Together Is Better
GNLCC 9/14/2003 Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Acts 2:41-47
There are some things in life that just seem to go together. We have come to think of them as one making the other better. Let me see if you can figure out what makes the other better. We have peanut butter and _____jelly__________, we have pancakes and_____sausages___________, we have meat and ___potatos_____________ and we cake and _________ _______ice-cream. There are people in the Bible that go together to make things better. You have Moses and _____Aaron_____________, Paul and ____Silas________, James and _______John__________, and finally Shadrach and_______Meshack________.
We know that together, some things are better together than they are apartt. In the Bible, what is the term God uses to describe us as a collective unit? We are called the body of Christ. Now the interesting thing about being called the body is that immediately we know that we all fit in somewhere, and we will not all look the same, nor will we all have the same function. Some of parts of the body are seen more than others, but that does not mean they are more important.
They all have their different functions to perform. All of the parts of a body, are part of the body. Can you imagine your hand trying to argue, it does not need the rest of the body and it’s decided not to be a part of the body any longer? First chance it gets, it’s going to cut itself off. Who is going to suffer for this action? Who will suffer the most?
Nowhere in the bible are we ever referred to as little bodies of Christ. Why? Because God wants to make it clear, no Christian is expected to be a lone ranger for God. None of us is given everything we need to grow in Christ apart from the rest of the body.
Think about this. When God created Adam, Adam was perfect. Adam did not know what it was to do wrong. Adam had not had to ask forgiveness for anything, because he had not done anything wrong. Adam could sense the presence of God in a way we can only imagine.
But still, God said, “it is not good for the man to be alone.” Now before God created Adam, God said, “let us make man in our image.” Now who is God referring to when God says, “Let us make man in our image.” God is talking within Himself. By that I mean God The Father, God The Son, and God The Holy Spirit.
We’re not talking about three gods, but rather one God revealing Himself in three ways. God the Father created the world, but it was created through Jesus Christ, and it was The Holy Spirit that breathed life into creation. God has never been alone. God has always had fellowship within Himself, through the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
An easy way to understand fellowship is to think of a few fellows with the same background and purpose in a small ship. They are all talking and working together. Now fellowship is more than just having a good time after service during coffee hour.
Fellowship means earnestly getting to know others in such a way that I can be a blessing to them and they can be a blessing to me in my Christian walk. It involves us sharing in the grace of God together. The purpose of fellowship is to help us grow in our relationship to Jesus Christ
Now the body is a good image of fellowship. Do you notice how the parts of the body are in fellowship with each other? The foot never has to worry about eating. It knows that, if it can help get the rest of the body to the kitchen, it’s going to get what it needs to stay healthy.
Now what would happen if the foot cut itself off from the body to get to the kitchen first? You could have the biggest vegetable platter or the best looking steak and shrimp you’ve ever seen, but it will not do the foot a bit of good. Since the foot is part of the body, it needs the mouth in order to be nourished. The foot needs to understand getting their together is better, because that was and is God’s plan for the body.
Well God was having fellowship, because God the Father, God The Son and God the Holy Spirit were all of the same substance, purpose and background.
Adam on the other hand did not have fellowship, because there was no one of the same substance and background as he was. When Eve was created, fellowship became a real possibility for Adam. Now Adam and Eve together, were truly in the image of God because they could know the true meaning of fellowship.
Now before we got saved the bible tells us that we were dead in our sins. How many of you know, that you cannot have fellowship with something dead? Can you imagine bringing in some dead bodies into the church and then talking about what great fellowship we all had with each other? After we got saved though, our spirits were made alive in Christ. All of a sudden our spirits became capable of having fellowship with God. We could know God in a way that we had not known God before.
Let’s read 1 John 1:3 together. 1 John 1:3 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.
Notice that fellowship occurs in two directions. We are called to have fellowship with one another and we are called to have fellowship with the Father and with Son. Look at 2 Cor. 13:14 “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This verse completes the fellowship we are to have with God in that it mentions fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
God is calling us to be in relationship with Him and with each other. There is a tendency to falsely believe, that as long as I got it going on with Jesus, I do not need anybody else. That’s not true. As believers, we need each other. When the church first got started in the book of Acts, it was growing at a very rapid rate. 3,000 people had given their lives to Christ after Peter’s sermon.
