Designed for Relationships • May 17, 2026 • Andrew Spradlin • Ecclesiastes 4-4-16

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here,

and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith,

and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have your Bible,

please open it with me to Ecclesiastes chapter four

in a message I'm calling Designed for Relationships.

Now, the Bible makes very, very clear that all of us are designed for relationships.

First of all, a relationship with God, but also a relationship with one another.

You know, after God made Adam in the garden, he said, it is not good that man be alone.

And we all experientially know that to certainly be true.

But here's the problem.

Sin destroys relationships.

It destroys our relationship with God and with one another.

You see, the nature of sin is that it always brings conflict.

It always creates division.

It brings division between us and God, and it brings division between us

and each other.

In Ecclesiastes chapter four, Solomon talks about the importance

of having healthy relationships.

You see, life is a team sport.

We all need a team, but not just any team.

We need a healthy team, a healthy team of people who are around us, who we live life with.

Now, intuitively, we all know that. And so we try to build these teams, teams of people, of family and friends and all these people around us.

But oftentimes because of sin, whether it's our sin or maybe it's their sin, the team is sabotaged.

It is broken apart.

Pat Riley, who coached the Lakers, is the head coach for them winning four NBA championships under his leadership.

He talks about how the Lakers became NBA champions in 1980.

In the very next year, they were thought to be unbeatable.

But just a few weeks after the season began, Magic Johnson, their star player,

tore some cartilage in his knee, and he was out for several months.

And so everyone felt like their season was over, but the team, they rallied together,

and they were playing their hearts out.

And so fans and...

the sports media started buzzing because they kept winning games without their star player.

And so they started buzzing about what's this team going to be like when Magic Johnson returns?

Well, Riley said that the team was upset by that because they thought, well, we're on top of our game.

Why is all the attention on Magic Johnson, who's not even playing?

Eventually, Johnson returned to the lineup, and everyone was buzzing about it.

It sucked up all the attention for the Lakers, and his teammates resented it.

The finger-pointed started, and what had been a very tight-knit team began to unravel.

The Lakers never played the same again that season.

They quickly got knocked out of the playoffs.

The head coach was fired.

Riley was promoted.

And then Riley later said of that season, he said,

Because of greed, pettiness, and resentment, we executed one of the fastest falls from grace in NBA history.

It was the disease of me."

You know, the disease of me will take down any person, any team, any organization, any family, and yes, any church.

Now, the Bible's term for the disease of me is sin.

Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon has been saying, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

He means life without God is empty.

It has no meaning.

It has no purpose.

It has no real destination.

You can try to grab hold of something, but it's like grasping for the wind.

What you try to grab, you're left empty-handed.

Now the conclusion that Solomon makes in this book is that having a relationship with God is the only thing that can bring a person fulfillment.

But we also see from this chapter that living life with a great set of friends and a team of people around you also increases your level of fulfillment in life.

Solomon begins in verse number four.

He says, again, I saw that for every toil and every skillful work that a man is envied by his neighbor.

This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

The fool folds his hands and consumes his own flesh.

Better a handful with quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind.

Here's our principle.

Competition with one another creates pride or envy.

Now, I'm not talking about friendly competition like in sports.

I'm talking about life.

In life, do you view people as opponents to beat and to conquer, or do you view people as people to love?

Whenever we view people as opponents to beat, that causes pride if you're winning, and it causes envy if you're losing.

And in both cases, the end result is broken relationships.

Now, there's two sides of envy.

There's the person who's envying, and we're going to get to that person here in a moment.

But there's also the person who's being envied.

Solomon says, we work so hard to accomplish all of these things, and what do we get in return?

We get envy.

So he says, better is a handful with quietness

than two handfuls with none.

He's saying a quiet life filled with healthy,

peaceful relationships is a whole lot better

than a life full of all of these things,

of access with broken relationships.

I think Solomon is wanting us to pause

and to ask ourselves the question,

have I done anything to create envy in others?

