Note: This topic and some of the ideas come from Rick Warren’s "40 Days of Purpose" campaign.
This morning, we continue our series of messages on "The Purpose Driven Life". So far, we’ve seen that God made us for a reason. He had a purpose in creating us. Life was not an accident; the human race is not the result of random molecules somehow coming together in just the right configuration to produce DNA. Our presence on this planet was not mere happenstance. It was intentional; it was by design. And the name of the designer is God.
"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." – Colossians 1:16, NIV
One of the implications of this fact is that the meaning of life begins and ends with God. Since He made us, only He can tell us what we were made for. Our purpose in life revolves around Him. Fundamentally, it’s not about us – our needs, our wants, our satisfaction, our success. It’s about God and His plans. Now, as I said last week, that doesn’t mean our welfare is of no importance. On the contrary, we are incredibly precious to God. He wants nothing more than to bless us, and care for us, and provide for us, both now and forever. He loves us more deeply than we can possibly imagine. He paid the ultimate price by giving His Son’s life in exchange for ours; sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross in payment for our sins, so that we could have eternal life, and enjoy fellowship with Him. But here’s the critical point: the way in which we come to enjoy all the good things God has for us is not by putting ourselves and our needs first, but rather by seeking after God and striving to fulfill his purposes. Listen to what the Bible says:
"If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life." – Matthew 16:25, NLT
". . . he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern." – Matthew 6:33, NLT
Our goal, then, during this series is to understand why God brought us into existence; to uncover His purposes for our lives so that we can embrace them and live them out. And by doing that, we will find the meaning and the purpose and the fulfillment that He intends for us to have.
Last week, we learned that the first purpose for our lives is to give God pleasure through worship. Not just by engaging in "religious" activities, like singing or praying, but by continually offering up to God all that we have and all that we are. Or to put it another way – worship is loving God by giving him our attention, and our affections, and our actions. It’s the first thing we were made for.
Today, we continue with the second purpose for our lives, which is to be a part of God’s family.
"God is the one who made all things, and all things are for His glory. He wanted to have many children share His glory . . ." – Hebrews 2:10a, NCV
"His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure." – Ephesians 1:5, NLT
God’s purpose from the very beginning has been to create a family; one that would bring joy to Himself and His people; one that would never end. You see, God’s purpose in bringing you to faith was not just to bring you into relationship with Himself; but also to bring you into relationship with other believers. And that’s what He’s doing, through the church. He’s building a family, which you and I and everyone who trusts in Christ are a part of. And it’s a great family. First of all, in numbers. The book of Revelation refers to it as "a multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language" (Revelation 7:9, NIV).
Have you ever thought about that first day in heaven? It’s going to be like the best family reunion you can imagine; except that instead of dozens of relatives, there will be millions. And no volleyball. Well, who knows? Maybe there will be volleyball! [Some of you are saying, "Volleyball? That’s not heaven, that’s the other place."]
Second, God’s family is great because it lasts forever. As you know, physical families sometimes break up, for a variety of reasons – divorce, or conflict, or just being separated by distance. Even the strongest family relationships eventually come to an end at death. But our spiritual family will last forever. It will never break apart. It can’t. Because the one holding us all together is God. As Jesus promised:
"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand." – John 10:28-29, NIV
Not only will Christ keep us in relationship with Himself, now and forever, He will also keep us in relationship to one another.
If that’s true, then how should we relate to this family God has made us a part of? What does He want us to do right now? He wants us to practice. He wants us to learn to love one another; learn to love these people that we’re going to be spending eternity with.
In the words of the apostle Peter, "Love your spiritual family!" 1 Peter 2:17b (Msg) Why? Because it gives God pleasure! Doesn’t it please you to see your own children playing well together, or helping each another, or being kind to one another? [You say, "well, if it ever happens, I’ll let you know"]. Of course it does! It’s one of the greatest joys a parent can have. And in the same way, God rejoices to see his children, all of us, serving one another; and encouraging one another; and caring for one another. It gives him great pleasure.
"How wonderful it is, how pleasant, when brothers live together in harmony!" – Psalm 133:1, NLT
Let me give you another reason why it’s important for us to love one another. Because it’s a testimony to the life-changing power of the gospel. Real love between believers, genuine love, stands out. It’s unusual. It gets people’s attention. It is powerful evidence for the truth of what we believe.
"You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people. Let your lives shine brightly before them." – Philippians 2:15, NLT
"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." – John 13:35, NIV
All right. There’s a word for learning to love God’s family. And that’s "fellowship". Now this word tends to be misunderstood. Anytime we get together, we call it "fellowship". But fellowship is not just cookies, and coffee, and conversation about the Cleveland Browns. No, fellowship is loving God’s family, the church. Not loving the building – the building is not the church. That’s one of the benefits of having no permanent building. It’s pretty obvious to us that the church is the people, not the bricks and mortar. But it does cause some confusion. I can’t count the number of times people here in town have asked me, "When are you going to build your church?" And I want to say, "that’s what we’re doing right now!" Of course, I don’t say that. They wouldn’t understand. They would think I was referring to a physical structure. But that’s not what the church is. The church is the people, the family of God, and fellowship is loving God’s family.
