Fellowship with God

Introduction

Roughly 3 weeks after Jenny and I said “I do” to each other we packed up what little we had and made the move to Walnut Ridge, AR. A little town in Northeast Arkansas so that I could attend the little Bible college that resides there.

I went with some connection to the place from my childhood as dad and mom attended after dad’s call to ministry. I also had familiarity with a few people there. Jenny had pretty much none.

I was a non-traditional student. As such, we lived in the non-traditional student housing. The few of us who were married while in college. I thought for sure we would miss out on some of the fellowship that comes with dorm life, but I soon learned that was not the case.

The Faber’s lived next door to us. Bill was quiet and rather stoic while his wife Sara was the complete opposite. The Rickey’s lived in another set of apartments from us, but Charley’s family quickly adopted us as we spent many Sunday meals with them. The Risley’s became quick friends and partner’s in ministry at times. We both served as local youth ministers.

Then there were other non-traditional students who I formed bonds with not living on campus as well as other ministry students. Jenny and I soon discovered a form of fellowship that we hadn’t fully experienced. We were all trying to figure our this married life, some were having kids, some of us ministry students and some not. But, we often found ourselves together. Many meals spent together, conversations until midnight as we shared life. Struggles were talked and prayed through. Sharing of food when someone was in need was common.

We shared an intimacy of our lives. A bond that was strong and hard to break.

In Genesis chapter 18 we are met with a scene the Lord meeting with Abraham and a meal is shared along with an announcement. It is interesting that chapter 17 opened with the Lord meeting with Abraham and inviting him to live in the Lord’s presence. Now in chapter 18, the presence of the Lord comes to Abraham. To fellowship, to meet with him, to draw he and Sarah closer to Himself

The covenant of God is ultimately about this- fellowship with Him. I will be your God and you will be my people.

James 2:23 “23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.”

Did you catch that? The relationship Abraham had with God through faith led to a friendship with God. I believe what we witness in chapter 18 is the fellowship of friendship of covenantal relationship between God and Abraham. There is also a need to meet with Sarah to bring that fellowship with her to change and shape her faith.

God desires fellowship with us too that shapes us and draws us near to Him.

Genesis 18:1-8

Abraham is resting in the heat of the day at his usual place to be, the place he has met with God a couple of times now. The looks to find 3 men standing near him. We don’t know for sure if he knows that it is the Lord, but he definitely will by the time the Lord speaks by verse 10.

We can assume what Abraham does is customary to hospitality of the day, but there is more going on than he may see. The Lord has come to meet with him. The Lord comes to fellowship and bring a word.

What can we learn about fellowship with God from this passage?

Fellowship with God is favor from God

Abraham invites these men to his hospitality but qualifies it with if he has found favor with them.

In essence he is saying, though it is undeserved on my part to host you and honor you, would you allow me to do so.

God’s fellowship is a favor, a grace toward us. We don’t deserve to have fellowship with God, but He chooses to.

Some view God as the deity that built the clock of life, wound it up, and lets it run. Scripture says, He desires more than that. He desires closeness with us and it is a grace of His.

Sin bends us to oppose Him, yet He still creates a way of fellowship through His Son.

I’ve said this before, but God doesn’t just tolerate you in fellowship with Him; He delights in you and seeks for us to delight in Him.

Several years ago I used some extra cash I had recieved from Christmas to do something with each of my boys. For Jude, we went to a movie he really wanted to watch. For Malachi, we went to a monster truck show. And for Silas we went to Paw Patrol live. I took time, money, and my presence to spend with each boy. Why? Because I delight in them and things they liked. I wanted to grace them with something special.

For our anniversary this summer, our plans changed, but I worked to find a cabin in the mountains in a town that looked like a Hallmark movie could be filmed. Why? Because I delight in my wife and wanted to give her something she loves.

The Lord does this 100 x’s more than we could ever do in fellowship with Him.

He favors us with fellowship with Him because He delights in us.

Fellowship with God is communing

Abraham offers a meal with these 3 and communes with them.

Communing here is based over a meal. Interestingly, covenants at this time were often based over a meal. Meals shared in their world and culture were designated by intimacy, closeness, shared life. Abraham has opened his home, his life to these strangers.

Fellowship with God is described as walking, delighting, abiding, dwelling with Him. It is wrapped up in His Word, prayer, worship, and even fellowship with fellow believers.

Fellowship as communing is to think of feasting in His presence and on His presence.