You know, some people want to create that.

Some people will do anything to get ahead in life.

They'll bulldoze their way to the top.

It doesn't matter what it takes, who they have to throw under the bus.

They're in it to win it.

And then they wonder why they're so miserable and empty inside.

It's because they've got this long trail of relationships in their way.

The friend who they betrayed at work in order to get that promotion is now an enemy.

And so, yeah, maybe they made some more money along the way, but at what cost?

Right?

At what cost?

Solomon says, the main thing you've got in return is some envy.

Your friends wish they had what you had, and they wish you didn't have it.

So you think you're winning in life, but you've actually lost because you were playing the wrong game.

You were shooting at the wrong target.

Your goal was riches when your goal should have been relationships, right?

We know that within the workforce,

it's estimated that 75% of workers envy another coworker.

Some suggest it's as high as 90%.

So no wonder people are so miserable in the workplace,

they don't have healthy relationships one with another.

Now, why is envy so bad?

Envy is bad because it's the opposite of love.

love rejoices in the good fortune of others, envy dreams of their downfall. Now, sadly,

many people in our culture would rather be envied than admired. And so they buy things they can't

afford with money, you know, they don't have to impress people they don't even like. It's

The disease of me. It's the desire to climb up to the top of the mountain that that friend is on, that co-worker is on, that neighbor is on, that family member is on.

Knock them off the top of it so that I'm all alone up there on the top by myself.

And you know what? That's exactly where envy will take you, to a place where you're all by yourself.

lonely and empty inside.

Solomon continues, verse seven, he says,

"'Then I returned and saw that vanity under the sun.

"'There's one alone without companion.

"'He has neither son nor brother.

"'Yet there's no end to all his labors.'"

He just keeps working.

"'Nor is his eye satisfied with riches.'"

He can't have enough money.

"'But he never asks, for whom do I toil

"'and deprive myself of good?''

In other words, I have no one to share it with.

It's also his vanity and a grave misfortune.

Here's our principle.

Isolation from others amplifies vanity and misery.

Solomon's describing here the workaholic, the person whose life is all about work.

No matter how much money he has, he's got to have some more.

And so he accumulates all of this stuff, but he's all alone.

He's got no one to share it with.

He doesn't have a companion.

He doesn't have a spouse.

He doesn't have any kids.

He has no real friends.

You know, that is our culture.

More and more people are living for work.

How many rom-coms out there show this couple

who falls in love?

I mean, they look like the perfect couple.

They're so good for one another,

but one of them gets a dream job in another city, right?

And so they end up breaking the sad news

that they've got to move.

And so they asked the other, won't you come with me?

And the other person declines, why?

They have the dream job where they're at.

And so there's this breakup, there's this split.

And the whole time Kelsey yelling at the screen, you idiot.

You're choosing your dream job over your dream man.

What are you doing, right?

That's our culture.

We value career over family.

We value riches over relationships.

Now, you don't actually have to be single to do that.

Sadly, there are many moms and dads who subconsciously choose their job over their family.

Dad's gone at work all the time.

He says, well, I'm doing this for you guys.

Well, as if his family needs riches more than they need him.

I've been with a lot of people as they died, nearing death, and oftentimes they have some regrets.

And I have yet to hear a person say, you know, I wish I'd spent more time at the office, Pastor.

I wish I'd made some more money.

I could have had a bigger house.

I could have had some nicer cars.

No, no, no.

Their regrets are never related to riches.

They're always related to relationships.

They regret the broken relationships of their life,

the relationships that they maybe neglected.

And so they say, I should have said sorry.

I should have been there more.

Men, your boys, they need you desperately.

Your little girls, they need you desperately.

Your wife, she needs you.

Now, I know that God calls us to work hard as men and to provide for our families,

and that's a big, weighty responsibility.

But God also calls us to be present with our families.

And God would never call us to do something that's impossible.

So if he's called us to provide, and he has, and if he's called us to be present with our families, and he has,

then there must be a way to do both.

