Fellowship - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. What you and I have in common more than anything else is we're both believers in Jesus Christ. We've both been born again. We're both part of the family of God. You see, and he said, now, do you see each other as partners? See, that's what fellowship is.

Do you see each other as partners in your life? You need to if you're going to really experience what the Scriptures call fellowship. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. Welcome to Fellowship Bible Church.

And that's our name. We have Bible in our name, so you kind of know we're going to be teaching the Bible. But our first name is it's fellowship. What's that mean? I remember many years ago, a fellow said to me in the lobby that he said, How can you call yourself fellowship and you don't have coffee and donuts?

Now, it's clear that he had an idea. It wasn't biblical at all, but it was an idea of what fellowship meant. And we sort of bring that on ourselves. I mean, if you walk to the end of the hall, you'll see it on a door safe fellowship hall. That means if you go in there, you'll have fellowship.

You'll have lunch. But probably not fellowship. See, fellowship is. It's a discipline. It's something that's commanded in scripture. It's a needed practice.

It's something that's extremely important. The church has tried desperately to realize how important fellowship is. In the 1970s, Dr. Gene Getz was the one who started the first fellowship Bible church in Dallas.

Gene realized that the churches were very good at learning. They were reasonably good at worshipping, but they were really bad at fellowship. And so he thought that if they could create a church that would break down into what we call today small groups, he called mini churches. If you could break people down into small mini churches, then they would really experience fellowship. And the results were very limited.

The idea was a good one, but it didn't really result in it. Churches have tried meet and greets with new people. They've tried lunches and dinners. They've tried retreats to take people on in small groups.

All of them good ideas. But the idea that you will create fellowship by doing such a thing is a misnomer. Fellowship may be something different than you think. I spent this last week studying fellowship everywhere I could find it in the New Testament.

So I'm going to make a list of statements about it today. And I hopefully that will give you a much better idea of this really important aspect of your life and our church life called fellowship. I want to begin by opening our Bibles to Acts chapter two. The book of Acts chapter two. Verse forty two.

The church has just begun. And Luke writes these words. He says they. Were continually. Devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. And to fellowship.

To breaking a bread. And a prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. Many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles and all those who believed were together and they had all things in common.

There's where we run into it. The first time in the church. They had fellowship. In fact you'll notice that the first church was built on four things. One was the apostles teaching. Two was the Lord's table. Three was prayer life.

And four was fellowship. There's where we get the word. The Greek word is koinia. And koinia means partnership. It means participation.

It means in some way sharing. But I really like that word partnership. You see fellowship means our life in common. We are now partners.

And the prevailing question of the day for you. Of whether or not you really experience fellowship is simply this. Are there other believers in your life. That you see as partners.

In your life. You see if you don't see them as partners you're not experiencing New Testament fellowship at all. Now we can easily see how partners work. I see my wife as my partner. That's fellowship. I see the staff as partners. You see that's fellowship. But the New Testament makes it clear that I should see everybody.

And particularly some people and very particularly as my partners. Because that's what fellowship is. Fellowship is a partnership. That's why he said afterwards he said they have all things in common. It means our life in common that we have.

It's not the same as what we often call it. We have made it into sort of something different. Like hey let's have lunch.

And then we'll go and watch a Saints game together. And we'll say well we had great fellowship. You didn't have fellowship. I mean what you had was wonderful. It was friendship.

It's a good thing. But fellowship and friendship are different. Fellowship deals with our life in common. What it means for us to be as believers in Jesus Christ.

Secondly you can see that fellowship is a very high priority in the early church. He says they were continually devoting themselves. Continually devoting. Proskatero is the word. The Greek word. It means to attend constantly.

If I were going to say in English what it meant was simply this. They were all in. There is nothing more important in them than these four things. The apostles teaching and prayer. The Lord's table and fellowship.

He said we're all in. It sort of goes back to what the Lord said. If you remember we started this series on being authentic. And I said the first week that the enemy of you being authentic is hypocrisy. And we all have a propensity to be hypocritical in certain areas.

And then I said authentic believers love the word of God. They just love it. It's not necessarily regimented.

It's not like oh I need to do this. They just love it. Last time we said that authentic believers pray. And they pray worshipfully. They pray submissively. They pray repentantly. They pray to God not just asking God for things but as an act of worship. Now we're talking about fellowship. And notice that he says they had all things in common.

