Trinity Baptist Church

Serve Oklahoma

The Power of 10

Hebrews 10:25

 

Today we are continuing our study of the principles of Serve Oklahoma.  We began with the power of prayer.  Hopefully you are spending time individually and with others in fervent prayer for the lost.

 

Then we moved to the power of community.  Together, as the church of Jesus Christ, we are called to serve for the cause of Christ.  As we devlop an attitude of service, we have the privilege of telling others about the love of God,, knowing that one day, we will be together in heaven with Him.

 

Today, the application moves a little closer to wehre we live as we deal with the Power of 10.  The emphasis is on small groups.  In our church, we call those Sunday school classes.  The Sunday School is simply the church organized to do the work of the church.

 

When you think about it, if the church didn’t have Sunday school, it would have to come up with some other way to teach the Bible, reach out to the lost, and minister to one another because the Sunday School, when it is functioning correctly, does all those things.

 

The early church, even though it wasn’t called Sunday School, did all those things.  In fact, the church was the very center of life for the early church.

 

Listen to Hebrews 10:24-25

Notice the instruction is to “Consider one another”

 

The response to that invitation must be given individually, but the response also has a corporate application.  He is writing to a group of primarily Hebrew hearers who are united in Christ.

 

Therefore, the love he is talking about is fellowship love. If you have been coming to our Wednesday evening study of the book of Hebrews, you will remember that these Jewish readers were having a hard time breaking with the Old Covenant, with the Temple and the sacrifices.

 

They were still holding on to the legalism and ritual and ceremony, the outward things of Judaism. So the writer is telling them that one of the best ways to hold fast to the things of God—the real things of God that are found only in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ—is to be in the fellowship of His people, where they could love and be loved, serve and be served. There is no better place to come all the way to faith in Christ, or to hope continually in Him, than the church, and I might add, specifically, the Sunday School.

 

And the context of the encouragement is that “the Day is approaching”.  Now that could refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which was about to happen.  But I believe the primary reference is to the coming of the Lord.  And the only place where we can remain steadfast until He returns is with His people. We need each other. We need to be in fellowship with each other.  We need to mutually strengthen each other and encourage each other.

 

And that is especially true as the times and days around us grow more and more desperate. So this morning, I want to talk to you about the fellowship of the church and why it is so valuable to a believer.  

 

The church is a fellowship. It is not a human institution, it is not a human organization, it is shared life. It is made of people who are connected to Jesus Christ, who share His life, who follow His leadership. He is the head; we are the body. We are a mutual ministry. We serve one another. We serve the will of our honored Lord and the head of the body of Jesus Christ.  We are a fellowship.

 

Now the writer of Hebrews is indicating that the fellowship of the church is so invaluable and irreplaceable that a Christian wouldn’t dream of missing out of what only the church can provide.

 

So that raises the question:  Just how precious and irreplaceable is the church to you?  I would say that for many, they can take it or leave it.  Church is viewed as a spectator event. You come, you sit, you watch what happens here and then you go. That is the worst way to view the church.

 

What happens here is the worshipping church and the church being taught.  But what happens on Sunday and Wednesday is really designed to stimulate the real life of the church which goes on in its greatest demonstration the teaching and preaching has taken place.   It is beyond the formal meeting times that we do the ministry and work of the Lord.  That’s why the Sunday School, your class, is so significant.  Remember, it is the church organized to do the work God has assigned to us.

And I’m afraid that sometimes we forget the responsibility of fellowship. I think sometimes we forget the essence of what God designed to happen in our mutual, shared life as the church.

 

Think about the various ways the church is described in the Bible.  Sometimes we are called a flock with a great shepherd. We are called a building, a temple of God in which the spirit dwells. We are called a family with God as our head and Jesus as our supernatural older brother, our joint heir. He's not ashamed to call us brothers.

 

We are also viewed as branches on a vine. That's all true of the church. By the way, it is also all true of Israel.  But there is one unique description given of the church that you never find connecting Israel to God and that is the metaphor of a body.

