Healthy Church!

Can we be a Healthy Church?

Can you be a Healthy Christian?

COMMITMENT TO COMMUNION - & 46

A. Devotion – communion – fellowship - a way to remember. 2:42

1. It is interesting that communion of the saints (fellowship) is followed with communion with God!

a. It was John in his first epistle that linked the vertical with the horizontal!

b. One cannot have fellowship with God that does not have fellowship with his fellow believers, and vice versa!

2. Because God's Word is alive, doctrine has to flow somewhere through us, towards God and towards one another!

3. Being "devoted" to doctrine, fellowship, communicating and now COMMUNION reflects an effort, a constant striving towards something, in this case worship or communion with God!

B. Discipleship – defined as : a person who is a pupil or an adherent of the doctrines of another; follower.

1. This fourth area of devotion of this healthy Church is "COMMUNION" which represented "worship" of God.

a. As true disciples, we are to be a worshipping community!

b. The early Church was characterized by its fervent worship & prayer!

c. The Apostle Paul severely criticized the Corinthians for their improper communion services because they had become nothing more than just a meal, and even at this they didn't take any consideration for one another in their eating with each other!

1. The poorer members sat there with little to eat, and their richer brothers and sisters in Christ did not even share with them their own abundant meal!

2. They had lost the sense of worship in communion, and in the Church!

2. Their devotion to worship (represented here by communion) was to be fervent and real … directed to Christ as the symbol of the communion elements.

a. Too often today worship has become a formality or ritual!

b. Worship is not just an act or a programmed list, it is to reflect the passion of our hearts, and show a devotion so strong that we cannot be sidetracked by other things when Christ is being focused on!

3. Unsaved people will not be turned off by a passionate worship service, the world has had enough of empty rituals and meaningless dogma, it is hungry to know that there is a real God worshipped by real passionate disciples!

3. Unsaved people will not be turned off by a passionate worship service, the world has had enough of empty rituals and meaningless dogma, it is hungry to know that there is a real God worshipped by real passionate disciples!