What Does True Fellowship Look Like? Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: May 18, 2013

Date Preached: May 19, 2013

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: The Five Functions of the Church

Sermon Title: What Does Fellowship Look Like?

Sermon Text: Acts 2:41-47 [HCSB]

Introduction:

This morning I am going to complete my sermon series on the FIVE (5) functions of the church: So far, Ben and I have brought the 1st 4 functions to you…

It’s hard to believe but it was 7 weeks ago when we began our look at the functions of the church… Our first look led us to TRUE worship & what that looks like.

We learned that True Worship is not so much what happens HERE on Sunday morning, but rather it is a direct reflection of how we live our lives from Mon-Sat…

It is NOT about just coming here on Sundays because that should be a given for all believers… but what the world SEES and what we must proclaim is seen the rest of the week in every situation of our lives.

The next function we learned about was True Discipleship! True Discipleship is believers learning & growing in the teachings of Jesus! In other words, true discipleship is believers maturing in the faith!

True discipleship is NEVER focused simply on what we can learn ABOUT God, but rather True Discipleship is all about what God can and will do THRU us when we do learn more about Him!

Then Ben preached a great sermon out of John 4 on the 3rd function of the church – TRUE EVANGELISM! He used the story of the woman at the well & tied together the story of the woman at the well & how Jesus engaged in what we can call True Evangelism!

You see, True Evangelism forces the believer to look past the darkness of the sin of others, AND instead focus on the lostness of the souls God places in our path! We must see them thru the eyes of Jesus!

True Evangelism is about reconciliation & forgiveness, NOT judgment or condemnation!

Then 3 weeks ago we took a look at what I called True Mission/Ministry and we looked at how those two things are tied together… they are inseparable!

It is IMPOSSIBLE to separate Missions from Ministry! They ARE two different approaches but they both answer to the same calling!

To be ‘on Mission’ with God is all about TELLING others about Jesus! To be ‘In ministry’ for Christ is all about SHOWING others Jesus thru how we live out our faith thru our actions! Missions/ Ministry is about talking the talk AND walking the walk!

So today we are going to look at the 5th function of the church and it is True Fellowship! Preacher, we got this ‘fellowship’ thing in the bag… we can ‘pot-luck’ with the best of them… we can throw a party like NO other church! We got this fellowship thing down pat…

But I want you to ask yourself, just what is TRUE FELLOWSHIP? What do I mean when I speak about ‘fellowship’ being a function of the church?

How are we to understand what TRUE FELLOWSHIP means for US today in our church? In our culture? In the world in which we live?

Fellowship is broadly defined as the sharing of experiences OR a group of like-minded people OR a companionship, or having things in common.

For the Christian, the term fellowship does meet all these definitions:

Because in a fellowship - We share the experience of Christ forgiving our sin & saving our souls…

In a fellowship - we share a like-minded belief in God and what He has done and will do and has called us to do…

In a fellowship - We have companionship with our fellow believers, and we lean on them in hard times and under gird them when they face difficulties…

In a fellowship - We have Christ in common… our style of worship may differ or we may reach out to our community differently than other churches BUT … as Christians we KNOW that we have One Lord, One Faith and One baptism! Christ as our common thread!

When we hear the word ‘fellowship’ there are two very distinct definitions One is a VERB, the other a NOUN…

The verb is what we DO as a body of believers…

The noun is who we ARE as a body of believers…

We experience fellowship as a body, but let me go back to my first question that I asked this morning and it is “What does TRUE FELLOWSHIP look like?”

read Acts 2:41-47 here [HCSB]

41So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. 42And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.