Did that again?
I did say, after coming last year in July, that I would never again come to the States in July. And as you have prayed for this good weather, I cannot help feeling that the Lord had mercy on me and not you, and sent this cool weather.
However, I am very glad to be able to be back again with you—to see those we already know, and to meet you, brothers and sisters in the Lord.
There are just one or two Scriptures I would like to pass on. First, Isaiah 21:11-12.
One calleth unto me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night:
If ye will inquire, inquire ye: turn ye, come.
It is a rather strange word to have, but I think it fits in very well with what Rana said. We have not discussed it together. To inquire of the Lord—to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.
If ever there was a time in the history of God’s people when we need to inquire of the Lord, surely it is now. We are standing, it seems to me, in the so-called free world, on the brink of tremendous catastrophe.
It has only been the grace of God that has held back not only the flood of evil, but war and very much unhappiness. I believe the Lord has held that back and given us all a breathing space.
In the Yom Kippur War, we came to the brink of world war. I do not think for a moment that most people in Europe—and I do not think here in the States either—realize just how that seemingly local, petty Middle East war could have become something much greater.
I believe that we have a time given to us in which we, as the people of God, might seek the Lord and know, because God will give us an understanding of His will, what it is that He requires of us today.
You in America must truly bemoan the facts of Vietnam: fifty-six thousand of your best young lives thrown away, with nothing whatsoever to show for it.
We in Europe must wonder what is happening when one of the bastions of our defense, Portugal, has gone communist, and when another bastion of our southern defense, Italy—every major city in Italy—is now under communist administration.
I travel through the universities of Europe and Britain and Scandinavia, and I see firsthand the battle for the soul of the nation being fought in the universities. It is hard to believe that things have gone so far, even in conservative countries.
Now, what has all this got to do with us? Very much indeed. We do not know how long we have before we are all caught up in the vortex of some worldwide strife.
And in the breathing space that we have left to us, we need to inquire of the Lord.
Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night.
May God give us grace not to sleep through the morning that is given to us. There is a time of respite, a time of freedom, a time when we can work as we have never worked before.
It is a time when we can not only seek the will of God, but know the will of God and do the will of God before that night comes when no man can work.
What are we to do? It is not only politically and economically that we see so much happening, but spiritually. We see some of those things—those movements, I believe, movements of the Spirit of God—which seem to hold so much promise within them of seeing the purpose of God fulfilled, going right off the rails, one after another; systematized and seemingly alienated from the real purpose of God.
What are we to do? What is the purpose of the Lord for His people? I believe the purpose of God for us, His people, is the same purpose that He has always had for His people, if we only have ears to hear.
Listen to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 16:18-19.
Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
What we need above everything else to discover is what God really means, in practical terms, by this statement of our Lord Jesus Christ: “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Why should we become the subjects of devilish propaganda? Why should we, as it were, allow the enemy to impose upon us some idea that it is all impossible? Not only because of political and economic conditions, but more because we see so many things that have within them the promise of fulfillment going right off the road and right out of the way.
Why should we allow the enemy to say that it is impossible? If our Lord Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church,” and added for our comfort and strengthening, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,” then I, for one, say the gates of Hades are not going to prevail against it.
We need to inquire of the Lord as to what He means. And so the burden that I have in my heart is very simple: it is to do with fellowship—true fellowship.
In the times that I have, by the grace of God, I will seek—unless He completely changes the whole course, as far as I am concerned—to speak about principles of fellowship. I hope that God will help me, and you, to get right down to some of those practicalities about fellowship.
We desperately need to know what fellowship is. For the most part, the people of God do not know what fellowship is. We have false ideas about it. We do not understand the principles that govern fellowship, and because of this, so often we are at sea spiritually.
Although we may grow individually, we never really see this being built together in Christ as a habitation of God in the Spirit. That is my burden.
I believe that in Zechariah 4 we have, in many ways, the key to our present dilemma. For many of you it is a well-known chapter. But you will remember these words in verse 6:
This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain;
And he shall bring forth the headstone with shoutings of, Grace, grace, unto it.
Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying:
The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it;
And thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
For who hath despised the day of small things?
For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel;
These are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
Our God has given His word. The mountain—the difficulty, the problem, the impossibility that stands before the building work of God in Christ—will disappear before Him.
Not by human might or genius, nor by our human activity or endeavor alone, but by His Spirit. Not His Spirit in some vague, ethereal sense, but His Spirit indwelling us as the people of God, anointing us, empowering us, equipping us, so that this work of building can go forward to its completion.
His hands began the work; His hands will complete it. And the headstone will be brought forth with shouts of, “Grace, grace, unto it.”
God has given us a breathing space. May we take advantage of it and not sleep through these days—not only these days of conference, but these days and years in which we have our freedom—that we may be enabled to be really in the center of His will and purpose.
Be not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
This is Monday evening, July 14, 1975, in Ashland, Virginia, at the Christian Family Conference, Randolph-Macon College.
Let us turn to 1 Corinthians 12, reading from verse 12.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many.
If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body.
And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; it is not therefore not of the body.
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
But now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased Him.
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
But now they are many members, but one body.
And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: or again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
Nay, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary:
And those parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness; whereas our comely parts have no need:
But God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked;
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
And whether one member suffereth, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.
Shall we just have a further word of prayer? Perhaps every one of us could really stand together in that anointing which is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ, for speaking and for hearing.
Lord, we bow here in Thy presence, and once more we just want to recognize that we are wholly cast upon Thee, utterly dependent upon Thee, if we are going to get something into our hearts of lasting value.
And by faith, Lord, now we all come under the anointing which is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ—that anointing which runs down from the head to the hem of the garment and covers every single member of the body.
By faith we stand into it, speaker and hearer alike, that we may know divine enabling in our speaking and in our hearing, and thus, Lord, may know Thee in this time, this evening.
We commit ourselves to Thee, that Thy will shall be done for this evening, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
There is one further verse that I want to read in 1 Corinthians 1:9.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
It has been my burden to speak, in the times that are given to me, about this matter of fellowship, and particularly principles of fellowship.
Now, it might be good if, at the very beginning, we define what we mean by a principle. A principle is not a regulation. There is a very great difference between a regulation and a principle.
A regulation is something man-made. It comes into human law. A principle, really, is in the sphere of natural law. Let me explain it this way.
The speed limit is a regulation. Maybe here it is fifty-five miles per hour. That has been made by man, and of course we are all bound to keep it.
Nevertheless, you can drive in an area where it says everywhere, “Fifty-five miles per hour,” at seventy miles per hour, and provided the police do not see you and catch you, provided you do not have an accident, and provided you have no conscience, you get away with it.
There are many, many such sinners here gathered this evening who have done well over the speed limit at different times. The police have not caught them, they have not had an accident, and they have had little conscience. So they got away with it.
It was a regulation, but you got away with it. Nothing happened to you if the police did not catch you and you did not have an accident.
A principle is a very different thing. If you were to go to the top story of the dormitory that you are sleeping in, or the house that you are in, open the window, and step out, the law of gravity will take over.
It does not matter whether the whole police force of Ashland is present or not. You will fall with great speed to the ground. It is not a question of whether you are caught or not. The fact is that it is cause and effect. It is a principle. It is natural law.
Something happens the moment you step out of that window. You may have an hour of prayer, two hours of Bible reading, and a day of fasting, and unless the Lord suspends natural law, you will still fall swiftly to the ground.
Now, that is the difference between regulation and principle. Spiritual law is all principle. It is cause and effect.
We are not speaking about regulations of fellowship, as if God has given us a whole lot of things that would be good to keep—particularly if we have a tender conscience toward the Lord—but by which we will get away quite well if we do not keep them, if we break them.
We are dealing with principles of fellowship, which mean that if these principles are seen, adhered to, and obeyed, then certain consequences will follow.
There will be increase. There will be development. There will be cohesion. There will be gifting. There will be equipment. There will be progress. There will be authority. All these things follow out of the principles of fellowship.
