Faithfulness in Fellowship
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Fellowship with God
Fellowship with God
What is fellowship? When we hear the word fellowship, what do we think of? We think of food right? Yes food and spending time with someone having a meal together. That’s why i always say you can see if the people in the Church are growing in fellowship by looking at their size. The cuter the members are, the more you know that they are fellowshipping together. I can see that our Church is growing in our fellowship this season. All of us look very blessed.
So usually, when we think about fellowship, we think about spending time with our fellow brothers and sisters. This is important and the Bible talks about not forgetting to meet up together in Hebrews 10:25
So usually, when we think about fellowship, we think about spending time with our fellow brothers and sisters. This is important and the Bible talks about not forgetting to meet up together in Hebrews 10:25
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
I will talk about this next week. So this is something very important for Christian . But there is another type of fellowship that I want to talk about today and that is our fellowship with God. We don’t really talk about fellowship with God. I think we need to talk about our fellowship with God first before we can talk about fellowship with our fellow brothers and sisters. Because if we do not know how to fellowship with God, we will not be able to truly fellowship with our brothers and sisters.
When God made Adam, Adam was the first human who had direct fellowship with God and Adam walked with God and spoke with god. But when Adam and Eve sinned against God and decided to live life outside of God’s plan, the relationship was broken and Adam and Eve hid from the presence of God. But God Called out to man and asked him where is he. After Adam confessed to God about what he had done, God already had a plan for the salvation of man to come back to having a relationship with God.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
He began to speak about Jesus from the beginning. God loves us so much that from the very time when man began to sin God planned to bring us back into fellowship with him. God sent Jesus to die for our sins so that we can return to fellowship with God.
When Adam was in fellowship with God. he trusted in God and he did not have to worry about what he will eat or his provision. Why? Because he is in fellowship with God and God is with him always leading him guiding him and providing for him. Before Adam sinned against God, God put Adam to work in the garden of Eden and God blessed him in his work. Everything that he grew and took care of grew well and bore fruit. But when sin entered into the garden and into Adam and Eve’s heart, their work became hard. Because they chose their way and their strength, the work of their hands did not bear fruit because God did not bless it. From then on work was hard work and even giving birth was painful from then on.
Without God in the picture life gets harder as we look at the life of Adam and Eve and even when we look at our lives. We need to know God and grow in our fellowship with God for us to grow in our spiritual life.
We need to have an encounter with God.
It is possible to say the sinners prayer and begin to come to Church and do all the things that Christians do and in the end do not know God at all. We might know about God but do not know him relationally.
Fellowship with God makes us grow
If we look at the lives of the all the people who God called. People like Moses, Joshua, David, Paul. What is one thing in common for them. Their lives changed when they encountered God in their lives. The people in the old testament changed when they encountered God. We who are in the new testament times are changed when we encounter Jesus Christ.
So how do we encounter God in our lives?
1. First we need to be able to read the word of God.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
If we do not have time to read the word of God or we don’t have a good version of the Bible that is easy to read and for us to understand, then we will not be able to receive from the word of God. If we cannot read, we need to find a way for us to listen to the scriptures of God. If you need help with any of these, please let our brothers and sisters and the leaders know so that we can help you to have a way of knowing God through the scriptures.
We need to set aside time to read and understand the scriptures and ask the Holy spirit to reveal the scriptures to us. This is so that we will know what God has done for us when Jesus died for us on the cross. I encourage all of us to make this a priority. If we are not reading and learning about God, we will not encounter God in our lives.
When we want to know someone well, what do we do? we spend time with the person to talk and to hear from the person. So in the same way, in order to know God and allow him to lead us, we need to spend time talking to God and hearing from him. And how do we do this? We do this by spending time praying to God. I sometimes hear people asking why can’t i hear from God. The first thing I will ask them is if they have started to try. Many of them said I tried 3 times but I did not hear anything. So I stopped.
It is the same as someone who wants to learn to ride a bicycle. He tries 3 times and does not succeed. Then he says that he cannot ride a bicycle. What should the person who wants to ride a bicycle do? He should continue to persevere and try. And also ask his friends who can do it to help him. Is this correct? Do we respond the same way in our Christian walk? Do we try to hear from God 3 times and then decide that God is not speaking to us and then we stop trying. Just like learning to ride a bike, it takes time and perseverance to learn a new skill. Learning to hear from God and knowing God is a lifelong journey. We will get to know God and hear from God and have fellowship with God if we make it a daily practice to read and pray and allow God’s word to affect our actions and thoughts. This is why reading the word of God and praying are so important. It connects us to God in fellowship. If we have not been doing so, we cannot expect to grow in God or for our faith to grow or for our lives to improve.
