Theme: Only in Christ can we experience true fellowship in the light.
As Pastor Dan shared his message from 1 John, chapter 1, I was so in awe of what John and the rest of the apostles experienced; God was walking with them. They touched, heard, and saw Him, and they did not grasp that reality completely until He rose and left them.
Verse 3 of John's first letter also caught my attention because he mentioned the word fellowship twice. "We proclaim to you that we have seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:3 NIV).
And I remember reading a statement attributed to Richard Halverson, a former U.S. Senate Chaplain. He wrote, "In the beginning, the Church was a fellowship of men and women who centered their lives on the living Christ. They had a very personal and vital relationship with the Lord. It transformed them and the world around them. Then, the Church moved to Greece, and it became a philosophy. Later, it moved to Rome and became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe and became a culture. Finally, it moved to America and became an enterprise. Today, we have far too many churches and so few fellowships".
Let us go back and think of the three years of Jesus' ministry. During that time, the Disciples of Christ followed Him yet were not experiencing genuine, continuous fellowship with Him or each other. There was bickering about who would be first or who would occupy the seats to the right and the left of Jesus when He took His throne. There were doubts and misunderstandings about His mission and purpose. One of the twelve could even mask his true intentions from the others until the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest. After Jesus' arrest, they scattered, each to his own. What changed these men from scared, selfish individuals into a fellowship of courageous, powerful, and unified brothers who changed the world?
In the Book of Acts, Jesus, after He had risen, was dining with his disciples, and said, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For through John, you are baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:4-5 NIV) That day came soon after, in the 2nd Chapter of Acts, and the world was forever changed.
What lessons can we take from the words of John and his first letter and the history of the early Church in Acts? The first, I believe, involves following Christ versus being "in Christ" and He in us. The Apostles followed Christ for three years but became one in power only when they became His Body, filled with the Holy Spirit. They were then one in Christ, in authentic fellowship.
When I think of our salvation, and when we gave ourselves to Christ, I see us miraculously transported back two thousand years, being nailed to a cross, buried with Christ, rising with Him on the third day, and being one with Him for eternity. God the Father performed this incredible miracle. That is why Paul could write Galatians 2:20 and see it. When we see this, our lives and all relationships are changed, and fellowship takes on a meaning far beyond "getting together".
For now, the second and final lesson involves the importance of small groups. Only in small groups of brothers and sisters in Jesus can we discover who we are and how we fit into the Body of Christ. Through loving transparency, we discover each other's strengths and weaknesses and how we work together as one Body to fulfill God's plan for us, the community, and the world.
As Pastor Dan instructed, let us find who we are "in Christ" and who we are not. May we discover, as Paul did, that we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. When we truly see as he did, everything in this life changes: perspectives, relationships, fellowship, and whose light it is that shines from us.
Scripture: Romans 12:4-5 (NIV)
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Prayer:
God, just as you are one God made of three persons in complete unity, you created us in the same way, in your image. Give us divine wisdom to see who we are and how we fit together in your Body, the Church. In you, Lord, we find our meaning and our light. Amen
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