A author I appreciate said this,

A central theme in the personal life of Jesus Christ, which lies at the very heart of the revelation that He is, is His growing intimacy with, trust in, and love of His Abba. (Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child, 43)

Matthew 11:27 “27 All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires to reveal him.”

Thus, it is ultimately through Jesus that our true fellowship with God takes place. It is in Jesus and through Jesus our relationship with God thrives as we commune.

When vibrancy of faith wains, when sin takes root like a weed, when drift from the Lord sets in; it is usually because my communing with Him as lacked.

Fellowship with God is serving Him

Abraham seeks to serve the Lord, even calls himself a servant. Fellowship is a two way street. It is not just us consuming things from God, but also returning back to Him our lives in service.

Think about the Great Commission for a minute. Jesus gives to us the greatest call of service unto God by making disciples of all nations, teaching them and baptizing them. But what does this service come with? His presence.

Matthew 28:20 “20b And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

Fellowship with God means sharing in His interests, activity, mission, goals. They become ours. His heartbeat becomes our heartbeat. That heartbeat is ultimately the salvation of the lost and the growth of followers for Him.

What does this mean for us?

We cannot claim fellowship with God and just be a consumer. We are participating in His work too in service of Him.

Fellowship with God is giving Him our best

While the bread being made is in a rush, we note that it was fine flour. In addition, Abraham chooses a tender, choice calf. Abraham is choosing to give his best unto the Lord in this fellowship.

There is a song I love that I have used before here at church. The idea is if our life was like a movie and at the end of our lives it showed, would it reveal a fellowship with God. But, there is a lyric that always connects with me:

I don't want to let You down I want to make You proud

Implied here is the desire to do and give God our best because of the relationship we carry with Him.

Colossians 3:17 “17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Proverbs 3:9 “9 Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce of your entire harvest;”

2 Timothy 2:15 “15 Be diligent to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, correctly teaching the word of truth.”

God has given to us everything, including access to Himself. Why would we not want to return back to Him our best? Our best in mind, heart, attitude? Our best in priority, service, offering, worship, etc?

Genesis 18:9-15

The narrative turns a bit from Abraham to Sarah. The dialogue of the Lord indicates that He has actually come for Sarah more so than Abraham.

We don’t know if Abraham revealed all that took place from Genesis 17 or if she really believed it. From our text, it seems she didn’t believe at the moment.

Her faith and her relationship with the Lord seems disjointed. Fellowship with God is broken. Yet, the Lord comes for her too despite where she finds herself.

We can learn what fellowship with God can lead to as a result of this text.

Fellowship with God leads to acceptance of His will and fulfillment of His promise

God delivers the news that in a year they will have a son. Yet, Sarah laughs to herself and questions it. She is not accepting the will of the Lord at this time. Why? Because I believe her fellowship is broken.

What are her concerns? The what and how of it all. She struggles with the why of the timing.

Can you relate to Sarah? I can. Here is what I have had to learn:

There are so few things we understand about this life. We want to know the what, but we get very little. We want to know the why, but we get even less. But if we know Christ, we know the who which is infinitely more valuable. (Ronnie Martin, FB post, 9/15/26)

The deeper we go in fellowship with God the deeper our trust can be. Whether He answers the what, why, or how or not; the greater issue is trusting Him. I have found that the depth of relationship has led me to accept His will, regardless of the outcome.

God declares to Sarah, you will have a son in a year. Before the promise was never scheduled. Here it is. The time has come. The fellowship the Lord brings to her in this moment is designed to lead her to accept and trust the fulfillment of the promise.

Fellowship with God brings a deepening of the mind of God He is forming in us

Sarah asks, how she can have a baby when she is old. God’s response: “Is anything impossible for the Lord?”

That word for impossible is more translated as wonderful, extraordinary, great. The idea is who can perform something so miraculous, wonderful, extraordinary as the Lord?

The answer as we discussed last week, is no one!

The Lord is reminding Sarah, just as He reminded Abraham in chapter 17, there is nothing I cannot do.

The impossible is possible because the God of the impossible is capable. This is a mindset of trust being formed in Sarah now.

It is not necessarily about the answers of what God is doing, but who He is.

Andrew Murray says it this way,

The soul satisfies itself with thoughts that are but the forms and images of truth, without receiving the truth itself in its power. God’s way is ever first to give us, even though it is but as a seed, the thing itself, the life and the power, and then the knowledge. Man seeks the knowledge first, and often, alas, never gets beyond it. God gives us Christ and, in Him, the hidden treasure of wisdom and knowledge. Oh, let us be content to possess Christ, to dwell in Him, to make Him our life, and only in deeper searching into Him, to search and find the knowledge we desire.

