Companionship | Pastor Rick Wright | The Church at CW

All right, I want to get you to take your Bibles and turn them to Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

As you're turning there, thank you all for being a part last week, celebrating 14 years of CCW.

If you missed, it was a great time together.

And uh so thankful for Pastor Danny, Miss Susan, and uh just appreciate the celebration.

Now we're 14 years and a week, so here we go.

Um I want to share just a couple of things that are going on that are really important to today and next week.

Our Upward Soccer evaluations start today.

You'll probably hear this later.

But if you have a child um that is still interested, maybe say, ah, we haven't signed up, we forgot, it's been last minute.

Just bring them out to evaluations today.

I believe that's two o'clock.

Is that right?

Two o'clock.

And so um we would love to have them jump on a team and be a part of that.

And uh in just a few weeks, our connect groups are going to start, so I'm gonna continue pushing that, especially as we jump into a series called Friendship.

And so you'll be hearing more, be looking for more about that.

I did want to say praise to God and share with you.

We had a really awesome opportunity on Friday.

Dave Roper spoke in the morning to the football team.

I spoke in the afternoon, and I believe seven football players responded to the gospel invitation, giving their heart to Jesus.

Amen.

So we're thankful for those opportunities and uh just excited about what God is doing.

Take your Bibles out of Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Many of you came in today, and you're sitting in a chair around hundreds of chairs.

And week in and week out, you come in and you sit in a chair around hundreds of chairs.

But there are many today that are like this chair.

You might be surrounded by dozens, by hundreds, but you came in and you feel absolutely alone.

I want to talk to you this morning about friendship and companionship that started all the way in the beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Would you pray with me?

Father, we ask that you would engage our hearts to the word of God, get everything else out of the way.

Anything that we brought in, God, I pray that it would be put on pause.

Lord, and that you would have our hearts, our minds, our ears.

And God, that your word would be magnified to do its work.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

First point this morning is this God reveals in the beginning of creation the need for friendship.

I want you to look at Genesis chapter 2, 18 and 19.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Look at what it says.

And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone.

I'll make him a helper comparable to him.

Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.

Whatever Adam called, each living creature, that was its name.

So, God, if you look at Genesis chapter one, God says, Good, and that was good, and this is good, and that was good.

He says, Good, good, good, good.

It's the word Tav.

It's like you've heard this before, model tav, which is like saying good star, what we would say is like good luck.

And he said, This is good seven times in the opening of creation, he says, Tov, this is good.

And then the heavenly breaks screech.

And God, who's in the midst of creating, who cannot err, who does not err, suddenly interceded in his own work and said, now wait.

Good, good, good, good.

Something's off.

This is not good.

What is not good?

What is not Tov, Pastor?

He says, that man be alone is not good.

Letter A is the problem of alone this morning.

And I want you to see that as we work through it.

The Hebrew word for alone, we cannot make this up.

It is spelled like this.

You can put it in capitals if you want.

B A D.

The Hebrew word for alone.

Pronounced bod, but spelled bad, and it means separated.

It means to be separated.

In the NIH.gov.

I looked this up this week about aloneness.

Here is some things that aloneness causes, according to this web article.

Aloneness causes mental and physical harm, raises the risk of heart problems, raises the risk of depression, dementia, blood pressure, and interrupts sleep cycles.

Aloneness is a problem.

I read an article this week on my mind rabbited down what would solitary confinement in prison be like?

The ultimate in aloneness, right?

And if you read some horror stories, if you go down that trail, but in many cases the lights are always left on all that is heard as far as noise or language is a buzzing of a light or a sound.

And one man said, I didn't know if a decade had gone by or four years had passed.

Imagine that.

He wrote a letter to a judge and he said this, I understand being punished for my actions.

I don't expect to be released for what I've done.

My only one wish, Judge, please let me serve my time with other men.

You hear that heart in confinement?

David Guzik, commentator, said this the wildest, most violent, sociopathic men in history have always been single men, alone men.

This, God said, is not Tov.

He said, This is not good.

I want you to take your Bible and look at Hebrews chapter 10.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Turn over there.

God had answers from the beginning and throughout the Bible to aloneness.

And in Hebrews 10, this is often read, often quoted in churches, but I want you to hear the heart of it.

It says, verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Hear this, church, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

So stir one another up.

