A Standard for Fellowship
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Introduction
Introduction
This morning I am beginning a sermon series on the subject of fellowship. The word fellowship never appears in the English Standard Version of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the same Greek word is always used for the English word fellowship. It can refer to having a close association and relationship with others. This results from shared interests and beliefs. It is sometimes used in the sense of describing the attitude of a person or group. Fellowship is something that is often demonstrated. Finally, fellowship requires participation.
The foundation for Christian fellowship is a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The apostle John said in his first letter
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
In other words John and his counterparts preached the gospel for the purpose of bringing others into Christian fellowship. That is fellowship with the triune Godhead and with one another. A positive response to the gospel is the prerequisite for that fellowship.
James packer said
10,000 Sermon Illustrations Christian Fellowship
Christian fellowship is two-dimensional, and it has to be vertical before it can be horizontal. We must know the reality of fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ before we can know the reality of fellowship with each other in our common relationship to God (1 John 1:3). The person who is not in fellowship with the Father and the Son is no Christian at all, and so cannot share with Christians the realities of their fellowship.
During this series I plan to highlight some of the standards for fellowship, based on the word of God. I also plan to highlight some requirements for fellowship and finally, the benefits of fellowship.
This morning I am beginning this series with A Standard for Fellowship.
Prayer
A Standard that Results in Joy
A Standard that Results in Joy
1 So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
The command in this passage is “complete my joy”. It follows a series of rhetorical questions, meaning question for which the answer is already known. Is there any encouragement in Christ? The answer is yes. The word encouragement should be understood as the comfort a person feels when someone consoles them during a difficult time. Without a doubt, Christ encourages us through difficult times.
I have been with many people and families in the emergency room, in the ICU waiting rooms, and in the family rooms when loved ones have passed. Those who have a strong relationship with Christ by faith know the nature of the encouragement He gives us. It is something that can be seen even as a person grieves a loss. Is there any encouragement in Christ? You bet there is. Jesus promised that He would not leave His followers as orphans. A few verses later he said that He leaves us with peace. It is not the peace of the world, rather His peace. The ultimate consolation or encouragement for believers and all creation will come in the future.
22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
Is there any comfort from love. Yes. Our encouragement, consolation and comfort comes as a result of the unconditional love He has for us. Paul told the Thessalonians that that God the Father and God the Son loved us and as a demonstration of that love He gives us an eternal hope and comfort through grace. We do not deserve to be comforted by the God of Creation, but because He loves each one of us so much, He offers grace. Is there participation among believers? Another word for participation is fellowship. Believers are brought together with God through Christ and are all bound together by the same Holy Spirit of God, who indwells every believer and followers of Christ. That creates a sense of compassion for others and a desire to minister to them, especially in difficult times.
I have talked about this before. Prior to being saved I really did not care about other people. My focus was to find out what you could do for me and then get as much as a could. There were very few people in this world that I truly cared about and had genuine compassion and concern for. One of the first things I noticed after being saved was I began to care about other people. This was especially true of those who were part of the church we were part of. People I really did not know very well, I found myself loving. I even started hugging my brothers in Christ. When I grew up men did not hug each other. We shook hands. But when Christ gets hold of you and the Spirit takes up residence things change. Because those things change, we have an obligation and more important a desire to respond.
Paul says that if you feel that obligation and desire, complete my joy by responding accordingly. Be of the same mind. In other words think in a way that is consistent with the intimacy we have with Christ and one another. Love God and love one another, with the same kind of love He loves us with. When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment in the Jewish Law, this is what he said:
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
I like to summarize that statement this way, “Love God and demonstrate you love Him by loving others.”
When we recognize the impact a relationship with Christ has on us and the fellowship it brings us into, not only with Him but with each other, then we have the same mind, we have genuine love, and we all work toward the same goals and objectives. That results in joy.
10,000 Sermon Illustrations Leper Colony
A visitor was being shown around a leper colony in India. At noon a gong sounded for the midday meal. People came from all parts of the compound to the dining hall. All at once peals of laughter filled the air. Two young men, one riding on the other’s back, were pretending to be a horse and a rider and were having loads of fun. As the visitor watched, he saw that the man who carried his friend was blind, and the man on his back was lame. The one who could not see used his feet; the one who could not walk used his eyes. Together they helped each other, and they found great joy in doing it.
Imagine a church like that—each member using his or her strength to make up for another’s weakness. That’s what should be happening in every congregation of believers.
That is a standard that results in joy. Not just joy among the local church, but I believe our Lord and all of heaven has joy. Paul himself may be in heaven longing for the local church today to complete his joy in the same way he commanded the Philippians.
A Standard that Requires Humility
A Standard that Requires Humility
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
The opposite of selfishness and self-centeredness is humility. As one writer noted, the absence of humility in the church can destroy it, thus harming the fellowship of believers. More than that, a person who thinks only of themselves, is probably someone struggling to humble themselves before God, thus fellowship with Him is impeded. Jesus said:
4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
According to our passage, humility means thinking less of yourself and more about others. In the context of Christian fellowship, if everyone is humbling themselves before the Lord, then it is likely we will also humble ourselves toward one another.
