From First Fish to Fellowship: Practicing the Love of Christ - Rom 12:13

Good morning, and welcome to the preaching ministry of Dillingham Moravian Church.

We are thankful the Lord has led you to hear the Word of God with us this morning.

My name is Pastor Simon Flynn, and here at Dillingham Moravian Church,

we delight in making disciples for Christ as we learn God's Word together with you.

Let us pray. Lord God, we come before you, Lord, and again, we praise you,

we give you glory, we thank you for your Word.

Your word that teaches us, your word that guides us, your word that helps us

to love you, that shows us your heart, your mind, your nature.

And Lord, as we come to your word this morning, Lord, help us to live according to your word.

Help us to understand what love truly is, not the way we think it is,

the way we define love as, but the way you define it. Help us to serve you, help us to love you.

Lord, may it be you speaking through me this morning, may be you that is teaching,

and not me. In your precious name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

So for the last few weeks, we have been studying in Romans chapter 12 about

Romans 12 · chapter mention

what true love really is and how it's applied to us.

And Paul taught us last week that we are to work hard for the Lord out of a

passionate joy and enthusiasm for Christ and for his work.

We're also to continue anchoring our joy and hope that we have in Christ.

Paul also commanded us that we are to constantly pray with lies that are filled with faith.

And this week, we continue on as we study what Paul taught us,

what true love really is.

And so turn with me this morning to Romans chapter 12, verse 13.

Romans 12:13

Romans chapter 12, verse 13.

Romans 12:13

Actually, we'll go in verse 9, please.

All right. Thank you. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another in honor.

Not lagging behind in diligence. Be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.

And this is where we are today in verse 13. Contributing to the needs of the

saints, practicing hospitality,

So the first thing we see in this passage is that we are to contribute to the

needs of the saints Here in Bush, Alaska, there is a tradition of always giving

away the first fish of the season,

And sharing fish and sharing meat with our elders Every time I go,

to the villages, I always see someone coming up to the elders There's someone

coming up, so someone in their family and giving food that they have been killed.

The motivation behind this tradition is the building up of community by making

sure everyone has enough to eat.

And that life is genuinely well for the village.

I believe this is similar to what Paul is getting at in this verse.

Paul says we are to contribute to the needs of the saints. An essential part

of defining what true love really is, is the understanding that love contributes

to the needs of other believers in Christ.

The word contributing that Paul uses here comes from the Greek word that means

commonality, partnership, mutual sharing, which we often translate as fellowship or communion.

This morning, or this is actually this afternoon, we're going to be celebrating communion.

I want you to turn with me to Acts chapter two. Acts 2, verse 41. Acts 2, verse 41.

Acts 2:41 Acts 2:41

So this is right after Pentecost where the Holy Spirit comes down upon the believers

and Peter had just given his sermon. And here's the results.

Verse 41, So then those who had received his word were baptized.

And about that day, there were added about 3,000 souls.

They were continually devoted to themselves to the apostles' teaching,

to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking

place through the apostles.

And all those who believed, this is what I want you to see, all those who had

believed were together.

And they had all in common. They began selling their property and possessions

and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need.

Day by day, they continued with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from

house to house. and they were taking their meals together with gladness,

sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved.

I want you to notice here in verse 44 that Luke stated that all who were believed,

were together and they had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and their belongings in order to make

sure that they took care of each other, that they all had what they needed.

The result of true belief in Christ was a togetherness there and a distributing

through the selling of their possessions, through their properties being sold.

They shared their food with the saints.

They ate together with glad and thankful hearts, combined with praising God,

keeping what the apostles teaching, they were submitted to the word of God.

And they ate together. They were celebrating the Lord's Supper together.

And what happened as a result of their true belief?

The Lord added to their numbers daily those who had been saved.

One of the signs of truly believing in Christ for the local church,

is to have such a close togetherness where we are mutually sharing our lives

or sharing our possessions with each other As we worship and obey and praise the Lord,

And the promise is As a result of our love And result of our unity.

God will show up in power,

And he will bring people in Dillian, the people in the villages,

the people around us, will see that God is real through love for each other.

And they will come to know Christ their Savior. We talk about fellowship as

meeting together, as we worship in the church, as we give tithes and offerings.

We talk about fellowship as the meeting afterwards and having coffee and goodies.

And those things are all important. And I think they're part of fellowship.

But real fellowship, real communion is as we grow in our communion with Christ,

as we are coming more and more in love with him, we are growing more and more in love with each other.

We're getting close. There's a close togetherness. We're not separated.

We're not scattered all over the place. We're together.

And you see this with the early church here.

They were together. One heart, one mind And glorifying and praising God Together,

And the result was People were coming to Christ in droves So what does this

mean for us As Dillingham, Rabian, Sheriff?

See, as we grow closer together By serving one another We take care of one another's

needs We're praying with and for each other And we're sitting and submitting

The God's words together We're fellowshipping.

We're living focused together with one purpose of glorifying God and enjoying Him together.

And moreover, the people in Dillingham, they will see this.

They will see us loving God and loving each other. And they,

in turn, will want to know why.

And then we get to share Christ.

And this is the way God will bring Dillingham and the villages around to Christ.

If most of us, all of us here are praying for revival, We want God to do things

here. We want God to come and save this region.

