Forrest: Hey, I'm Pastor Forrest and welcome to the Multiply Church Podcast.
Forrest: Each week we open God's word together to help you meet God and multiply good in your everyday life.
Forrest: We're so glad that you've taken time to join us for this week's sermon.
Forrest: And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and follow us on social media so you never miss a message.
Forrest: Now, let's dive into this week's sermon.
Forrest: We jump into this next installment of our series Smoke and Mirrors, as we've been looking at Ecclesiastes.
Forrest: And speaking of seasons, just over five years ago is when my family moved here to Frankfurt in January of 2021, January 15th of 2021.
Forrest: My family and Liberty O'Neill, who moved as well at that time, be a part of the church.
Forrest: And um, we moved January 15th, and then a snowmageddon happened.
Forrest: The whole town was shut down for like two weeks.
Forrest: Seems familiar, right?
Forrest: Sounds familiar.
Forrest: And then we got COVID, all of us.
Forrest: My wife and I, Liberty, we all got COVID at the same time.
Forrest: And I don't know if you had this experience like I did, but I lost my taste and smell.
Forrest: And uh the three of us, we would get together because we all had COVID together, didn't know anybody else in the community, just kind of locked away in this house for a month.
Forrest: And we would get together and we would eat dinner, and it's very disorienting when you aren't able to taste the food that's in your mouth.
Forrest: You can feel it in your mouth, but not being able to taste it, it's like it's almost depressing that you can't enjoy it.
Forrest: I don't know if y'all had that experience.
Forrest: And we got to be together and be with friends.
Forrest: And COVID has been over for years, but for some of you, you're still missing that taste of enjoying the gift of food with friends with the Lord, with God.
Forrest: Uh message today is food with friends.
Forrest: And a few years back, TV dinners became very much uh a novelty, and now it seems like that's more of the norm of us eating a meal in front of a screen or standing up or in the car.
Forrest: But what we're gonna see today, and where we're going today, and what my goal is for you to see today is that God approves of joy at the table, and they were never meant to do faith alone.
Forrest: We were never meant to walk alone, but instead we were meant to be in relationship, in friendship, enjoying the things of God at the table.
Forrest: I feel like so much, so many of us, and the state of things in our society has fallen to what I'm calling tabless spirituality.
Forrest: Having all the content that you could possibly have, Christian content that you could possibly consume, all the podcasts that you could listen to without the partnership of brothers and sisters in Christ to grow in relationship with.
Forrest: That you could be surrounded by people, but at the same time feel the silence of loneliness.
Forrest: The mom who's got the kids calling their name all the time, but you don't feel known.
Forrest: Or maybe you got coworkers that you have cordial relationships with in the office or after hours, a happy hour, and you wonder do they actually really care about you?
Forrest: You can constantly be in the presence of people and kids and family, but not have the kind of relationships that Jesus modeled in his ministry.
Forrest: I feel like too few of us have people and have friends that we can sit across the table from and say, This is where I'm struggling in my faith.
Forrest: The table is a centerpiece and really uh a character in so many of the stories that we see in Jesus' ministry.
Forrest: From Levi from Matthew, the tax collector, Jesus going to his home and sitting at the table and eating with sinners.
Forrest: And Zacchaeus, who was up in that tree, and Jesus said, Come down, I'm going to your house today.
Forrest: And he shared a meal with Zacchaeus and his friends, and then Zacchaeus' life was changed forever.
Forrest: Mary and Martha and Bethany and Jesus going at the meal of the table and him being anointed, feeding of the thousands with just a few fish and loaves.
Forrest: After Jesus' resurrection and the road to Emmausis, he's walking with these people who don't recognize him until they start breaking bread, and then they recognize him as the Messiah.
Forrest: And after his resurrection and his risen form to sit and eat breakfast with Peter, who had denied him, who had said he never didn't even know Jesus, for Jesus to sit on the shore and eat breakfast and forgive Peter and set up his ministry and leadership and restore it for forever.
