Koinonia: The Heart of Christian Community

And I tell you what the reality is.

There's a whole lot of spiritual warfare happening in our world.

There's a lot of evil out there and sadly, the reality is that there's evil and the reality is that God told us that the world's going to get worse and worse, in fact, in 2 Timothy 3, I want you guys to kind of look at this passage on the screen.

I want you guys to read this through the lens of what we see in our world.

This is what it says.

It says, but know this hard times will come.

In the last days People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents.

The parents in the room are like, hey, man, that's happening.

I'll tell you that.

The parents in the room were like, hey man, that's happening.

I'll tell you that Ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable slanderers without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good.

We look at that and that happened around us.

It's why the reality about scripture is scripture's timeless, so it's always timely.

It doesn't just tell us what's happened, it tells us what's happening.

So we look around at the world and we're like oh, scripture.

Second, timothy tells me like this stuff is happening.

And when we experience and we see things in the world that, even though scripture says this, it still makes it hard.

And can I just say it's okay to grieve and mourn different things that are happening in the world and to remind ourselves that God is still sovereign and God is still control and control.

This next week we're going to start a new series entitled Navigating Life following God's path in a world full of wrong turns.

How many of you agree with me?

There's a lot of wrong turns we can make in life.

How many of you be honest and say I've made some of those wrong turns?

Absolutely Some of us.

We got two hands up if you're like me, you know what I'm saying Like yes.

Plus, we got two hands up if you're like me, you know what I'm saying Like yes, but there's a way where, if we follow God's path, we can see how to live life God's way, a life full of joy and meaning.

And something we do here if you're new here to FCC is we take scripture and we just walk through scripture.

We look at a passage and we explain it, we apply it, we teach it, and the reason why we do this is because scripture is powerful.

In fact, this is what we know about scripture.

This is what it does, the word of God.

It instructs us, it strengthens us, it protects us, it convicts us, it matures us, it guides us, and there's a whole lot of other stuff that wouldn't even fit on the screen.

So what we do is we take a passage of scripture and we walk through scripture.

Even Jesus himself, jesus, jesus is what he said.

He says it's written man should not live on bread alone Although bread's pretty good, don't y'all like your carbs, you know?

But on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And while we take passages of scripture and we unpack them, we're going to do something just a little bit unique today that we hardly ever do is we're going to take a theme of scripture in the New Testament, of what the church is supposed to be, and we're going to unpack this.

And here's the word.

I got to say this.

When I first heard this word, I thought it sounded like a really cool name for a band.

The word is koinonia, isn't it like a band name?

Like, let's go hear koinonia.

They're performing on Friday.

And when I first heard it I was like okay.

I was like, well, what in the world does this mean?

Well, it's actually a Greek word and this is what it means.

It's a partnership or a sharing.

It carries with it a sense of deep relational connection and commitment.

It's not just a like hey, how are you Good to see you, brother.

It's actually where we know each other, where there's commitment, where there's connection at the heart level.

And the reason why we're going to talk about Koinonia today is, honestly, two reasons.

Here's the first reason Our church is growing and developing.

If you were here just a couple of years ago, a few years ago, you're like okay, there's a lot more people now than there used to be.

We're three services now, which, by the way, isn't that amazing guys, it's amazing.

Yeah, we can clap for that.

We can clap.

But if we're not careful, we can put church in a box and think it's just a Sunday experience.

So it's like, okay, okay, I come to church, I get my little like spiritual quick fix, I'm good, I go home now, watch the football game, have my week.

Then I come back next sunday, get my quick spiritual fix, then I'm good.

What could happen?

What could happen, this is dangerous.

Dangerous is we can think church is a sunday experience and we never get to know anybody, which is what the church is supposed to be supposed to be, supposed to be a fellowship, a community of people.

It's dangerous and it can happen.

The other thing that's going on and you know Pastor Cody talked about it is we got these groups getting started, and I want you guys to understand why we do groups.

It's not like, ah, pastor Cody and Edgar, they're just bored, so they got to come up with something for everybody to do, so we're just going to give them more work to do, because, you know, no, it's because of koinonia, because when the church has this, it's one of the most powerful things on earth.

Because koinonia changes us, because, whether you realize it or not, we all have this desire to be known by somebody, and God designed his church to be a place of koinonia.

It's really interesting, though Koinonia doesn't just start with our relationships with others.

Koinonia starts with our relationship with God.

In fact, scripture says that we have koinonia with God, the father, god the son and God, the Holy Spirit.

Look what first Corinthians says.

It says this it says God's faithful, you were called by him into fellowship.

That word fellowship means koinonia With his son, jesus Christ, our Lord.