Therefore, you see that it is of the utmost importance that we should understand, first, what fellowship really is; secondly, how God has called us into it; and then we need to begin to understand some of the principles of fellowship.
This evening, what I plan to do, by the grace of God and the enabling of the Holy Spirit, is just to introduce this subject of fellowship. I know that some of you will know as much as, and a good deal more than, I do on this subject. Nevertheless, it is good for us to look at this whole subject again.
What is true fellowship? I suppose fellowship, along with a number of other words, is one of those words that has been devalued by evangelicals.
Some people seem to think fellowship is friendliness. That is all it is—just a little bit of friendliness. If a few people smile at you, there is a bit of fellowship there. If not many people smile at you, there is no fellowship.
Other people seem to think that fellowship is just a kind of bond, a kind of comradeship. There is a little bit more than friendliness, but that is really all it is: a sort of sense of comradeship, being a little bit more together than just friendliness.
Others feel fellowship is informality. If you are in a house meeting, that is fellowship; if you are in a chapel, you have no fellowship. The more informal you are, the more everything is haphazard, that is real fellowship. If there is any order, that is bondage, and that is not fellowship.
Well, there may be some informality—real informality—in fellowship. It may be necessary. But nevertheless, that is not what fellowship consists of.
There are others who seem to think that fellowship is chit-chat. If you just have a little bit of chit-chat with one another, a little bit of small talk, that is fellowship.
People say, “I am going to have a spot of fellowship with so-and-so.” And after they go, it is just a little bit of chit-chat, little gossip, a few tales told, perhaps a few spiritual words thrown in, and that is fellowship. Providing you have had just that little bit of chit-chat and lifted it onto a higher level than normal, that is fellowship.
And that is not fellowship.
There are others who believe that fellowship is spiritual talk. If you can get a person into a corner and give them a heavy word from Obadiah, or a paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mount, or an outline of the book of Jonah, or Revelation in three easy lessons, then that is fellowship.
But I can tell you this: you can talk for hours on Bible outlines and there be not an atom of fellowship in it. And you can talk about a motorbike together and have deep fellowship in the Lord. It is not just spiritual talk.
There are those, of course, who think that fellowship is a meeting. They speak of meeting together, and that is fellowship. You never have fellowship outside of a meeting. When we are meeting together, that is fellowship; there is none on any other level.
Then again, there are those who seem to think that it is a description of an organization or a society. We speak of “the fellowship” there and “the fellowship” there. Strangely enough, the word is never used like that in the Bible.
We never find that it is called “the fellowship” in the sense of a place we go to, an organization to which we belong, or a membership of believers to which we are attached as some kind of institution or organization.
Fellowship may include many of these things and may exclude others, but none of these adequately conveys the real meaning of the word fellowship.
The Greek New Testament word koinonia comes from the root “to have in common.” It is variously translated in the New Testament. Sometimes we have the word “partner”; sometimes “partaker”; sometimes “participate”; sometimes “communion.” Fellowship is another word by which it is translated.
So I think the best way to understand this word is to use the word share—to have in common. Fellowship is that we all have something in common. We share something. That is the basis and the dynamic of all our fellowship. It is much more fundamental than is usually understood.
Now listen again to this word:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let me put it in another free translation: “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Does that not transform it? Here we have got this ecclesiastical idea about “the fellowship of His Son.” We are so used to the word that we perhaps think of it in one ear and out the other.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. What is it that we have in common? What is it that we believers have in common?
Well, let us just think for a moment. Do we have race in common? We certainly do not. There are Asiatics here, Orientals here, Occidentals here. There are Jews, I have no doubt, here, and there are Gentiles here. We have not got that in common.
Well then, have we got nationality? Certainly not. In spite of the American War of Independence, we have not got nationality in common. We have every nationality under the sun here, have we not? All different nationalities.
What have we got in common? Maybe we have got class in common. We are all the same class, are we? I do not suppose we are, if we really looked into it. Maybe you have got a more equal type of class consciousness over this side than we have in Europe—not yet.
Well then, what have we got in common? Ah, we have got temperament in common, though, have we not? Why, there must be every kind of temperament here.