Forrest: Or the Last Supper, where Jesus is surrounded by his disciples, and we see him take the towel and the basin and an example of servant leadership get down and wash the disciples' feet, including Judas Iscariot, who would betray him.
Forrest: See, there's so many moments that the meals with friends was the ministry.
Forrest: And Ecclesiastes is going to give us a direct point of view on this.
Forrest: And so I want us to dive into Ecclesiastes today.
Forrest: I've been looking forward to this message for months now to share with us.
Forrest: And this starts with this just one verse, verse 7.
Forrest: So go ahead, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this.
Forrest: That's probably not the passage you were expecting to hear at church today.
Forrest: You're like, this is the Bible?
Forrest: I love this church.
Forrest: Ecclesiastes gives this commentary that so much of life is meaningless.
Forrest: And we're to enjoy the table with our friends in fellowship, in communion with other believers, having a party because we have Jesus.
Forrest: Now that can quickly turn into escapism or even being doing this sinfully, or it can be deeply sacred this time.
Forrest: I don't know about you, but I know for me there's there's there's times when it's possible or to feel heavy-hearted or even depressed that you stop enjoying the small things in life.
Forrest: It's no longer enjoyable.
Forrest: But we're Christians.
Forrest: We should be marked by joy.
Forrest: It's a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Forrest: It's living for us.
Forrest: Maybe your life right now is marked instead of joy by envy or comparison or loneliness, and you can't even enjoy the small stuff.
Forrest: What we need to do in partnership with Jesus, walking with Jesus and with our brothers and sisters, we need to set the table for joy.
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody have joy today in the house of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody get up there?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about joy.
Forrest: We need to set the table for joy.
Forrest: We should have a countenance, an overflow that's marked by joy.
Forrest: And there's there's a season for everything, but so much of our life can feel void of meaning.
Forrest: But we need to enjoy today, right now, because tomorrow is not promised.
Forrest: And people say, well, you know, Christians are boring.
Forrest: Well, you know, it's just boring being a Christian.
Forrest: And people will say that while they're trying to pretend that they're not destroying their life and sin, trying to think that it's fulfilling what they're doing.
Forrest: We want to have joy.
Forrest: We want to enjoy the good gifts that God's given to us.
Forrest: And and there's there's a dichotomy, there's a there's a juxtaposition of uh have us having being people who have joy and enjoy versus indulging.
Forrest: We I know we we live in a distillery town, and you know, we want to enjoy our life.
Forrest: Well, I've said this before to our church, I want to say it again.
Forrest: If you're going to drink, then drink like Jesus did.
Forrest: In moderation, not to get drunk.
Forrest: And if you can't do that, then don't drink.
Forrest: If alcohol has been a struggle for you, you your Jesus move is sobriety.
Forrest: And we honor that here for you.
Forrest: We want you to surround yourself with believers who enjoy this life and not just like a person who's the always negative Christian who's always in the desert season.
Forrest: Like, get out of the desert season.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be dry all the time.
Forrest: People like, oh, you know, I just don't feel fed right now.
Forrest: If you don't feel fed, then help serve the meal.
Forrest: Maybe you'll start to get fed.
Forrest: When I came to uh uh to to be called to ministry at 18, and I was going into college, and I I would probably have gone to have the college experience, you know, if the Lord hadn't called me in to go into ministry.
Forrest: And so as I went to college, I had a bunch of Christian friends, and we just like would make our own fun.
Forrest: And I remember one night we threw this party in an apartment, and a cop got called because it was too loud.
Forrest: And I remember the Williamsburg police coming in door and the officer knocking on the door, he sounded like Barney Fife.
Forrest: He's like, What's going on in here?
Forrest: He had his flashlight out, looking around.
Forrest: And we had we had we had a ping pong table set up with red solo cups, and we had cereal and milk in this in the solo cups.
Forrest: And we were throwing ping pong ball back and forth.
Forrest: I'll never forget him on his radio outside of the door reporting.
Forrest: He's like, It's the craziest thing.
Forrest: They're playing beer pong in here, but it's all cereal and milk in those cups.