Solomon says this man who works himself to death, he works himself into isolation,

for him, life is especially vain, and it's a grave misfortune.

Now in verse number 9, Solomon gets to some more positive things.

things he wants to say to us about the incredible blessing of actually having true friendship.

He says,

Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.

But how can one be warm alone?

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Here's our principle.

Interdependence with one another provides strength and resilience in life.

Now, that is just a fancy way of saying we need some good friends, some friends, some people in our lives that we can truly count on.

Let me ask you, do you need other people?

You may be tempted to say no, but whether you want to admit it or not, you do need other people and they need you.

That's God's design.

We are creatures of community.

So Solomon says two are better than one because they can get a whole lot more work done than they can alone.

Whenever we work alongside another person, there's this synergy that takes place, isn't there?

Suddenly what we're accomplishing together doesn't seem to add to what's being done.

It seems to multiply.

Somehow one plus one starts equaling three.

The sum is greater than the parts.

I think Valley Baptist Church has seen that through the years with co-pastors.

My dad and Pastor Phil, they served right alongside each other for nearly 40 years,

and their results can only be measured someday in heaven.

A team of pastors is much more effective than a solo pastor.

They just are. There's a synergy that happens. God designed us to be on a team, to work together.

Solomon says in verse number 10, if they fall, one will lift up his companion,

but woe to him who's alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.

You know, we're all going to fall at some point in life.

Now, someone might push us down, or we might fall just of our own stupid decisions.

You know, my dad used to say, whether someone shoots you in the foot or you shoot yourself, it still hurts.

So whether you fall on your own or someone helps you fall, either way, it still hurts.

We live in a broken world.

We are sinners.

So we're going to fall down financially.

emotionally, sometimes even morally.

So let me ask you, when you fall flat on your face,

do you have some people around you who pick you up, dust you off, clean you up a little bit?

You know, one of my favorite stories in the Bible is when some friends put their paralyzed friend on a stretcher.

They each take a corner of that stretcher and they lift their friend up and they carry their friend to Jesus.

And once they get to the house where they know that Jesus is in,

they can't make their way inside because the house is packed.

And the crowd is spilling out to the outside.

And so what do they do?

Well, they don't go home.

They're getting their friend to Jesus.

They climb up and hoist their friend up on the roof.

They rip a hole in the roof and they lower their friend down to Jesus.

And most of the time when we think about that story, we think about how Jesus told this man who was paralyzed,

he said, your sins are forgiven you.

And in order to show everyone that he had the power to forgive this man's sin, he said,

take up your bed, rise and walk and go home.

And the man got up.

He was healed by the hand of our Lord.

And we're amazed by that.

But my question is, what about that man's friends?

I'll tell you what, every man needs some friends like that.

Every woman needs some sisters like that who, if they fall down, they can't quite get themselves back to Jesus on their own.

They're too wounded.

They're too weak.

Friends who say, we got you.

And they lift you up and they carry you back to Jesus.

Let me ask you, do you have some friends like that?

We all need to have some brothers and sisters around us who will get us to Jesus,

who will carry us to Jesus when we're lying flat on the mat of life.

The other question is this, and it may be a little sharper for you today.

Are you a friend like that to someone else?

Where if they fall down, you're going to be right there to carry them to Jesus.

Proverbs says, in order to have friends, you must first be friendly.

Are you a friend to others that they need?

Solomon says in verse number 11, he says, if two lie down, they're going to keep warm.

But how can one be warm when they're alone?

Now, I am blessed beyond measure with some amazing friends in our church family,

men of God who I know if I ever fell down, they would carry me to Jesus.

But my best friend in all the world, and it's not even close, is my wife, Kelsey.

She's my greatest companion.

She is my best friend.

And Kelsey tells me that her favorite part of the day, and I don't know if she's being honest or not,

but she routinely, my favorite part of the day is when we lie down at night to go to sleep and we snuggle, right?

Oh, I got to, oh.