It's an astounding thing. The question when it comes to fellowship are you all in? See do you see other believers as your partners? I think for most of us there's a lot of reasons why we don't. I mean one reason we would say we don't. The reason we do.

By the way it's the reason we give for anything we don't want to do. We're too busy. I'd really love to but I'm just too busy. I'd love to pray more but I'm too busy. I'd love to get into the scriptures more but I'm too busy. I'd love to have fellowship but I'm too busy.

That maybe work for you but it probably is not going to work for the Lord. Secondly I think a lot of us have a fear about it. Some of us may have been hurt in the past. And because you've been hurt by somebody in the past you go look I don't want to get too close to anybody. If I get close to people I've been hurt in the past and we'll address that a little bit later.

Other people would say I don't need it. As long as they got me and the Lord I'm fine. That sounds good on the surface but when you look at the New Testament the New Testament says you're not fine. We need other believers in our lives. And I'm afraid for some of us we don't want fellowship or closeness because we have a secret life. We have a life that we're not too proud of. We don't want people to hear about what we're really doing Monday through Saturday.

And so consequently we want to keep it to ourselves. Fellowship was a high priority of the early church. It means all the things we have in common and the question is do you see other believers as partners? The third thing I want to say is fellowship is for believers only. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 14. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 14.

Famous passage. You can't have New Testament fellowship with anybody but a believer. Now you can have friendship and you should. You should have friends and be friendly to unbelievers but you do not have fellowship. Fellowship is something different. Notice what Paul and how he addresses it on verse 14.

He gives us a command first and he says this. Do not be bound together with unbelievers. This is that famous passage in the King James.

Do not be unequally yoked. Okay and we use that all the time by the way to refer to marriage. And it's fine to refer to marriage, right? But Paul's not talking about marriage here.

He's actually talking about business. So it's a little bit different in the context but marriage it fits just fine. Do not be bound together with an unbeliever. You can't get that close.

Why? For what partnership and by the way that word partnership? Koinonia. I could say fellowship. For what fellowship have righteousness and lawlessness? He said or what fellowship has light and darkness?

The word is repeated twice. He says there's no fellowship between light and darkness. You can't have that. He said or what harmony has Christ in Belial? He said or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

He said you really don't have it. You can have a friend. Even your closest friend, the person that means the most in your life, should be a believer in Jesus Christ.

Why? Because Jesus Christ is the most important thing in your life. The perspective that I need in my life as I struggle through this life is a biblical Christ-like perspective. That needs to come from other believers. I need to relate to other believers in that way.

The question again comes back to do I see other believers as my partner? It's an extremely important thing for us to do. God gives us the warning right there. The fourth thing I want to say is fellowship centers on our relationship in Christ.

I don't want you to take that for granted. Go with me back to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1. I'll start in verse 4 because it starts the paragraph. Paul telling the Corinthians how thankful he is for him. He said, I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and in all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation or the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of the Lord. He says, look, the Lord will confirm you. It's a wonderful verse for the eternal security of the believer.

The Corinthians did everything wrong you could do as a church. And Paul wants to let them know immediately that all of them will be with the Lord. And then he says this in verse 9, God is faithful through whom you were called into what? Fellowship with his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

It's that relationship with the son. That's what we have in common. What you and I have in common more than anything else is we're both believers in Jesus Christ. We've both been born again. We're both part of the family of God. You see, and he said, now, do you see each other as partners? See, that's what fellowship is.

Do you see each other as partners in your life? You need to if you're going to really experience what the scriptures call fellowship. That's kind of hard for us. The New Testament is loaded with one anothers.

It says over and over again to all these one anothers. You need to love one another. You need to forgive one another. You need to encourage one another. You need to admonish one another. You need to confess your sins one to another. Over and over it says one another. You need to do this. You need to do this.

Now that requires what? A relationship. You see, one of the things about fellowship is it's universal in a sense, but it's more specific than that. There are believers that I have a much deeper fellowship with than other believers.

The reason is the test of time. The test of time has allowed me to trust them and them to trust me. For example, if you left church today and someone met you in the lobby and they walked up to you and said, hi, nice to meet you.