Forrest: I don't know who he was talking to.
Forrest: You know, Christians, like, we we're supposed to have joy.
Forrest: Enjoy those that are around us.
Forrest: Ecclesiastes double down doubles down on this in Ecclesiastes 8, 15.
Forrest: It says, so I rem recommend having fun because there's nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life.
Forrest: That way you will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.
Forrest: I don't know about you, but for me, it's so easy for me to get head down in the hard work, in the in the grind mindset.
Forrest: You're pushing off happiness in the moment for the stress of tomorrow, which is especially a pitfall of the fear of the season that we're in right now.
Forrest: In a culture and country, the scripture says there's nothing better for people.
Forrest: We need to see the value in enjoying the people that are in our life, that are around us, who are following Jesus, and that when we can with God encourage others in friendship, and it's our God who encourages us to do so.
Forrest: That we should be filled with joy, that we should be filled with joy, that we should come to the table with an expectation of having people there that we can encourage and enjoy and have a great time with.
Forrest: And us as believers, when we set a table of joy, then we need to make room to share.
Forrest: That's my second point.
Forrest: We need to make room to share.
Forrest: Well, for us, you know, I just keep my faith private.
Forrest: Show me in the scriptures where Jesus said that.
Forrest: Show me where he called us to do that.
Forrest: Because here's the thing: we have to make room because you're never gonna find the time for this.
Forrest: You have to make room for it.
Forrest: You're never gonna find the time.
Forrest: That's why you know lunch after church is very spiritual.
Forrest: Go with your friends, put it on the schedule.
Forrest: Your team, your small group, your friends at church, just schedule it so that then you can encourage each other and talk about what happened during your week and talk about the message so you can encourage one another, make room for others to be able to do it with you and make room in your calendar.
Forrest: It's deeply spiritual.
Forrest: Last week we looked at the first part of this passage in Ecclesiastes 4, but I want to give you the full context of it and what Ecclesiastes is saying, that we're aren't meant to be alone.
Forrest: Ecclesiastes 4, verse 7 says, I observed yet an example of something meaningless under the sun.
Forrest: This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can.
Forrest: But then he asks himself, Who am I working for?
Forrest: Why am I giving up so much pleasure right now?
Forrest: This is all so meaningless and depressing.
Forrest: And then verse 9, the rest of it.
Forrest: Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.
Forrest: If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.
Forrest: But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
Forrest: Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm.
Forrest: But how can one be warm alone?
Forrest: A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer.
Forrest: Three are even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken.
Forrest: You know, I forget that in the armor of God that we see in the book of Ephesians, that the only place that's not covered by the armor is our back.
Forrest: That's because us as Christians, we are meant to watch each other's backs, not stab each other in the back.
Forrest: We're supposed to be a people that are looking out for one another, shoulder to shoulder, back to back.
Forrest: And maybe for you, maybe you felt burned.
Forrest: Maybe you've had somebody who's let you down.
Forrest: Maybe you feel like that you know you can't trust people.
Forrest: And you know what?
Forrest: You will get hurt if you get close to others, but you also will get stronger when you're close to others.
Forrest: Ecclesiastes says, you're gonna get stronger.
Forrest: This triple braided cord.
Forrest: And so what we need to do is we set the table for joy and we invite others, and we and we make room in our schedule.
Forrest: We make room at the table for others.
Forrest: We need to make sure that we let it be a party of three.
Forrest: Three are better than one.
Forrest: This triple braided cord metaphor, a lot of times it's appropriated for wedding sermons.
Forrest: It really isn't about a husband and wife.
Forrest: This is about a life that's marked by deep friendship, having brothers to lean on, sisters to lean on.
Forrest: Because listen, someone who falls alone is in real trouble.
Forrest: That's what the scripture says.
Forrest: Of course, I don't need anybody.
Forrest: I've got this.
Forrest: It was never meant to be a do-it-all-alone, lone ranger, lone wolf.
Forrest: Christianity.