 

And the essence of a body is fellowship.  It is a mutual shared life. A body is this breathing, living, moving organism that has fellowship and coordination between its part and that is the defining description of the life of the church.

 

And I’m afraid that we have become accustomed to the church.  We take it for granted; we complain about our fellow body parts.  We are critical of those who are, like us, sinners saved by the grace of God.

We forget what a precious gift is the fellowship that we share as the people of God.

 

It is really the defining element in the life of the church. That's why I don't understand people who aren't together whenever the saints come. I don't understand the hit and miss, come or not, hot and cold attitude regarding church.

As a Christian, you're a part of the fellowship. The true church is one body and all the members of that body are members of each other. And every member serves a purpose and has a function and holds a responsibility to the rest.

 

That’s why the body metaphor is so significant.  The one description that is the most helpful in understanding that the church is this fellowship of living life, living organic, spiritual life is the body.  That is our unique identity.

 

There are things that are instructive about the bride and the bridegroom metaphor.  There's instruction about the vine and the branches. There's instruction that comes out of the flock and the shepherd and the building and the family. All of those things are instructive to us but I think the thing that's the most helpful is to understand the fellowship of the body.

 

Now unfortunately, Baptists have redefined what fellowship is.  We think in terms of potluck meals and visiting around the table.  We’ve even built building and rooms for that very purpose.  After all, we have a fellowship hall.

 

So to adequately understand biblical fellowship requires a little deprogramming.   The word fellowship, in its verb form is used eight times in the New Testament.  Seven of the times it's translated share and one time translated participate.

 

The noun form, which appears about 30 times, also carries the idea sharing, contributing or participating and really has the root idea of being a partner or being linked together.

So the concept of fellowship is sharing, contributing, partaking, partnering in a common spiritual life.

 

And there is a desperate need to get back in touch with that. This is not about showing up once in a while and watching what happens. This is not about cultivating your own life in a personal sense or finding your own personal worship style.

 

This is about being a part of the body of Christ and the fellowship that produces with God and other Christians.

 

So I want to talk about that and just put together a few things to think about.

 

First of all, let’s think about

 

 

On what basis do we fellowship? All these church growth guys tell us what we need to do is get an assessment of our community and find out what the socio-demographics are.  Find out what the cultural needs indicators are then design your church ministries to meet those needs.  That is the key to church growth.

 

But is that a scriptural approach?  What is to be the basis for true Biblical fellowship?  That's the question. And I will tell you the basis is not cultural and it's not racial and it's not economic and it's not intellectual and it's not educational and it's not denominational and it's not about emotionalism and it's not style.  So what is it?

 

Turn with me to 1 John 1 and I'll tell you what it is.

Notice how John begins this letter.

 

1 John 1:1-3

 

He says I want to tell you about Christ and His life and this is not second hand information. I've heard Him. I've seen Him. I've touched Him. I've looked deeply into His life. His life was manifested, I saw it and I give first hand witness to it and I proclaim to you that this is the eternal life who was with the Father and was manifested through us.  And the reason I am sharing this information is so you can have fellowship with us.

 

How do you get in the fellowship? By hearing and believing the truth about Christ.

 

What is the basis of Christian fellowship? Salvation. You come to Christ, you hear the gospel, you believe the gospel, and you're in the fellowship.

 

Here’s the way that is supposed to work:  If God accepts you, we accept you. We throw our arms open and embrace you and pull you in as tightly as we can and love you with as much love as we've got for anybody.

 

People say, but what about this and do they believe that?  All of that comes later.  Get ‘em in the doors and we’ll teach ‘em the truth.  But initially, if your doctrine of the gospel is right, that’s really all that matters.

 

This is the church. And if you’re in the family, you’re in the fellowship. And we might as well get used to each other down here because we're going be hanging around each other forever.

Now obviously, I’ll appreciate you much more when your perfect since I knew you before you were.  But the same goes for you and your estimation of me also.  That’s what the fellowship is.

 

Did you ever hear someone say, “Old so and so is out of fellowship.”  Not unless they lost their salvation.  Listen:  you can’t lose your fellowship any more than you can lose your salvation.

