In this powerful sermon, Wes Hebert addresses what he calls “the loneliness pandemic” – a crisis affecting more than 60% of Americans and up to 79% of younger generations. Drawing from Ecclesiastes 4:1-6, he explores how isolation intensifies our suffering, undermines our work, and ultimately erases even our greatest achievements. Hebert demonstrates that this modern epidemic isn’t new at all; the Bible has been diagnosing this condition for thousands of years with the profound declaration that “it is not good for man to be alone.” Through personal stories, contemporary research, and biblical wisdom, this message reveals how genuine community within the church and communion with God through Christ provide the dual remedy we desperately need. Whether you’re struggling with loneliness or seeking to be part of the solution for others, this sermon offers practical insights for finding and creating meaningful connection in our increasingly disconnected world.

“Happiness is only real when shared.” – Christopher McCandless (cited by Wes Hebert)

“It is not good for man to be alone… If that was true before the fall, how much more devastating is loneliness now after sin has entered the world? After sin brought separation and isolation from God, introduced strife in relationships, futility to our work.”

“Here is where this loneliness pandemic finds its cure – in the communion of the saints and in the communion with God, our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

[00:00:19] Wes Hebert: There’s another pandemic today. I don’t know if you’ve heard, everyone’s like, oh no. But unlike COVID-19, it’s been spreading for far longer, affecting far more people and. Devastating. Deep down beyond physical realities to the human soul itself.

[00:00:43] Wes Hebert: Unlike the pandemic of COVID-19, this didn’t start in 2020, it’s been ravaging us for millennia

[00:00:53] Wes Hebert: as of 2023. 

[00:00:54] Wes Hebert: The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States with something around like 112 million. And with a population of about 340 million, that’s about a third of Americans having had COVID at some point. However, if the statistics are even close to Accurates, and we know as everybody’s aware, you can bend numbers to do whatever you want these days, but even if they’re in the ballpark, this pandemic is far more staggering in its scope than that of COVID-19.

[00:01:32] Wes Hebert: A study from 2020 revealed that 61% of adults struggle with this disease among millennials. To clarify that, we’re not adults, apparently that number jumps to about 71%, and then amongst Gen Z, it’s a crushing 79% Who experienced this? This pandemic that I’m referring to is loneliness. One study that goes all the way back to 2004 says that one in there’s only, uh, sorry, showed that only one in every four adults have somebody that they would consider a close confidant.

[00:02:22] Wes Hebert: Somebody that they can talk to about deep matters, what’s affecting them and things like that. But if those numbers are reality, and honestly, I think post pandemic, remember that was from 2020. It’s just gotten worse. Anecdotally, I’ve seen most of the folks that I know struggle with loneliness in some form or another.

[00:02:48] Wes Hebert: And this is isolation and separation we see in our own communities, not folks on a, some private islands remote and away from anywhere, but in our neighborhoods, our houses, our marriages, our friendships surrounded by people on all sides, but profoundly alone in our own experiences. 

[00:03:12] Wes Hebert: But this is the thing I find sobering and encouraging about God’s word, that the Bible knows the same world, that we know, these numbers and statistics that summarize our experience as the same experience we find in scripture, the Book of Ecclesiastes, as I hope you’ve seen over the last few weeks as we’ve been preaching through, it doesn’t describe the world as it should be.

[00:03:40] Wes Hebert: Some idealized view of wisdom in life, but instead as it is the groaning that we go through, and this includes, as the preacher has observed thousands of years ago, loneliness, something that resonates deeply with us today. 

[00:04:02] Wes Hebert: So as we look through Ecclesiastes four this morning, I want us to see how the preacher.

[00:04:08] Wes Hebert: Diagnoses this ailment and points us towards the cure for it.

[00:04:17] Wes Hebert: And I want us to see the main point that the preacher’s trying to make in this passage is an all too familiar one. It’s not good for man to be alone because we were created for communion. So let’s look here at these three pictures that the. A preacher has painted for us of how loneliness, devastates human life, whether it’s in the context of pain and suffering or working or achievement, isolation just makes everything worse.

