Why Church? Fellowship

Well, Father, that's the cry of our hearts this morning.

That we would truly be overcome by the presence of your Holy Spirit.

Our first song talked about just loving you and loving Jesus.

Lord it is, there's an obvious difference in our lives when we are deeply in love with you.

And when we're filled with your Holy Spirit.

And Lord, we struggle with that sometimes.

God, we're not always loving you and in love with you in moments like we should.

And Lord, we don't always wake up every day and surrender ourselves to you to be filled with your spirit like we should.

But Father, we have a unique moment in this time, in this place right now as we join together and worship with one another.

To make a choice in our lives.

To truly humble and submit ourselves to you and invite your presence into our life.

Or to just cling to what we already have.

Even though we know that deep down inside we're not whole.

There's something that's just missing, there's something that we lack and we just can't figure out exactly what it is.

God, we just have to choose to surrender to you and allow you to fill those voids in our life that we just cannot fill ourselves.

So this morning we pray that your Holy Spirit would be in this place,

but more importantly that it would be in our hearts that we would personally say,

Holy Spirit, you are welcome here and you're welcome in my heart right now in this moment.

Father, we lift up our brothers and sisters who aren't with us today.

Lord, as we say, we have many who are at Table Rock. We have several who are on vacation.

We pray that your blessing and spirit would be with all of those.

Lord, we pray for our shut-ins. We pray for our people who have had health problems.

Lord, we just continue to lift them up to you and ask you to be with them today.

Father, we just want to give you thanks and praise this week.

As Jared and Nicky were involved in a pretty bad car wreck early yesterday morning,

but Lord, you were with them and they're okay. God, we just thank you so much for that.

And Lord, there's another student at Chesney High School that was involved in a car wreck.

And God, you were with them in an amazing and powerful way.

And as the parents just said over and over again, it's just by the grace of God that they're still here.

Lord, we thank you for that.

And Jesus, we come to you and we ask that you would use your words this morning to speak into our hearts,

to change us and shape us and mold us, to be the men and women you've called us to be.

Lord, we love you. We thank you. And we ask all this in your precious and holy name

and all God's people said, Amen. You may be seated.

Amen.

Amen.

Anyone else?

Well, as always,

it is as much your responsibility to share the word of the Lord as it is mine,

but I'll begin what I had planned. And if you feel that at any time, you just stand up and I'll give it to you.

In Acts chapter two, verses 42 through 47, as we kind of piggyback off of our passages we read last week,

it says that all the believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship

and to sharing and meals, including the Lord's supper and to prayer.

A deep sense of awe came over them all and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders.

And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything that they had.

They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.

They worshiped together at the temple each day, met in homes for the Lord's supper,

and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.

All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people.

And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

If you would like, you can turn to first John chapter one, verses six through seven,

and I'll read a short passage from there.

And John wrote about living in the light, and I'd like to use this this morning.

So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness.

We are not practicing the truth, but if we are living in the light as God is in the light,

and then we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus,

His Son cleanses us from all sin.

So this morning, as we continue on in talking about why church,

you know, last week, we read from Acts two as well.

We talked about worship.

We talked about this this desperate need for the Holy Spirit to be involved in our lives,

but also in the church in order to truly do what God has called us to do.

I will be the first one to tell you that a church absent of the Spirit of God moving is a questionable church at best.

I really believe that.

I really believe that if you have a group of people, and there are many good people in the world,

I can tell you I know a lot of good people who I really like.

I would trust with a lot of things, but good people doesn't necessarily mean anything.

So you can have a ton of people, a ton of good people in a church making decisions,

and all you have is a mess, because even on our best days,

we will never ever be able to meet up to the standard that God calls us to.

And so if we are functioning as a church without the Spirit of God,

I'm not even sure you can even qualify as a church.

And so the necessity of the Holy Spirit coming on the day of Pentecost

and feeling the disciples with the Holy Spirit,

but also sweeping and moving through the thousands of other people that was there

and empowering them.

When you think about it, it's like, oh, well, the disciples were filled up.

No, everyone who was there experienced what it was like to receive and see the Holy Spirit working and moving.

