A. Repeat after me…“We are the church of Christ…We love God…We love God’s Word…We love each other…our mission is to make…and mature disciples of Jesus…to the glory of God.”
B. The story is told of a farm boy who accidentally overturned his wagonload of hay on the road.
1. His neighbor came over to give him a hand.
2. “Hey, Willis,” the neighbor said, “forget your troubles for a while and come and have dinner with us. Then we can come back and I’ll help you overturn your wagon.”
3. “That’s nice of you,” Willis answered, “but I don’t think Dad would want me to.”
4. “Aw, come on, son!” the neighbor insisted.
5. “Well, okay,” the boy finally agreed, “but Dad won’t like it.”
6. After a hearty dinner, Willis thanked the host, saying, “I feel a lot better now, but I know my dad is going to be real upset.”
7. “Don’t be silly!” said the neighbor. “By the way, where is your dad?”
8. The boy replied, “Dad’s under the wagon!”
C. This story illustrates a sense of community that we don’t see as much as we used to.
1. In times past, neighbors used to know each other more than they do today.
2. Neighbors used to spend more time helping each other than they do today.
3. Neighbors used to get together to share a meal or entertain each other more than they do today.
4. But for many of us times have changed.
D. Community is much harder to find today.
1. That’s true in big cities and small towns.
2. That’s true in neighborhoods.
3. And sadly, that’s often true even in churches.
E. If we hired an observer to come to our congregation and make a careful analysis of our congregation’s life, what would that person find?
1. What would that person observe about the way we relate to each other?
2. What would he or she observe about the way we interact with each other away from our regular assemblies?
3. Would the person notice any “cliqueiness” (if you will allow me to invent that word)?
4. Would they notice a willingness or an unwillingness to support each other in time of need?
F. A number of years ago some churches allowed themselves to be analyzed in just this way.
1. What they learned, however, was very disturbing.
2. In a series of interviews the members were asked such things as, “How many of those present in the worship service do you know personally?”
3. The great majority of church members had to admit that they knew a very small percentage of the people.
4. Those who gathered for worship on Sunday were, for the most part, an anonymous group of worshipers.
5. However, the most disturbing thing of all was the fact that many of those who were questioned expressed little interest in becoming more involved in the lives of other members.
6. They thought that such relationships had very little to do with the Christian life.
G. Those people couldn’t be any more wrong – relationships in the church are absolutely indispensable.
1. The Bible says much to remind us that our Christianity was never meant to be lived alone.
2. The apostle John wrote: We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 Jn. 1:3-7)
3. Experiencing the salvation of the Lord involves having fellowship with the Father, and the Son, and each other.
4. This is something that the early church understood and experienced.
5. Our Scripture reading showed the early Christians making a commitment to the fellowship.
6. The earliest Christians could never have imagined a Christianity that consisted only in a “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ – which is something we hear a lot about today.
7. They would have considered any personal relationship with God apart from a vital relationship with the church as a counterfeit to real Christianity.
H. But what is real fellowship?
1. Is fellowship visiting in the foyer?
2. Is fellowship a Bible class?
3. Is fellowship a potluck dinner?
4. Fellowship includes those things, but it is so much more than any one of them.
5. The dictionary defines “fellowship” as “Companionship, friendly association – mutual sharing as of experiences, activities, interests – A group of people with the same interests, brotherhood.”
6. The Greek word for fellowship is “koinonia” and comes from a root meaning common or shared.
7. Basically, fellowship means a common participation with others.
8. In trying to define “fellowship,” Swindoll wrote, “Fellowship occurs, I believe, when there are expressions of genuine Christianity freely shared among God’s family members.”
9. Fellowship, therefore, is the experience of real Christian community as we share our common faith, our common purpose, and our common love for God, each other and the world.
I. I must say that this is not an option – it is not a take it or leave it kind of thing.
1. If we want to please God – individually and collectively – then we must work toward real Christian community.
2. When we become Christians, God places us in a Christian community, and commands us to practice real Christian community.
3. We cannot be faithful to God, without being faithful to each other!
4. I like to think of the church as a chain with many links, and each of the links depends on the others.
5. And like the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link – that’s why each of us must do our best to be faithful to the Lord and to the church.
J. Many of us realize that experiencing real Christian community is difficult even when we are convinced that it is a very good thing and are trying to make it happen.
1. Some of the challenges we face include things like the American independent streak that runs deep within us.
2. Another challenge is that we are far more mobile and far busier than we were in former generations.
3. Additionally, many of us live great distances from each other – and that makes it harder to see each other and be involved with each other.
4. Also, people come and go out of the area and the congregation so frequently, that its tempting for us to avoid getting close to anyone, because they probably won’t be here for long.
5. None of these are excuses, they are just the challenging realities that we face.
K. So, why is real Christian community so important?
1. First and foremost, it is because each of us ultimately need it for survival.
2. Whether we know it or not, or will admit it or not, we need each other.
3. I like the illustration of “fire” – if you have a bunch of burning coals and you put them together, then you have a strong fire. But if you pull one coal out of the fire and leave it by itself, it will eventually go out. We need each other!
