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Fellowship by Reverend Murray Spackman, Vicar. Sunday 24th October, 2004 John 13:12-17. Ephesians2:17-22. We're continuing our series on 40 Days of Purpose.
Recently, Adelina Dominguez died in San Diego. Now, what made her
death noteworthy is that according to the Guinness Book of Records, she
was the oldest living American. At 114 years of age, she outlived all of her children and
some of her grandchildren. When
she was asked the secret of her longevity, Associated Press reports she
gave all the credit to God and to His plan and purpose for her life,
quote, "I knew God had a purpose for my life."
Now,
we're in this 40 days series on God's purpose for your life. And last
week, we looked at His first purpose, which is to get to know Him and to
love Him. The Bible calls
that worship. Now,
once you understand and get started on God's first purpose for your
life, God wants you to begin to focus and start practicing His second
purpose for your life. And
today, we're going to look at the second purpose, which is
that you are formed for God's family.
Look at the second verse down from the top
“His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His
own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ."
The entire Bible is the story of God building a family for Himself
that is going to last forever. And because God is
building a spiritual family, He wants His family to get along with each
other. So St.Peter , speaking the heart of God, says to his fellow
believers, (I Peter 2:17.) "Love
your spiritual family." (Or “Love
other believers!” - it
says in the Good News Bible) - so God wants you to begin to learn to love
them here and now, as well as
forever! So would you write this down, “My second purpose
in life is Fellowship.” Now that's the word that the Bible uses to describe
loving and caring for each other, and like the word Worship, we
looked at last week, so Fellowship
is often misunderstood. If I were to go out and ask people on the
street, “What do you think of when I say the word ‘fellowship’?”,
some would say a casual conversation, some would say eating out together,
some might say going to church. The Collins New English dictionary defines
it rather coldly as “the
state of being an associate”, social intercourse, companionship.”
When two people talk, they don’t necessarily have Fellowship! So
what is Fellowship? -
write this down -- “Fellowship
is loving God's family, and
the Family of God is the Church- those
who love Him, worship Him and want to fulfil His purposes for their lives.
And just in case you have forgotten - the
church is not a building; it is not an institution;
it is not an organization; it is not a club.
It is a family you belong to, and Fellowship is about
Loving God’s Family! Now
there are four levels of fellowship and you need to fulfil each of
the four levels to really fulfil this Purpose of God for your life. (1) The first level of Fellowship
is Membership.,
and Membership ( write this
down) is "Choosing to belong." That's the most basic level.
That means you find a church family and you choose to get
connected to it. Look at what
the Bible has to say in Ephesians 2:19.
- "You are members of God's very own family and you belong
in God's household with every other Christian."
The Christian life is not just a matter of believing.
It is very importantly a matter of belonging, and you and I
must choose or decide to
belong. You know,
I often hear people say, “Well, I’m a Christian, but I don't want to
belong to any church.” That
just doesn't make sense. The
church is where you live out what it means to be a Christian.
That's like saying, “I’m a football player, but I don't want to
be a part of any team, or I’ll only join in with the team once a
month,or at Christmas and Easter!.”
It doesn't work that way!
A Christian without a church family is a spiritual orphan.
God meant us to be a part of a family and enjoy the Fellowship of
that family.
This next week in the Purpose Driven Life book, we're going to be
reading together six reasons why you need to be a part of a church
family. Baptism is the
public way of saying we died to an old way of life; we're living to a new
way of life. You will see some references in your summary sheet which
speak about this. So
the first level of Fellowship is choosing to belong. (2) The
Second level of Fellowship is about learning to share.
I call this “the FRIENDSHIP level.”
The Bible says this in Acts 2:44. "All the believers met
together constantly and shared everything with each other."
Note - "met
together," and - "shared."
You can't develop friendships without meeting together; and
you can't develop friendships without sharing.
I think most people today are lonely because they don't make time
for friendships!. They are
too busy achieving ; working; doing other things.
You have to get together to make friends. They happen because you choose
to make the time for them.. And as well as meeting together, you can't
develop friendships without sharing. It says, “they
shared everything."
Little children have to learn to share, and so too, in
the family of God, God says,
“ I want you to learn to share with other believers as a way of
developing Friendship.”
So what are we supposed to share? Let me just mention three. You can list in your
outline. Number
1, the Bible says we're to share our experiences. Experiences. The Bible says people learn from one
other “just as iron sharpens iron."
I think it makes good sense to learn from the experiences of other
people, because I don't have time to make all the mistakes myself!
Think of how much we could each learn from each other here, if we
just spend some time together! Second,
the Bible says we're to share our homes.
The Bible says in I Peter 4:9, "open up your homes to each other."
Why does God say that? – because you cannot have and enjoy
fellowship in a crowd. You can only have real fellowship in a small
group. And that's why the Bible says open up your homes to each other.