People were speaking languages that they had never spoke.

People who spoke different languages were understanding words that were never spoke.

And you're not really exactly sure of the dynamics of what was going on and how God was moving,

but God was working it all out to a perfection that you and I cannot duplicate on our best days.

So the necessity of God to come and to be a part of our church

is one of the many reasons why we should say, well, why church?

And I say, make sure you're a part of a church where the Spirit of God is working and moving.

That needs to be set up front.

But we talked about worship.

And today we're talking about fellowship.

And if you look back at our focus passages that we read from Acts 2 and from 1 John 1,

both of those things talked about fellowship.

It talked about fellowship with one another as believers,

but it also talked about our fellowship with God.

Belliship is a vital, important part of what it means to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

And it is something that God has called each and every single one of us to do.

This is why I keep telling us as a church and reminding ourselves and reminding myself of this,

because when you start talking about all the things that God's called us to do, it's a lot.

It's overwhelming to think about how many things and what God has called us to in obedience and trusting and faith

and abstaining from so many things.

It's a lot. It's overwhelming.

And if we try to do it in our own strength, we're going to be exhausted.

We're going to be tired. We're going to be frustrated.

But filled with the Spirit, the Spirit will lead us and empower us to do all these things in a very natural way.

And fellowship is one of those things that God has called you to.

And one of the things that you hear so many people talk about today is anxiety.

It's probably one of the most used words in our culture.

And it's not just a matter of adults or young people having an anxiety.

It's like everyone in between all age ranges for all different reasons, all different things, all different whatever.

Anxiety is huge.

And a lot of people today are resisting this idea of being with other people out of the struggles that we're having personally.

And let me just share with you this morning as we talk about fellowship.

Fellowship is one of those things that this shouldn't be forced in your life.

That if you're truly a believer, if you truly love Jesus Christ and He's come into your life

and you feel Him with your Holy Spirit, there may be feelings of anxiety in your life,

but there will also be desires inside of your heart to be with other believers.

It will naturally be there.

And so this morning, if you're sitting here and you say, okay, well, I don't have that natural desire to be with other believers.

Actually being with other believers makes me uncomfortable.

That's okay.

Because you can ask Christ to fill you with His Holy Spirit and to give you a desire to be with other believers.

That's beyond your own personal desires.

But also you can step out in faith and surround yourself with other believers as a choice.

And in that, a lot of times being with other believers and making that conscious choice,

even when it's not comfortable or it doesn't come natural, can rub off on you and help you grow significantly as a believer.

Because there's been times in my life where I've been naturally drawn like I want to be around other Christians.

I want to be around other pastors.

I want to be kind of mentored and discipled by someone to help me grow in my relationship with the Lord.

And there's been seasons in my life where I've also been like, I just don't want to do anything spiritual right now.

I don't want to be around someone right now and have to talk about this.

You know, it's like, but at the same time, when we are put in those positions to be with other people,

it stretches us and it grows us and it reveals things to us that we desperately, desperately need.

God did not create us to do this thing alone.

You need to see that this morning. You need to understand that.

I need to understand that this morning that as we walk with Christ and we live out the rest of the days of our life on this earth,

God did not give you the bandwidth or the power or the ability or anything for that matter to walk with Christ through this world alone.

It's not possible.

He created you to need other people.

He created you to need the fellowship that we're talking about.

He created you so that you can grow and mature and thrive in your relationship with Christ with the help of other people along the way.

That's God's plan. Let's talk about that.

Point number one, God is always intended to bring his people together.

As we talk about this today, a lot of times people will talk about fellowship and the idea of the church as a very New Testament thing.

But when you go back to Genesis 12 and the call of Abraham and you look at everything that God did to line up all of Scripture

and the coming of Jesus and the birth of the church, God has been focusing on gathering his people together

and raising them up for a specific purpose.

And you go back to Genesis 12 when he called Abraham and he even went as far to allow the people of Israel to go down to Egypt,

to be forced into captivity where the entire nation went down as 72 people, but then they were confined.

They were held there for almost 400 years. They were held there. They were forced into slavery.