I was really convicted by the sermon. My name's Joe. I just got to tell you something. I've been embezzling money at my company and he starts telling you all the terrible things that he's doing. What's your response? Run for it, right?

Whoa! He assumed way too much. You see, you can't do it that way. That's not the way we relate to one another. This comes on the basis of trust.

So I'm not saying to do this to everyone openly. I'm talking about as God puts people in your lives. We relate to people in different ways. I mean, there's the surface way in which we relate. That's the way we usually relate to one another. We'll talk about it's a nice day today.

Are you going to watch the game today? You see, something like that, we just talk that way. Then there's the personal way in which we relate. And sometimes with that, we talk about issues in our life, especially health issues. How are you doing? Well, I'm doing good, but that's health issues.

We're just talking that way. But then there's a spiritual way in talking. And that has to do with the real issues of your life, the things that are really troubling you.

You need someone in your life like that, someone who listens to those things and someone who can encourage you or admonish you. You see, fellowship is an important aspect of our life. It's strategic to us. That's why the early church was devoted to fellowship. Fellowship also involves sharing what we have to give. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians 8. This is the heart of fellowship.

It's sharing what I have to give you. That's what the early church did. It said they had all things in common. The reason for it was they were all persecuted. They were Jews. They believed in Jesus as the Messiah.

The Jewish community around them ostracized them and persecuted them. So they sort of huddled together, and they helped each other. They gave each other room and board. You see, they gave each other meals. They did everything they could for each other because of their need. But at the heart, fellowship is sharing what you have.

Now I want you to see how this can work. In verse 1 of chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians, it says, Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which was given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction, their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. What is he talking about? There were poor churches. There were poor churches around Thessalonica. There were poor churches there.

But Paul went there and said, look, the saints in Jerusalem are starving. And they said, we would love to help them. Now, they had a problem. They were dirt poor. They didn't have anything. They said, we don't care. We'll give them what we have.

And they did. That's why he says, notice, he says, out of their deep poverty, it overflowed in a wealth of the liberality. For I testify that according to their ability and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, notice, begging us with much urging for the favor of, and there's the word, participation.

Guess what that word is? Fellowship. That's fellowship. He says, begging us with much urging for the favor of fellowship and the support of the saints.

We want to have fellowship. We'll give them what we have. Isn't that amazing? That's what I'm saying.

It's an astounding thing when you think about it. It means sharing what you have to give when someone else has a need. That could be advice. It could be encouragement. It could be service. It could be money. In this case, it was money.

There's something else about this, though. In this case, they didn't know these people. All they knew is what did they have in common with poor saints in Jerusalem?

Christ. You see, they have brothers and sisters in Christ, so they said, we'll give. Whatever is needed, we'll give. When you participate in life in that way, you see, you're experiencing New Testament fellowship. Do you see other believers as altogether, we're all partners in this endeavor we call life?

That's what happens there. It involves sharing what you give. Fellowship also is about this idea of a partnership in ministry. I want you to go to Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2 with me, verse 7.

I want you to understand the context. The great enemy of the early church was the apostle Paul. He was called Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He hunted people down. He put people in prison.

He oversaw the stoning of Stephen. Miraculously, everybody hears that on the road to Damascus, the apostle Paul converted. Now he's going to show up in Jerusalem. You could just imagine how the people in Jerusalem must have felt. In fact, look at 1 22 and 23.

I'll give you that for a moment. Look at what he says in Galatians. I was still unknown by the sight of the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but only they kept hearing that he who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy. That's all they heard.

Now watch what happens. Both, verse 7 of chapter 2, both on the contrary, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised, for he who effectively worked for Peter and his apostleship to the circumcised effectively, he says, worked for me also to the Gentiles. And recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas what? The right hand of fellowship. He said, so that we might go to the Gentiles and nay to the circumcised. They only asked that we remember the poor, the very thing we were eager to do.

You see what? Because we had Christ in common. Could you imagine? Peter and James and John, they could have said easily, we don't trust them. We don't like them. This could be a ploy. He's going to try to get us. You see, this is a guy that's an enemy.

They didn't do anything like that. They just gave him the right hand of fellowship. You're part of the body. You see, that's an extremely important aspect of that.

They saw him as an equal partner. God gave me the grace. God gave him the grace.

That's an amazing thing when you think about it and a very important aspect of this. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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