[00:04:55] Wes Hebert: So here in verses one through three, we have our first picture where we see loneliness, amplifying. Or ex exacerbating pain and oppression, those who are suffering under the hands of others, read what he says here. He says, again, I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun reflecting on three 16 through 22 and behold the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them.

[00:05:26] Wes Hebert: I mean, it comes as no surprise that oppression is a terrible thing. The preacher makes that point clear in the previous section where he observes that even in the places where justice and righteousness should reign, there’s wickedness. He sees that humans for all their dignity as image bearers of God share the same fate as beasts.

[00:05:52] Wes Hebert: Death returns us all to dust, and who really knows what comes after. It is this sobering reminder that he paints that injustice pervades everything in this world, and our mortality just makes us vulnerable to it. We see oppression throughout history and even today could count. Number of examples, human trafficking, genocide, abuse, corruption.

[00:06:25] Wes Hebert: In places where justice should reign, there’s more injustice and wickedness. Even in our own nation, which I would argue has the best judicial system in the entirety of history, we still find rampant wickedness and injustice in the very places where God has ordained righteousness should dwell. But notice even with whatever picture of oppression you can visualize in your head, notice what the preacher says makes it all even worse.

[00:07:04] Wes Hebert: He mentions it twice in verse one. They had no one to comfort them. They had, there was no one to comfort them, the oppressed. They’re not only suffering, the preacher says. But the worst is when they cry their tears, and there’s nobody there to comfort them in the midst of it. I mean, just think about the last time you went through some sort of pain or difficulty.

[00:07:32] Wes Hebert: Maybe it wasn’t a terrible tragedy, but just a hard season of sorts. But regardless, in the midst of your pain and suffering, didn’t you long for somebody to come and comfort you? To hear your pain, to sit with you, to cry with you, even if they weren’t great at it. I mean, I feel like that’s my experience most of the time.

[00:08:00] Wes Hebert: None of us are professional counselors, but still having a body there that cares about me makes all the difference. It doesn’t just leave the problem unchanged. Being alone just amplifies the pain. It just makes it echo louder in your own heart and in your own head, which leads the preacher to a shocking conclusion in verses two to three where he says it’s better to be dead than to live in such isolated suffering.

[00:08:40] Wes Hebert: Better still, he says, than to have experienced evil at all and just never have been born. That’s how devastating the preacher says loneliness and suffering is. It can make even existence feel unbearable.

[00:09:03] Wes Hebert: Are you facing any suffering or pain this morning? If you’re doing it alone, the preacher’s words to you would be, don’t do it alone. Find somebody, pray with somebody. Spend time with a brother or sister in Christ. Let them know what you’re going through and do it together. It’s not good to be alone, but maybe you’re thinking this morning was, I’m not in crisis mode.

[00:09:33] Wes Hebert: I’m not in any time of trial or oppression. My life is just, is just existing. I’m just busy. What does loneliness have to do with my everyday lived experience? 

[00:09:52] Wes Hebert: Well, the preacher shows us in verses four through eight that isolation and loneliness not only, uh, amplifies our pain, but now it undermines. Our work and he shows us it in two ways.

[00:10:08] Wes Hebert: Work in isolation turns us into people who work against one another and work for ourselves. Looking here at verse four, then I saw that all toil and all skill and work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is a vanity and striving after wind. I have a question. How much of your work is driven by competition rather than collaboration?

[00:10:40] Wes Hebert: We see our neighbors success, our coworkers prosperity, and we just say, we want a piece of that. Or better yet, we want to have what they have, but only more of it. Envy, according to the preacher, creates isolation instead of loving our neighbor. We’re working against them. And this happens too in the church.

[00:11:09] Wes Hebert: We compare buildings and budgets and baptisms and that’s just breeds more competition in isolation even amongst the body of Christ. And I’ll say even as a new pastor that pastors are the worst at this. We compare our congregations to one another, our theological libraries to one another, our spaces, what have you.

[00:11:40] Wes Hebert: And instead of celebrating the successes of other churches, we just say, Lord, why not us?

[00:11:50] Wes Hebert: But all of it’s striving after wind. We’re just isolating ourselves from others by envying them rather than. Rejoicing with them.