I was waiting for that all morning long.

Finally got one.

Now, there's not much snuggling as summer approaches, though, because I sweat.

But when it turns cold, we both enjoy pressing our bodies close to one another in order to stay warm, right?

Now, neither one of us like cold feet, but that's another story altogether.

My point is this.

A close friend brings warmth.

Not just physical warmth, not just emotional warmth,

but spiritual warmth.

Now, if you take a hot fire

and it's got all these hot red coals

and you take one of those coals

and you pull it out of the fire

and you set it all by itself,

it will not take long before that coal turns cold.

But you take that same coal

and you stick it back in that hot fire,

it's gonna turn red hot once again.

And that's how you and I are spiritually.

We heat up spiritually.

We're on fire for the Lord when we're in close proximity to someone else who's on fire for the Lord.

I talk with people.

Occasionally he'll say, you know, Pastor, he said, I have this, I have a great relationship with the Lord.

I don't really need to go to church.

I'll be honest, it's hard for me to believe that.

But even if you do, I can promise you it's not what it would be if you would just simply welcome some brothers and sisters into close proximity within your life.

It'd go to a whole new level.

And it's not what it should be for those friends, potential hypothetical friends, because you would bring something to them and encourage them in their walk with the Lord.

Now, why is that?

It's because we need each other.

That's how Jesus designed us.

We are people of community.

The Bible speaks about how the church is called the body of Christ.

We're a body compared to a body.

And we all have different parts, right?

We play different parts, every member of the body.

We've got bones.

We've got muscles.

We have ligaments.

We have tendons.

We have hands and feet and eyes and ears.

We've got all these different parts.

And every part is needed, isn't it?

Let me ask you, have you ever, the middle of the night, it's dark and you're walking and you stubbed your toe on something?

I mean, most of the time I never think about my big toe.

No.

I never, you know, it's just there.

But the moment I stub it,

all I can think about is my big toe.

Suddenly something that seemed unimportant to me,

now I realize is vitally important for my balance

and how I walk and things of that nature.

Every part of the body is needed.

You may not feel like you're needed.

I could promise you you're needed.

We are designed as a church family to work

in coordination one with another.

A couple months back, my knee started hurting me, and so I've been trying to

help that situation.

I've been learning about the importance of strengthening all of the muscles

from the hip down to the toes of my leg

in order to strengthen all the muscles around that knee that is experiencing pain.

Why?

Well, you strengthen all those muscles properly to help properly align

and properly absorb the weight as I walk

to take the brunt force off of the pain.

As we move through life, we desperately need each other to absorb the weight that we carry.

It's just how it works.

You know, there's an old saying that a shared joy is a double joy, and a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

And that is so true in life.

I mean, what use is it to hit a hole in one on the golf course if you're by yourself, right?

I mean, that's like a nightmare.

No one's going to believe you for one, but the other thing is who are you going to high five, right?

There there's amplified celebration and joy when we share our experience of joy with another person.

Now, grief is exactly the opposite.

Whenever we mourn with those who mourn, we cut the pain down.

It's like a spiritual pain reliever.

It helps lessen it.

It's a shared load.

It takes some of that pain from your brother or your sister.

I heard about a child, a little girl, who had a friend whose mom had just died.

And so she asked her mom, can I go over to my friend's house to see my friend?

And she let her go, and she was gone for a little while.

And when she came home, her mom asked her, well, what did you tell your friend?

What did you say to your friend?

And she said nothing.

I just sat with her and helped her cry.

Sometimes we just need a friend to sit with and help us cry, don't we?

The night my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer,

before I had a chance to drive to Santa Barbara

and to the hospital where he was at,

I was taking my trash down to the curb, if I remember right.

I was outside for some reason,

and I noticed a truck parked in front of our house

there on the curb.