 

If you're ever in the fellowship you're never out of it. Now you're either a help or a hindrance; you're either a blessing or a pain. But that's how the body works, isn't it? And whatever you are you're in the fellowship. 

 

Now there is a tendency to say, and I’ve said it, “If old so and so would leave it would be good riddance! But we have no right to talk about a fellow body part like that.  How could it be good riddance if they're in the fellowship?

 

“I just wish old so and so would leave and go somewhere else.”  Isn’t that a great thought?  They're a problem here so we wish them off on somebody else.

 

“Well if they’re going to be here, I’m just going to go somewhere else!”  Why do you want to go mess up someone else’s church for?  If you think the grass is greener somewhere else or things are better down the road, I’ve got news for you:  We’re all messed up.  Every church is the same. When you come visiting, you won’t necessarily see it, but that’s just because you don’t know them as well as you know the ones where you are.”

Every church has its struggles and personality issues and grievances and difficulties.  That’s the way body life is.

 

One day your back hurts and the next it’s your stomach and the day after that you’ve got a headache.  That’s just the way it is.

 

But we have no right to say, “I just wish they’d leave.  They’re not our kind of folk.  They don’t fit here.  You can't view a church like that. This is a body. This is a fellowship and if you are saved, you're in the fellowship.

 

Here’s the second thing:

 

 

If the basis of fellowship is salvation, what is the nature of fellowship? I've already given you the answer.  The best word I can think of is sharing. It's shared life.

 

In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost when the church was founded, there were a lot of Jews in Jerusalem who didn't live there. They came in by the tens of thousands for the feast times in Jerusalem.

 

They were dispersed and scattered all over the Gentile world, but at their great festivals they would all come to Jerusalem.  Now Pentecost is one of the feasts and all these Jews come to Jerusalem.

 

And on that day, just 50 days after the ascension of Jesus, Peter stands up, preaches his sermon, and three-thousand are converted.

Now of that 3,000 who are converted, I think it safe to assume that many of them did not live in Jerusalem.  So it is reasonable to expect that most of them left or should have left to go home. But that creates a real dilemma.  If they leave, what are they going to do? If they go home, there are no Christians, there's no churches, there's no teaching, there's not fellowship, there's no nothing. So they stayed.

 

And it says in Acts 2 that they were all together every day. Why? What drew them together? The common life of being a Christian was what caused them to say together.

 

They were together every single day listening to the apostles' doctrine in fellowship, Acts 2:42, at the Lord's table celebrating their common ground on the cross and praying and proclaiming the gospel every day. And Acts 2 says they had all things in common.

 

That was of necessity, by the way.  These people who stayed in Jerusalem left everything back home.  Their jobs were back home so they had no income, they had no food, the probably needed clothes, they had to have a place to stay. So what happened was the church born that day absorbed those people and they just stayed.  That’s how much the fellowship of believers meant to them.

 

And it is one of the amazing demonstrations of the Christian faith that this little start-up, fledgling church in Jerusalem understood when somebody had a need and somebody else had a resource they would take that resource and meet that need. Some of them had property and possessions which they actually sold.

This was the nature of their relationship with each other.  They shared a common spiritual life which gave them a common love for each other. This is fellowship at its most elemental level.  There's nothing that we as believers possess that doesn't belong to the Lord anyway.  And as a part of the fellowship, I am to share what I have. That’s how life in the church is defined.   That is the nature of our fellowship.

 

Thirdly, think about

 

 

Now the danger to fellowship is sin. Sin is the one thing that can devastate the fellowship.  Sin is to the fellowship of the believers what cancer is to a body. That's why sin has to be dealt with. If there's a cancer or a disease or something wrong in the body, we want to get rid of it so the body can be whole and healthy.

 

Now I am confident that most of us have no regard or understanding or appreciation for the impact our personal sin has on the corporate life of the church.

 

But in 1 Corinthians 11, when giving instruction about receiving the Lord’s Supper, Paul says, “Examine yourself, because if you don't examine yourself and you just go running into the Lord's table and take it in a superficial way you're going to bring judgment on yourself. Then he adds this, "not discerning the body."