[00:12:01] Wes Hebert: We should take verse six here to heart in all of this better as a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after win. This verse is essentially about a balance in our work, in our rest. Envy just makes that worst. Not striving to compete, but finding. Some rests in the things we do.

[00:12:28] Wes Hebert: The preacher says the fool folds his hands and rests too much, but the workaholic works too much. He’s constantly striving. Instead of hands folded, are two hands full of striving and toil. You need a little work and a little rest. And this is a challenge for me this morning. I mean, I’m preaching this and I’m like, Wes, physician healed thyself.

[00:13:00] Wes Hebert: But it’s a, it’s, it’s difficult for us because rest means trusting in something beyond us, and this is where this community aspect of loneliness comes in. When you take that rest, you’re trusting not only that God will do the work that he will do, but. That there are others in the church and in our communities who will just fill in the gap.

[00:13:28] Wes Hebert: But that only happens when we recognize that we are working for others and not just for ourselves. ’cause that’s one of the problems that the preacher addresses here in seven through eight. We isolate ourselves by working entirely for our own benefit. Look at seven through eight. Let me read those again real quick for us.

[00:13:52] Wes Hebert: Again, I saw a vanity under the sun. One person who has no other either son or brother, if 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. Here’s a man with unlimited earning potential, but his eyes are never satisfied.

[00:14:16] Wes Hebert: The preacher’s right. He’s so busy accumulating wealth and he never stops to ask why and for whom, and this is the case for so many today. Some of us are working so hard to succeed in our careers, in ministry, in life, on achievements that we end up isolating ourselves from the very people we should be enjoying our labors with.

[00:14:44] Wes Hebert: We sacrifice family dinner. For one more meeting. We skip fellowship with the body of believers so that we can just get one more project done.

[00:14:58] Wes Hebert: I see this so much with what’s we call what? What so many people celebrate the dink lifestyle. Have you ever heard this before? Dink dual income. No kids. Oh, I got two incomes to work off of and we don’t have to spend a dime on kids. Well, I have news for those kinds of folks. You can’t take it with you. It stays here.

[00:15:26] Wes Hebert: And that’s part of what he’s saying. He says they have neither son or brother. There’s nobody to pass the wealth to, to share it with. And so they’re left in isolation. And there may be those this morning that either are not married or. Are unable to have children and feel as though I, that somehow this text is leaving you.

[00:15:47] Wes Hebert: But remind us, and we will get to this later. We have an entire family here to share God’s blessings with in the church. But the preacher’s focus here is that when we work for ourselves and for ourselves only, and we’re left in isolation. It’s vanity and chasing after wind. There’s nothing to it. But he doesn’t leave us to just say, well, this is all bad.

[00:16:20] Wes Hebert: He gives us a better way. Instead of working for ourselves or working against each other, he tells us to work together. 

[00:16:31] Wes Hebert: Verses nine through 12, one of the most famous passages in probably all of Ecclesiastes 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.

[00:16:50] Wes Hebert: If two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who was alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. This is one of those passages that has become pretty popular, usually in the context of weddings. Some people have had it read at their weddings, and it’s a great wedding passage.

[00:17:19] Wes Hebert: One of the purposes of marriage is companionship, a lifetime companion to help you through this vain existence, and the preacher will celebrate marriage later in Ecclesiastes.

[00:17:37] Wes Hebert: And oftentimes this threefold cord is used to give us the context of it’s like, oh, it’s a husband, a wife, and the Lord. And those three woven together do make a strong bond. But marriage isn’t what the preachers focused on here. It applies to marriage, but he is not talking about marriage. He’s talking about the vanity of loneliness and the value of companionship.

[00:18:05] Wes Hebert: So if you are single in here this morning, you haven’t missed the boat for companionship. There are other ways to have companionship in this vain life under the sun, and we’ll get to what that can look like. The preacher’s saying that there’s benefits to being together. It says you can stay warm at night.

[00:18:32] Wes Hebert: Having three people in your bed might be a little weird today, but I don’t really recommend it. I mean, heck, I can share a bed with just Ezra and Christina and I’m, and on the floor,

[00:18:47] Wes Hebert: but the picture is supposed to be, again, we have to think of the culture that they’re in. It’s agricultural, it’s difficult, lots of physical working, and they don’t have heaters. So when you’re stuck in the middle of a cold winter, how do you become warm? They use each other’s body heat, and they’re working in the field.