That's where you really get to know people. I’m sure you knew that in
the first 300 years of Christianity, there were no church buildings? All
church meetings were held in homes. And that, by the way, was the fastest
period of growth for the church.
One of the reasons we keep saying, “Get into a small group” is
because that's where you experience Fellowship. How many of you are in a 40 Days of Purpose group? Can I
see your hands? Look at that. Almost everybody!
. We have about 260
people meeting in small groups this week.
260! A group I’d like us to honour today is the hosts
that opened up their homes for all of us.
[[ If you're a
host, would you stand up and let us just appreciate you right now, because
you opened your home? Congratulations!
Thank you! ]]
You know, you’re not really going to feel a part of the
Holy Trinity family until you get in a group.
It’s there that you will really experience Fellowship. Now, not only do we share our experiences
and our homes,
the Bible says, number three, we're to share our problems.
We're not meant to face our problems alone.
Are there any of you who don’t have some problems?
I didn’t think so! The
Bible says, “Share each other's troubles and problems.” You
know when you share a joy, it is doubled; and when you share a problem, it
is halved? God hasn't told you to fix everybody's
problems - He just says share them. This means lending a
listening ear, sharing
sympathy and experience. So
this second level of Fellowship is about Friendship; and we
develop our Friendship when we share our experiences, our homes and our
problems. The third level is PARTNERSHIP. Now
Partnership is simply
doing my part.! Look
at this next verse from 1 Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 9. "We are
partners working together for God."
Partnership is realizing that I’ve got a contribution to make;
that the family of God needs you. SO
we serve one another; We love
one another ; We pray with one another.We DO things for one another! That is what level three- PARTNERSHIP
is all about – doing my part.in the life of the Church.. And when
we cooperate together, like the different members, or partners in a body,
then we get more done together than we could ever get done by ourselves.
Mother Teresa spent her life working with the poorest of the poor
in Calcutta, India. And she was once asked, "How do you handle all
the death and disease on a daily basis? How do you do the tough things
when it comes to serving?" And her answer was, “Every person I
bathe, every person I bandage, I imagine seeing the face of Jesus and I do
it for Him.” That's the attitude that's behind this.
It’s the attitude of Matthew chapter 25, verse 40, "Just
as you did it to one of the least of these who are the members of my
family, you did it to Me." So I encourage you to make this a practical action step this
week, if you want to experience a deeper level of fellowship. Look for a
practical need in your group, in the church, among those around you -- and
watch what it does for your relationship and for your fellowship with one
another. Now, the deepest level of fellowship in the
family of God (4) is
what I call "KINSHIP."
Kinship literally means your closest relationships. It means your
closest family. When somebody has an accident, they say, “Notify their
next-of-kin”, They mean you find the person they care about most, the
person who is closest to them, the one they hold most dearly. And the
Bible says that's the kind of attitude we should have towards our
fellow believers. That kinship
- the deepest level - you might write this down --, is loving
believers like family;
You're completely committed to them. The Bible says of Christians
in the early church -in Acts 2:42. “They were like family to each
other." God says
“Well, we're not just like a family; we are
a family.” It literally means being as committed to each other as
we are to Jesus Christ. That is the deepest level of
fellowship.- sacrificing for
each other, being there for each other.
It's the kind of love Jesus Christ had for you.
Friends,
this is what life is all about, loving God ( that’s worship)
and learning to love each other.- ( that’s Fellowship.)
Life is not about accomplishments.
It is about relationships. Jesus
said, in John 13 “Your strong love for each other will prove to the
world that you are my disciples.”
What I would really want our Parish to be known for is not
necessarily our size, or our sermons, or even our singing or our
strategy,; or even this beautiful buildings, but our love!
I would want people to say, “That's the place where they love
each other,” - because that's what Christianity is all about,- its
about loving God and loving each other. So let me ask you a couple
relevant questions: Which of
these levels of fellowship are you at?
Membership, Friendship, Partnership or Kinship ?
You might well be thinking - “But, aren’t we all automatically
a part of the family of God?” The
answer is No!
Everybody is created by God, but not everybody is a child
of God. You have to choose
to be a part of God's family. God
gave us one condition by which we become a member of His family -, the
last verse on your outline. "You are all children of God through
faith in Christ Jesus.” You
can become a member of His family today- simply through deciding to trust
in Jesus Christ! - if you will
open your heart and your life to Him, and choose to Worship Him, and to
enter into Fellowship with His Family. Let's bow our heads. Father, next to knowing and worshipping you,
the greatest gift you have ever given us is the opportunity to be a
part of your family. Thank you that we don't have to go through life as
disconnected and isolated individuals.
Thank you for creating this Church family for all of us.
Forgive me for taking this Family too casually, so today
I’m choosing to belong. I want to learn to share and make time to
develop real friendships. I
want to do my part in the family of God.
I want to learn to love other believers like brothers and sisters.
Teach me the meaning of real love. In your name I pray, Amen.” ******* |