But how he's going to do it is through us loving each other,

through us being in close fellowship with each other, our communion with each

other, our taking care of each other, making sure our needs are met.

This is church growth, and it's a result of our faithfulness,

of loving Christ and loving each other.

So the first thing we see in this passage is that we are to contribute to the

needs of the saints, but we're also to show hospitality.

Everybody here knows what a hospital is, right? I mean, this is obvious.

We've all been to a hospital.

But do we really understand what the real purpose of a hospital was?

What it was originally designed for?

The hospital began as a charitable institution for the needy,

for the aged, the infirm, and the young,

The word hospital came from the Latin word hospice, which refers either to a

visitor or a host that receives a visit From hospice came the Latin hospitalia,

which was an apartment for strangers or guests,

And then the medieval Latin word switched to hospitale, or the old French hospital,

It then crossed the channel into England in the 4th century and began a shift

in the 5th century to mean a home for the elderly or the infirm.

The home for those who were down and out, those who were really poor.

Hospital only took its modern meaning as an institution where sick and injured

are given medical surgical care in the 16th century.

Other terms, I want you to listen to these terms. to hospital included hospice.

We know what hospice is, right?

Hospitality, hospitable, host, hostile.

If you go traveling around Europe right now, there's hostels all over the place.

This is the idea. And hotel.

The first hotels were hospitals. And guess what they were named? Hotel of God.

The first part of verse 13 focuses on us loving believers in the local church,

but the next part is geared more for loving strangers, people that we don't know.

The word hospitality means to pursue love of strangers or pursue loving strangers.

The concept is of one of intentional love to those that we don't know.

We often hear hospitality described as our having friends over to our house.

And yesterday we had the privilege of being invited over to two sets of people's

houses and we enjoyed ourself immensely.

And God is, and this type of love for you and another is important and it's good.

But this is not what hospitality means.

And I believe one of the reasons that we define hospitality as pertaining to

our friends is because it is within our comfort zone.

It is extremely difficult and even frightening to befriend someone And to have

people over to our homes Those whom we don't know It's scary,

We don't know what they're like In today's world, you know, there's all kinds

of people out there traveling around.

But Hebrews 13, verse 1. I'd like you to turn with me there.

Hebrews 13:1

Hebrews 13, verse 1. And this is an awesome passage in regards to hospitality.

Hebrews 13:1

Thank you, Jeff. Let the love of the brethren continue.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. For by this,

some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated,

since you yourselves are in one body.

So how do we apply this to Dillingham?

Here in Dillingham, we have a unique opportunity to share hospitality because we are a hub village.

We have people coming to the hospital all the time from the villages,

people we don't know that are needing places to stay.

The boarding at the hospital is usually overfilled.

We have missionaries and mission

groups that come all the time Needing places to stay and food to eat,

My wife and I on a semi-regular basis We host pastors, we host people coming

from other parts of Alaska,

And through doing so, we have developed connections and friendships That we

would never have if we hadn't been hospitable,

People need rides,

I encourage you to invite someone over to your esteem whom you normally don't invite.

Invite people over your houses from this congregation that you normally don't

invite. That's hospitality.

It's not inviting our friends, although that's important. Hospitality is loving

the stranger we don't know.

How much do we really know each other?

And it's true we have to display wisdom when it comes to taking the strangers,

but it's also true that we can't truly love God without doing this.

So what is God teaching us today? That in order to truly love,

we as the body of Christ, we must grow together in communion and fellowship

together by taking care of each other's needs and we worship the Lord together.

But true love also requires us to intentionally pursue the love of strangers

Those people we don't know yet And I'm not going to sugarcoat this,

folks True love requires sacrifice,

It requires tremendous sacrifice as we love others But as we love others,

we are loving Christ And that love, my friends, is worth it,

As we grow more and more in fellowship and communion with one another we are

growing more and more in communion and fellowship with Christ.

And this is part of how Christ becomes our true pleasure, that he becomes our all in all.

And as we do this, as we more and more love each other, as Christ has designed us to be,

Dillingham out there, the Clarks Point, Manakotek, Togiat, the villages here,

the world will come to know Christ as the body of Christ is living as we are called.

But again, as Galatians 2.20 says, we can't do this on our own.

Died with Christ and is now him that is living in us.

And we live by faith in this life because Christ Jesus died for us and he loved us.

And as we come to communion this morning, let us remember that.

Let us remember now the communion, the fellowship that we have with him and

we can have and we do have with each other.

Let us pray. Lord God, we love you. We praise you.

You are good. I know loving others is It is so difficult And by ourselves,

We're not capable of it We can't do good on our own, Lord And that's why we

rely on you That we trust in you We live by faith in you,

So that you can love others That you can show us And demonstrate your love Through us to others,

Lord, I pray for this body Lord, I pray, Lord That we would be revived in our

heart would it be renewed in our spirit to really love each other.

And as we love each other, as we're loving you, Lord, and living in that love,

loving each other, that we are going out and we're sharing you.

We're going out and making disciples. We're being missionaries in our community.

And Lord, I pray, Lord, as we go to your table today, Lord, reminding us of

what you have done for us on the cross, may help us to meditate,

to dwell deeply on your love In your precious name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.