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SERMON TOPIC: Fellowship

Speaker: Ken Paynter

Language: ENGLISH

Date: 13 November 2011

Topic Groups: FELLOWSHIP

Sermon synopsis: The 4 vital ingredients in the early Church are found in Acts 2:41,42.
Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
They devoted themselves to
(1) the Apostles’ teaching
(2) to fellowship
(3) to the breaking of bread
(4) to prayer

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FELLOWSHIP.

Hebrews 10:25.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much more, as you see the day approaching.

The 4 vital ingredients in the early Church.

Acts 2:41,42.

Those who accepted his message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to

(1) the Apostles’ teaching

(2) to fellowship

(3) to the breaking of bread

(4) to prayer

TEACHING.

Teaching is vital for every believer.

Ephesians 4:11-16.

11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Breaking of bread.

Jesus himself gave his disciples the instruction to break bread.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Prayer.

Does this remind you of yourself ?

Prayer.

Private prayer.

Matt 6:5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from the evil one.

Prayer.

Family prayer and devotions. Deuteronomy 6:1-9.

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Prayer.

Corporate prayer.

Acts 12:11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”

12 When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13 Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

15 “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

FELLOWSHIP.

Fellowship - (Greek) = Koinonia ie: to share things in common.

The goal of fellowship is wholeness and strength.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? 12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

FELLOWSHIP.

God made man in his image.

Genesis 1:27

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God had fellowship with man but sin broke that fellowship.

Genesis 3:8.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

(Sin breaks our fellowship with God and makes us hide.)

FELLOWSHIP.

The purpose of the cross was to restore fellowship between God and man, that demonstrates how God values fellowship with us.

2 Corinthians 5. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

FELLOWSHIP.

Marriage.

God instituted marriage because he said that it was not good for Man to be alone. Gen 2:18.

Marriage symbolises God’s plan for Christ and the Church.

2 Corinthians 11:2. I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.

Ephesians 5:25-27.

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.

FELLOWSHIP.

Friendship

Revelation 3:20. Look I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

John 14:23. Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

John 15: 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

FELLOWSHIP.

The Family.

God instituted marriage and the family as a place of protection, strengthening and wholeness, and for the same reason he instituted the Local Church.

Yesterday I was speaking to the undertaker at Sincere Funerals, and he was saying how that this Christmas season of the year from November to February is characterised by suicides. (People who are lonely are vulnerable that’s why Satan has so undermined the family)

Psalm 68:6. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing;

FELLOWSHIP.

1 Corinthians 12:18-26.

But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.

FELLOWSHIP.

The local Church.

1 John 1:5-7. 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 and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out 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.

Hebrews 10:25. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much more, as you see the day approaching.

Yet professing Christians don’t attend Church and try justify their actions with “THE CURCH IS FULL OF HYPOCRITES” Yet Christians in Countries closed to the Gospel risk imprisonment and even death by obeying the instruction of God’s Word to Fellowship

FELLOWSHIP.

Fellowship to avoid.

Ephesians 5:11.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

2 Corinthians 6:14-18.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:… “Come out from among them and be separate says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty”

FELLOWSHIP.

Some things that will prevent true fellowship.

Cynicism.

People are going to let me down and fail us (Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, because he loved unreservedly).

One out of two marriages end in divorce.

Self-sufficiency.

We don’t need anyone and so we put up big walls and get big dogs to keep people out.

Pride.

Superiority.

1 Corinthians 4:6-7. Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other. 7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Inferiority is not humility, it is a form of pride with self pity isolating us from others.

FELLOWSHIP.

Acts:2:41-47.

They continued steadfast in the Apostles doctrine.

And in fellowship.

And in breaking of bread.

And in prayer.

NB: V44

And all that believed were together.

And had all things in common.

Ministered to the material needs of one another.

Continuing daily in the Temple and breaking bread from house to house.

They ate together with glad and sincere hearts.

Praising God.

Having favour with all the people and the Lord added to the Church

FELLOWSHIP.

Home fellowships.

Not a new idea, but how the early Church used to meet.

Biblical examples of Home Churches.

Pricilla and Aquila.

Romans 16:3-5.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house.

1 Corinthians 16:9.

The churches in the province of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house. =

Acts 18:24-28.

Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervour and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

FELLOWSHIP.

Biblical examples of Home Churches.

Archippus.

Philemon v 2.

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother,

to Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker also to Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home:

Nympha .

Colossians 4:15.

Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.

Paul taught in a house for 2 years.

Acts 28:30-31.

For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance!

FELLOWSHIP.

Pentecost took place in a house.

Acts 2:1-2.

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

A home lends itself to fellowship, sometimes people behave very differently when they enter a Church building but are more themselves in a home setting where they are more likely to get to know one another on a more personal basis.

FELLOWSHIP.

Jesus said this to the lukewarm Church at Laodicea.

Revelation 3:20. Look I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

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