Sermon Tone Analysis

*Glorifying God in the Church by our Fellowship - Acts 2:42-47*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on March 30, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

John Fawcett understood and experienced biblical fellowship in a deep way

-          He was born in the year 1739 in England.

-          At the age of 16 he was converted under the preaching of George Whitefield, perhaps the greatest traveling preaching evangelist in modern history.

John Fawcett himself felt the call to the ministry and he also became a gifted preacher.

-          At the age of 26, John Fawcett and his new bride, Mary, began their ministry at an impoverished Baptist church in Wainsgate.

Though the people were poor and lacked resources to adequately support him, they compensated for this lack by their faithfulness and warm fellowship.

-          After seven years of faithful service in meager circumstances, his reputation as a powerful preacher and writer and scholar had spread even to the attention of King George III who appreciated his writings.

Pastor John received a call to the large and influential Carter’s Lane Baptist Church in London.

After a lengthy and difficult decision process, they decided to accept the call.

-          The wagons were loading with their few possessions, and their people came for a final farewell.

The tears were flowing, and many expressed their love to the pastor and pleaded with him to reconsider.

-          Touched by this great outpouring of love, he and his wife began to weep.

Finally Mrs. Fawcett exclaimed, “O John, I just can’t bear this.

They need us so badly here.”

“God has spoken to my heart, too!” he said.

“Tell them to unload the wagon!

We cannot break these wonderful ties of fellowship.”

-          This experience inspired Fawcett to write a hymn: “/Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!

The fellowship of kindred mind is like to that above./”

-          John and Mary Fawcett carried on their faithful ministry in the little village of Wainsgate for a total of 54 years.

The church was humble and tiny, but the fellowship was blessed.

It’s reported that the King promised Pastor John any benefit that could be conferred.

But the offer was declined with this statement: “I have lived among my own people, enjoying their love; God has blessed my labors among them, and I need nothing which even a king could supply.”

It’s a wonderful story behind the wonderful words:

 

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne we pour our ardent prayers;

our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear; and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part it gives us inward pain; but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.[1]

* *

Do those words express your heart this morning?

Is that how you view Christian fellowship in the body?

Can you sing truthfully the words of the 3rd stanza that within Christ’s body “our mutual burdens bear, and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear”?

Do you seek to bear each others’ burdens?

Do we sympathize and empathize and pray for each other and express as the 2nd line says “our fear, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares”?

Do we have “kindred minds” as the first verse says, and are our hearts bound together in Christian love?

What is the blessed tie that binds our hearts together?

What is this blessed fellowship that John Fawcett knew and sung about and that the New Testament speaks about?

/In Acts 2, we have its first and best snapshot in Scripture./

*OUTLINE:*

*1.

The Definition of Fellowship in God’s Word*

*2.

The Devotion to Fellowship by God’s Church*

*3.

The Duty and Delight of Fellowship for God’s Glory*

 

First, the definition.

To define fellowship, what better place to begin that the first place in the Bible that we find this word “fellowship” (/koinonia/) – Acts 2:42.

The original language word /koinonia /interestingly does not occur in any of the four gospels, the first time it’s used is here on the Day of Pentecost, the day the church was born, it appears when the Holy Spirit came in unique power and began His New Covenant ministry indwelling believers.

This fellowship is produced by the Holy Spirit, and /it is characteristic of/ those who have the Holy Spirit.

In fact, it’s sometimes called “fellowship of the Spirit” in Paul’s writings (2 Cor 13:14, Phil 2:1).

After this word first appears in Acts 2, it is used by every other NT writer afterwards.

Fellowship marked the early church as one of its first four characteristics – there are four listed in this text, and fellowship is 2nd on the list.

Acts 2:42 (NASB95) \\ 42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to *fellowship*, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

This is the first verse that speaks of what the first church looked like.

Back in January, I preached a whole message on this chapter which I would refer you to if you weren’t here to get the whole flow.

The historical context is the day the church was founded as Peter preaches Christ in Jerusalem.