Suppose we were to say our fellowship is that we are all alike; we have the same temperaments. We can all shout “Hallelujah” again and again, for we are volatile people. Or perhaps it is the other way: we are all cautious people, quiet people. But we have not got that in common.
Well then, what is it that we have got in common? Ah, we have got denomination in common. We are all Episcopalians, and we are all Methodists. Oh, we are all good Southern Baptists, or whatever else you may name. So we have not got that in common either.
It is not color. It is not race. It is not nationality. It is not social class. It is not temperament. It is not religious denomination. Then what is it that we have in common?
We have the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is not a person in this place tonight who is a true believer who has not come through our Lord Jesus Christ into the family of God. No one. That is the only way in.
Jesus said:
I am the door; by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.
I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
Every single one of us—it does not matter what our color is, what our race is, what our nationality is, what our social standing is, what our temperament is, or even what religious denomination we belong to or have belonged to—the fact of the matter is that we have all come through our Lord Jesus Christ into the salvation of God.
We have come to experience a common salvation. It is one salvation that we have. It is not a Lutheran salvation, or an Episcopalian salvation, or a Pentecostal salvation, or a charismatic salvation. It is the salvation of God that we have come into through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we find that we have something in common. We are all in the one Christ, and the one Christ is in all of us.
Now you begin to understand something of what fellowship is. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the sharing of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord—into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. We are all in the one Christ.
You see how Paul begins this letter to the Corinthian church. He says here in verse 9, “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Some of the modern versions put, “Into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” I think it is much more accurately rendered, “Into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” But even if we understand it as “into fellowship with His Son,” is the Lord with whom I am having fellowship different from the Lord with whom you are having fellowship?
Have I got an Episcopalian Christ and you a Lutheran Christ? Have I got a Pentecostal Christ and you a Baptist Christ? Of course not. There is only one Christ.
And that one Christ is unique and supreme, absolutely sovereign. God has made Him Head over all things to the church.
What a wonderful thing, therefore, it is when we read this Corinthian letter and come to that twelfth chapter, and suddenly find the apostle describing our being together in the one Christ as being members of a body.
For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.
Many, many members, but only one body. And Christ has within Him, as it were joined to Him, many, many members. But there is only one Christ. He comprehends all. He includes all.
Every born-again believer is included, and everyone who is religious but not born again is excluded.
My body is a fellowship. I have many members in my body, but they are my fellowship. Brother Kong has his own fellowship. I have mine. My toe does not look like my little finger. My ear does not look like my foot, and my arm does not look like my thigh.
But they are all part of one life, one personality, one intelligence—what there is of it—one being. That is me. This is my fellowship.
My little finger may say, “I belong to the fellowship of my body. I am a very small member, but I am in the fellowship of this body.” But it is not in Brother Kong’s fellowship; his little finger belongs to his fellowship.
All these different members—some of which you can see and some of which are inside and hidden, but more important than some of the ones you can see—they all share one life, one intelligence, one name, one head, one body. Every single part is interdependent and related to the rest. It is a fellowship.
A fellowship.
I think that is what the apostle Paul was trying to get at when he said, “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Have we not devalued the gospel sometimes in the way we have explained it? We seem to give the impression that all there is to the gospel is that you get saved, you are forgiven, justified, and then you sing hymns, say prayers, read the Bible, and then you go to heaven.
There you will sit on a cloud and play a harp forever after in a glorified nightie, and all over your part of some eternal Hallelujah Chorus. No wonder the world laughs at us and says, “Well, that kind of thing belongs to the Middle Ages.”
Is that what God gave His Son to bring men into—so they could sit on clouds, play harps, and sing an eternal Hallelujah? It must be very boring.
But that is not the gospel. The gospel, as I understand it, is that God has saved us, as we heard through Brother Stephen Kong this morning in that second time. God has called us and brought us into His Son, to be partakers of His divine nature, to be partners in His Son, to become, as it were, members of Christ.
I say that is tremendous. No wonder the apostle said, “We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” That is the gospel.