It was one of my best friends since high school,

my dear brother, Josh Shirley, was sitting in his truck,

and he had heard

about the diagnosis, and I think he drove just to be close, and he was in his truck sitting there,

and he was just praying. So I went over to the truck, and I opened the door, and I got in,

and I sat down, and I don't recall everything he said to me. I don't recall the prayer that

he prayed over me, but I do recall being able to cry with my brother.

And God used that little moment that might have seemed insignificant to him.

I don't really know.

God used it to warm me at a time I needed to be warmed, to strengthen me at a time I needed strength

to face all that I was being called to face, to help lead our church in the way I was being asked to lead us.

We need one another to rejoice in the good times, to grieve in the hard times.

In verse number 12, Solomon says,

The one may be overpowered by another.

Two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not easily broken.

He's saying we're stronger and safer together.

Because at times we fall down and we need someone to lift us up.

Other times we are cold and we need someone to help warm us up.

But there are times when we come under attack.

Opposition.

The devil is called the accuser of the brethren.

He's throwing accusations at the church,

and you are fooling yourself if you think that somehow you're going to be immune

from the attacks of the enemy.

You're not.

And whenever we're attacked, we better not be alone because we are vulnerable.

when we're alone. It's the lone wildebeest that gets eaten by the lion, isn't it? We need a team

of brothers and a team of sisters who are fighting the same battle that we are. Because in many ways,

life is a battle, isn't it? We are, as Christians, we know we're in a spiritual battle. There's a

cosmic war that is taking place. And do you know what happens in war? People are attacked.

People are killed.

Sometimes people are wounded and they fall and they need help.

The Bible says the devil prowls around like a roaring lion.

He's seeking whom he may devour.

He's looking for you.

He's trying to take you down.

The Bible also says the devil, he's shooting these fiery arrows, these fiery darts at us.

He's trying to hit us.

We need one another to help withstand his attacks.

In the ancient world.

When soldiers were under attack in battle

and arrows were flying their way,

do you know what they would do?

They would hit their knees

and they would link their shields together

and form one giant shield of protection.

That's what we need.

Whenever we're under attack,

we better have some brothers and sisters who are close by

who we can kneel with and interlock our shields of faith

and prayer to the Lord.

Now, earlier in the message, I said and cautioned us against competing with one another.

But I'll be honest, I'm a competitive person.

I like to win.

I hate losing.

And so what I have begun learning how to do is to properly channel all of my competitive juices that I have to properly channel that competition.

Because the truth is, we're not to compete with other people.

Because we're on the same team with people.

We have believers, there's unbelievers.

But our unbelievers, they're not the enemy.

They're prisoners of war.

They need to be loved and rescued.

They need to hear about Jesus.

We're not in competition with them.

Oh, but we do have an enemy who we compete with.

In fact, I believe that every sport that our kids partake in is ultimately to help build in them the strength and the skills necessary to compete with this great enemy.

His name is Satan.

And he's the father of lies.

And he tries to rule in darkness in all of his schemes.

We're an ultimate competition with him.

And it's not a friendly competition.

It's a bloody war.

that takes so many casualties,

the ramifications of this spiritual war

that all of us are in have eternal consequences.

We dare not fight it alone.

We dare not fight it alone.

Now, because we don't need to be alone,

we all need a team.

And as Christians, here's how God has worked this out.

All of us make up a team of teams.

Our ultimate team, the big team, is the kingdom of God.

That is the church universal.

That's God's team.

But within God's team, there's some smaller teams that we're part of, or we should be part of.

Every family in our church is a team.

I'm part of Team Spratlin.

Every life group in our church,

we've got hundreds of life groups,

every life group is a team.

Every local church in our city, we are different teams.

Our ministries are teams.

As Christians, we're all part of some teams

that together make up God's team.

Here's the problem.

If you never show up to practice,

It's not good.

If you never run out on the field with your team,

if your team's charging the enemy and you're left behind,

that's not good.

Or maybe if you try to run out on the field all by yourself

and you leave, you're not with your team.

That also is not good.

If that takes place, you don't really

experience the benefits of the team,

and your team doesn't experience the benefits of you.