There were about 3,000 souls saved by God that one day, baptized, added to the body by God.

Verse 42 gives us in one sentence a compelling summary statement of what this amazing first church looked like, and what stood out second to teaching or doctrine in the list was fellowship.

If fellowship is this important, we need to begin with a *Definition of Fellowship.*

As I’ve been using that word “fellowship” each of you already have something in your minds, based on the pre-conceived connotations you have of the word, based on your background.

For many, fellowship equals *food*, maybe even a particular type of food and drink.

Howard Hendricks once jokingly asked “How did the early church fellowship without coffee and donuts?”

I’ve heard a pastor say that growing up in his Christian circle he always thought the word “fellowship” meant red punch and cookies and hard metal folding chairs, because everytime he heard the word “fellowship” growing up in their church they went to the fellowship hall and had red punch and cookies and broke out the cold hard metal folding chairs.

When the word “fellowship” was used in other circles and churches or contexts without those things, he was confused as to whether it was real fellowship without the right colored punch and right type of cookies and right type of chair.

Of course he later began to realize as he grew up that those things are not part of the dictionary definition of fellowship.

If food is the most common idea people have about fellowship, second most common would be *fun*.

Food and fun times, good times.

Those two often go together; socializing or social events.

Maybe when I use the word “fellowship” you think of youth group bowling parties, or a church picnic, or some church-sponsored social activity, or playing games in a Christian atmosphere, or small talk or chatting with someone about the past weeks.

Now, we all /should/ have fun.

I love to.

Certainly there’s nothing necessarily wrong with any of those things, but according to the Bible, those things are not what “fellowship” is.

Those fun activities /can include fellowship for some who understand and pursue what true fellowship is/, but fellowship is not an activity or program or party.

Last night many of us enjoyed an informal time as a church where we gathered to sing hymns together, and afterwards we ate ice cream and talked with each other.

Probably some of you were involved in spiritual fellowship last night, and some of you weren’t.

I don’t mean some of you talked to others, and some didn’t – the question is not so much /whether/ we talk to other Christians but /what /we talk to other Christians about.

When you’re with other Christians you know, do you discuss everything except /spiritual/ things, everything except the things of God or what God is doing in your life or what God is teaching you in His Word?

There is nothing wrong with simple socializing or just talking and having fun with each other and talking about other things, but let’s not confuse that with spiritual fellowship.

Fun and fellowship are not the same thing.

Food and fellowship are not synonyms.

I love having fun.

And if you know me, you know I love food.

But we do ourselves a great disservice if we think those things /are/ fellowship or substitutes for the real thing.

J.

I. Packer writes: ‘It is not a good sign when a person sees no difference between sucking sweets and eating a square meal.

Equally it is not a good sign when Christians see no difference between social activities in Christian company and what the New Testament calls fellowship in Christ.’[2]

Don Whitney clarifies: ‘The church needs socializing, and so does the individual Christian.

But in practice the church has often accepted socializing as a substitute for fellowship, almost forfeiting our spiritual birthright as children of God for something far less valuable … God intends for every Christian to enjoy the therapeutic sweetness of fellowship.

And the reservoir God made where we may drink these refreshing waters is in the local church’[3]

Maybe this statement will help our def:

Fellowship is not just a planned activity, it’s a purposeful spiritual interaction.

/Communion we have with Christians flows from our common union in Christ./

Even unbelievers can socialize, but the Bible uses this word “fellowship” for something only /believers/ can partake in.

When I say it’s not a planned activity, I don’t mean that actions are not a part of fellowship, because they are - fellowship must include active interaction.

But it’s important to think outside of official church functions and to just think of how you interact with Christians in your life who you know, and especially those you have some relationship with, which our actions flow out of.

You could read dozens of dictionaries, and reference works, and articles on fellowship as I have, and what you’ll find is that there are two basic parts of the Greek word /koinonia/:

-          *Having a share in ~/ with (common life)*

-          *Giving a share ~/ participating (to common good)*

~*Notice that “sharing” is part of both – key word: sharing