4. In an article in Focus on the Family magazine, author Stu Weber illustrated how much we need each other in the Christian community.
a. The article looked back on the year 1967.
b. The war in Vietnam was building to its peak, and one stop for young army officers was the U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning.
c. A tough, battle tested sergeant stood before the young, anxious recruits.
d. The sergeant told them that the next nine weeks would be the toughest they had ever experienced.
e. The sergeant said many wouldn’t make the grade--it was just too tough.
f. The sergeant talked about the war that was going on in Vietnam and he talked about killing and death.
g. The sergeant talked about how training was tough because it was designed to save lives – the lives of the American soldiers.
h. And he said he was going to do that by making them face their greatest fears, overcome their weaknesses and endure what they never dreamed possible.
i. Then the sergeant announced that they were about to start with step one.
j. There was a pause, and all the soldiers feared the worst about what step one might be. But they were surprised with its simplicity.
k. The stern sergeant told the soldiers to find a buddy.
l. “This is step one,” the sergeant growled. “You need to find yourself a Ranger buddy. You will stick together. You will never leave each other. You will encourage each other, and, as necessary, you will carry each other.” [Source Note: Stu Weber, “Some One to Lean On” Focus on the Family Magazine (June 1996).]
5. I would suggest that each of us need more than one Christian buddy – we need a family of Christian buddies.
L. A second reason real Christian community is so important, is because it will draw others to Christ.
1. Community is not only something we need, it is something the lost need and it is something they are looking for.
2. Jesus said that all men will know that we are His disciples if we love one another. (Jn. 13:35)
3. A few weeks ago, Jon Singleton preached an excellent sermon about the need for us to be more honest and open in our Christian relationships with each other. Jon is so right.
4. Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist wrote: “A central task of community is to create a place that is safe enough for the walls to be torn down, safe enough for each of us to reveal our brokenness.”
5. You might remember that the theme song from the TV show “Cheers” talked about the bar being a place “where everybody knows your name.” - it is a place where people care about you.
6. In an article entitled “Lessons from A Tavern,” Chuck Swindoll writes: “An old Marine Corps buddy of mine, to my pleasant surprise, came to know Christ after he was discharged. I say surprise because he cursed loudly, fought hard, chased women, drank heavily, loved war and weapons, and hated chapel services. A number of months ago, I ran into this fellow, and after we’d talked awhile, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You know, Chuck, the only thing I still miss is that old fellowship I used to have with all the guys down at the tavern. I remember how we used to sit around and let our hair down. I can’t find anything like that for Christians. I no longer have a place to admit my faults and talk about my battles — where somebody won’t preach at me and frown and quote me a verse.’ ” Isn’t that sad?
7. In their book, Edge of Adventure, Miller and Larson write, “The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality — but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. You can tell people secrets, and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers. With all my heart, ‘I believe that Christ wants his church to be unshockable, a fellowship where people can come in and say, “I’m sunk, I’m beat, I’ve had it.” Alcoholics Anonymous has this quality — our churches too often miss it.’ ”
8. The early church offered a real Christian community that provided something that was available nowhere else, and we can do the same.
9. The result was that the church grew daily, and the same can happen today.
M. Today’s sermon is the first in a new series for this Fall that I’m calling Real Christian Community.
1. God desires that every believer be a functioning member of a local church – a local “body” or “family” of believers.
2. These believers mutually care for one another, minister to one another, and consequently build one another up in Christ.
3. Again and again, the New Testament writers exhort believers to engage in specific activities that enable the body of Christ to function effectively and grow spiritually.
4. These New Testament writers frequently used a word to describe this mutual and reciprocal process.
5. The Greek word is “allelon” and is most frequently translated “one another.”
6. Excluding the Gospels, the word is used 58 times in the NT.
7. Paul used the word more than others and accounts for 40 of the 58 times it is used.
N. When all of the “one another” exhortations are studied carefully, they can be grouped together accordingly and reduced to approximately 12 significant actions that Christians are to take toward “one another” in order to experience real Christian community.
1. This fall we will be giving our attention to these powerful “one another” exhortations.
2. You probably noticed the new banners we have hanging before us this morning.
3. Praise God for the gifts and talents He has given to Annette Warren to allow her to minister to us through the banners she makes.
4. On these two banners are three of the “one another” commands that we will be learning to put into practice – devoted to one another, honor one another, and spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
O. As you know, foundational to all meaningful Christian relationship is love.
1. As Paul put it, it is “the most excellent way” (1 Cor. 12:31; 13:13).
2. And as you might expect, the command to “love one another” appears more frequently than all of the others.
3. Eleven times in the letters of the NT we are told to “love one another.”
4. If you add Jesus’ direct commands to “love one another,” which are recorded in John’s Gospel, the total comes to 16 in the NT.
5. So, there is no question as to what is most important – Love is the greatest.
6. To love fellow believers is the most basic and central command of the New Testament and that’s why it is the one repeated more than any other.
P. What I would like to suggest is that the other “one another” commands that we will be studying actually describe love in action.
1. They help us to understand what love really is and show us how to love each other in practical ways.
Q. I’m excited about this journey that we will take this Fall.
1. I know that this study of God’s Word has the potential of changing each of us individually, and changing the church as a whole – making us who and what we should be – a real Christian community.
2. As we come to the end of today’s sermon, I would like to use Paul’s prayer from his letter to the Philippians: And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (Phil. 1:9-11)
R. So, will you join me in this quest to build real Christian community here at Wetzel Road?
1. If you are not yet a Christian, then the place for you to start is to become a Christian and God will add you to this fellowship.
2. If you are a Christian, then are you willing to study and discover how to be the Christians and the church that God desires?
3. May God bless us and help us to become a real Christian community – to be the church as it ought to be.
Resources:
Building Up One Another, by Gene Getz, Victor Books, 1981.
Our Life Together, by James Thompson, Journey Books, 1977.
The Bride: Renewing Our Passion for the Church, Charles Swindoll, Zondervan, 1994.