God has brought us into fellowship with Himself—not just some kind of comradeship, not even friendliness, not even a kind of spiritual chit-chat. God has brought us into the deepest meaning of fellowship. He has made us partakers of His own nature.
Through the exceeding great and precious promises ye may become partakers of the divine nature.
That is the gospel. What a salvation—that I have been brought into such a fellowship.
When you think about it, of course it is true. There is only one salvation, is there not? There is only one name by which we are saved: the name of Jesus. There is only one foundation which no one else can lay, but which God has laid, which is Jesus Christ. There is only one life. Jesus said, “I am the life.”
When you think about it all, it is simply wonderful. I am in Christ, and you are in Christ; Christ is in me, and Christ is in you. When we begin to see it like that, a whole lot of things fall into place.
It is not taking the Word of God too far, for this is a spiritual reality which God desired from before the foundation of the world. He wanted to bring mankind into such a union with Himself, and such a union with one another, that He would be in them and they would be in Him.
Then the very glory of God would, as it were, radiate out of them. Not the idea that the glory of God is a kind of spotlight that shines on you, but that glory with which our Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured, which came from within Him and shone out through His flesh, even causing His clothing to be changed. That is the glory of God.
We—you and I—were designed for the glory of God. We were meant for the glory of God, not that we should become exhibitionists, but that in union with God, He in us and we in Him, we should know this fellowship, this divine fellowship.
Nor is that fellowship which God desires something that is an end in itself. There are these bless-me groups that seem to think that the be-all and end-all of everything is that we should just gather around, shut out a poor dying world around us, and just enjoy ourselves with the Lord. God help us.
Our Lord Jesus Christ could have shut out a dying world from the beginning, and not one of us would have been found in the kingdom of God. But He not only enjoyed His Father; He laid down His life for His Father, and in so doing brought in an innumerable multitude of those who were alienated and divorced from God through sin.
My dear friend, I believe that even when we are finally transfigured in glory, it will be service in which we shall delight. We do not even know what it will mean in the end.
If you think that heaven is going to be some static thing where we all sit round our mansions, sitting around on gilt chairs while angels wait upon us with various tasty dishes, and then we are all called to sing, you have another thing coming.
It is perfectly true that we shall be caught up in rapturous worship. We shall be taken out of ourselves in the worship of the Lord, so that it will be something none of us has ever conceived of. So glorious and wonderful will it be.
Some of you know it when you have worshipped the Lord with a full heart and there has been that ecstasy of joy that has come into you, which has just given you a little glimpse of that glory which is yet to be.
But, you know, God’s genius will never cease. I do not believe that God will stop creating things, stop producing things, stop, as it were, progressing. Never, never, never.
I believe that God wants to go on. This poor old world, which has come under the blight of sin, where development and progress have been arrested, will one day be released from that bondage of sin and corruption into all that God originally intended.
The wonder of it all is that at the heart of the whole thing is Christ, and those who have been brought into the fellowship of His Son. What a calling, then, is ours. Do you not think it is wonderful?
Let us go back for one moment to this fellowship of His Son and think again about this matter. We tend to think of fellowship as just a little smile here and there across an aisle, or an invitation to come back and have a cup of coffee—or, if you are on a higher level, a cup of tea.
And so often that is the idea of fellowship. Or sometimes we say to people, “Do come down. We are going to have a little more informal Bible study. It would be nice to have some fellowship.”
Of course, that is fellowship. But it would be to entirely devalue the whole force of God to say that that is fellowship and all there is to fellowship.
The fact of the matter is this: by the grace of God, I—unworthy as I am, insignificant as I am, ugly as sin as I am—God apprehended me and saved me and brought me into His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I am continually amazed that the sphere into which God has brought me is His Son, Jesus Christ. It is amazing to me to discover that He is my righteousness. He is my foundation. He is the name by which heaven opens to me. He is, as it were, my clothing. He is my life.
In Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden, and in Him I find completeness and fullness—all in Him. Is it not wonderful? It is.
I think I have said this to some of you before, but I will say it again because I think it helps us understand. We think of a glorious verse like John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
There are very few people who have the King James Version, the Revised Version, or the American Standard Version who ever think about that word, “believeth on Him.” Have you ever asked why it says “believeth on Him”?