 

The implication is you haven't really understood that your continued sin affects the body. It cripples the body. It impacts our life.

It's an illness, it's a sickness, it's a cancer. And of course that then destroys the functioning of the church, the unity of the church and the witness and the power of the church.

 

I heard about one great big church where an attorney got right with God and he invited all his friends to church with him.   One of them said, “I wouldn't go to that church if it was the last church on the earth. One of the crookedest attorneys I know goes to that church.”

 

This guy told his pastor and during his message, the pastor told the congregation and when he gave the invitation, 13 lawyers repented.

 

Just think about it:  No matter what the church is doing, not matter how hard many are working and praying and serving, if you have sin in your life, that’s all it takes to stop the progress.

 

Do you ever make the connection between the health of the church and the purity of your life?  Does it ever cross your mind that if you’re out of the will of God you are hampering the work of the church?  Does it make any difference to you the high cost the church pays for you to have un-confessed sin?

 

The church may draw a crowd and have a full calendar, but if there is sin in the camp, the body is in critical condition. If there was an evangelical ICU there are a lot of churches that would be in it.

 

The basis of the church is salvation, the nature of the church is sharing, the danger of the church is sin.

Here’s the final thing:

 

The responsibility of the church is serving.

 

2 Corinthians 8:3-4

 

We are a fellowship of serving. That's the way the body functions. All the parts of my body serve the common good. Think about it from a physiological or anatomical point of view.

 

For the most part, my body follows the direction of my brain. That’s good and that’s the way it’s supposed to work.  When my head tells my hand to do something, it does it.  In fact, it’s amazing how well the system God designed works.

 

In like manner, the body of Christ is designed to operate according to the instructions of the Head who is Christ.  Now the design is that every part of the body serves every other part of the body. So whatever your abilities are, whatever your ministries are they're not for you; they're for someone else.  They are to bless others in the body and share the gospel with the lost.

 

My preaching gift isn't for me; it's for you. Your gift of prayer isn't for you; it's for us. Your gift of teaching is for the people you teach. Your gift of wisdom is for the people to whom you reveal the wisdom. Your gift of discernment is for those who need help. Your gift of help is for those who need assistance. Your gift of leadership is for those who need direction.

 

So the first thing you need to know is that you have a spiritual gift.

Every believer has it and it is a God-given, divine enablement, a spiritual ability through the power of the Holy Spirit to serve the body of Christ and reacht eh lost for Christ.

 

You may say, “How do I know what it is or where I am to serve?  What is it that you love to do? What is it when you do it people are blessed? What is it in your heart to do when you're prompted by the spirit of God?

 

That is God at work in you to fulfill your responsibility in the church to the body and do evangelism. 

 

There is another aspect of serving that I want to touch on and that is how we respond to the “one anothers” of the Scripture.

 

Gifts are specific; the “one anothers” are broad.  A

 

All of us are told to love one another, pray for one another, exhort one another, admonish one another, warn one another, rebuke one another, edify one another, bare one another's burdens. We just take care of each other. We don't despise the least. If one believer wanders away we go and bring them back. We don't cause others to stumble.

 

Let’s end where we began:  Hebrews 10:24-25

 

I am to be a faithful part of the assembly because I have a broad based spiritual responsibility to stimulate one another to love in good works, to fulfill all the one anothers and then we have a very specific responsibility to discharge a gift that God has given us.

Let me give you more thought and that is

 

 

The basis of fellowship is salvation, the nature of fellowship is sharing, the danger to fellowship is sin, the responsibility of fellowship is serving through gifts and the one anothers, but what's the result?

 

Back to 1 John 1:4 says, "These things I write into you that you're joy may be full.”

 

Do you want to live a joyful life?  Get involved in the fellowship and give yourself away. Abandon yourself as a way of life. Use your gift. Get involved in the one anothers. Serve the church. Be a part of building up the body and you will receive joy and more than that the body will be built up, people will be saved and Christ will be honored.

 

Let’s pray.