The new believers devoted themselves to four things. They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings, (bible study) fellowship (getting together to minister to each other), breaking of bread (communion) and to prayer. The way they did this was by meeting at the temple and meeting in each other’s homes.
In other words, they had the large worship gathering at the temple, but they also met in much smaller groups in their homes. Get this, they knew to be healthy as believers, they needed to attend worship, but they also needed to be a part of small group to grow, to minister in, and to be accountable to for their walk in Christ.
We have Life-Sharing groups and pioneer groups that are for the purpose of having small groups in which you can really grow in your relationship with God and with people. As a part of the body of Christ, you have something that others need, and others have something that you need to grow in the Lord. That’s just the way that the Lord has set this thing up.
Jesus said to us in John 13:34-35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. [35] By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Life-Sharing groups is where you can put this verse into practice. If you are not in fellowship with others in the body of Christ, how can you love them beyond simply beyond mouthing words. We love those we know.
Our vision for Life-Sharing is for a group of people to come together to study God’s word. They share their burdens and heartaches as well as their joys and victories in order to fellowship with one another. They apply the word of God they have learned to the everyday circumstances in life so as to be a source of help and encouragement to each other.
We are going to limit the size of our groups so that we can build genuine relationships with each other. We will be using new materials that will make it easier for those with even a limited knowledge of Scripture to be involved in the discussion. We hope that some of you will eventually get a vision and want to set up Life-Sharing groups in your home, at your school, or on your job with you leading the discussion.
Some of you may be thinking, “oh I get enough of the word of God on Sunday morning.” Do you know that by Wednesday, you have forgotten 95% of the sermon that was preached on Sunday.
Have you ever told someone on Monday, “we had a great time at church yesterday.” The person says, “what was the sermon topic.” You say, “I don’t remember, but it sure was good.” Life-Sharing can help you move from information about or from the bible, to transformation which means a change in your life.
This is what Life-Sharing, Bridges, Pioneers Sisters in the Lord, Men Who Excel, Marriage Sensation, Singles, and Woman to Woman are all about. Fellowshipping with one other in order to move to a higher level in our walk with Lord.
You may say yes, that sounds good but, I just don’t have the time. Can you imagine standing before God and God “asking, why didn’t go grow in me when I put all kinds of opportunities before you to move you to another level.” Can you imagine saying, “well God you know I just didn’t have the time.”
Do you know why God chose you out of all the billions of people on this planet? God did not choose you to make you famous. God did not choose you to make you rich. God did not choose you to make all your problems go away. God choose you to make you more like Jesus Christ. God called us to make us more like Jesus Christ.
When you get a new job, they sometimes give you fringe benefits. At McDonalds they give you a free meal and a uniform. If you work for the state you get health benefits, vacation time and sick leave. These are all fringe benefits. Now the business does not give you these things simply to make you happy. They give them to you to encourage you to work as an employee. Being an employee is the main thing.
Going to heaven is just a fringe benefit. Getting an answer to prayer is a fringe benefit. Being blessed with a new job is just a fringe benefit. We’ve made the fringe benefits the main thing. The main thing with God is that each of us become more like Jesus Christ wherever we are 24/7.
Can you imagine telling your boss “I didn’t come to work last month because I was too busy?” None of us are too busy to be a part of some small group at lease once or twice a month. If we are, ask the question, “what’s robbing me of the opportunity to be involved with one of God’s opportunities for my growth?”
What are some of the blessings involved in recognizing our need for others. Well let’s look a moment at our Old Testament Text in Ecclesiastes 4:9. Let’s read it together. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: We are called to work for God in the kingdom. This verse tells us that more is accomplished by us, when somebody else is working with us. Some of things God has called us to do, we cannot do alone. The person who insists on being a lone ranger is carrying more of a load than is necessary, and less work is being accomplished.
In the movie Shindler’s List, there was a man who was trying to save Jews from being sent to death camps to be murdered in World War II. In the end of the movie, he would pay German officials to let a certain amount of people get off the train and avoid death. He paid a lot of his money to save people’s lives.
At the end of the movie, when he found out had many people had been murdered at the death camps, he went into this kind of shock. He looked at his watch, his car, his possessions and started saying if only I had of sold this, I could have saved more. If I had of let this go, I could have saved more.
