Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Ecclesiastes 4:4-12), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [4] If “envy” is a motive that drives us at all (at least at some point) in our work, it means we motivate ourselves through the brokenness of our relationships, because envy is a failure of love. Can you think of times when envy drove you to work harder or to become more skilled in your work? What is your relationship with someone you envy like? Do you value their humanity and dignity? Do you esteem them more highly than yourself? Do you seek to work for their good? Or do you just want to “win” over and against the competition?

• [7-8] We are meant to work for the sake of others. Have you known any “workaholics”? How are their relationships? Why would we do such a thing to ourselves, depriving ourselves of relationships just to drive ourselves into the ground with our work?

• [9-12] We are meant to work together with others. Togetherness is better than loneliness for many practical reasons. Is your work better done alone, or with someone else? Why? When you consider participation in the work of the church, in the work of Jesus’ own mission, is it work that can possibly be done alone, or do you need others? Why?

• We need our relationships renewed, beginning with our relationship with God. Jesus calls us his friends, and in the church we have the privilege of calling all his other friends our friends too, in his name. Think of someone in your congregation with whom you are least likely to have a friendship, naturally. Is this person God’s friend? Do you have a right to continue in a broken relationship with God’s friend? How might your life and service in the church change if you were to enjoy a renewed relationship with this person because of Jesus?