The Greek word for stir is proximos, and it's like a sharp jolting.

You ever had to get like jolted out of something?

It says, believers jolt one another towards love and good works.

Have you just ever been dried up, just coasting?

And he says, you've got to be jolted.

You've got to be uh sharply moved.

And then it says, not without purpose, remember the problem aloneness, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is.

The opposite is aloneness.

God doesn't say, forsake not the assembling of yourself to sports.

He doesn't say, forsake not the assembling of yourself to a hobby group.

He says, forsake not the church.

It was God's idea that man not be alone.

And the church was God's idea for community and the picture of Jesus Christ and his bride to the world.

Let's go a little further.

1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

I want you to look at verse 14 through 19.

Talking about this body and God's picture to the world.

It says, For in fact the body is not one member but many.

If the foot should say, Because I'm not a hand, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

And if the ear should say, Because I'm not an eye, I'm not of the body, is it therefore not of the body?

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?

If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?

But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he pleased.

And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

Can you imagine this?

The conversation between a foot and a hand?

And the foot says, I'm not the hand.

I mean the hand gets to shake, the hand gets to high five, the hand takes part in a hug, the hand opens doors, and the foot says, I'm always covered.

Nobody can even see me.

I'm just a foot.

I'm just a foot.

Listen, feet, you carry us everywhere we go.

And maybe you come in today and think, what I have to offer really isn't that big a deal.

I beg to differ.

Feet, you carry us everywhere that we go.

You see, if you look through the course of the Bible, sometimes people learn the fine art of lying to themselves.

Assumptions will lie to you.

Remember what Elijah assumed?

Elijah took off running.

The fire of God just fell.

He went to prayer and he believed in God.

The same person got a letter from Jezebel, took off, ran into a cave, and he lied to himself first.

He made an assumption.

We do this.

We assume something about somebody or something, and we tell the lie to us first.

And Elijah said, God, there's nobody else but me.

There's not another one.

He tells a lie to himself.

And God doesn't run through the course of the heavens saying, What are we gonna do?

Elijah's frantic.

He says there's only one hymn.

He says, No, Elijah, first, let's attack the lie.

That's not true.

Well, first he says, take a nap.

Amen, Christians?

For some of you, that was enough.

You came in, you got what you needed.

Take a nap.

Then he said, Get you some cake.

Hey, point two.

Amen.

Maybe you just need something to chew on.

Get you right.

And then he says, That's a lie, Elijah.

There's 7,000 more waiting for you in Israel.

And he doesn't leave it just at that.

He says, if you just get up and go, which he does, he brings to him a best friend, Elisha.

But it's sorry, remember?

He just filling his mind.

The enemy fills your mind with assumptions and lies.

You see, God created people and families for community.

Think about the decades before us.

What this has been like.

Right?

People worked together.

Neighbors knew one another well.

People stopped by unannounced and stayed too long.

You remember what that was like?

It was a world where people needed each other.

If you go back even further, people bartered.

They didn't even, it wasn't about who had what money.

They traded what they had and they had to work together in a community with their things.

They were always together.

That was the common theme.

Together.

They ate together.

They raised children together.

You've heard that old statement.

It takes a village.

This is what they did together.

Do you remember going to the grocery store a couple of decades ago?

It's different.

You went to the grocery store.

Listen, there was none of this in line.

Did you hear me say line first of all?

There was a line, and there was a checker that checked you out.

And you know what?

You talked to the checker.

You probably talked to the person in front of you, maybe behind you.

You have things to say to somebody now.

This is what you see.

Right?

People were together.

Our world is rapidly changing in a pattern of aloneness.

The modern ability to live almost completely alone is historically unprecedented.

We've invented ways to live alone that previous generations could hardly have imagined.

You can order food without talking to anyone.

You can do your walk, your work all day without seeing someone being in an office.

You can order groceries online.

You can be online to get all of your information.

You can go all day without seeing anyone.

I remember I was gone from Heather for, I almost said heaven.

How about that?

Heather, heaven, close to my world.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

She was ill last week.

I'm glad to have her back.

And about 20 days, I was in the house having conversations with me.

Like, what do you think of this, Rick?

Not very good.

Like, you need people.

And this world we live in, you can get food, not talk to somebody.

They'll drop it at your door without seeing you.