Again and again it says, in John 3:36, for instance:
He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life.
Why does it say “on the Son”? Because the little preposition in Greek is a preposition of motion, and really, literally, it is: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth into Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Our godly old translators in the King James Version had much discussion as to how to translate this, because it just did not seem right in English. Finally they said, “We cannot translate it ‘believeth in Him,’ because that means I here believe in Him over there, and that is not true.”
The whole idea is that by faith I am joined to the Lord. I am carried to the Lord. I am borne upon the Lord. I become, as it were, joined to Him.
So they decided on this phrase, which you will find nowhere else in English literature: “believeth on Him.” I do not believe on Harold Wilson, our Prime Minister; I believe in Harold Wilson. I do not believe on President Ford; I believe in President Ford. I do not believe on the Queen of England; I believe in the Queen of England.
But when I am given saving faith by God through the work of His Spirit, then I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Something happens which is unique. I am carried into His Son through saving faith.
God takes me into His Son and joins me to Him, so that he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. I am in Christ.
Someone else has believed, and he is in Christ. Brother Kong has believed, and he is in Christ. Well then, have we got our own Christ?
There is this dreadful term we have in evangelical circles: “a personal Savior,” as if He were some kind of personal toilet commodity, just like you have your own face flannel or your own toothbrush. Your personal toothbrush, your personal face flannel, your personal Savior.
But where does it say in the whole New Testament that we have a personal Savior? We have a personal knowledge of the Savior, but that is not a personal Savior. He is not an Episcopalian Savior, a Lutheran Savior, a Brethren Savior, a Pentecostal Savior, a Baptist Savior, a Presbyterian Savior, or a Methodist Savior. There is only one Savior.
And we are all in Him, and He is in all of us.
It is even more wonderful if I say, “Christ liveth in me,” and Brother Kong says, “Well, that is strange, because He lives in me.” But we are all in the same Christ, and the same Christ is in all of us.
Now we begin to discover that we have something in common which transcends color, race, nationality, social standing, temperament, and religious denomination. We have our Lord in common. I am in Him; you are in Him. He is in me; He is in you.
What happens then? There we are. We must have a relationship one to another. There are some people who say, “Be careful of this kind of thing. You are taking it too far.” But if I am in the one Lord, and you are in the one Lord, and the one Lord is in you and in me, there must be some relationship between us, surely.
You and I have now got a relationship we never had before, have we not? Of course we have.
That is why it says in Romans 12:5:
So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.
It does not say merely that we are one body of Christ. That is perfectly true, but that is how most people read it. It says, “We are one body in Christ.” We are all members not only of Christ, but of one another.
Do you begin to see how simply wonderful it really is that God has called us into this fellowship?
Listen again to this word:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
First of all, take that word called. There is such a lot in the Bible about calling: “Walk worthily of your calling.”
This word call comes from the same root as the word church, ekklesia. We get all these words from the same root.
Ekklesia, the church—they are called out. But is it not strange that we always think of them as called-out ones? In actual fact, the ekklesia was an assembly. It was not just called out; it was called together.
They were called out of all their homes and businesses to gather together in assembly. Do you understand?
Now, God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you know that if you are a child of God, you have a calling?
This calling is not only that you have been called out of the world, called out of sin, called out of darkness, but you have been called into the fellowship of His Son. You have been called into the sharing of His Son.
I also think it is very wonderful, when we think about it, that from the very beginning God has desired this fellowship. It is in the very nature of God to want to include us.
It is amazing, is it not? I mean, really, when you think of it: little bits of worthless dust, into which God has breathed an eternal spirit and produced a living soul.
But when you think of it, God has gone to such lengths. Then we fell. Then we turned away. God did not give us up, but He has called us back into His original purpose: that you and I should be partakers of the divine nature, that we should become His heirs and joint-heirs with Christ.
I find it a very wonderful thought that God uses the word faithful here:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Only those of us who have seen something of this and committed our lives, lock, stock, and barrel, to it discover that all hell comes out against any such thing as real fellowship.
Satan seems to have a vested interest in destroying fellowship, just because it means so much to God.
When you think of this Corinthian letter, what a breakdown of fellowship there was there. All kinds of things in this church were a denial of fellowship, a contravening of all the principles of fellowship. But right at the beginning the apostle says, “God is faithful.”
Every single member is vital in this fellowship. The little finger may not seem very much to me, but it has a part to play somewhere in my whole body.
Every single member has a part to play. Every member is necessary.
I often think, when we go to some places, that you could write over them the words of 1 Corinthians 12:19:
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
Because to go into many places, it is all one member. Generally speaking, the pastor starts the meeting, gives out the hymn, says the prayer, gives the Bible reading, gives another hymn, allows someone else to give out the notices, and generally someone else to take up the collection.
Then he gives out another hymn, preaches the Word, prays, gives out another hymn, and finally gives the benediction. You could write over it: “If the body were one member, where were the body?”
This fellowship is something so wonderful. It is simply this: every one of us is not only a king and a priest, but we can come and offer sacrifices to God. We are meant to do that together.
This evening, I am only seeking to introduce this whole matter of fellowship. We shall take up some of these things and talk about some of the specific principles.
It is a strange thing that all the historic Protestant denominations have believed in the priesthood of all believers, and hardly any of them, with a few notable exceptions, have ever given place for the exercise of that priesthood.
Fellowship is not that all the members do the same thing, but that there are many members with different functions, and they are all interrelated and, in one sense, interdependent.
The full increase and growth of the whole is dependent upon the way each part of the body functions.
You all know what happens when some small muscle gives up. You get what we call, in England, lumbago or sciatica, and you suddenly see someone walking as though the whole world had come to an end.
It is only the smallest muscle, but that is pain. Do you know what it is sometimes to put out a finger? You would think, when you put out a finger, that the pain and discomfort are out of all proportion to the silly little member that has been put out.
But it has been made to paralyze, or at least seriously hinder, the functioning of the whole body.
But is it not a wonderful thing when our whole bodies are healthy? For those of you who are blessed with good health, you never think about your body. You can get out of a chair and get back into a chair, lie down on a bed, and you never think once about it until something goes wrong.
Suddenly, the simplest things in life that you have never thought about become really difficult. It is all a question of fellowship, is it not? When our body is a healthy fellowship, we do not even have to think about it, because we can get on with the job. We grow, we develop, and our ministry, if you like, is fulfilled.
I would like to say just two other things and then finish this evening. I would like to say something about the work of the Holy Spirit and fellowship.
In 2 Corinthians 13:14—and I am not closing this meeting—it says:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
The communion, or the fellowship, of the Holy Spirit.
The only way that we came into Christ was by new birth. That was the way we came into the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is the way we came into this fellowship of His Son, and we came in by the Holy Spirit.
It was by the Holy Spirit, as we were born of the Spirit, that we were born into the fellowship of God’s Son. Nevertheless, we must say this: we will never function, we will never contribute, we will never grow up together, we will never be built together apart from the Holy Spirit.
It is not enough to say that we had an experience of the Holy Spirit at conversion and that there is no more to be had. The fact of the matter is that there is an anointing of the Holy Spirit, there is a whole ministry of the Holy Spirit, there are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and there is the equipment of the Holy Spirit.
There can be no functioning of fellowship until the Holy Spirit is free. When the Holy Spirit is free, the thing becomes a spontaneous reality.
Is it not a tragedy sometimes when we go, as I have been at home in Britain and sometimes elsewhere, to groups which know all about the church? They have got all the doctrine quite clear, but there seems to be no functioning of fellowship.
There seems to be no ministry of one member to another. There does not seem to be anything built together, or any of this sharing of the Lord together.
I have discovered, whatever people may think about the Holy Spirit and His work, for or against, that wherever the Holy Spirit has touched people—touched a company or touched individuals—you begin to find that they move into fellowship.
Now, of course, we know there are excesses and we know there are extremes. But how can we really know this fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in practice and in reality apart from the Holy Spirit?