Now, in verse number 13, Solomon ends the chapter by warning about the fleeting nature of popularity

and the danger of having these fair-weather friends.

He says in verse 13,

I saw all the living who walk under the sun.

They were with the second youth who stands in his place.

There was no end of all people over whom he was made king,

yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him.

Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Now, we don't have time to fully unpack these verses

because it's a little bit complicated.

There's some disagreement a little bit about what is being said,

but I think...

Solomon's being autobiographical here remember he's a king so he's applying it

to his situation he's saying when a young man becomes king and he begins

ruling he could do no wrong he's the young king there's all this hope there's

up to all this optimism but the next generation comes along and they see him

as the establishment

And his rise to fame comes crashing down as quickly as it began.

And so Solomon is saying there's a vast difference between friendship and popularity.

Solomon was made king as a young man.

He was loved.

But now as an old man, I think it's dawning on him that he never took the time to cultivate true friendship within his life.

And now he doesn't have any brothers to count on in his time of need.

Maybe you feel that way today.

Like you've had a whole lot of friends along the way,

but you wonder where are they now?

Where are they now?

Proverbs 18 24 says,

there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Do you have a friend like that?

We all need a friend.

like that. You know, maybe today you don't feel like you have a friend like that.

If that's the case, I want to introduce you to someone who'd be the greatest friend you can ever

have, and his name is Jesus. You know, when you read the Gospels, one of the great accusations

against Jesus by the religious elite and the establishment of that time was that Jesus,

he's a friend of sinners. And you know what? That's great news for us because we're all sinners.

He's a friend of sinners.

Jesus said, it's the sick who need a physician.

It's the broken who need to be healed.

And so I want to ask you, are you broken?

Maybe you're not quite willing to say I'm broken at this point.

Maybe you say I'm wounded.

Okay.

You know, Jesus is the only one who can heal the deepest wounds of life.

Maybe you've been hurt by a friend, you've been betrayed by a spouse.

I want to invite you to find a perfect friend in the Lord Jesus who loves you so very much.

In the early 1900s, there was a man named Charles Weigel who was an evangelist.

He would share the gospel in various cities.

And one evening after he came home from one of his trips,

it was sort of like a mission trip where he told people about Jesus.

He got home that night and he saw all of his stuff was cleared out of the house.

And there was a letter there from his wife and she said, I've been a fool.

I've given up so much for us to be in ministry.

And she went on to say that she had left him.

That wrecked Charles Weigel.

Not only did it wreck his life, but it really wrecked his ministry at that time

because he was an evangelist and he was divorced.

And so that came with a lot of problems.

And so some of his closest friends, they even abandoned him.

He felt so deserted.

Two years later, he received word that his wife, who had left him, had passed away.

Without any friends to turn to, he just felt so very alone in that dark moment.

So he went over to the piano, and he began to play a simple melody,

and he composed the song that many know today.

It's called, No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus.

And that is so true.

No one has ever cared for you like Jesus.

I don't know what history of relationships you have in your past.

Maybe there's a string of broken relationships behind you.

Maybe you were betrayed by the one person who was supposed to love you the most.

They betrayed you, and they left you a wound so deep that you think,

I can never move on.

Listen, no one ever cared for me like Jesus.

That is the story of my life.

That's the story of so many of our lives who have found a friend in Jesus.

If you'll simply call upon Jesus in faith,

you'll receive a friend today.

If you just admit your sin, you admit your need, you admit your wounds,

you are transparent with Him about your pain, all of those things,

whether it's loneliness or pride or envy, whatever it might be,

if you just come to the Lord and you cry out to Jesus in faith,

not only will Jesus become your Savior today and your King,

He'll also become your friend.

Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, both here and at Olive Drive.

This morning, we've talked about having true friends.

But maybe you come to church.

And right now you're reflecting on how you come to church, but you don't have any friends in church.

If that's the case, then that's a red flag.

Alarm bells should be going off.

Something's wrong because this is not God's design.