Shop without seeing.

Some of you are going, yes, praise God, Pastor.

This is what I'm talking about.

Technology, we're better.

Not one, listen, not one phone call.

You don't have to hear a voice.

You can just text.

People are scrolling instead of communicating.

We've made alone easy, convenient, and the king of all things.

And then we're going, I don't understand why I feel so alone.

But God looked down and said, there's a problem.

I don't like this.

It is not good that man, he said, not good.

Good, good, good, good.

We're gonna fix this.

Letter be, let's see the process of Adam.

Look at verse 19 and 20.

Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them.

And whatever Adam called, each living creature, that was its name.

So Adam gave names to all cattle, to birds, air, every beast of the field.

But for Adam, highlight this, there was not found a helper comparable to him.

So this is the scene.

Adam gets to work.

By the way, somebody needed to come and hear that today.

He just gets to work.

Hours after creation, listen, he wasn't job hunting.

He didn't create his resume.

He just gets to work.

And the very first thing that man does in the garden is work.

Work wasn't a curse.

He was blessed to be involved in God's creative process.

And you say, well, he named animals.

That's not hard.

Have you ever named all of the animals in history?

If he took just five minutes per animal, imagine how long this took.

Some people say, was this a day?

I beg to differ.

I think it probably took Adam months.

He was months naming animals.

And listen, God didn't need Adam to name the animals.

God spoke and they were created.

He used Adam in creation.

These animals could have came out and said their name to Adam.

Said, you know, I'm a rhinoceros.

They could have had name tags, they could have done anything, but God allowed Adam, this sweet exercise of work, to be a part of God's provision, helping him understand his authority that he would speak of and dominion over creation.

It shows the delegation of God's task to man, the agent of God on earth.

Why are you so important?

Why are you being the feet, ear, whatever you are?

It's very important.

You're God's agent, performing his will.

God didn't need Adam to maintain the garden.

The garden that he spoke of and came into existence.

Do you think he needed Adam?

God just provided the garden and provided an opportunity, a blessing to work it.

God chose Adam and allowed him to participate and an act of service before his God.

He allowed him this act of service.

You've heard this Bible verse, Colossians 3.23.

Do everything heartily as unto God and not man.

So whatever God allows you to do, it's an opportunity to serve him, and it has been so since creation.

Whatever you're doing, if you're in a school student, do it heartily.

If you're in a sports student, do it heartily.

If you got a job, do it heartily.

If you don't, look for one heartily.

It's unto God.

Work is God's will.

If you're here in this body and you don't have a work, I want to tell you something.

If you don't have a work in this body, then it's not working right.

Because I can tell you this if I ask you which one of your body parts can go, I want them all, Pastor.

I like to keep them.

If you have no work, I want you to think about this.

Work is God's provision, and when you're able to provide, you're able to be generous.

So if you have no work, you're not having a hand of provision.

You're not able to share generosity, which shares God to the world around you.

Biblical work is this it's not I work so I can consume.

It's I work so that I can contribute.

And that's what God was allowing Adam right on the offset of creation.

It's not so that I can consume.

Being generous to yourself isn't that much fun.

Some of y'all are like, well, Pastor Rick, I'd like to try to test it a little more.

When Adam looked all of the animals over and named them, everything.

He comes to the end of that and he says this puzzling thing.

He says, There's nothing like me.

Now, interesting commentators believe that Adam saw the animals that he named in pairs, both male and female.

Which would make sense why Adam would look at this and go, now this is weird.

This is different.

This is strange.

There is not only animal features, but male and female.

So after a few months at Eden's wildlife and garden center, think about Adam's job.

What a great job.

He had no commute, he had no deadlines, he had no dress code, no dress.

He mastered the art of animal naming, groundskeeping, and employee evaluation.

One problem.

There wasn't any other employees to evaluate.

So let's see what God does.

Point two.

I want you to look at verses 21 through 22.

God hit the brakes, and it says, And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and he closed up his flesh in its place, and then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man.

Point two is this God reveals the nature of friendship.

And we see this, we've already hinted to it, the gift of provision.

God is a provider.

From the beginning, God provisioned the world for humans, you and me, to thrive.

The good earth yields its fruit.

When humans exercise their God-given abilities to till the land and keep it, God tells us to then be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

In Genesis 1.28, and God gives people then the capacity to understand how to work that, and then even more capacity, how to develop it.