[00:19:12] Wes Hebert: But just think about all the examples and the phrases we use in life. We understand this need for numbers, the more the merrier. Safety in numbers. Many hands make light work. We know that it’s better together. We know that it’s not good to be alone.

[00:19:39] Wes Hebert: The preachers observed it’s not good to be alone because this aloneness that he’s getting into kind of undermines our work. It robs us of relationships, but it also robs us of productivity protection. Participation with others. All of these things, when we work together, he makes it clear we have a better bounty two or better than one because they have a good reward, but we also have better backup.

[00:20:13] Wes Hebert: We find ourselves in a difficult situation and somebody comes upon us. He says two are gonna be able to stand up against an attacker. Better than one person. Three. It’s even un, it’s even more unfair, but that just applies to life in general, not just physical assailants. When we bind together as a church, we can take on the attacks of Satan in a way that we cannot do that alone.

[00:20:47] Wes Hebert: We work. Is better when we work together because it is not good to be alone, but the preacher’s not done. 

[00:20:58] Wes Hebert: He makes it clear, even if we do find ourselves productive and prosperous in 13 through 16, he makes it clear that loneliness erases our achievements. Even if you make it to the top, isolation’s gonna rob you of any lasting impact.

[00:21:20] Wes Hebert: Verses 13 through 16 essentially tell the story of some remarkable unnamed young man with some sort of zero to hero tale. He went from a prison to a palace and from poverty to power. I’m sure you can think of countless examples through history or culture, but in this case, he rules over a number of people.

[00:21:43] Wes Hebert: He’s achieved unprecedented success. But unfortunately the air was thin at the top where he lived.

[00:21:54] Wes Hebert: But even with all this success, here’s the crushing reality that comes here at the end. Yet those who come later will not rejoice in him. Despite what, whatever great wisdom he had and whatever remarkable achievements he had accumulated, he has forgotten.

[00:22:17] Wes Hebert: It’s been completely forgotten, erased by passing time as generations go on. I mean, we even see this in the last few years. When I was a kid, when you would talk about rags to riches, sort of stories, you’d hear of a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs, they were like the picture of success and wealth. But most of the Gen Z Gen Alpha kids that I like either work with or coach or anything like that, couldn’t tell the two apart.

[00:22:54] Wes Hebert: They wouldn’t even know which one’s gates, which one’s jobs. But today, oh, they’ll be able to tell you all the different things about Tesla and Elon Musk or Amazon and Jeff Bezos 25 years from now, who knows who’s gonna take their place. But their achievements are gonna be washed away too. No matter how much we accomplish, how many people we lead or influence, we will be forgotten is the essence of what the preacher’s saying here.

[00:23:29] Wes Hebert: But the isolation that comes with time, we’ll erase our achievements. So brothers and sisters, let’s not delude ourselves into thinking we’re somehow exempt from this reality. Success doesn’t insulate us from loneliness. It’s only going to intensify it. Isolation. As the preacher’s shown us this morning, intensifies the pain of the oppressed, undermines the work of every person, and erases the achievement of even the most successful among us.

[00:24:07] Wes Hebert: Simply put, no matter what stage of life you find yourself in isolations, inescapable in life under the sun, and it is not good for man to be alone. Now, I’m sure you’ve been recognizing that phrase, as I keep repeating it, the preacher isn’t offering some new idea. He’s stealing from Moses. In the words of in Genesis two 18, it is not good for man to be alone in Eden with everything good and perfect and complete harmony between God and man.

[00:24:51] Wes Hebert: Loneliness was the first thing that God declared not good. Even with a perfect relationship with his creator, Adam needed human companionship. Animals weren’t sufficient. Your dog as wonderful as he or she might be, is not adequate company. We need real relationships with real people, and I think it’s really important to emphasize the word real here.