Forrest: This is always meant for us to be in relationship with others, with the body of Christ, growing in our faith together, worked out in friendship as the body, not just all by ourselves in isolation, which means that that's you plus two brothers to strengthen you, to build a life Christ together.
Forrest: If you're a lady, you and two sisters to build your strength and to build the strength of the life that you need to have together.
Forrest: Walking in Christ.
Forrest: And come to the table.
Forrest: Now I have a ridiculous moment at the table to share with you a few years back.
Forrest: I was with a bunch of guys, some pastors and some business guys.
Forrest: We were out to eat at a seafood restaurant in Charleston, and we were having a good time.
Forrest: We were in a bunch of oysters, and in the course of the dinner, one of the business guys challenged me to eat 50 raw oysters in eight minutes.
Forrest: This is what men do when they get around the table, okay?
Forrest: Competition, you know, some back and forth banter.
Forrest: And I was like, I'm ready for this challenge.
Forrest: I'm taking on this challenge.
Forrest: And then the guy on the business, he he slapped$100 down on the table.
Forrest: I'm like, I'm doing this.
Forrest: Let's go.
Forrest: And some of the guys at the table thought I couldn't do it, others were cheering me on, and I just started pounding these oysters, buddy.
Forrest: I was eating them so fast, I was going crazy.
Forrest: I wasn't even tasting them.
Forrest: And then oyster number 49 was rancid.
Forrest: And I almost threw up in my buddy's lap.
Forrest: But I summoned all the testosterone in my body, and I killed that last oyster in seven and a half minutes.
Forrest: Yeah.
Forrest: Ridiculous moment at the table.
Forrest: I'm not endorsing overeating here, gluttony's a sin.
Forrest: I know there's some of others like me that are recovering buffet Baptists.
Forrest: But it's at the table.
Forrest: Where even the lighter moments at the table, look at this, are approved by God.
Forrest: We don't just muscle our way through spiritual life.
Forrest: Imagine a shoulder-to-shoul, back-to-back church that was known for their love.
Forrest: What if we were a church?
Forrest: That is Jesus said that you know them by their love.
Forrest: If we were known for our love for one another, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, loving one another, encouraging one another, as we come to the table, recognize that it's sacred.
Forrest: Last week I preached about good parenting.
Forrest: And uh the saddest moment of my week was Emily was closing the pharmacy late on Wednesday, and so I was I was picking up the kids at 5:30 after work and heading home, they were begging for a happy meal.
Forrest: You know, sometimes, dad, sometimes you make dinner, sometimes you make dinner happen.
Forrest: Either way, you know, they eat, okay.
Forrest: The kids were in the back seat and they started eating their happy meals, and they were watching a movie, and I was sitting in the front seat and I had my food and I was listening to the podcast, and I just was like too tired to get everybody out of the car, get all the food packed back up, all the stuff they come from school with.
Forrest: And I was just sitting three three feet from my kids, and I decided to be alone.
Forrest: I felt so dumb, tired, out of gas.
Forrest: I hated it.
Forrest: And so we went inside and we played a few rounds of keepy uppy with a balloon.
Forrest: Shout out to Bluey, keep the balloon off hitting the ground from hitting the ground.
Forrest: And then we read a few pages from a new kid's book and went to bed and the night was recovered.
Forrest: But it's possible to be in a room even with our closest people and feel alone.
Forrest: Just to be honest with you, sometimes um after preaching and nobody responds, um, sitting on that front row over there is incredibly lonely.
Forrest: So it's like, well, am I good enough?
Forrest: Am I actually am I actually being effective?
Forrest: Am I actually called in this next season to multiply?
Forrest: If I hit my lid, I and I I know all that's lies from the enemy, and I'm not saying that to make you come up to me.
Forrest: What I'm saying is that isolated Christianity is incomplete to what Jesus modeled and calls us to be with him.
Forrest: You might be may not be preaching a sermon anytime soon, but you know what it's like to have the enemy lying to you in your ear, speaking things about your identity, trying to tear you down.
Forrest: The only thing the enemy can do to you is deceive you.
