're getting into the meat of what he wants to tell us. Here's the catch, this guy's highly motivated, that's not a bad thing, but he's never satisfied. He's never happy. He's always wanting more, always working to accumulate more. He always wants to get to the next level. And then once he gets there, it's the only thing that he's thinking about is the next level. Now, I've tried to be honest with you about my career. Because when I started out my career, I quit school because the tops and bottoms place I was working for offered me $175 a week. I'm in the big bucks. This is amazing. And I thought, if I just make $250 a week, that'd be fantastic. Well, I got there, and that was fantastic. And I thought, I don't know. I wonder what it's like to make $500 a week. And every level I reached, all the way up through the end of my secular career, where there were six figures coming in, all I could think about was, I wonder what it's like to make seven figures. And so I was never really satisfied with where I was. And you know what? I read this and I go, that's me. All I was thinking about is the next level. All I was working for was to get more. I don't know if you can sympathize with that or not, but it's something to think about, isn't it? This guy is never satisfied. So he never slows down to think about what he's doing and why he's doing it. And it says, so they never ask, for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure? This also is vanity and an unhappy business. So the net result of all this is that there's no joy. There's no never achieving the happiness that he thinks he's working for. Solomon knows this from personal experience, and he's learned that one is bad. But he's also learned that two are better. Verse 9, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. Now back in verse 6 of chapter 4, we saw that more is not better when it comes to material things, earthly possessions. Now when we're looking at personal relationships, we hear that more is better. Now when we're looking at personal relationships, we hear that more is better. It's better to be with someone, working at the things around us, than it is to be toiling alone. Now, if we're not careful, we could let this be about marriage, but that's not what the teacher's talking about here. He's not talking about finding a mate. He's talking about living in the world. The one he's talking about is the one who works alone. the one who is focused on producing more and more. Solomon's saying that it's better to have someone to share your life with than to do it alone. The idea being that there's plenty enough to go around, so let's don't hoard things. Let's don't keep things to ourselves. Let's share the joy of the fruit that's being produced. That's a good thing to think about, but he gives us three more reasons to work alongside each other. Verse 10, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. Now, this is a cultural thing. In the Mideast, travel was dangerous, particularly on dark nights. There were hazards that the roads, a lot of the roads ran along the top of cliffs because that was safe. You could see down below if anybody was chasing you or after you, you could see. But there were valleys up there as well. And down there in the valleys, there were pits and holes. If the moon wasn't out, it would be incredibly dark and easy to fall off a cliff or stumble into a hole. And if you're by yourself, you might not be able to get out. Now you could wait till somebody comes along, but how do you know the wild animal's not gonna fall in a hole with you? Then you got a real problem. So a matter of fact, it says, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. So it's good to have some help when you need it. It's really saying it's good to have help all along, but sometimes you may find out that you desperately need it. Now, here's another example with cultural significance, verse 11. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? Back then, folks didn't travel with luggage. They didn't have their suitcase dragging behind them with little wheels on it. They didn't have backpacks. So they weren't nearly as efficient in putting things in packages as we are. So when they traveled, they traveled with precious little. They'd have maybe one set of clothes. And they would have a set of clothes and a cloak. Now if you had a donkey, you could ride on the donkey. You could take a minimal amount of provisions with you. But whatever form of travel you used, you just didn't have a whole lot of stuff with you. And the nights were cold. And there was no shelter. There's no hotel that you can check into to get out of the elements. So people would lie together, and they would combine their cloaks, and their combined body heat, and the extra cloak would usually be enough to ensure some sort of decent night's sleep. The point our teacher's trying to make is that two are always better than one when we're navigating the trials and joys of life. Well, if two are better, then three is best. We see that starting in verse 12. And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. Another travel reference, another cultural reference that we might not understand all that easily, but away from the city, travel was dangerous. I mean, there's no state highway patrol officers patrolling up and down the roadways. You get out of the city, you were on your own. There were thieves and robbers and beasts and a lone traveler