[00:25:23] Wes Hebert: I see this so much now, especially, and I feel mostly with millennials, this scouring of. Para social relationships on social media or even now people who will break down over ai. There’s a fitness guy that I used to watch a lot of, he’s got some really PhD sports science guy. Uh, and I remember, hi hearing him on a podcast and this is when I kind of decided I need to listen to somebody new.

[00:25:57] Wes Hebert: Where he starts talking about, he’s like, he’s like, I’ve had these true deep spiritual conversations with chat GPT that have brought me to tears. And I’m like, this is not only him. There’s so many people who will find these deep relationships in things that aren’t real, but we need real relationships with real people.

[00:26:24] Wes Hebert: ’cause it is not good for man to be alone. If that was true before the fall, how much more devastating is loneliness now after sin has entered the world? After sin brought separation and isolation from God, introduced strife in relationships, futility to our work. If being alone wasn’t good in paradise, it’s downright devastating in a fallen world.

[00:26:57] Wes Hebert: And that’s the world the preacher’s observing. It’s the world that we live in. But the question I’m sure is in our heads this morning, well, if God’s looking over our loneliness today, what is he gonna do about it? What has he said about it? Well, it’s not good for us to be alone. And so he has offered two sources.

[00:27:26] Wes Hebert: Of communion for us. 

[00:27:29] Wes Hebert: First, we are created for communion with one another. God created us for fellowship with each other. The New Testament epistles are filled with that phrase one another, a number of commands that kind of formed the relational DNA of what it looks like to find fellowship in the body of Christ.

[00:27:57] Wes Hebert: At the heart of these commands is the one we find in Romans 13 to love one another, a debt that we continually owe to each other in Christ. This love expresses itself through bearing one another’s burdens as we see in Galatians encouraging and building up one another in First Thessalonians showing each other hospitality and service.

[00:28:24] Wes Hebert: Like one Peter, but they also call us to maintain unity by accepting one another, submitting to one another, bearing with one another’s weaknesses. And when our relationships break down as we know they will, we’re commanded to forgive one another and confess our sins to one another to restore one another gently.

[00:28:56] Wes Hebert: We’re called to speak truth and admonish one another with wisdom and grace. All of these things require we actually talk to one another. We need to spend time together, open up to other people, bury each other’s burdens, men. You need to be willing to share your struggles with other men, women. You need sisters in Christ with whom you can be honest and vulnerable.

[00:29:33] Wes Hebert: And that means actually spending time with people. And this is a word to the shepherds here at Christ community. This means that we need to be in and among the sheep. And this isn’t something I’m concerned with. It is just encouraging us to continue doing that.

[00:29:56] Wes Hebert: We want shepherds who smell like sheep, and I think that our shepherds do a good job of that. Like I just, I love, I love how often I hear from Paul spending time, grabbing breakfast, grabbing dinner, grabbing lunch, inviting people over. That’s just something that I, I want to strive in my own life. And that isn’t unique to just shepherds that view of hospitality.

[00:30:23] Wes Hebert: Right. I think another example for me is just the Woodbury’s. How many of you, when you bought your house, said I wanna buy a house really close to the church so that I can have people over as often as popple possible? We were there first. That’s why we built here. Yes. It is not good for man to be alone.

[00:30:50] Wes Hebert: God desires each of us to have companionship within the church so that we can support each other, defend each other, care for each other. But I’m sure some of you might be thinking, well, I’m married or I have some good friends, so I don’t really need relationships. And to that, I would say, who’s gonna be there for you when your family fails?

[00:31:13] Wes Hebert: Because that can happen. Who will be there when your marriage is struggling? When your spouse is sick, who can support you? It’s not about what you need’s, about what you can give too. There are others in the church that are struggling with loneliness. They don’t have the relationships you have who is gonna be there to help support them.

[00:31:43] Wes Hebert: This is why we as a church emphasize the call to love one another. This is why we have opportunities to do that. It’s going to look different at different churches, right? Valley Bible or Christ Redeemer, or too big to have everything on Sunday morning, but they have groups to gather in. We’re not big enough that we have that problem.