In 1 John 1, it says this our fellowship, our koinonia is with the father and with his son, Jesus.

And then in 2 Corinthians, it says this the grace of our Lord Jesus and love of God, and here's a word again fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Be with you.

All Guys, when you trust Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, you don't enter a dead religion.

You enter a relationship with the Father, with the Son and the Holy Spirit.

That's what we do.

We enter a relationship with Him.

And not only do we enter a relationship with God, the Father, but we were meant to have a relationship with other people, other followers of Jesus.

But can we be honest?

Best place to be honest in the world is church, is in the digital age, it's really hard to have real community and real relationships is hard.

You think about this?

Just over the last 15 or 20 years, we have redefined the word friend, like when you said I had a friend 20 years ago.

It's different than when we say we have a friend now, like, for example, if I were to pull out my phone right now and I were to pull up good old Mark Zuckerberg Facebook app In fact, I'll just do it right now just for the fun of it and I were to look at how many friends I have on my Facebook.

My friend number on Facebook is let's see it is, let's see it 2,130.

That's a lot.

But here's the funny thing you think those are actually my friends exactly.

I can barely name, I don't know.

Can I name a hundred of them?

Maybe they're my friends, but you know, you're like Nate Nate, those aren't really your friends.

But in our world we have redefined what a friend is to a little four-inch digital box that we hold in our back pockets, and the digital age has just redefined how we do all these things.

And what we can do is, instead of cultivating deep koinonia where we have deep relationships with people, we can settle for surface level connections with people, and it's easy to exchange the depth of koinonia for the shallowness of likes, follows and fleeting conversations around small talk.

Can we be honest too?

It's a whole lot easier to have shallow, surface level conversations and relationships than deep relationships.

One, deep relationships take time and we're all busy.

Second of all, we don't like putting ourself out there and opening ourselves up to people, do we like?

Well, we think last time we did that.

We remember what happened and it's just easier to stay on the surface.

And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with small talk, especially if you're talking about the San Francisco 49ers.

Can we get an amen in the room this morning?

Don't tell me, oh, man, we're hearing some boos.

Man, I'm sorry, okay, okay, all right, we'll take a step back here.

Okay, we have a moment of prayer for the family this morning.

It's okay to have small talk about weather and this stuff, but if we're not careful, we can small talk our way out of deep koinonia with people and we can small talk our way into loneliness.

And we can small talk our way into never being known by anybody and not knowing people.

And some of us have settled for that and we're like that's okay, that's the world that I live in.

Right, that's just where I live.

I spend hours in front of a screen.

We all do that's it.

And what happens when we do that is we settle for something called loneliness.

And, guys, loneliness is dangerous for your health.

In fact, there's an expert on loneliness.

She's written an incredible book.

She's a great author.

Her name is Dr Louise Hockley.

Brace yourself for what her studies have revealed about loneliness.

She says loneliness has been associated with personality disorders and psychosis, suicide, impaired cognitive performance and decline over time, increased risk of Alzheimer's and increase in depressive symptoms.

Another expert on this, a doctor.

He says loneliness is a public health crisis that makes a person irritable, depressed and self-centered, and is associated with 26% increase in premature death.

Well, it's almost like God knows what he's talking about when he tells us that his church should be a place of koinonia.

So what's the answer if we live in a digital world?

Well, the answer it's simple and it's hard.

The answer is to intentionally cultivate relationships with people within the church family.

You say, pastor nate, that's hard, I know.

I just said it's hard.

It's to intentionally cultivate relationships with people, and one of the reasons why I think it's hard I think it's important to recognize is because a lot of us, our greatest hurts have been relational.

Our greatest hurts have been because we were in relationship with somebody and, for whatever reason, we were taken advantage of or lied or abused, or betrayed or all kinds of terrible things.

Sometimes in a church environment, terrible things happen, and so now we're at a place where we're just like man.

I don't wanna step back into community and can I just say there's no judgment from me, I get it and there's an irony about community, and the irony is this even though we can get hurt in community, the way we heal is in community with others.

Community, the way we heal is in community with others.

So you think about the way people recover from substance abuse challenges.

You think about?

You have AA NA, we have Celebrate Recovery here, which is a great group that we have on Friday nights.

Yeah, all of these happen in community with other people.

People aren't recovering on their own sitting in their bedroom scrolling TikTok videos till three o'clock in the morning.

They're recovering in community with other people.

Because we are better than me and if we opt out of community and we're like like, nay, I just, I just can't do it, like I just can't do it, okay, but you got to know what you're opting into.

You're opting into loneliness.

By opting out of community, you're opting into loneliness and, even more tragically, you're opting into living a life that God has not designed you to live, into living a life that God has not designed you to live.