They were in bondage. It was a very uncomfortable circumstance, but God was keeping those people together to raise up a great nation.

And then together he brought them out of Egypt together. He led them through the wilderness together.

He gave them the Ten Commandments, set up the covenant together, and then he prepared for them a land, the Promised Land,

a special place for them to dwell and live together as God's people.

So the whole theme of the Bible entirely is for God's people to do this thing together.

Because what happens is whenever people get out on their own and they're isolated and they're separated,

we have the tendency to wane from things we know that we should be held accountable to, right?

You know this. Parents, what happens when you give your kid an inch? Take a mile.

Spouses, what happens when you give your husband or wife an inch? Take a mile.

You let them be lazy once, they'll be lazy forever. Never get it back.

There's a calling on our life we need as people. We need accountability.

God is always intended, from Genesis 12, as he's started working out this plan of redemption through Jesus Christ,

he's always intended for his followers to be together.

And that's something that he has meticulously worked out through time,

not just with the people of Israel in the Old Testament, but also through Christianity all throughout the New Testament.

This is something that you see, and if you decide to ever take some classes,

biblical classes and stuff, and you look at the history of the church throughout the world,

it is very much this organized, family-oriented aspect of worshipping of doing this thing together.

And so God is always intended that in Deuteronomy chapter 7 verses 6 through 7,

Deuteronomy 7:6–7

as God is giving the people of Israel the law, listen to what he says to him.

God says, for you are a holy people who belong to the Lord your God.

Of all the people on earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure.

The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations,

for you were the smallest of all nations.

One of the most fascinating things about the idea of fellowship is that God is not interested in numbers.

When you look at the original aspect of God beginning to call people to himself and to be his people,

he called the smallest nation of people potentially on earth at this time.

It was Abraham. It was one man. One man had faith.

And God said, I can work with that.

And he raised up an entire nation of people based off of that one man's faith.

When you look at what God has called us to this morning,

it's really important for us to see this because we live in a day and time.

When you start talking about social media and what's put on TV and what's considered popular or famous,

it's all about the numbers. It's all about the followers. It's all about the viewers.

It's all about the likes. It's all about the clicks. God's not concerned with that.

So this morning, it's really important for you to see that as God wants you to be around other believers,

it's not so much a necessity that you even be around a thousand people or a hundred people or fifty people.

And to know this morning that I'm going to let you in on a secret.

And some of you may cringe whenever I say this, but this is true.

What we do here on Sunday morning is not enough.

The people that you see on Sunday morning from across the room that you wave at and say,

hey, too, hey, how you doing? Hope you guys have a good week. We'll see you next time.

That's not enough. Like Sunday morning church is just a very small.

It's like it's not even an appetizer. It's like just a taste of what fellowship should be.

And so the idea of fellowship is not a matter of like going and being with thousands of people or doing this right,

because big conferences and lots of people get together. That's awesome. But that's not fellowship.

And Sunday morning worship service, when you come in and we read scripture and we pray together and sing together,

this is not fellowship. Fellowship happens in very intimate settings between believers who are spending time together

and doing life together and eating meals together and praying for one another specifically, which is really awkward sometimes.

Because some of you is like, I've never even prayed out loud with someone before.

And so then it's like, do I need to be doing that? It's like, prayer shouldn't be a problem for somebody who believes in Jesus.

It may not be comfortable, but if that's all that we have to do, we got it pretty good.

God has called us to do life together. And so even if it's just small, even if it's just a matter of you finding one person

who believes in Jesus Christ and loves God and is living that life out and you can meet with that one person

and hang out with them and talk about them and go to them and say, hey, my life is a mess right now.

I really need to share this with someone. I need you to pray for me. I need you to pray for me,

not just right now in this moment, but also throughout the week as I'm dealing with all this stuff.

I need you to be praying for me and lifting me up in this time.

That fellowship is something that God has called us to even in the small numbers.

And you look at Matthew 18, verse 20, where Jesus said, for where two or three gathered together as my followers,

Matthew 18:20

I am there among them to even understand that sometimes we just need to be together as believers

to ensure that the Spirit of God is there among us and leading us and guiding us and empowering us in our lives.

