Introduction

Welcome to week 3 in our We Are Gathered Here series. To begin this morning I’d like to read one of Aesop’s Fables called, The Bundle of Sticks.

A certain Father had a family of Sons, who were forever quarreling among themselves. No words he could say did the least good, so he cast about in his mind for some very striking example that should make them see that discord would lead them to misfortune.

One day when the quarreling had been much more violent than usual and each of the Sons was moping in a surly manner, he asked one of them to bring him a bundle of sticks. Then handing the bundle to each of his Sons in turn he told them to try to break it. But although each one tried his best, none was able to do so.

The Father then untied the bundle and gave the sticks to his Sons to break one by one. This they did very easily.

"My Sons," said the Father, "do you not see how certain it is that if you agree with each other and help each other, it will be impossible for your enemies to injure you? But if you are divided among yourselves, you will be no stronger than a single stick in that bundle."

I realize that this simple children's fable could be applied to any number of situations, many of which you were probably imagining as I read through it. Today however, as it pertains to the church, the lesson is a simple and powerful one.

We are stronger together than we are alone. The church gathers for strength.

We are stronger together than we are alone. The church gathers for strength.

Main Teaching

Today there are several passages of scripture we’re going to look at as we discuss the strength we experience when we gather together.

To begin, please turn with me to Proverbs 14:4

Proverbs 14:4

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox come abundant harvests.”

Some translations of this Proverbs passage say, “where there are no oxen the manger is clean.” I think we all understand what that means - If you don’t want any mess then you need to have an empty manger… Because, as you can imagine, getting a bunch of oxen together can be messy business.

And, for the record, can we be honest about something right now? Being in community is messy too, isn’t it? In fact it can get so messy that there are many of us who’ve experienced wounds and hurts from being part of a community ... View this full sermon with PRO Premium