How do we do that? Good question. Thankfully, the Bible gives us clear direction. As Paul said, in his first letter to Timothy:
"I’m writing . . . so you’ll know how to live in the family of God. That family is the church . . . "
– 1 Timothy 3:14-15, NCV
As we study this topic, it’s will be helpful for us to distinguish between the different kinds of fellowship. Rick Warren divides them into four levels, which he calls Membership, Friendship, Partnership, and Kinship. I think that’s a good way to look at it, and so I’m going to follow the same outline. First, there’s Membership, what he calls choosing to belong. This is the most basic level. It’s publicly identifying yourself as belonging to Christ and to his family. Now, I want to be clear. By virtue of our faith in Christ, we are all members of the church in a universal sense. That’s automatic for a believer, and that’s what Paul is referring to in verses like these:
". . . You are members of God’s very own family. . . and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian." – Ephesians 2:19, LB
"In Christ we who are many form one Body, and each member belongs to all the others." –Romans 12:5, NIV
What is not automatic, and what requires a choice, is to identify publicly with Christ and his people by joining yourself to a specific local church. Participating in its activities. Giving to support its ministries. Attending its services of worship. And making a public statement of commitment.
I’d like to make two points here. First, committing yourself to a local church is essential for fellowship. You simply cannot share your life deeply with other believers unless you know them. You cannot serve them, and encourage them, and support them, and love them, unless you are in relationship with them. And the only way to build those relationships is to devote yourself to loving a specific group of people, a specific local church. I’m not saying you should never visit another church; that you shouldn’t, for example, attend the Christmas cantata at ___________ Church. What I’m saying is that, fundamentally, you have to choose. Take your own family as an example. A man can’t say, "I’m going to spend Christmas with the Smiths, because they have a beautiful cabin in the mountains; and I’m going to attend the Jones boy’s football games, because he’s a great athlete; and I’ll take Mrs. Williams dancing, because she loves to dance; and I’m going to spend my Sunday afternoons watching football with the Taylors, because they have a rear-projection TV." It doesn’t work that way. A man has to spend time with his own wife and his own children if he’s going to have any kind of family life. It’s the same with churches. You don’t get to pick the children’s ministry from this church, and the preaching from that church, and the music from that church. You need to choose one church to commit to, with all of its strengths and weaknesses. A church is a family, not a buffet table.
And second, a word on church membership, which is the formal process of joining a church. Now, some folks are not "joiners". And some would object that there’s nothing in the Bible about church membership. That’s true. There’s also nothing about committee meetings, or potluck dinners, or using a watering trough for baptisms. And yet we do all those things. Here’s an analogy: wedding ceremonies are not mentioned in the Bible. And so you could go privately to a justice of the peace and sign the marriage license, or stand before a minister in his office and repeat your vows, and you wouldn’t be violating Scripture. Yet most people who marry have a public ceremony. Why? Because a wedding ceremony has value. It’s a public statement by which you proclaim to the world that you are committed to this man, or this woman. It is an invitation to the whole community to hold you accountable to that commitment. It is an act by which you voluntarily bind yourself to one person, in a public way, so as to eliminate any doubt concerning the status of your relationship. And church membership has the same purpose. It’s a public act by which you invite others to witness your commitment and hold you accountable.
The second level of fellowship is friendship, or learning to share . In the book of Acts, in the early days of the church, we’re told that:
"all the believers met together constantly and shared everything with each other." – Acts 2:44, LB
Note that they met together "constantly". Constantly. God never intended for the Christian life to be a solo flight. And yet, for many people, the only time they see someone from church is at church, on Sunday morning. I don’t want to belabor the point, but the only way to experience fellowship is to develop friendships. And the only way to develop friendships is to be with people. There is no shortcut. Friendships do not just happen; they grow and deepen in direct proportion to how much time we spend with people; how much of a priority we make it.
Let me give you something to think about. Occasionally, we will announce an activity, like a small group Bible study, or a potluck. And I expect that one of the ways people decide whether or not to participate is by what they expect to get out of it. Is it worthy of my time? Is it going to benefit my family? And that has some validity. We all have busy schedules, and we have to allocate our time wisely. But we need to include something more in our calculations. And that is the fact that the only way to have quality time with people is to have quantity time. You cannot program or predict which experiences will create shared memories and knit your heart together with other believers. And so an additional question you need to ask when deciding whether an activity is worth your time ought to be, "could this enable me to build relationships within my church family to support fellowship?"
Going back to the passage from Acts, it says they shared "everything". This verse is referring to the sharing of possessions. But it’s clear from elsewhere in the book of Acts that they shared much more than that. What other kinds of sharing, then, does fellowship involve? Let’s take a couple of examples:
First, it involves sharing our homes. In 1 Peter 4:9, the Bible says "Open your homes to each other." (NCV). In some translations, it reads "offer hospitality to one another". Now, let me explain what hospitality is not. It is not "entertaining". It is not: planning a dinner party, sending out invitations two weeks in advance, spending all day Friday cleaning the house, spending all day Saturday cooking, finding baby sitters for the kids, putting on nice clothes, getting out the good china and silverware, and spending a delightful evening engaged in scintillating conversation, after which the men go off to drink brandy and smoke cigars, and the women go off to do – whatever women do. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not what Paul had in mind. Hospitality is welcoming people into your home when there are Legos on the floor and last night’s dishes in the sink. It’s inviting people to share a meal when all you’re having is microwave macaroni and cheese. It’s having friends over for an evening of Folger’s coffee and Trivial Pursuit. It’s being willing to involve others in your ordinary daily home life, even if it is a little messier than you would like. It’s cheerfully sharing whatever you’ve got, with whoever needs it, whenever they happen to show up.
