True Fellowship
One More Step • Week 4
Fellowship often gets conflated with friendship. But they are not synonymous. True fellowship is much deeper and intentional. To conclude our series, Dave Brown shares that difference and challenges us to truly be in fellowship as a church and as the body of Christ.
MESSAGE NOTES
True Fellowship
One More Step | Week 4
February 28, 2021 | Dave Brown
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Acts 2:42-47 NIV
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Five Crucial Questions About Fellowship:
- What is fellowship?
- With whom do we share fellowship?
- What guides our fellowship?
- What empowers our fellowship?
- What should happen when we fellowship?
Tertulian
“It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See how they love one another, they say, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, they say, for they themselves will sooner put to death.”
Fellowship is not about fulfilling our personal need for friendship; rather it’s about our responsibility for developing a compelling Christian community.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17 NIV
“Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.”
When we think of fellowship, we must necessarily think of unity, unity with Jesus Christ and unity with the body of Christ.
Irenaeus
“This preaching...and this faith...the church, although scattered in the whole world, diligently guards as if it lives in one house, and believes...as if it had one mind and the same heart, and preaches and teaches and hands on these things harmoniously, as if it had one mouth. And although there are different languages in the world, the force of the tradition is one and the same.”
1 John 1:3 NIV
“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
We cannot have true fellowship without complete submission to God’s Word.
Fellowship is inherently missional.