I honestly believe, that the moment we stand before Jesus Christ and fully understand the number of people who were lost for all eternity plus what we might have done to have made a difference, our first thought is going to be, “if only I had of done more for the cause of Christ. If only my priorities had been different. If only I had thought beyond myself. If only I had found the time.
Look at verse 10. Eccles. 4:10 If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Where we are today is not a guarantee of where we will be tomorrow. One of the things in Scripture is its honesty about our future. The bible lets us know, that all of us are going to experience a certain amount of pain, trials, and tribulations in this world.
Some of the things we never expected to happen, happened. When never thought we would lose our job. Never thought we’d flunk a grade. Never thought our kids would get hooked on drugs. Never thought our boyfriend or girlfriend would dump us. Never thought we would be divorced.
Never thought we’d end up in jail. Never thought we’d be betrayed. Never thought we’d be victim of a horrible crime. Never thought cancer would invade our bodies. Never thought we’d get pregnant. Never thought we’d become an addict. Yet somehow they did happen.
When these crises happen, we need to have somebody to help us get back up again. When we are in fellowship in a small group of people, we can find the support and encouragement we need to make it through these situations and stand up tall for God once again.
God can use any experience you’ve gone through for His honor and glory. Unfortunately, we try to hide the painful things we have gone through and pretend all is well and always has been. There is somebody here who is just going into what you have already been through and come out of victoriously. You could make all the difference in his or her life.
God could put you both in the same Life-Sharing group or some other group to make that difference possible. Jesus saved you, because He intended to use you. It takes a sacrifice of time to be used by God. Whether you accept your role or not, you are a minister of Christ. Say it with me. “I am a minister of Christ.”
Eccles. 4:11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? I can remember one winter night when our furnace broke down. We live in a large old house, and the cold finds a million ways to enter through cracks and windows. Our bedroom was freezing. Pastor Toby piled several blankets on our bed.
We got into bed with our clothes on, and it was so cold they stayed on that night. We got as close as we could to each other. We could feel a transfer of heat taking place. Together, we were able to keep the temperature under those blankets higher than what either of us could have done alone.
As believers there are going to be times when we are not going to be as on fire for the Lord as we should be. Things are going to happen in our lives. Disappointments will come. Frustration will set in. We will wonder, if our prayers are ever going to be answered.
Doubts begin to linger about Christ. We start to pull ourselves away from the body. It sort of like taking a hot charcoal out of a fire and sitting it over to the side by itself. What’s going to happen to that charcoal? You’re right, the heat will fade out. That charcoal must be taken back to the heat.
Our Life-Sharing classes are being redesigned so that we can bring our disappointments, frustrations and doubts into a place where others can stay around us and keep us warm even though our own flame is going dim. If we stay with them long enough, we find that once again our heat is restored just from being in their presence.
Look at verse 12. Eccles. 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. What is it that seeks to overpower us as Christians? Temptation!!! The devil seeks great joy in giving us what we want, when we know what we want is wrong. Temptation is a lot stronger when we think, we are the only one resisting it. A couple of the devil’s lies, “everybody else is doing it, why are you missing out.” “you’re only going to do it one time, so what does it really matter.” “you’re not hurting anybody else by doing this.” “nobody else is ever going to find out so go for it now.”
There is something about being alone and nobody knowing you, that gives temptation an extra edge. When I go out of town and am by myself in a hotel room, I make sure that I do not do channel surfing, because of the temptation that would be involved if I happen to catch the wrong channel on the TV. I don’t go walking around the hotel to appreciate the city. I go to my meeting, I go to eat, I go to my room, and I go to bed. Why—because I know some temptation has my number and I probably cannot handle it.
Before you take temptation to lightly, you need to hear a believer say either yes I gave into that temptation and here is how my life was devastated or yes, I faced that temptation and here is what I do to handle it. You can get that kind of help in a small group for the body of Christ. There is strength in numbers.
Look at 1 Cor. 10:12-13
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! [13] No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
Did you ever consider that part of the way Jesus intended for us to escape being overcome temptation was to involved ourselves with others in a small group.
Did you ever notice that Jesus was involved in large group ministry to the masses, but there was small group ministry to the twelve disciples. Jesus even saw the need to be involved in a small group. He looked to the disciples for support, fellowship, encouragement, and the ability to resist temptation. Jesus is our example that together is really better.