[00:32:07] Wes Hebert: If you’re not here on Sunday morning. Then you’re missing the opportunity to one another Together. As a church, we have opportunities for us to go deeper too. Wednesday nights, Sunday school, our anniversary celebration coming forward, I don’t really care so much about ministry programs so much as I care about the body of Christ doing what God calls a family to do one another.

[00:32:40] Wes Hebert: So in order to share in that joy of companionship as a church, we need to make time for it. You need to open up your lives so you can forge bonds of relationship to enable us to love and support one another as God calls us to do.

[00:33:01] Wes Hebert: Honestly, that’s if you read your no testament, that’s the one distinguishing mark of God’s people. They will know your Christians by our love for one another, knowing one another. Being in relationship with one another is a prerequisite to loving one another. So what is this gonna look like in your life?

[00:33:26] Wes Hebert: Well, it could be even if you’re more of a social recluse, inviting people over for dinner. If you’re unable to host people asking if you can join somebody for dinner, meeting with a brother or sister for coffee, to pray with one another,

[00:33:49] Wes Hebert: setting aside time on Sunday morning to check in and see how somebody’s doing, coming to Wednesday nights so that you can be encouraged in the middle of your difficult work week. Man actually opening up about struggles that you have and not trying to be the one with a stiff upper lip women confiding in other women and being a source of confidence for another woman striving to make our homes and whatever resources we have.

[00:34:26] Wes Hebert: Places of refuge for brothers and sisters in the church. The church isn’t just a collection of individuals who happen to worship in the same building, it’s the family of God and families spend time together.

[00:34:47] Wes Hebert: But for those of you who don’t know Christ, I wanna say this, the church can help you with the loneliness that’s in your life.

[00:35:01] Wes Hebert: You weren’t meant to go through life alone, and God has provided a community of believers as a place where real genuine relationships can grow and to flourish. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine. You don’t have to have it all together. You can come as you are and discover what it means to be known and loved through the church.

[00:35:30] Wes Hebert: And maybe you don’t feel like my comments here about loneliness and its devastation are really that potent. And so I wanna share an example, an illustration that I heard a few years back when somebody else was teaching this text. It’s a book by John Krakauer called Into the Wild. Maybe you’ve seen the movie, but uh, it tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, who was this brilliant young man, graduated from Emory University and kind of in his youth, and decided to do something shocking.

[00:36:14] Wes Hebert: He gave away all his savings and abandoned his car, and disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness to kind of find himself. Experience what he thought real life was all on his own. If you read the book, you’d see that McCandless is kind of running from society and relationships, kind of the meaningless conventions of modern life.

[00:36:39] Wes Hebert: He wanted complete solitude. He wanted to prove that he could make it alone, and so for months, he survives in the harsh Alaskan wilderness, living in an abandoned bus. Hunting and foraging writing in his journal about his solitary adventures. But after all this time alone in the wilderness, McCandless makes a discovery.

[00:37:06] Wes Hebert: Despite seeking solace to and believing he could find fulfillment in his isolation, he found that it was not what it was cracked up to be in his journal and what he wrote in large, desperate letters. Happiness only real when shared. Just think about that. Uh, after months of the most extreme solitude you could imagine, this young man discovers what the preacher of Ecclesiastes new thousands of years ago.

[00:37:40] Wes Hebert: It is not good to be alone. And if anyone’s ever been to Alaska. You know that there’s just this amount of beauty in the frontier there and in the Alaskan wilderness, but even in the greatest moments of wonder and beauty, you could imagine he feels hollow because there’s no one to share it with.

[00:38:07] Wes Hebert: And maybe at some point he could have come back to society. Maybe he could have reconnected with his family, made peace with his relationships. But at some point during his travels, he, the details aren’t a hundred percent sure, but we can, we can gather from his journal as he’d probably eaten some wild potatoes that were poisonous and his last entries at his journal are all about his weakening body and his desperate situation and no way out and that greatest moment of need, there was nobody to back him up, nobody to pick him up when he fell down.

[00:38:47] Wes Hebert: No one to rush him to safety and so he die alone in this abandoned bust, having learned the most difficult lesson of his life, that happiness is only real when shared brothers and sisters in this vain difficult world. We need God’s gift of companionship. Okay. We need to experience and offer the blessing of community so that when one of us falls, there’s somebody to pick us up so that when one of us is cold, there are others there to warm them so we don’t die alone, frozen in isolation.