2. We need to allow the love of God to touch our lives and move our hearts.
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
It says here in this verse that the word of God is living and active. is the word of God living and active to you? Or is it just another dead book that does nothing to us? The word of God reveals the truth about our lives to us. It reveals to us if we are living lives that are leading to destruction or life.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
It says here in that the thief wants to steal, kill and destroy you. But Jesus came to give us abundant life. The ways of the world will steal kill and destroy us. But if we follow and allow Jesus to come into our lives and lead us. We will have abundant life when we allow Jesus to come and change our lives from the inside out.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
In every sermon that I preach I will preach about the love of Jesus and what Jesus has done for us. And how it should change our hearts and how we live. It is possible to listen to the good news and not be changed by it or moved by it. Do you believe? When will this happen? This will happen when we have decided in our lives that we are not looking to change in our lives. I think that attitude is very important. It is the open or closed door to our lives. If we have decided that we will not allow the word of God to change us today, do you think you will receive anything from God today? Probably not. But if we have decided today that we are going to receive something from God today and we want to let the word of God change us. Will you receive something today. You definitely will. Why? Because you are willing and expect to be changed by the word of God.
The word talks about Jesus. And Jesus is the word. In every sermon that I preach I will preach about the love of Jesus and what Jesus has done for us. And how it should change our hearts and how we live. It is possible to listen to the good news and not be changed by it or moved by it. Do you believe? When will this happen? This will happen when we have decided in our lives that we are not looking to change in our lives. I think that attitude is very important. It is the open or closed door to our lives. If we have decided that we will not allow the word of God to change us today, do you think you will receive anything from God today? Probably not. But if we have decided today that we are going to receive something from God today and we want to let the word of God change us. Will you receive something today. You definitely will. Why? Because you are willing and expect to be changed by the word of God.
Fellowship with God is made possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us so that we can know the love of God. In order to know fellowship with God, we need to read the Bible to be reminded of the things that God and Jesus has done for us and to spend time to really allow God to touch our hearts with his love. This happens when we allow the holy spirit to touch our lives.
Fellowship with God is made possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us so that we can know the love of God. In order to know fellowship with God, we need to read the Bible to be reminded of the things that God and Jesus has done for us and to spend time to really allow God to touch our hearts with his love. This happens when we allow the holy spirit to touch our lives.
3.We need to get rid of the Idols in our lives.
We need to let the word of God Change our lives. If we are reading the word of God and our lives are not changed, then we need to check our hearts. As Christians are we opening our lives for God to come and change us? Or are we just doing our own thing. Living our old lives but just coming to Church. I’m sorry if I’m being very direct. But I think that this is very important for us to decided if we are following Christ and allowing him to lead us. If God is not leading us and if God is not our salvation and hope, then something else is leading us. If something else is leading us. Then we are worshipping idols in our lives.
Not everyone is a child of God.
In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.” They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.
So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
John 8:41-17
Because Jesus Christ has died for our sins and paid for our salvation. We have been bought by him. We are Slaves to Christ. We have no right to live for ourselves anymore. Rather, we have a lifelong debt to Him, and it is our joyful privilege to fulfil that debt, since living for Him is the only way to experience real life, which is eternal life.
Because Jesus Christ has died for our sins and paid for our salvation. We have been bought by him. We are Slaves to Christ. We have no right to live for ourselves anymore. Rather, we have a lifelong debt to Him, and it is our joyful privilege to fulfil that debt, since living for Him is the only way to experience real life, which is eternal life.
If we are bored in our Christian life. We need go wake up! This is not what Jesus gave us. Just look at the the disciple’s lives in acts. Were their lives boring? No! It was full of expectation of what God was going to do. God opened prison gates and God shook the earth with earthquakes and there was healing happening in their midst.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Brown, Michael L.. The Fire that Never Sleeps: Keys to Sustaining Personal Revival (p. 77). Destiny Image, Inc.. Kindle Edition. This is salvation.
How do you know what are the idols in our lives? The things that make us stressed and worried. These are the things that are our idols.
it could be looking good in front of people where we are stressed when we do not look good in front of people. It could be people who we worship. it could be our bosses or our leaders where we feel very stressed when we feel like we are not good enough for the people we worship.
But if God is our God and we worship God alone, then our concern will be to do what he calls us to do and we will pray and worship more because God is the one who does his plans in our lives. We can have peace when we are devoted to God alone.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Heb 1
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
We need to let the word of God Change our lives. If we are reading the word of God and our lives are not changed, then we need to check our hearts. As Christians are we opening our lives for God to come and change us? Or are we just doing our own thing. Living our old lives but just coming to Church. I’m sorry if I’m being very direct. But I think that this is very important for us to decided if we are following Christ and allowing him to lead us. If God is not leading us and if God is not our salvation and hope, then something else is leading us.
Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”
4 The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
The idols of the nations are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
they have eyes, but do not see;
they have ears, but do not hear,
nor is there any breath in their mouths.
Those who make them become like them,
so do all who trust in them.
Ps 135:
3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Ex 20:
How do we grow in our fellowship with God?
Fellowship with God changes our perspective
Fellowship with God makes us righteous