And that's how we've talked about what is somewhat of the issue, how the world progresses.

God gave man the ability to create, like he creates, to provide abundance for people in partnership with him.

To show that we are like our creator, it says man is like in the image of God.

Well, God saw Adam's need because God is a provider.

Before Adam saw Adam's need, God saw Adam's need.

It didn't say Adam hit the brakes in naming animals.

It said God looked at all of this and said, wait a second.

Adam never said, Lord, I've been praying.

And you know, there's this thing.

God initiated it.

That's important theology.

God's provision is based on what God sees and his perception.

His name in the Old Testament is Jehovah Jirah.

And that name means God will provide.

Think about the garden before Eve.

God was providing from the beginning.

Before Eve, God planted the garden, God provided the food, God gave Adam the work, and then God gave Eve.

From the onset of creation, God was providing.

Adam was not sitting there thinking, you know, I just need a woman.

He had no category for an Eve in his mind.

He hadn't seen an Eve.

And then out of nowhere, God provides.

Can you imagine?

Just wait.

Adam goes to sleep.

He doesn't know what God's up to.

God puts Adam asleep.

Adam wakes up.

Adam takes a look to the left and he says, Adam went like this.

He said, Hello.

Name's Adam.

That means man.

I can be your man.

Can you imagine what it would have been like?

Sometimes God answers a need you can't name with a provision you never thought of.

He never imagined an Eve, but he woke up and said, Whoo! I like this.

I could have never imagined 10 years ago that God would have placed me and Heather Wright in Chelsea, Alabama.

I could have never imagined 20 years ago that God would allow me to be involved in what I think is the greatest work on planet Earth.

I couldn't imagine that.

I prayed for God to use me.

I prayed for a lot of things, but I would have never imagined this need was the need that God was working on.

He had a provision that I'd never imagined.

Has he done that in your life?

I bet he has.

God provided because he's a provider and he provided companionship.

God showed us what a friend looked like.

He was providing.

I mean, before Eve, he was showing Adam what a friend does.

And then there becomes a problem later, and John 15 tells us how God answers the problem.

John 15, 13 says, Greater love hath no man than this, then a man lay down his life for his friends.

God's always been providing.

Some of you have 500 contacts in your phone.

You have 1,500 Facebook friends.

You have group chats and texts that drive you up a wall.

You have group apps, you have text galore.

And still you would find yourself asking this question.

If I wake up at two in the morning in the middle of a problem, how many people are going to come to my aid?

Who can I call friend?

Who can I call at two o'clock?

We have all of these resources to be so connected.

We have so many friends and followers.

Do five people know your soul?

Well, if you can't answer that, why is an important question to follow?

Let her be.

The gift of partnership.

Look at verse 23 and 24.

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two they shall become one flesh.

Genesis 2, 23, woman was made.

It says, Therefore, because male and female were made, every man after Adam would leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife.

This is biblical marriage.

It's a covenant between, did you see it?

One male, one female.

Male is our reign and it means strength.

Female, the Greek word thylus, is one who can nurse.

Hear that?

God clearly distinguished roles so that we and the world can make no mistake, church.

A male cannot nurse a baby.

He says, one male, one female.

This is marriage.

The creator, designer of all creation had no gender confusion.

Psalms 139, 13, and 14 pictures it.

He says, before you were created in your mother's womb, he knew he knit you together.

He's never made a mistake.

And when he made you, he didn't make a mistake.

He made you who you are on purpose to fulfill his purpose.

God makes no mistakes.

And he knew you and he loved you.

And he knit you.

A picture of, have you ever seen a grandma knitting?

He thoughtfully, carefully puts you together.

There's only one you in the history of this world.

He didn't mistake on that.

And then he designed marriage.

Adam didn't design marriage.

Hear me.

Adam didn't design marriage, so Adam doesn't get to redefine marriage.

Adam's there, and he didn't quite understand his aloneness.

He's naming animals, busy.

He could have done a lot of things before Eve.

Hear me well.

Not one of them is God's command of procreation.

God said, be fruitful and multiply.

Not one of them is repopulate the earth with children.

And he says, multiply.

God's design was found in procreation for the family.

One male, one female.

Without Eve, there is no family, there's no marriage.