So here's what I want you to do.

I want you to talk to God about it.

Tell Him how you feel.

Tell Him your need for some brothers or your need for some sisters.

And then I want you to make a commitment that,

to become a friend to someone.

Because they need you.

You may not even know who they are yet.

You may not even know their name at this moment,

but they need you, and guess what?

You need them.

You may need to join a life group in order to do that.

That's one of the easiest ways at Valley Baptist Church

to gather a team of people around you who will love you,

who will be there for you, thick and thin.

They're going to be there for you.

That's through our life group ministry.

We were designed for relationships.

But here's the deal.

Our relationships with one another that we've been designed for, that's actually secondary.

The primary relationship we've been designed for is a relationship with God.

The one who made us.

Think about that.

The incredible detail, the incredible creativity.

He has made us and He loves us.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

I want to invite you today to get to know God the Father.

who loves us and made us.

And the only way you're going to get to know him

is through his son, Jesus.

You see, sin has caused this great divide

between us and God.

We know he exists logically.

We can make conclusions through reason

that there is a God, nothing,

all this didn't come from nothing.

There is a cause that's outside of the universe.

We can make that conclusion,

but we still don't know him.

Why?

Our sins.

Jesus came to bridge the gap.

He became man so He can grab hold of us,

and He is God so He can grab hold of God.

And He pulls us together through the cross and the resurrection

so that we can be joined in a relationship with God.

I want to invite you to experience that today.

And it's only experienced through Jesus.

Just a moment, I'm going to pray.

And as soon as I pray at both campuses,

we're gonna stand to our feet.

We're gonna have some music playing,

a song's gonna be sung.

And this is our time to respond.

We're gonna have pastors and other leaders here at the front

and we're just gonna ask you to step out

and come as God leads.

You walk down one of these aisles,

walk down one of these staircases,

you take one of these leaders by the hand

and you say, you know what?

I wanna give my life to Jesus.

I need a friend in Jesus.

I need to be forgiven.

I need peace in my life.

I need real life.

I need hope.

You let them know what your need is,

and you allow God to meet you right where you're at,

and I promise you,

you'll make a friend today like you've never had before.

Maybe you want to come and say, I want to be baptized like others were baptized today,

or join our church family, or maybe you want to come to these steps

and pour out your heart to the Lord on behalf of a friend who's hurting,

a friend who's wounded, a friend who's lying flat on the mat,

a friend maybe who needs to be carried by you to Jesus,

and you want to pour out your heart to the Lord for them.

Maybe you want to pray for a friend you do not yet have.

However God leads, let's just respond in a way that would please Him.

Let's pray.

Father, thank You for loving us even when we did not love You.

Thank You that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Thank You for pursuing us, that because of our sin, there was enmity.

We were enemies of Yours because we've rebelled against You and committed high treason.

Thank you, Lord, that you came for us, to rescue us, to find us.

Lord, I pray that you do a special work in the hearts of those listening,

those who need you, those who need a friend.

May you be their friend.

May they find friends in our church family and beyond.

Lord, I pray that our church family would not just be a friendly church.

We would be a church of friends.

It wouldn't be just surface layer, that it would be deep.

Lord, there's some people that need friends like that today.

I pray, Lord, that you'd give them that.

There are others, Lord, who need to become that for some people.

Lord, would you give them the courage and the faith and the prompting to be that for someone else.

We need you so very much, Lord.

We ask, we give this time to you.

We ask that you would work.

Draw people to yourself, I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks for listening today.

We hope you enjoyed this message.

And if you did, we would be so grateful if you left us a review.

Also, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast

if you would like to be notified when a new sermon is released.

If you feel the Lord calling you to take the next step in faith

through salvation, service, or giving, don't wait.

reach out to us by texting podcast to 88988.

That's podcast to 88988

or connect with us on one of our social media platforms.

You can also visit our website, valleybaptist.org

to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey,

know that we love you.

We're praying for you

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.