20080914 - Our fellowship in Christ

Sunday 14 September 2008

A church open to all – Our fellowship in Christ

1 John 1:1-7

Aim: To share the message with others so that they can be part of the fellowship with Christ.

There is something that we know. We know that Jesus Christ is the source of eternal life! We know it because it was shown to us and now we want to show it to you. We want to show it to you so that you also may have fellowship with us, not just with us but also with God and His Son Jesus Christ. We want you to know this so that your joy (and our joy) may be full.

This is what John is writing, and what each of us Christians should be communicating to those around us. John knew that Jesus Christ was the source of everlasting life, indeed is life, because he heard Jesus speak, and saw Him with his eyes and even touched Jesus with his hands after he witnessed that same Jesus crucified and placed in a tomb. John knew that Jesus is life, because he saw Jesus come back to life from death. John was an eyewitness as were the other apostles who wrote the New Testament.

Of course we are not eyewitnesses, but we can be just as sure as John was. In his gospel, John tells us about one disciple who was not present the first time that Jesus appeared to them after He rose from the dead. This disciple could not believe what the others had told him. It was just too incredible! He said, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." Just then Jesus appeared again to them and invited this disciple to do just that. Afterwards Jesus said, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

How do we who have never seen Jesus Christ, who have never heard or touched Him know that He is really the source of eternal life? The way that we know is through the fellowship that John invites us to take part in.

Look at text for a moment:

Vs 3 is the basis of the reading “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us.”

Look at how many times these words appear:

Proclaim = 4 times

Fellowship = 4 times.

Look at what is proclaimed – “that which was from the beginning, which…

The purpose is “so that you may have fellowship with us.”

John’s purpose for writing his letter was to invite us to join a fellowship. A fellowship is a group, a community, with a common link.

Something with a common link is the internet. The internet can be about sharing common interests with other people such as with Facebook.

The thing that ties us together is that common link.

This word “fellowship” though, what’s it mean?

The Greek word for fellowship is "koinonia". It comes from the root word meaning "common" and is used in the New Testament for the community of Christians. What we share in common, is the life that John was witness to. Our common link is that we all have eternal life springing up in our hearts.

John 17:3 says “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

What makes our common link much more powerful though is that that life is not just a common interest as with the internet, or a force that is working in us. That life is a person, Jesus Christ. Our community includes and is really centred on Jesus. So even though we were not there to see Jesus with our own eyes, we are linked to Him and to everyone else in the world who knows Him.

How does our fellowship work? If we are to compare it to the internet, what are the telephone wires that make the connection? How do we stay linked in? I believe the best way to understand it is that God is the central hub. Every time we fellowship with any other Christian there is really a network of three taking place. It is you, the other Christian and God. Jesus told His disciples, "For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20) Of course it is possible to gather without taking the name of Jesus into account whatsoever! People do it all the time. That is not fellowship because it is not a network that includes God. But if Jesus is the centre, the hub of our group, then no matter how small, it is a fellowship and our joy will increase!

Does gathering in Jesus name mean that every time we meet another Christian we have to talk about God, read the Bible, pray and sing praise songs? I don’t think so.

John tells us more about the hub and what constitutes real fellowship. He says first that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. This is light in the full poetic meaning of the word. God is everything that is good, true and pure and there is nothing evil about Him whatsoever. We could go into this in great depth because a large portion of the Bible is just telling us the character of God and all of it is light. John’s summary of the whole of Jesus’ ministry was that He is light.

Vs 5 “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light…”

God is not a mixture of good and evil. I think this is important for us to grasp, because it is very tempting for us to think this about God. A lot of things happen in our lives and not all of them are pleasant. Some are absolutely terrible. It is tempting to say that God is like us, that sometimes He is good but other times He is unfair. Sometimes He is loving and gentle, but other times He is cruel and stingy. This is what Satan would have us believe about God and what he has convinced most of the religions of the world. Most religions believe that God will only give His blessings to those who do the right things. They think that God is only good to those who say the right prayers, burn the right incense or make the right pilgrimage. Otherwise God is frightening at best.

Our God is all light! He is the one who is always for us, never against us! He is the one who makes all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Is it possible to lose your connection in this fellowship? John says that if you walk in darkness then you are not really part of the fellowship at all. You might be in the same room with Christians. You might attend the same church. But you won’t be experiencing the same bond, the same joy of discovering Christ in each other as those who are focussed on the light.

It’s like having a computer that’s not connected to the Internet. You don’t have that common link, that Kononia, that fellowship with Christ and other Christians.

Two weeks time is Back to Church Sunday.

I would ask you to take part in contacting those who have slipped out of our fellowship for whatever reason.

Where John “proclaimed the message so that we can have fellowship” we too should declare the message by inviting others back into our fellowship, so that they may experience eternal life.

Amen