Forrest: The only thing he can do is lie to you and get you to believe those lies.
Forrest: Who do you have around you to help you?
Forrest: And the moments when you say, you know what, I'm struggling to call out the lies, to encourage you.
Forrest: It starts us with a small step.
Forrest: Maybe for you, it's you need to get involved.
Forrest: Our teams, we have these team events we eat normally in those moments where together, we share a meal, we have a great time.
Forrest: Maybe for you, it's most of our weekly small group share a meal together.
Forrest: And this is spiritual.
Forrest: This is Acts 2, early church, sharing life at the table together.
Forrest: This is God in his people in fellowship and friendship.
Forrest: Seeing God grow us and change us and make us into people, the people of joy that He's marked us to be.
Forrest: But maybe right now your life is not marked by joy or by enjoying the small things.
Forrest: Because you don't have the right friends around you because you've fallen back into some sin.
Forrest: You say you follow Jesus, but what's overflowing out of your life, you know that you need Jesus to fix it.
Forrest: You need something more.
Forrest: Or maybe you're in the room and you don't even have access to this joy and the enjoyment that you can have in Christ, the abundant life that he's calling us into, because you've not yet given your life to Jesus.
Forrest: You've not yet received the free gift of salvation that he purchased for you on the cross 2,000 years ago and put your sin on his back, and by his stripes, you are healed if you will put your faith and trust in Christ.
Forrest: The Son of God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, risen and reigning.
Forrest: And today's the day that you need to receive him as your Savior.
Forrest: Would you stand to your feet now as we pray?
Forrest: Father, all across this room right now, I pray over every home that's represented, God.
Forrest: I pray, God, that we would be people, Lord, that come to the table of what you are leading us to and calling us to.
Forrest: And Father, I pray, God, right now, Lord, that as right now there's people in the room that are just feeling right now a conviction, Lord.
Forrest: Right now, I pray, God, that you would encourage them and show them, Lord, they're not doing this alone.
Forrest: They have you, Jesus, your Holy Spirit's power.
Forrest: They had the family of faith.
Forrest: This church to walk with and to love and be friends with.
Forrest: Things need to go to the next level.
Forrest: That you need to come to the table, that you need to make room.
Forrest: That you need more in this area.
Forrest: Would you make a sign before heaven?
Forrest: And I want to pray for you.
Forrest: If that's you, you want things to go to the next level, you want to grow in this area.
Forrest: Would you raise your hand right here?
Forrest: I see you all across the room over here in the middle.
Forrest: Father, right now, Lord, as hands are raised.
Forrest: God, I pray, Lord, those that right now are saying, God, help me.
Forrest: Help me, Lord.
Forrest: I pray, God, that, Lord, you would not leave them in the place that they're in, but God, that you would lead them, Lord, into the next season and the next time, Father, it would be fulfilled and marked by joy and enjoyment, Father, that they would step out, Lord, and that they would make friends and that, Father, you would walk with them as they step into group or to a team or into relationships and friendships.
Forrest: All these things, Lord, the fellowship of believers, God, help them, Lord.
Forrest: Help them to take action.
Forrest: And now you may be in the room today and you've not received Christ as your Savior.
Forrest: You've not been forgiven and set free.
Forrest: You've not put your trust in his death on the cross and his resurrection.
Forrest: Today is the day of your salvation.
Forrest: If that's you, I want you to pray, Jesus, save me.
Forrest: I give my life to you as you gave your life for mine.
Forrest: Forgive me.
Forrest: Cleanse me.
Forrest: Wash me so I can be in heaven with you one day.
Forrest: I believe that you are the Son of God.
Forrest: That you died on the cross and that you walked out of the grave.
Forrest: I'm gonna be in heaven with you.
Sallie: We're so grateful you joined us for this week's message.
Sallie: At Multiply, we believe life was never meant to be lived alone.
Sallie: If today you made the decision to follow Jesus, we'd be honored to walk with you on this journey.
Sallie: Visit multiplyky.com to let us know.
Sallie: We love you and we'll see you again soon.