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SUBJECT OF THIS STUDY
Fellowship among believers is much more
than dinner on the grounds, the occasional party, or getting together to
gossip about those who missed the meeting. Fellowship is the act of the
Christian Church in shared communion, suffering, happiness, and sadness.
We are all members of the Family of God, and are expected to treat one another
just as good (or better) than we treat our own earthly brothers and sisters.
It’s too bad that the majority of the Christian Church (whether the believers
prescribe to Catholicism, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, or Holiness/Pentecostal)
has forgotten what God teaches us about fellowship in favor of sectism,
elitism, and earthly prejudices. It’s time we understood what God tells
us in His Word about the Fellowship we are commanded to observe. That’s
the purpose of this short study.
1. The initiation of fellowship (the gathering of the Saints)
is commanded to all believers:
Hebrews 10.24-25 "And let us consider one another
to provoke [PAROXZUSMOS, STIR UP] unto love and to good works.
Not forsaking [EGKATALEIPO, DESERT UNDER FIRE] the assembling of
ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another
and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.."
2. It is both the plan and prayer of Jesus that we reach
oneness (unity) in the Church, just as the Holy Trinity has unity in Heaven:
John 17.11, 21-23 "And now I am no more in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through
thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one,
[HEIS, NUMERICALLY ONE] as we are.... That they all may be one as
Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us;
that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which
Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are
one. I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;
and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them,
as Thou hast loved me..."
3. The Church begins to reach unity of fellowship when
it follows the new commandment of Jesus. This is the mark of a Christian
to a lost and dying world:
John 13.34-35 "A new commandment I give unto you,
that ye love [AGAPE, DIVINE LOVE] one another; as I have loved
you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples if ye have love one to another.."
4. Love always seeks a way to build up rather than to tear
down the Body of Christ: Romans 15.1-7
Romans 15.1-2 excerpt.. "We then that are strong
ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.
Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification.."
5. The tongue is the chief weapon Satan uses to destroy
the fellowship of the saints:
1 Corinthians 1.10 " Now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing,
and that there be no divisions [SCHISMA, SEPARATIONS, DIVISIONS]
among you; but that ye perfectly joined together in the same mind, and
in the same judgment.."
6. The Lord's Table, the Communion, was designed to show
both our unity as a Body and our unity with Jesus:
1 Corinthians 10.16-17.." The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which
we break, is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ? For we being
many are one bread and one body: for we are all partakers of that one
bread.."
7. The fellowship of the saints has lines of authority
and rules of order that God expects us to follow. This authority is necessary
for the edification of the saints: 1 Thessalonians 5.11-22
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