And then hear this: there's no picture of Jesus Christ, the bridegroom and his church, the body.

This is God's institution from the beginning at creation.

Husbands, hear this, talking about friendships.

Your wife is your first best friend.

Wives, your husbands should be your first best friend.

Ephesians 5.28.

It says, so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.

He that loves his wife loves himself.

No man hates his own body, his flesh, but nourish it.

It says, God said, two become one.

Paul doesn't merely say that husbands should just be nice to your wife.

He said, when you love her, you love yourself.

And how many of you say, I love myself?

You are a bunch, where is one truthful person?

And she went.

God said, if you love her, you love yourself.

You're showing the way that you were created.

So to become one, not just a life, hear me, not just a life partner, but a life part of her.

Do you get that?

To become one, and you become a part of one another.

So all this separate living as marriages go, and to become one, are you hearing me?

In every way.

I don't see a way in the Bible.

I've been giving some bad advice before.

Well, you need to be separate in this way.

No, you don't.

To become one.

Hear me, church.

I hope I'm preaching to somebody.

You become a part of her.

Partnership is two people who share in risk, responsibility, results, and reward.

That is the partnership of marriage.

And it's a picture of friendship.

Friendship is sharing in God's work.

Partnership, marriage is sharing in God's life for us together.

Marriage is God's first institution of friendship and partnership, giving us this greatest example of what friendship as we move forward through this series should be like.

You can have friendship without marriage, but you can't have marriage without friendship.

Hear me, church.

On the way to divorce, people that I've sat across, you know what happens?

They become roommates and rentmates and everything else except for friends.

You have to get back.

And hear me, men, today, it is your responsibility as a leader of that marriage to make sure that you don't lose your friendship.

Be friends with your spouse.

Talk with your mate.

Spend time doing the hard work.

He says there that scripture that we read says that we nourish and cherish.

So in a marriage, what do we have to do?

What is nourish and cherish?

Nourish is providing what is necessary for growth.

And cherish is to treat with warmth or tenderness.

Biblical partnership moves from you and me to you and me equals we.

Two becoming one.

Let's look at letter C, the gift with purpose.

God answers the problem of aloneness with the gift of a companion.

He says, This is not good.

He needs somebody.

In Ecclesiastes 4, you see this scripture, you'll see it sometimes in marriages and weddings.

It says this two are better than one because they have a reward for their labor.

We're sharing in this life and labor together.

I know this the enemy loves an isolated Christian.

Not because they're just weak.

He loves them isolated.

Why?

I thought about this idea of a hand, right?

I got one hand, and there's some things I can do with my one hand.

The other day I found myself, we were at Sam's Club, Big Shock.

There we were, and I was trying to get an item with my one hand, because I think I had coffee in the other hand or something, and I'm going up here and I'm fumbling, and you know what?

Amazing with two hands.

It was really simple.

It was maybe a five-pound bag of flour or something, and I'm trying to slide it all in my coffee.

And I to put my coffee down in two hands.

It was so simple.

It was like, hear me, a second grader could have done it with two hands.

But a grown man, that's hard for my intellect.

One hand and I couldn't get it off the shelf.

Two hands came together and it was amazing.

If I asked you to throw this chair in the air with one hand, how many think you could do it?

I used to be able to catch it.

Okay, that's impressive.

But two hands, boy, that was really simple.

You know what I'm saying?

One hand.

Two are better than one.

Why?

Why was it hard for me?

Together, you can do so much.

I can't mow my lawn with one hand.

I wish I couldn't with two.

But with two.

Together.

Your friendship with someone together.

Do you understand?

Are you getting the picture?

Why are we weaker?

I believe the enemy thinks we're easier to deceive alone.

We're easier to discourage alone.

I know that's true.

We're easier to tempt alone.

It was real hard for me to fall into temptation.

My wife's sitting right there with me.

You know, I've never cussed someone out with Heather there.

I'm just kidding.

It's harder to restore someone who's alone.

But you got somebody spiritually speaking into your ear.

The purpose of this person, he called her a helpmeet.

Help meet did not mean inferior.

The word is Ezer connecto.

Same word is repeatedly used for God Himself.

Called Eve a helpmeet.

Same word.

Psalm 54, 4.

David said, God is my everlasting help.