very seldom stood a chance of getting where he was going to go if he wasn't really careful. That's what happened to the traveler in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10. He was by himself and he got overwhelmed. A bunch of people attacked him. He ends up in the ditch. But when people traveled with a companion, they were far less likely to fall under attack and more able to defend themselves. Even better than that, and emphasizing healthy relationships here, what the author is trying to say is don't limit your relationships to just one person. There should be other people in this relationship. Solomon says a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. Think about this. In ancient Palestine, ropes were valuable, and they were very difficult to make. Breaking a rope was a tough loss. There was a lot of repair going into fixing it. So shepherds and farmers would twist two ropes together, and it would make that rope twice as strong. It didn't take him long to find out that if you added a third rope to that, the strength of the rope became exponentially stronger. So now you had what we would call today a cable. And the image that we should see here is that two is very good and three is much better. And if you want to increase your strength, you just keep adding more. The reference to wealth and material possessions, more is not necessarily better, but in relationships, the more you have, the better it gets. So our teacher kind of puts a code in all this in the form of another story, another image that he paints for us. Starts in verse 13. Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice. So here what we see is an old king He's foolish. Why is he foolish? He no longer takes advice. We don't know what happened to his advisors. He might have fired them. He might have just executed them. That's how things went back then. Maybe he's prideful. Maybe not. More probably, he's one of those people that thinks that no one can do it as well as he can, so he might as well just do it by himself. And so, he sits on his throne alone. He's by himself. Meanwhile, there's a young guy standing off in the corner. This young guy is the king's successor. He's watching the king. He's learning from the king. And he really doesn't have anything to do until the king dies. And until the king dies, he's confined to his corner. He's in an odd type of a prison. In verse 14, for he went from prison to the throne, though in his own kingdom he had been poor. He had nothing until he became king. And then when he became king, he had everything. And he's a good king. Verse 15, I saw all the living who move about under the sun, along with that youth who was to stand in the king's place. And what we see is he's got a vast kingdom. But look at this, he's under the sun. Once again, we're talking about a vast kingdom that is godless and apart from God. Verse 16, there was no end to all the people of whom he led. He led the people. He didn't dominate them. He didn't rule over them. He worked with them. He became a good example. He literally had a presence among his people. That's what the wording says here. In short, he wasn't alone like the king before him. And then we see this, yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a striving after the wind. Yikes. This is one of the good guys. He's a good king. He's a great king. Under the sun is the key phrase. All the wisdom and all the popularity and all the kingdoms in the world are just trying to catch the wind without God. So three or more are best, great philosophy, but without God's presence in the relationships. Without God's presence in relationships, that best is only temporary. It is fleeting, and it amounts to nothing. Okay, are you encouraged yet? Isn't this fun? Let me just go over what we just saw. One is bad. And we see that idea, you know, to link this to the New Testament, we see that whole concept in the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Zacchaeus was chief tax collector in his region. He would have been extremely wealthy. He would have had everything he wanted. But to get there, he would have had been ostracized by the Jews. They would have viewed him as a traitor and a defector. One who took advantage of them in order to to acquire riches and position for himself Now you would think that would be yeah I mean if that's all he wanted was wealth and everything that he'd probably be okay if you know well if my people Ostracized me at least I got the Romans, but the Romans would see him as a lackey He was a dog used to do their dirty work Zacchaeus was wealthy But he was alone He was alone. He was alone until Jesus came along. It's an incredible story. Jesus came along and reached out to him. And it didn't take very long with Jesus Christ for Zacchaeus to realize that his wealth was not nearly as vital to his existence as he had thought. He repented. He vowed to give it all back. even with some more added on. Christ was the remedy for Zacchaeus' rugged individualism, for him being out there on his own. Not only that, as Christ drew close to him and showed him that he had a need for salvation, not just salvation, but fellowship and union He realized that that need that he had deep down inside was greater than his need for the things that he was trying so hard to accumulate. Zacchaeus learned that two is better. And there's some good common sense here, but the deeper lesson on two is better goes all the way