You are saying, okay, god, you've designed me for community, but it's too hard and it can be hard and, rather than being in community, I'm not gonna be a part of that and I'm not gonna live the life that you have designed me to live.

But, guys, we can't do this, because following Jesus is a community project.

It is a personal relationship with God, but it's not a private relationship with God.

It's something we do in community with other people.

In the New Testament, when people became a Jesus follower, they so often were outcasted from, sometimes, their families, from their life, that they knew it, and when people became a follower of Jesus, they just knew that they were stepping into koinonia, not just with God, but with other people, into a community of people where they served, where they loved, where they were held accountable, where they did life together, where they knew each other.

Sometimes, y'all, we look at this, we look at the New Testament church, and we're like they were so powerful.

How did this happen?

I'll tell you how it happened.

They stepped into community with others and they served God together and they prayed together and they loved one another and they served each other, and it was a powerful force.

Now, something that's challenging, though, is that in 2025, what we've done is we've kind of taken church, and we live in this digital age, so we've kind of taken church and we've put like church into a box.

We kind of say like this in 2025, it's so easy where we have settled for an optional Sunday experience rather than a community of Koinonia.

So we've settled like here's church.

Church is Sunday morning.

We're going to come in I hope that person's on worship this morning because I like when they're on the worship team.

We come in.

We're like wonder what kind of shoes Pastor Nate's going to wear this morning, because I like when they're on the worship team.

We come in.

We're like wonder what kind of shoes Pastor Nate's going to wear this morning.

We come in at like 10.03 and we leave at like 10.59 and we're like hey, hey, hey, gotta go home for the football game.

Nobody talked to me.

We're thinking okay, okay, okay, pastor Nate man, I hope he's got some good jokes today.

I want Sunday to Sunday.

This is how it's supposed to be.

And then what we can do we can do this, we can do this.

We say okay, okay, okay.

If church isn't how I want it to be, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to the next place where the worship music is a little bit more how I like it, where the pastor isn't so short, where the coffee coffee's got to taste a little better than you know this place.

And then, oh, oh, oh, does their kids ministry have a slide?

I'm in, and then this is what we do.

So we come, we like, get what we want.

Like it's a buffet, a sushi buffet, I want this and I want that, I want this.

It's a sashimi, give me the sashimi.

And then, but we opt out from everything else.

It's like, okay, I don't like what Pastor Nate teaches.

Too strong.

It's kind of like, oh, I don't like, guys, guys, guys, guys.

Here's the thing, here's the thing.

Here's the thing, here's the thing.

Church is not a Sunday club where we come and get what we want and then we leave.

Church is not Burger King, where we have it our way.

Church is a community of Koinonia where we have it God's way, where what we do yeah, where what we do is we look at the scripture and what we do is we say what does the scripture say?

Sometimes my role as a pastor is to come alongside us and just sit and weep and mourn with some of us.

Sometimes my role is to come and step on your toes a little bit and kind of get in your business a little bit on a Sunday morning through the teaching of God's word, and what we have to be committed to being is a church, is a individual people that don't think Sunday is just the church, is just a Sunday experience, but have a biblical view and understand that the church is supposed to be a community of koinonia.

Years ago there was a pastor, our evangelist.

His name was DL Moody and DL Moody, he was teaching somewhere and there was a dude that came up.

This bro came up and he was like.

He was like hey, I don't like I follow Jesus, but I don't really need like the church, I don't really need community because, like, I'm good on my own, you know, I got me and Jesus and I got, I got, I got this.

So I'm cool.

This is the 1800s, it was back in the day day.

And DL Moody, dl Moody, he saw, he saw this fire.

That was true story.

He saw this fire that was going on.

He was like hey, can I show you something?

He was like, yeah, walked over to this fire and he took some prongs.

He looked at the man and said watch this.

He took one coal, he took it out of the fire and he put it on the ground and they just watched this coal and y'all know what happens when one coal is taken out of a fire and just put on the concrete.

What does it do?

It goes out and he looked at the man and he says when we live in isolation from the body, this is what happens, because the coal needs the fire and the fire needs the coal.

I don't know if you guys are like me, but sometimes I nerd out watching National Geographic videos.

Y'all ever do that, oh my goodness.

So my favorite is I like watching the big cat videos, like the tigers, the lions, like my algorithms I don't know why, but it's like nothing but like tiger videos.

So you know I don't know if you guys ever watched this like the chase where the lion like sneaks up on the I think that's a gazelle or one of you animal people could tell me whatever after and they chase out the gazelle and they get it right.

And part of me is like get away, don't let that lion get you, like come on.

