Doing Life Together Series

Doing Life Together

Ecclesiastes 4:1-16

Rev. Brian Bill

August 17-18, 2024

In May 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General released a report titled, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” In it, he detailed the effects of loneliness on the American population, claiming that “lacking social connection can increase the risk for premature death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.” One commentator remarked, “Isn’t it strange that in a world more connected than ever through technology, the scourge of loneliness still strikes a lethal blow?” Other studies suggest that Gen Z is the most digitally connected generation but also the most socially isolated, lonely, and depressed.

This week I heard about a new AI-powered companion simply called, “Friend.” Designed to wear on a lanyard around your neck, it promises to provide companionship and emotional support by sending unprompted commentary throughout the day. The developer states that it’s essentially a good listener so it can speak into what it hears from you and from others around you.

Listen to what a reporter said in Wired, which is a website devoted to how technology is changing every aspect of our lives…

The ‘Friend’ purely offers companionship. It’s meant to develop a personality that complements the user and is always there to gas you up, chat about a movie after watching it, or help analyze how a bad date went awry. [The inventor] wants the Friend to be your friend, he wants it to be your best friend – one that is with you wherever you go, listening to everything you do, and being there for you to offer encouragement and support. He gives an example, where he says he recently was hanging out, playing some board games with friends he hadn’t seen in a while, and was glad when his AI Friend chimed in with [some commentary]. Listen to what he said, ‘I feel like I have a closer relationship with this [blank] pendant around my neck than I do with these literal friends in front of me.’

Oh, my. That’s so sad. As I did some more research, a headline in Elle grabbed my attention: “Can an AI Necklace Fill the Bestie-Shaped Hole in my Life?” Even more sad and chilling is a headline I saw in Fortune magazine about the AI Friend: “Meet the Harvard dropout who made an AI necklace he says is like ‘talking to God.’”

Wow, those are quite the claims. This AI Friend wants to be your best friend and take the place of God!

In striking contrast, as we learned last week, God has placed eternity in our hearts because we’ve been made to know Him through the new birth. Here’s a summary of the sermon: While we are mired to earth and tethered to time, we are also wired for eternity and will live eternally, in either Heaven or Hell.

What we’ll discover today is God has also implanted within us a desire for relational community in our souls. There’s nothing artificial about that. Here’s our main idea: Be intentional about connecting with others because we are made for community.

We’ll spend the majority of our time in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 but first, let’s put this text into context. As he begins this chapter, Solomon observes some troubling aspects of loneliness.

• The loneliness of oppression. Check out verse 1 where we see how the oppressed often suffer alone: “Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.”

• The loneliness of envy. If you only focus on coveting what others have, you’ll end up isolated and irritable. Listen to verse 4: “Then I saw that all toil and skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.”

• The loneliness of isolation. In verses 7-8, he describes the emptiness of isolation: “Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother…” Satan attacks believers when they are alone, much like he did with Eve in the garden and Christ in the wilderness.

In Genesis 1, God declared six times that everything He made was good. In Genesis 1:31 we read, “And God saw everything He had made, and behold, it was very good.” When we come to Genesis 2:18, we read what God thinks about isolation: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

God wants us to be integrated, not isolated, and to have authentic, not artificial relationships. Please turn to Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 and notice the word two, in contrast with the words one and alone: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him – a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”