[00:39:36] Wes Hebert: It’s not good for a man to be alone.

[00:39:41] Wes Hebert: But human relationships as wonderful and necessary as they are in God’s creation, can’t fill the deepest loneliness and isolation of the human heart. We were created not just for horizontal communion with one another, but vertical communion with God as well. But here’s the problem. As the Puritan author John Owen observes by nature, since the entrance of sin, no man has any communion with God.

[00:40:22] Wes Hebert: He is light and we are darkness and what Communion has light with darkness. He is life. We are death. He is love. We are enmity. And what agreement can there be between us? The deepest devastation of this pandemic isn’t just loneliness between people, but it’s separation and isolation with God himself. And no amount of human friendship can cure that.

[00:40:56] Wes Hebert: But the good news is that God has provided a way for communion to be restored with him. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the barrier between God and humanity has been removed. In Christ, we have fellowship with the Father and with one another. This is what John writes in his epistles.

[00:41:23] Wes Hebert: The life that is the life that we preach in Christ was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you. The Eternal life, which was with the father and made manifest with us. That which we have seen and heard. We reclaim also to you so that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the father and his son, Jesus Christ.

[00:41:52] Wes Hebert: Christ died in order to bring us to fellowship with him and the father. And that’s why, if you notice, it’s not the first Sunday of the month, but I have communion set up for us because that’s why we gather around the Lord’s table. We are celebrating our fellowship with God as we fellowship with one another.

[00:42:17] Wes Hebert: I love how Richard Baxter writes it. I read this in a JI Packer book. Where he says, nowhere is God so near to man, as in Jesus Christ, and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy sacrament.

[00:42:40] Wes Hebert: In other words, the closest we can get to God is through Jesus Christ and the closest we can get to seeing and feeling and touching Christ. Is through fellowshipping at the Lord’s table. In communion, we’re remembering that our deepest loneliness, our separation from God has been healed through the broken body and shed blood of our savior.

[00:43:08] Wes Hebert: We are created for communion with one another and with God in the church and in Christ, God has provided us both.

[00:43:22] Wes Hebert: Brothers and sisters here, we can find those who will walk through us through life With us, you can find and discover meaningful work done together. For God’s glory, we can be a part of something that will never be forgotten. And most importantly here we can find communion with God through Christ. Our deepest loneliness can be healed through faith in Jesus who died to bring you back to the Father.

[00:43:58] Wes Hebert: As we come to the Lord’s table this morning, we’re not coming as individuals, but as a community bound by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Lord’s table is a picture of our horizontal fellowship with one another, and our vertical fellowship with God coming together. 

[00:44:25] Wes Hebert: Here is where this loneliness, pandemic finds its cure in the communion of the saints and in the communion with God, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

[00:44:41] Wes Hebert: Join me in prayer as the elders come forward and we’ll participate in this together.

[00:44:54] Wes Hebert: Father, it is not good for man to be alone.

[00:45:04] Wes Hebert: Isolation just intensifies our pain. Undermines our labors, erases Our achievements

[00:45:19] Wes Hebert: enforces us to face life and its pains alone. But Lord, in your son, we have access to beautiful fellowship.

[00:45:34] Wes Hebert: We find in it in your son communion with you. The father in your son, we find communion with one another.

[00:45:47] Wes Hebert: So, Lord, as we come before your table here now, I pray that this would be an opportunity to deepen our fellowship with one another, to deepen our relationships as we partake together in a reminder of our only hope. Lord, I pray that this morning you would draw us nearer to each other as you draw us nearer to your son.

[00:46:21] Wes Hebert: I pray that those this morning who are struggling deeply with this sense of loneliness us would find in the church and in her savior companionship.

[00:46:38] Wes Hebert: Brothers and sisters to face life’s difficulty together. And Lord, for those who are not struggling with this, who have come to see and understand this, Lord, I pray that they would seek to be a command companion for their brothers and sisters. Lord, in all these things we ask that your spirit. And his fellowship would be with us all.

[00:47:12] Wes Hebert: We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.