Psalms 121, he says, My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Same word.

It means needed.

I'm going to tell you, there's somebody in your life that's needed.

It's not just your spouse.

I'm talking about friendships for the next several weeks.

There's somebody that needs you.

There's someone that you need.

It's needed.

A friend may give a perspective that you don't have.

They may give you strength that you don't have.

They may give you experience that you've never had.

They may give you wisdom that you haven't built yet.

The companion isn't given as the purpose, don't miss this.

But together you exist for the purpose.

You can live out God's purpose with companionship.

It wasn't given to build you.

Together you can build his kingdom in service of his purpose.

God looked at Adam and from the beginning, did you see it?

Did you not miss it?

He wanted him to be involved in his purpose and creation.

You don't have a job just to have a job today.

You don't have gifts and abilities just cuz.

God wanted to equip you in the work of his creation for his purposes.

And don't do it alone, he said.

He screeched the brakes.

Now wait, you can work alone, but it's not good.

It's not good for you, it's not good for them, it's not good for creation, it's not good for the church.

It's not good.

Eve was not given to Adam because he had nothing to do.

But because Adam had something to accomplish.

In Genesis 1.28, you see the chronology of creation.

And in 2.18, there's a literary term, it's called an analypsis.

It's a term for when you take like a wide-angle shot at something in Genesis 1.28, and then in 2.18, the zoom pulls back and it pulls out details of what was happening.

Purpose was already stated in 128.

Be fruitful, multiply, and subdue.

Well, Adam can't be fruitful and multiply on his own.

So God brings it into clear picture.

He creates Eve.

He says, Here's the idea, not alone.

Satan wants you alone so that you'll be ineffective.

What God wants to do through you may require that somebody be beside you.

How many can you call?

Who are you beside?

In 2005, in Harris County, Texas, a man named Alfred DeWayne Brown was convicted.

There was an ace check cashing place, and the store clerk was shot and killed.

A police officer came to the scene, was shot and killed.

And Alfred Dwayne Brown was sentenced in 2005 to 10 years on death row.

He was in solitary confinement for 10 years.

Enter into his story, Brian Stollers, a fairly new attorney that was willing to work this case pro bono, who began digging for the truth because his desire was to help.

Brian said this.

Most people would never want to walk into a death row situation and meet somebody.

Brian said, the moment that I met Alfred, I knew that he was an innocent man.

Brian began digging into the case.

He found that witnesses had corroborated on a false testimony, got people in court to recant what they had said.

And then what some would say is sheer luck.

I don't think Alfred would say this.

He went digging through some old files, and in a garage of a detective, he found a file that showed phone evidence of Alfred Brown's alibi being the truth.

Went to court, presented these things, and Alfred Duane Brown was presented to that judge as an innocent man.

Ten years.

Alfred Brown in solitary confinement on death row awaiting his death.

A story of a man alone.

A man who needed one thing, church.

He needed a friend.

He needed a friend that would sit with him on death row.

And Brian Stollers was that friend.

There's a picture of him here.

They're friends today, to this day.

I'll come be a friend to you.

Church, the Bible begins with God looking at a man alone and saying, This is not good.

In the Bible's final curtain, what we see is that God fixes the gulf of aloneness that was created by man's sin and separated him from a holy God, creating aloneness from the Savior.

And in that final curtain, God brings all of his people together forever in eternity.

But in between the beginning and the end, those two moments, God sends Jesus.

He sends Jesus with a cross.

And Jesus came and he took that cross to that empty chair.

And my cross ain't gonna stay up.

He fixed man's problem of aloneness.

We were forever separated from a holy God.

And God said, That's not good.

He said, For he so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him would not perish but have everlasting life together forever for all eternity.

Church family, Jesus took our chair.

He took my chair and your chair.

Close your eyes if you like.

I remember this as a young boy.

It means so much to me now.

The song said this there's not a friend like the lowly Jesus.

No, not one, no, not one.

None else could heal all our souls' diseases.

No, not one, no, not one.

Jesus knows here, this church, all about our struggles.

He will guide to the day is done.

There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus.

No, not one.

No, not one.

No friend like him is so high and so holy.

And yet no friend is so meek and so lowly.

There's not an hour that he is not near us.

No night so dark that his love can't cheer us.

No, not one.

No, not one.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes?