1.We believe that everything
we do should be a response to the love of God.
2. Our Vision for Mission
sees that response in three commands of Jesus and a fourth.
3. As a fellowship we believe
we have nine responses.
Today we are considering Fellowship
4. Jesus said.
34 A
new commandment 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."
John 13:34-35
Jesus spells out here how our response is
based on his love. It is not only that we love because he first loved us, that
our love in the expression of the love of God entering our lives, but his love
is the mark of quality in our love. We measure our love for one another by how
it measures up to his love for me. Ask not what I get out of Fellowship, only
ask what can I give in response to the love of God. True pleasure in fellowship
comes from seeing others encouraged, uplifted, and rejoicing. Of course you
will be encouraged , uplifted and rejoicing but the joy comes not from seeking
it but from giving that others may have that joy themselves.
Secondly, verse 35 is not written as a
‘success criteria’. It is written as an encouragement. People will notice the
transformed nature of your love. They will recognize the true value of the
gospel when they see it changing this community into what God intends for us.
Love one another like Jesus loved you and the world will beat a pathway to our
door, either to receive the love of God for themselves or to stamp out the
demonstration of the truth. Jesus is alive and active in South Ruislip.
In the ‘Vision for Mission’ is described as:
Everyone is of equal worth in the eyes of God and loved by him6.
Fellowship is to be characterised by a commitment to worship
together, pray together and share communion together1, looking
out for each other2, praying for each other3, encouraging
one another4 and seeking practically to support one another5.
I have added the extra clause (in blue)
as I have been preparing for today.
are a
collection of quotes from the message version of the Bible that gives the
biblical foundation for what we are committing ourselves to in our ‘vision for
mission’ I will not be going through them in detail but I want you to go away
and read them in your own time, let God’s word sink into your thinking and ask
the Holy Spirit to transform you so that our fellowship reflects his ideals and
values.
Fellowship is being
1.
Committed to
a. Worshipping
together, 1 Corinthians 14:26 shows
that its not just turning up on Sunday morning, expecting to be entertained. It
is about coming together to share what we have in the week. That is why on a
Sunday evening we meet in open worship. It gives us the opportunity to exchange
thoughts about our Lord and Saviour in the terms written here and worship him
together. On Sunday morning we are more formal and different people are asked
to lead. But that I all they do – lead. The worship comes from you and me
engaging in the songs and reading and thoughts and prayers and saying Amen and
being open to what God is saying to us.
b.
Praying together, There is great value in praying with one another. This is where our
fellowship is most strongly linked. You see it is in prayer together that you,
your brother or sister and the Lord are brought together in conversation. This
is the clearest example of spiritual fellowship. I pray with you, to the
Father. We agree and talk to God. God is active in bringing us together to
pray, and putting in our hearts what we desire so our prayers are speaking back
to God what he wants to hear. We pray in House groups and that is great. But I
am concerned that we are missing out in two directions. First praying one-to
one or in triplets. We need to develop the habit of praying together about
everything we talk about! You know one
of the great joys of prayer walking is that talking to Father becomes an
extension of talking together. You notice something and comment to your friend
and then pray about it. Would that we felt comfortable in our fellowship to
pray in our refreshment time over those things that we share. But we also need
to develop a passion for prayer as a larger community. The reason we alternate Powerhouse and House
groups is not just variety and certainly not to give you an excuse for a week
off. We believe that the church should meet for prayer. Our unity is dependant
on it. Our vision is dependant on it our commitment to each other is dependant
on it. There is not a special group of ‘prayers’ who meet at Powerhouse. Just
those who are committed to this church and want to make it work enough to seek
collectively to know the heart of God.
c.
Breaking Bread together. 1 Corinthians
10:16-17 underlines the importance of the communion. It is when we obey our
Saviour in celebrating the Last Supper that we are drawn together. We, in the
Brethren tradition, downplay to purely symbolic the action of eating bread and
drinking from the cup but we action carries strong motifs of sharing and
receiving from the Lord. And in the act of sharing and receiving bread and wine
we receive Christ through the Holy Spirit and express our common faith and
dependence on him.
2.
Looking out for each other
a. Love one
another. I come back to this at this
point because it is at the heart of Fellowship. Love is caring. Enjoying the
sharing of joys and being pained by the sharing of painful experiences. That
requires time spent together. And the best way of doing that is
b.
Eating together
– hospitable. Our society has so left the meal table that most homes to not
have a dining table at all. And yet the most valuable part of our fellowship is
in eating together. We know it is true in business, hence the importance of
hospitality in conferencing, etc. We cannot get away from it in the rest of our
lives without losing a very precious gift. If you don’t already, try to make at
least one meal in a family a meal you eat together. And you will protect your
family by doing so. I would go further and say also pray together while you are
round a table for a meal. The family that prays together, stays together. Those
of you who live alone, know only to well how much value there is in eating
together. Meals alone are never anything like a meal shared. Which brings me to
hospitality. We are called to practise it. It is not an optional extra but part
of our being a practicing Christian. So plan to invite someone for a meal. Be
humble enough not to make it a grand meal, just a plain ordinary meal shared is
far better, in fact proverbs actually says that in Proverbs 15:17 “Better a
meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred”. That
is why we organise meals at church. Because it is good fellowship. Tuesday
Focus meals, Sunday lunches, Eric’s party are all examples of where eating
together adds to fellowship. So lets get inviting each other around for meals.
Mind you we will have to watch our diets if we get carried away!
c.
Stand by others in suffering 2Corinthians 1:7 Hebrew 10:33 THes verses touch on
another aspect our our mission Links with other Christians. It is part of our
fellowship with the rest of the Church, the wider catholic church that we pray
for those who are suffering, complain to our government that they are taking no
action on human rights, send messages of support and financial support. Open
Doors and Barnabus Fund are the two which I recommend to you to get engaged in
the practice of Fellowship with those who are persecuted.
3. Praying for
each other. Now this is different
from praying with each other. Ann does a great job compiling the prayer diary.
And the new arrangement means you can pick your own pace and check up on
yourself that you are praying for the other members of the fellowship. Use your
church directory the same way. But what do you pray for. Our children began
praying for others with “that they may have a nice day”. We have no difficulty
praying for the physically sick and the unemployed and the stressed out but
what of someone who does not ‘have aproblem’? Now we are the body of Christ and
each one of you is part of it. So what deeper fellowship can we have than
praying for spiritual blessings for one another, whether they are sick or no,
whether they are stressed or no. Open Ephesians 1:15-23 when you pray and, it
may seem a little odd to start with but pray in those terms for every brother
or sister in Christ. We must
4. Encouraging
one another. You have the scriptures
there but do you do it? This is not just saying well done to Nicki for leading
the morning of to the musicians for their contribution. This is working with
the Holy Spirit as we talked of last week, encouraging , cheering on in the
spiritual realm. How about us all not being embarrassed to talk about our Bible
reading this week? Or talking about what God has laid on our hearts to pray
about? How about egging each other on to be at the communion service or
Powerhouse. Or talking about our faith to friends and family? Encouragement is
meant to be written into every review in the professional world because they
know it transforms work patterns. We need to discipline ourselves to speak
first of what we are enjoying in Christ and speaking less of what was wrong
about the service, the sermon, the music, the organisation, etc,etc.
5. Seeking
practically to support one another. I
find it salutary that in the New Testament, fellowship is referred to in this
way more often than any other. The world is materialistic. They judge us by
material standards, so they will notice when we spend time and money on each
other. They will particularly note when Christians are not supported practically
by their own fellowship. My neighbour, Eric, has seen the love of God when Tim
was in intensive care because he saw you deliver meals to us daily. He would
not have seen your prayers on our behalf although we valued them a great
deal. I like the message version of 2
Corinthians 8:3-4 – “pleading for the privilege of helping out in the relief of
poor Christians”
6.
Everyone is of equal worth in the eyes of God and
loved by him.
a.
Being in harmony together. This is not
uniformity. We actually have lots of differing opinions about a whole lot of
issues. From creation science to George Bush to the second coming to the exact
nature of the trinity. We fellowship with one another not because we agree with
each other but because God has called us into his family. So when someone has
upset you, step back and remind yourself that both of you are loved by God,
then you can smack him in the eye if you insist!
b. Showing
equal concern for all. Our scriptures
about fellowship specifically include foreigners and asylum seekers and are
specifically anti-discriminatory. I get
a little fed up with Christians who are quick to tell me a person is coloured
or Muslim as if that is the defining question. Our Gospel says that the defining
question is have they believed in Jesus. And if not, how can I tell them about
him and show his love to them. But equal concern for all goes further. It means
that you must use the church prayer diary as a guide to who to speak to next
Sunday. If you don’t know who someone listed is, find out. Then find an
opportunity to show fellowship with them. The quite and the poor attendees and
the newcomers are of particular concern for you. So I have devised a fellowship
guide for you to check out on a superficial scale your fellowshipping.
In
addition, this morning, before we have communion, I want you to stand up and
then move round and greet everyone you haven’t greeted already. So we will sing
XXXXXX and then we will have 5 minutes of chaos. After which we will share the
bread and wine in remembrance that Christ died for us and is alive and we need
him more than the food we eat.