back to creation. All the way back to Genesis 2, right after God creates the man. He said, it's not good that the man should be alone. What happens next? Anybody? He brings the animals to him, the name. What? Not good for you to be alone. I'm going to make you a helper. He brings the animals in the name. God doesn't form the woman, not just yet. Man needs a helper, but God, God is the one who meets the need for the man to have a relationship. And all that happens while the man's naming the animals. I mean, Adam lived in a 24-hour day. How long did it take him to name the animals? I don't know, months, years? Typical man. Oh, platypus, rhinoceros, cat, dog, bug, how many of these things you got? Eventually, God makes the helper, but the lesson is that it's better for the man not to be alone, and it takes another 4,000 years for God to send his son, Jesus Christ, who says he and those who believe in him will become one. Did you catch that? The ultimate expression of two are better than one. He says we'll become one and you will never be alone again. You'll never fall down without somebody to help you get up. Well, three is best. And our teacher keeps getting back to the same point. Unless God is a prime component in these relationships and the goals and the material goods and everything, it's meaningless, it is vapor, it has no value. More people is a good thing, but only God's presence can make it a meaningful thing. Brothers and sisters, the world teaches us that self comes first. Yet our passage tells us that one is not a good thing. Not in the long run, it's not good for man to be alone. Being paired up is better. But that only points to the truth that union with Christ is a very good thing and is actually the very best thing. And if we understand that, then we should understand that our union with him brings us into relationship with each other. And we become a vast army of soldiers for God's purposes, for God's calling in this world. You see, these lessons are not about making a bunch of friends. Any of us can do that. That would be a good lesson for those living under the sun, apart from God. These lessons are about being in community with God. With God is the central focus. These lessons are about what we would call today the church. If we can embrace that, if we can forsake this concept of rugged individualism, give up this idea that our lives are all about us being first and everyone else second or last. Give up the idea that God has done all this to satisfy me, to complete me. If we can walk in that biblical truth, that our call is to treat others as more significant than ourselves, if we can see that Jesus showed us the way by humbling himself on the cross and showing that he was willing to do what no one else would, put everybody before himself. Then, brothers and sisters, we will become the strongest, thickest cable the world has ever seen, strengthened not just by our numbers, but by the presence of God among us. Let's pray. Father, we give you thanks for that picture of the unity you have blessed the church with. We pray, Father, by your wisdom, by your strength, by your guidance, by your comfort, by your keeping, Father, by your conviction, that we might be able to walk in that unity. Not to strive for it, Father, but to recognize that it's already there. All we have to do is embrace it and become the body, the family, the army that you've designed us to be. Help us, O Lord, to set aside our differences. Help us, O Lord, to point outward rather than inward. Help us, deliver us from self-righteousness, Father, from pharisaical behavior and into the grace and mercy and love that you designed us to be vessels of. And we pray this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We also pray, Father, you would bless the hands that have prepared a meal for us downstairs. What a beautiful example of what we just heard. People toiling away, not for their own benefit, but for ours. So we pray your blessing on them, your blessing on our food, and your blessing on our fellowship for this brief time that we have together. We offer that prayer up as well in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so thank you for tuning in. We'll be back next week with part six of Catching the Wind. We're gonna go downstairs and have lunch, but here's what we're gonna do. We just had new members. We're going to invite them to go first and their guests. So we wanna be able to honor them and thank them for becoming members of the church. Then we'll all go behind them and grab everything except the meatballs. Pastor John back here again. If you are blessed by the service, let me ask you to do us a favor. Would you click on the like button below that little thumbs up? If you're listening on Sermon Audio, perhaps you can comment or even share the sermon with someone else. We'd love to hear from you. We're on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter at WBFVA. We're on the World Wide Web at WBFVA.org. Let us know if you'd like us to pray for you. If you'd like to support us financially, you can make donations through our website at WBFVA.org. Just click on giving. You'll receive a tax deductible receipt at the end of the year. Either way, we would love to hear from you or even have you visit us in person one Sunday. We meet at 46 Winchester Street in downtown Warrington, Virginia at 11 o'clock every Sunday morning. And now, may God bless you richly until we gather again.