Humility may mean setting aside a preference for the good of the church. Humility may mean doing something you may not want to do, or not doing something you have always done. It may mean doing something we are not sure about, or the way we have done something before.
In Guideposts, Ronald Pinkerton describes a near accident he had while hang gliding. He had launched his hang glider and been forcefully lifted 4,200 feet into the air. As he was descending, he was suddenly hit by a powerful new blast of air that sent his hang glider plummeting toward the ground.
I was falling at an alarming rate. Trapped in an airborne riptide, I was going to crash! Then I saw him—a red-tailed hawk. He was six feet off my right wingtip, fighting the same gust I was …
I looked down: 300 feet from the ground and still falling. The trees below seemed like menacing pikes.
I looked at the hawk again. Suddenly he banked and flew straight downwind. Downwind! If the right air is anywhere, it’s upwind! The hawk was committing suicide.
Two hundred feet. From nowhere the thought entered my mind: Follow the hawk. It went against everything I knew about flying. But now all my knowledge was useless. I was at the mercy of the wind. I followed the hawk.
One hundred feet. Suddenly the hawk gained altitude. For a split second I seemed to be suspended motionless in space. Then a warm surge of air started pushing the glider upward. I was stunned. Nothing I knew as a pilot could explain this phenomenon. But it was true: I was rising.
On occasion we all have similar “downdrafts” in our lives, reversals in our fortunes, humiliating experiences. We want to lift ourselves up, but God’s Word, like that red-tailed hawk, tells us to do just the opposite. God’s Word tells us to dive—to humble ourselves under the hand of God. If we humble ourselves, God will send a thermal wind that will lift us up.
Genuine fellowship requires humility.
A Standard Jesus Exemplified
A Standard Jesus Exemplified
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The greatest example of humility we have in the history of mankind, is that set by our Lord Jesus Christ; who as I said earlier is the very foundation our fellowship with God and with one another is built on. He was God. Nothing that was made was made without Him. In heaven, God the Son shared in all the glory and honor due to the triune Godhead. Yet he emptied Himself. He shed His divine position and divine glory, putting on the flesh of fallen mankind. Why did He do this? Because that was the will of God the Father, thus the will of God the Son. That divine will was motivated by the desire to have fellowship with fallen man. To have that fellowship Jesus put not only divine will ahead of his own, but put our needs first. He had to take on human form and die as a sacrifice for our sins. It could not be an imperfect man. It could not be an animal or sacrifice. It had to be, as John the Baptist said, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
It is his example we should try to imitate as we work toward perfect fellowship. He did not just exemplify the standard, He set the standard.
Many years ago Mary used to like shopping at yard sales. For a few dollars she would come home with a car full of treasures. One day she bought me an almost new Gold Rolex watch for $5.00. It was actually a replica, but a pretty good one. It weighed a little less than the real thing. It kept good time for several years, until the Rolex label on the face of the watch came loose and prevented the hands from turning. For several years I wore it because it looked good. If someone commented on it, I was honest about it being an imitation. I did not want my bosses to think they were paying me too much, my employees thinking I was not paying them enough, or my customers thinking I was charging them too much. It was a close imitation, that almost looked like the real thing. But it was not the real thing. It had imperfections the real thing would never have. But while it lasted it looked good.
Some may think I cannot be like Christ. That is correct. None of us can perfectly replicate Christ. Even when we try, our imperfect human condition will eventually be revealed. But that does not mean we should not do the best we can, and try to imitate Him.
Paul told the Corinthians: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” In other words, “Do what I’m doing. Think the way I think; because I’m doing the best I can to imitate Christ.”
If we can become imitators of Christ, we will find genuine fellowship.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The biblical standard for fellowship, when followed, will fill us with joy. That standard requires us to humble ourselves before Him and toward one another. Finally, it is a standard set and demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ.
As I said earlier, a relationship with Christ is the foundation for fellowship with Him and with one another. Apart from that relationship, we are separated from Him by sin. All of us have sinned and need a savior. The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ was shed to pay for our sins; past, present, and future. He is our savior. Will join the Christian fellowship by placing your faith and trust in the person and work of Christ?
Then I ask you to bow your head right now, and pray something like this:
Father God, I have sinned against you. I want forgiveness for my sins. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again. Father, I give my life to you; to be the Lord of my life. I want Jesus to come into my life and into my heart. In Jesus Name. Amen
If you prayed that prayer in a genuine, heartfelt way, then you have just begin a new life in Christ.
If you prayed that and are watching online, we want to help you grow in your new relationship with Him. Contact us through our website or message us on our Facebook page.Or you can contact me directly at 205-285-4969. If you are here this morning and prayed that prayer for the first time, then we will give you the opportunity to come this morning to publicly declare your faith in Christ and be welcomed into the fellowship. Perhaps there is some other need you have.