And yes, it may feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but like anything else in life, until something is normalized,

it will be uncomfortable.

One of the most weird and painful things, Hannah and I have been watching a football documentary the past few nights.

She's like, why they keep taking their helmets off? I'm like, have you ever wore a football helmet? It's awful.

It squeezes your head for the first several weeks. You have this massive headache.

And then you struggle with zits anyway and acne.

And so when you put your football helmet on, you start getting all these zits on your forehead.

So then it's squeezing your forehead and it's giving you zits and it's squeezing the zits, which is twice as painful.

It stinks. Super uncomfortable. You take it off every chance you can get.

But by the end of the season, it becomes normal.

The acne goes away. The headaches go away.

It's just part of who you are because you've been wearing it for about four to five months by that time.

And it's just an appendage of your body.

Everything that we do in life is weird until it becomes normal.

Fellowship with other believers will feel weird in the beginning,

but it's one of those things in your life that it should be normalized.

It's something that God has called all of us to.

Point number two, God wants to fellowship with you.

You know, this aspect of fellowship doesn't just stop. We just want to hang out.

You know, it's like a lot of people will say, well, youth groups, they just eat pizza and hang out.

And that's all they do. It's like youth groups are great.

I wish all churches acted more like youth groups because they actually do understand the idea of fellowship

much better than a lot of adults do.

Of hanging out and spending time with one another and sharing things with one another and having these.

They're much more willing to have spiritual moments because they're a lot more open minded and stuff like that.

When we get to be adults, we get set in our ways. We get used to stuff.

But God wants to fellowship with you as an individual.

And so the idea of fellowshiping with another believer is just a reflection of your ability to have fellowship with your God.

Like the idea of sitting down with someone and praying with them, it's like, well, if you are regularly praying with God,

it's not going to be that uncomfortable for you to sit down and pray with another believer.

And so it's all reflected in the fellowship that's actually taking place between us and our Heavenly Father.

As we said last week, you can't replace personal worship.

It is such a huge part of our relationship with God.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14, Paul's closing out his letter.

2 Corinthians 13:14

He's kind of giving them this final reading. He says,

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

When you have this idea, you know, like the Holy Spirit's this thing that's unattainable,

and I don't understand it, and have I ever been filled with the Holy Spirit? I don't know.

But when you get to this point in your life where you experience what it's like to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit

and to not just have this one moment, but to have the Holy Spirit within you and it to be regular,

for it to be something that stays with you, for it to be something that you're committed to

and you understand and your eyes are open and then it's become something that you continually invite into your life.

And then before you know it, you're walking every day in fellowship with the Spirit being with you constantly.

It's a game changer. And I would love to say like, oh, that's how I feel every single day.

It's not how I feel every single day, but I know what it feels like.

And it will absolutely change your relationship with the Lord to walk in fellowship with his Spirit

versus just constantly feeling like you're blindly reaching for something that you can't attain.

But God has set everything up. His will for your life is to be filled with the Holy Spirit

and not to just be filled with it and empower you and give you the desire to do things that you don't normally want to do,

but to literally walk in fellowship with it, that you are fellowshiping with God because God is literally in you.

God is possessing you, which is a weird term, but God is literally, he's taking your life and he's taking control of it

and he's guiding you and he's giving you wisdom and understanding and he's helping you make decisions

and he's helping you love other people and he's helping you do all these things that you've been struggling doing,

but God is possessing you with his Spirit and he's walking in fellowship with you daily.

That's a wonderful place to be.

And that's where the true freedom in Christ is found because you're not doing it under your own strength.

You're doing it through Christ. You're doing it through the Spirit.

It's not just a matter of having this prayer life or singing songs or listening to Scripture or attending a worship service.

It's literally walking with God every single day and that's what God wants. God wants to walk with you.

When you go back and you look at creation, you look at the Garden of Eden, what did God do with Adam and Eve every day?

He came down in the cool of the evening and he walked with him and he had fellowship with him.

His original intent for creation was to have fellowship with man and woman.

