Sermon Tone Analysis

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.

The apostle John said in his first letter

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

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

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.

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:

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.

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

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:

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.