To understand the how, what, when, why (knowledge); we have to better understand the Who.

Fellowship with God leads us to confront our sin and repent

Sarah is called out for lying. She laughed at God for the absurdity of the plan. When she was called out, she lies about it and the Lord says, I know the truth.

Sometimes our fellowship with God is used to pull from our sin and the brokenness of sin through repentance. Sarah didn’t own up to her sin. Indirectly she is being corrected in her unbelief too. Until these are dealt with fellowship with God is hindered.

1 John 1:8–10 “8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

This Scripture deals with people who believed the carried no active sin. John says, they were practicing it earlier and to claim they don’t have sin to repent of is ultimately a form of lying. But, he reminds us that if we confess and repent we have God who is ready to forgive and cleanse us.

Its a weird cycle to be in. I have broken fellowship with God because of my sin. I’m afraid to confess it because I either don’t want to be exposed for it or I deny it as true of me.

Sweeping it under the rug doesn’t take care of the mess, right?

Neither does holding onto sin at the risk of disrupting fellowship with God.

Friendship in fellowship with God doesn’t change His holiness. We are still held to His standard not ours like we may keep with friends.

Christ Connection

Fellowship with God Begins In Union With Christ

Andrew Murray says in his book Abide in Christ,

The whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ. Most essential to abiding in Christ [maintaining fellowship] is the daily renewal of our faith’s assurance, “I am in Christ Jesus.”

Romans 6:3–5 “3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.”

Paul says by use of the metaphor of baptism, that in salvation we are united with Jesus. Just as Isaac was promised to Sarah and Abraham, so Jesus was promised to Mary and Joseph and the world to be our salvation.

Colossians 3:3 “3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

Galatians 2:20 “20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Our fellowship with God is through our union with Jesus by faith in our belief, repentance, confession, and surrender. But, note what the Galatians verse says. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ in me.

This speaks of fellowship. Fellowship is the continued relationship we carry with Christ. Fellowship cannot take place until salvation and union with Jesus takes place first.

Remember, fellowship or abiding or dwelling or walking with God has been the goal since Genesis 1-3. God walked with man. He communed, unhindered by sin until Genesis 3, and through the promise of Genesis 3:15 that was fulfilled in Jesus; Revelation 21:3 “3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.” will be a reality.

Fellowship With God Through Christ Is Maintained In Surrender

Philippians 1:6 “6 I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

God is the One who leads us to have maintained fellowship with Him through Christ. There are things we do to maintain that fellowship-confession, repentance, Scripture intake, worship, fellowship with believers, etc; but ultimately it is the work of God.

Andrew Murray once again states,

Establishing us in Christ is His work: He accomplishes it by stirring us to watch and wait and work. But this He can do with power only as we cease interrupting Him by our self-working— as we accept, in faith, the dependent posture that honors Him and opens the heart to let Him work.

In other words, surrender is key to maintaining fellowship with God through Christ. Surrender of our time, our priorities, our failures, our successes, our struggles, our situations, our spouses, our children, our hobbies, etc. Any of these can hinder fellowship with God or they can lead us to greater fellowship as we surrender them unto Him.

Conclusion

I am terrible about keeping connection with people who are not in my immediate scope. So, friends I have had from Fort Worth or Burkburnett, I have trouble maintaining closeness with via text or call.

Part of that is because I truly like being in the presence of people. Even now, I would rather meet with someone in person than text or have a phone call.

When I knew I wanted to marry Jenny I explained God’s call on my life to be a pastor. It would require moving to a Bible college and we could try the long distance thing or we could get married. I explained how I operate and I fear the long distance would disrupt my fellowship with her so to speak. Plus, the new journey would be so much better together.

Some of you here have may distance in your fellowship with God. The distance may be wrapped up in not communing regularly, or serving Him as He’s called you, or perhaps giving Him leftovers of your life.

As a result it has been hard to accept His will and promises as truth. It has been hard to develop a mind for and in Christ. Or the distance has allowed unrepentant sin to take shape.

The answer is simple: God wants fellowship with you. Surrender to Him through Jesus.

For some here, you have no fellowship with God. You might pray or read the Bible or even attend church and it results in nothing. It’s because you are not united to Christ in salvation.

Begin your fellowship with Him by giving your life to Jesus today.