And so God's greatest desire for your life is not for you to be successful or to make lots of money or to be famous or to do whatever.

His original intent for your life, the reason why you breathe air today is because God wanted to have fellowship with you.

And he gave you breath and he gave you an existence and a mind because he wanted to fellowship with you for who you are because he loves you.

In the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life, as we said earlier, it will draw us to have fellowship with others.

It won't be forced. It won't be something that you have to continually make yourself do.

Eventually it will come to the point where it's like it's something that you love.

You love being around other Christians. You love being around other believers.

It is something that in a way it empowers you and strengthens you in your walk with God in its own way.

Point three, as we said earlier, God never intended for you to make this journey alone.

To truly experience the love, the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ is a wonderful and powerful thing.

And at the same time, to live to a ripe old age, serving the Lord, doing all the things that he's called us to do.

You know, it's not just a matter of not sinning, which is impossible for us to do under our own strength.

It's not just a matter of doing all the things that a Christian is expected to do, which is impossible to do under our own strength.

It's not just a matter of knowing God's Word and spending time in prayer and forsaking things in this life that need to be given up so that we can be filled more with God.

I mean, there's just all kinds of stuff, witnessing and ministering to other people, loving people who hate you, loving people who curse you, loving your enemies, even though they do things to directly hurt you on purpose.

All the things that we're called to do as a Christian that we cannot do.

God never meant for us to do this alone. He wants to do it with us, but he also wants us to do it with other believers.

Jesus understands that even though we are spiritual beings and he has given us the Holy Spirit to empower us and help us to follow him, that we're also still stuck in this physical body.

And so as a result, for you to be stuck in this physical body, there is going to be this natural desire to have physical connection with other people.

And Jesus knew this because God created you to have this. God created you to desire and to want to have fellowship with other people.

And so this is exactly why he set it all up. You know, once again, to be reminded that Jesus did not just die on the cross for our sins so that we could have a free ticket to heaven.

If that were the case, as soon as everybody got saved, we'd all just go to heaven. If that was the goal.

But you're still here and you're still living and breathing. You're still doing life and you're still married and you have little friendships and you have a job and you have kids and you're doing all these things in life that everyone else in life is doing who hasn't accepted Christ.

So what is it that God wants to accomplish in your life while you're here?

He designed you and he created you not only to have fellowship and receive fellowship, but also to give fellowship.

And point number four, last one, is you'll find fellowship somewhere.

You know, what I think is interesting is that even the people who struggle with anxiety the most still find fellowship somehow, someway.

There's very few people who actually shut themselves in a room and completely cut themselves off from the rest of the world.

We will find fellowship somewhere. God created us to be social. Some of us are more social than others, but whether it's a hobby, whether it's the workplace, whether it's gaming, sports, whatever, you will naturally find fellowship somewhere.

And this is the thing that God knows that we'll do.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33, as Paul wrote to the church in Corinthians, he said,

1 Corinthians 15:33

Don't be fooled by those who say such things for bad company corrupts good character.

And this is not just for our teenagers. You know, parents, how many times have you warned your kids you are the people that you hang out with?

If you're a young person, you're sitting in here this morning and your parents have said, I don't want you hanging out with that person.

Because we know that as people we are the people that we hang out with.

And so as a parent this morning or a grandparent, no matter how old you are, you could be at the golf course, you could be quilting in a sewing club or whatever.

It doesn't matter the people that you hang out with, they're going to rub off on you.

And so the reason why we talk about fellowship this morning and this final point is, is that you'll find fellowship somewhere

and you may already have a circle of people that you're fellowshiping with.

And the truth is, is that the people that you're fellowshiping with are not good influences in your life.

Doesn't mean they're terrible people, doesn't mean they're criminals, doesn't mean they deserve anything.

All it means is, is that God has something better for you.

And sometimes we just need to be willing to step out in faith and say, okay, I believe that God loves me and has my best interest in mind.

And even though I love these people that I'm around or I hang out with, even though I've known them my whole life,

even though like we have so much experience, we've been through the trenches together and all this, whatever it may be,

that there might be a need in my life to remove myself from that social circle, to remove myself from that fellowship setting

and to be willing to find men and women who believe and love Jesus that I can fellowship with them in order to grow in my relationship with the Lord.

