Sermon Central
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True Fellowship
Contributed by Andrew Chan on Nov 30, 2001 (message contributor)
Summary: True fellowship is defined not by cake and coffee but by being spiritually tied together.
True Fellowship
SIGNS YOU LIVE IN THE YEAR 2001...
1. You just tried to enter your password on the microwave.
2. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.
3. You call your son’s beeper to let him know it’s time to eat. He emails you back from his bedroom,
"What’s for dinner?"
4. Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.
5. You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven’t spoken with your next
door neighbor this year.
6. Your grandmother asks you to send her a JPEG file of your newborn so she can create a screen saver.
7. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.
8. Every commercial on television has a web-site address at the bottom of the screen.
9. You buy a computer and 6 months later it is out of date and now sells for half the price you paid.
11. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 years of your life,
is cause for panic and turning around to go get it.
12. Using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase would be a hassle and take planning.
13. Cleaning up the dining room means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
14. Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
15. You consider second-day air delivery painfully slow.
16. Your dining room table is now your flat filing cabinet.
17. Your idea of being organized is multiple-colored Post-it notes.
18. You hear most of your jokes via e-mail instead of in person.
19. You get an extra phone line (or a ADSL/cable modem) so you can get phone calls.
20. You disconnect from the Internet and get this awful feeling, as if you just pulled the plug on a loved
one.
21. You get up in morning and go online before getting your coffee.
22. You wake up at 2 am to go to the bathroom and check your E-mail on your way back to bed.
23. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
24. You’re reading this.
25. Even worse; you’re going to forward it to someone else
This is life in 2001? No wonder there is a sense of alienation, it seems we are losing a sense of personal touch. Banks are getting automated, don’t even need to go out to go shopping for Christmas, you can do it on-line. Our fast pace hi tech life has left us all breathless, has it not? It seems “instant noodles” or “microwave relationships” are more than appropriate metaphors for our lifestyle. We want things that zip by fast, fast cars, fast ferries, fast food, faster computers, quick results, don’t we? Who of us have not ever been frustrated by how long one can download something from the internet, line-ups, traffic tie-ups? Those in first year university can’t wait to finish 4 year degree. Those in final year can’t wait to get out of the “real world” to work. I wonder because of this desire in us for this fast pace of life, is true Christian fellowship in trouble? How do we get hooked up to real biblical fellowship?
A. Spiritual Ties
Fellowship is a word that is often misunderstood. While it undoubtedly brings up wonderful memories of teriyaki chicken and coffee and kuchen, that is not the biblical idea of fellowship. In fact, we read in 1 John 1:3 (NLT)
3 We are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. The fellowship is based on spiritual ties we have with God and each other through Jesus! Nothing to do with Tim Horton’s donuts or Starbucks!
It is by The shedding of Jesus’ blood
19 And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us.
(Heb.10:19-20)
--Before Jesus, God’s people had many restrictions placed upon them when they wanted to come into God’s presence. In fact, only the high priest could enter into the “Most Holy Place,” and then only on certain days and under certain conditions.
--Now, however, those who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus have received the freedom to enter into God’s presence with continually and with confidence.
The sacrifice of Jesus’ body (10:20)