Let me give you an illustration of the other side of hospitality. Charlene and I once knew some folks with a very nice home. And they were happy to have guests. But sometimes it felt more like a museum. When you came in the front door, you had to take off your shoes and place them in a box. Everything was spotless. You never really felt comfortable; you were always worrying that you might spill some coffee, or get crumbs on the carpet, or accidentally set a cup down on the table without a coaster. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a nice home and wanting it to look nice. If you are a meticulous housekeeper, that’s wonderful. But hospitality means believing that people are more important than carpet. Hospitality means being willing, not only for others to see your messy house, but also for them to come into your clean house and mess it up.
And it’s not just our physical homes we’re talking about, is it? The reason we’re reluctant to have people over is that our homes expose us. They reveal us. The place where we live speaks volumes about who we are. We’d rather meet in a neutral location, like church, where we can control what people will find out. Inviting someone into our home is like inviting them into our lives, at least a little. And that’s scary. What will they think of my home? What will they think of me? But for the sake of fellowship, we need to do it.
Fellowship also involves sharing our struggles; sharing our difficulties and sorrows. The Bible makes clear that one of the primary functions of the church is to support, and encourage, and strengthen one another in time of need.
"Let us not give up the habit of meeting together. Instead, let us encourage one another . . ."
–Hebrews 10:25, TEV
"Share each other’s troubles and problems." – Galatians 6:2, NLT
Are you doing that? Are you encouraging others? Are you helping them to bear life’s troubles and problems? "Well, no," you say, "but no one shares anything like that with me." If that’s the case, have you ever wondered why? Why it is that no one seeks you out when they need a sympathetic ear? I can think of several possibilities. It may be because you feel compelled to solve their problems for them. There is no limit to your wisdom and your insight into human nature. If only everyone would follow your guidance, the world would be a better place. And yet, no one seems to want your advice. Why? Because they don’t want a know-it-all, telling them what to do. They want someone who will listen and care, and who will try to understand them before writing out a prescription. Or, perhaps you’re the kind of person who presents themselves as having it all together. No problems, no worries. Never a hair out of place. But people don’t want to share their problems with someone perfect; they want to share them with a fellow struggler, someone who understands what they’re going through. Or the reason may be simply that you don’t really care. Let’s be honest. You’re too caught up in your own life to be concerned about other people’s problems, and they can see that. Or finally, it may just be that you aren’t close enough to anyone for them to feel comfortable opening up to you. Whatever the reason, you need to work on it. Because encouraging one another, and sharing each other’s burdens, is not optional. It is basic to our identity as members of the body of Christ.
We also need to share one another’s burdens in a practical sense. I’m reminded of something that happened a few years back in my home town, a small farming community. In the fall, as harvest season was beginning, a local farmer became ill for a couple of weeks and was unable to drive a tractor. The other farmers in the area all took turns combining his fields and bringing in the crops. Now if you know anything about farming, you know that nobody has any extra time during harvest season. They’re already working sixteen-hour days. But somehow the community found time to help this man. And we in the church should be doing the same thing for one another.
The last two levels of fellowship I’ll go through fairly quickly. Number three is "partnership," which simply means doing my part. Finding a place of service in the church. Regarding it as an privilege to serve, rather than merely an obligation. That helps build up the church, and in the process it builds up the one who is serving, as well. In any healthy family, each person has their own responsibilities – cook supper, clean the toilets, walk the dog, wash the car, pay the bills, mow the lawn, etc. A family where mom does all the cooking, and cleaning, and housework, and childcare, while everybody else watches TV, is [our family! No . . .] not a healthy family. In the same way, a church is healthy, and its individual members are healthy, when everyone is doing their part, all working together for the glory of God.
"We are partners working together for God." – 1 Corinthians 3:9a, TEV
"The whole Body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole Body is healthy and growing and full of love." – Ephesians 4:16, NLT
The fourth level of fellowship is Kinship, which means loving other believers like family. And really, this isn’t a separate level, but the end result of all the other levels. Because as we spend time with one another, and share with one another, and serve one another, we will naturally come to love one another more deeply. Our relationships in the body of Christ will become the most precious relationships we have. And in that way, our fellowship here on earth will become a foretaste of what we have to look forward to in heaven.
In conclusion, let me ask you – what level of fellowship are you at? Where would you like to be? And are you willing to do what you need to do to get there? I hope so. And I promise – if you obey what God is calling you to do, then he will give you the resources and courage you need to do it.
(For an .rtf file of this and other sermons, see www.journeychurchonline.org/messages.htm)