Move to a higher level in deepening your walk with the Lord. Commit yourself to be a part of a small group in the life of the church. Our fellowship with God is not complete unless we also have fellowship with one another. Together is better in our pursuit of God.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick “Together Is Better”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Acts 2:41-47
A. There Are Some Things That Are Better Together
1. Peanut Butter, Pancakes, Meat, Cake
2. Moses, Paul, James, Shadrach
3. Not Just A Bunch Of Collected Pieces
4. The Reality Of The Body Of Christ
5. Cutting Off The Hand
6. No Little Bodies Of Christ—Lone Ranger Is Dead
B. God Had Fellowship In Mind From The Beginning
1. The Creation Of Adam—The Perfect Man But…
2. It Is Not Good For Man To Be Alone
3. Let Us Make Man In Our Image---Who Is Us?
4. The Three In One-Father, Son, Holy Spirit
5. God In Fellowship
C. The True Meaning Of Fellowship
1. 3 Guys In A Ship
2. Knowing You Well Enough To Be A Blessing
3. Human Body In Fellowship To It’s Parts
4. The Foot Truly Needs The Mouth
5. It’s Part Of God’s Plan
6. Same Substance, Purpose, Background
7. Adam Needed Fellowship
8. Eve Made Fellowship Possible—Image Complete
D. Fellowship On The Spiritual Level
1. Dead Before Our Salvation
2. Fellowshipping With The Dead In Church?????
3. The Spirit Comes Alive—Fellowship Possible
1 John 1:3 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.
4. Fellowship Happens In Two Directions
2 Cor. 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
E. God’s Double Call On Our Lives
1. To God And To Each Other
2. The Lie—Long As I Got It On With Jesus……
3. Early Church In Acts Grew Rapidly
4. Committed To Four Things
5. Teaching, Fellowship, Breaking Bread, Prayer
6. Double Meetings—The Temple The Home
7. Large Group Worship Small Group Fellowship
8. Life-Sharing Pioneers—Small Group
John 13:34-35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. [35] By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
F. A Life-Sharing Vision
1. Study God’s Word, Share Burdens & Joys
2. Application Of The Word
3. Mutual Help And Encouragement
4. Restructure Groups—All Can Grow
5. How Much Did You Remember From Sunday
6. From Information To Transformation
7. Life-Sharing, Pioneers, Bridges, Men Who Excel
Singles, Marriage Sensation, Woman To Woman
8. Fellowshipping To A Higher Level
G. If Only I Could Find The Time
1. All Of Us Are Going To Account For Our Time
2. The Reason We Were Chosen
3. Famous, Rich, Problem Free
4. To Be Made More Like Jesus Christ
5. The Fringe Benefits Vs The Main Thing
6. McDonald’s, The State Of Ohio, God
7. I Was Too Busy To Come To Work
H. The First Blessing Of Having Others
Eccles. 4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work:
1. We’ve Been Called To Do Some Work
2. The Movie, The Germans, The Jews, The Man
3. The Shock, The Possessions, The Cry
4. If Only I Had Done More For The Cause
5. The Priorities We May Have
I. The Second Blessing Of Having Others
Eccles. 4:10 If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
1. It Will Not Always Be Like Today
2. Honesty Of Scripture On Tribulations
3. But We Never Expected These Things To Happen
4. We Will Need Support & Encouragement
5. God Needs To Use Our Pains, Our Joys
6. Available For Use?????
J. The Third Blessing Of Having Others
Eccles. 4:11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?
1. It Was One Cold Winter Night Without A Furnace
2. The Warmth From Each Other
3. Not Always On Fire For The Lord
4. Disappointment, Frustration Doubts
5. The Charcoal Leaving The Fire
6. Reheating One Another In Love
K. The Fourth Blessing Of Having One Another
Eccles. 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
1. The Devil Has Declared War
2. Temptation At It’s Strongest Handled By Itself
3. The Devil Has A Good Lie To Make It Easy
4. Being Alone And Out Of Town—Precautions
5. Believers Can Tell You The Truth About The Price
6. Small Group Is Part Of The Overcoming Plan For
Escape
1 Cor. 10:12-13 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! [13] No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
L. Jesus Chose To Belong To A Small Group
1. Support, Encouragement, Fellowship, Temptation
2. Together Is Better