And the other part of me is just like the thrill of the whole chase and whatever.

I digress, okay, and if you notice, if you notice the animal that the lion attacks and goes after is the one that's separated around the outskirts of the pack.

The lion lion is smart lion ain't going to the middle of the pack.

The lion goes to the one that's hanging out on the outside, the one that's drifting, distracted by what's going over here.

When the rest of the pack is over there, this is kind of preoccupied, busy with this over here.

Then the lion goes and attacks.

You know what Peter says that Satan is like Like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and what God wants his church to be is to be a place in community with other people.

That this thing happens in the context of relationships where you guys just don't come and hear me talk for 30 minutes on a Sunday morning, but that we actually know each other and then we actually care about each other and we pray for each other and we build each other up and we serve one another.

This is so important, guys.

Here's why it's so important.

One think, consider this Jesus spent his entire life in community with others For 30 years.

30 years he spent time with his family, helping them, walking with them, and then the last three years of his life was spent with 12 knuckleheads.

Peter that kept putting his foot in his mouth People that were always fighting and bickering.

Jesus chose to spend time in community with them.

This also matters because your life will be changed when you choose to build biblical koinonia, when you commit to this and maybe you've been sleeping this whole message I want you to wake up for this last two minutes.

Okay, it really matters.

Okay Is everybody?

If you're awake, say amen.

If you're sleeping, don't say anything.

Wake up.

There's this guy.

The name is Peter, the guy I just said that puts his foot in his mouth.

Some of us can relate more than others of us.

Peter intentionally chose to step into Koinonia in community and his life was changed forever, and I want to show you what happened in Peter's life simply because he stepped into community with others.

I want you to watch this and you can look at the text later on your own.

Peter met Jesus because he was in community.

He saw God work in his family.

He was a part of faith-growing experiences.

He had a safe place to ask questions.

He had freedom, experienced freedom from being stuck in past failures.

He was personally transformed and impacted.

He was prayed for and he prayed for others he shared with and he was provided for.

He got to lead other people by example.

He encouraged the next generation in their calling.

He was able to deal with blind spots and break old patterns in his life.

He was able to see what the church could be.

He was able to get out of his comfort zone.

He was able to experience the patience and grace of others.

And the only reason why those things happen is because of community.

And at the end of Peter's life, this is what he writes about community.

He says all of you be like-minded and sympathetic, love one another and be compassionate and humble.

And what would have happened in Peter's life if Peter would have said community's too hard, I can't do this thing.

Community's difficult.

But he didn't.

He forged community.

And here's as we wrap up.

And then we're going to have a child dedication in just a minute.

I'm really excited about that.

As we wrap up, we're going to do this as a family.

We're going to dedicate Ava Grace as a church family.

I want to encourage you with two things about this whole thing about community.

One for some of us, we need to get involved in a group.

Here's what we've tried to do.

We have groups that meet all throughout the week and all throughout Sundays.

So we have groups that are going to meet during the 10 am service, 1115 service, after the 1115 service, sunday night, like pretty much every day of the week, but Saturday a group is meeting at some time.

Here's what I would encourage you to do to step into a group, because we are better than me.

Am I saying you're going to meet your lifelong best friend?

I'm not saying you're gonna meet your lifelong best friend in a group, although that's happened before, but here's what I'm saying.

You're doing, you're stepping into community.

And then for some of us, for really all of us, here's what I would and this would be a challenge from my heart to you is to assess your view of the church.

When you think of church, do you think of a building.

This is the house where the family gathers.

But this building, this building, is a building.

We're not, like, connected to this building.

This is a building.

When you think of church, you think, okay, one hour Sunday morning, get in, get out Sunday experience.

Or do we think of this as a family?

It's not just a place I go to, it's a people I belong to.

And when we have this view of the church, it's going to change our lives, it's going to change the to and when we have this view of the church, it's gonna change our lives.

It's gonna change the life of other people because you're gonna be able to bless people.

Some of you think you're like I have nothing to give.

You have a lot to give.

Some of you think, man, some of you are like man, I just don't know.

Guys, god can use you, and then what we'll do is we'll change the world.

Come in this place and they're going to see love and community and they're going to see people forgiving each other and people being okay to disagree about certain things and serving each other and having meaningful conversations.

And they're going to come in and they're going to be like who are you people?

How do you live this beautiful life in unity?

What's the secret?

We're going to tell them.

I'll tell you what the secret is it's Jesus, it's Jesus, it's Jesus.

So I would challenge you to do this, to assess your view of the church.

What we're gonna do right now is we're gonna have we're doing this as a community, as a family is we're gonna have a child dedication to close out our service right now.

So I'm asking