Don't be surprised by that. It wouldn't be the first thing God's asked you to sacrifice. It won't be the last.

And even in saying that, be really careful because you might be fellowshiping with some people who claim to be Christians.

And I'm going to tell you, not all Christian fellowship is healthy either.

There might be somebody who professes to be a Christian who's not in their best walk with Christ right now.

And they're not living the way they should.

And they're not going to rub off on you and benefit you in your walk with Christ the way that they should be.

And so when we talk about fellowship, don't just go out and say, you're a Christian, you're a Christian, let's be friends.

You need to be really picky about it because this is going to take time out of your life.

The older you get, the more you realize time is one of the most valuable things you have because you cannot get it back.

It is a depleting resource.

And so when you talk about the time, the emotional energy, everything that you're putting into fellowshiping with someone in the name of Jesus Christ,

you better make sure it is of the absolute best quality because not only can you not get it back,

but it's literally this is going to affect your walk with Christ.

And you want to be surrounding yourself with people who are going to be sharpening you as you sharpen them.

That's the best case scenario.

Proverbs as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

We should be sharpening one another in our fellowship.

Now, you may be here this morning and you may be a very spiritually mature and godly person.

And if you are, thank you for being faithful. Thank you for submitting. Thank you for following Jesus.

Chances are you're going to find it very difficult to find somebody who's going to be as mature as you to sharpen you as you sharpen them.

And so there might be times in our life where God has called us to go into a time of fellowship where we're not being sharpened by someone,

but we're the one doing the sharpening for someone else.

But if that's the case, you also have to be committed to having an extra time to go somewhere where you can be sharpened because you can't neglect it.

God has called us to fellowship. God has called us to make sure that the people that we surround ourselves with are influencing us and helping us to walk with Christ as he's called us to.

So as we close out today, the idea of understanding how much of a sacrifice this is in your life, like I get it.

I know when I got saved, I remember every friend that I grew up with in high school, we weren't enemies once I got saved, but we didn't hang out anymore.

And it was more of their choice than it was mine.

But the question is, is, do you really believe in Jesus Christ? Do you really believe in the Word of God?

And we can say it all day long, but to actually believe it means to do what it says.

To be the men and women that God has called us to be, to make the sacrifices and the choices so that God can work and move our lives.

Jesus gave up his life so that the body of Christ, the church, could be born.

When we talk about why church, fellowship is one of the most important things that you will do as a believer.

It will drastically impact your walk with Christ.

And as important as church, a service has been on Sunday mornings.

I can tell you right now, the Bible studies that we used to do every week at Waffle House at like 12, 1, 2 o'clock in the morning

were as instrumental, if not more instrumental, in my growth with Christ as it was coming to church and listening to a sermon.

For years, me and Judgey Reynolds and Robert Hampshire would meet in Waffle House.

Middle of the night, drunk people walking in, crazy people walking in, a lot of funny stories.

But we met every week and we did Bible study together. It's one of the most beneficial things I ever did.

And so we have to ask ourselves, how much do I believe this? What am I willing to do? What am I willing to sacrifice in order to do this?

Because it cost us, obviously it cost us, but if we believe, then we know it's worth it.

Or we're willing to step out in faith and experience the worthiness of it in due time. Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for this day. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to come, to serve you, to live for you.

And Lord, I pray that for every believer here this morning, that you would impress on them this amazing supernatural desire to just be around other believers.

Lord, to fellowship and to do all the things that you've called us to do.

And Lord, if we're not there yet, I pray that anyone who's struggling right now would just say, Lord, I don't get this. I don't understand it.

I just don't desire to do this, but Lord, I'm willing.

And so Jesus, I'm willing. Speak to my heart. Help me to do this because I want to grow with you.

And Lord, we give it to you. This is yours. You created us. You knew us as we were being formed in our mother's womb.

Lord, you know that your greatest desire for our life is to walk in fellowship with us.

So help us to walk in fellowship with you and other believers. We love you, and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.