It is the Holy Spirit who empowers us, and the Holy Spirit who, as it were, becomes the dynamic.
When we look at the book of Acts, we find a remarkable thing. We find one hundred and twenty saved people in an upper room, gathered around the risen Lord, with an open Bible opened up to them by the risen Christ.
There could have been no more perfect congregation in the whole world. I know that there would be many, many people here who would be thrilled to the marrow if every so-called church in the United States consisted of truly born-again believers gathered around a risen Christ with an open Bible and pure doctrine.
These one hundred and twenty people gathered in an upper room had no question about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There He was in their midst. They had no question about the Bible and its authority or inspiration, for He Himself had opened it up.
By the way, it was the Old Testament. There was no New Testament then. From Genesis right the way through to Chronicles, in the Jewish arrangement, including every book of the Old Testament, they believed in its authority and inspiration, for He had opened it up and given them an understanding of the Scriptures.
They believed in His miraculous ministry. They believed in His atoning death. They believed in His bodily resurrection. They believed in His ascension, and they believed that He would come back in the same way in which He was taken from them.
But our Lord appears to have been afraid that those one hundred and twenty would start going all over the place, starting congregations of doctrinal believers. He said to them, “Wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and then ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”
When the Holy Spirit came, it was one Spirit that came. Suddenly there were one hundred and twenty tongues of fire which rested upon one hundred and twenty units in a congregation.
Then the miracle took place: the one hundred and twenty units became one hundred and twenty members of a body. An essential difference took place.
There was no more casting of lots to find out who should take the place of Judas. From then on, they sought the Lord with prayer and fasting and found the mind of God through the Spirit of God.
From then on, it was the Spirit of God who said, “Separate Me Barnabas and Saul.” From then on, there was no more rivalry or inciting in that sense, although they had their problems and their collisions.
You remember when Peter stood up to preach that day on the Day of Pentecost, the eleven involuntarily stood up with him. They did not open their mouths to begin with, to preach at least that message. Yet no one said, “Who does he think he is? I should stand up and let me have a go.”
It was as if the whole eleven thought, “He is our mouth. What he is saying, we are saying.” They felt so one with him, so part of him, that what he was saying, they were saying. They were right in it.
Peter and John saw the man who was lame. They acted together, but it was Peter who spoke and said:
Silver and gold have I none; but what I have, that give I thee.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.
John did not have a bad time because Peter said, “I.” He said, in effect, “He is speaking for me. We are in this thing together.”
We must never be afraid of the Holy Spirit. I do not know any single occasion in the history of the church where the Holy Spirit has started to move where there have not been excesses and extremes.
There will always be certain extremes, and the enemy will work unerringly to bring in trouble, wrong teaching, faction, division, self-seeking, and so on. But the fact remains, dear friends, that what is right is right.
We need the Holy Spirit.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
We need the Holy Spirit, do we not, to release us in fellowship; to release all the gifts of Christ amongst us; to bring out the beauties of Christ; to bring out the fullness of Christ; to enable us to overcome fear and bondage and all these inhibitions that hold us back from really functioning in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The second thing I would like to say in closing is this: there are some glorious consequences of the reality of true fellowship.
When the Holy Spirit begins to make this fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, a living reality amongst the people of God, some marvelous things begin to happen.
First of all, I believe there is an expression of Christ. Now, what do we mean by an expression of Christ?
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord.
The beauty of the Lord. I believe this poor world longs to see something of the Lord Jesus. All it sees are our meetings, our doctrine, our preaching, our activity. If only the world could see Jesus.
If only the world could see the beauty of the Lord Jesus. If only the world could see the power of the Lord Jesus. If only the world could see the character of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus can never fully express Himself through one Christian—not even through two Christians, three Christians, or four Christians. He needs us all through whom to express something of His fullness and glory.
What a wonderful thing it is when we are sharing Him, when we are really related to one another in Him, when we are moving together in and with Him. Then somehow the beauty of the Lord our God is upon us.
There are failings, there are faults, there are collisions, there are shortcomings, and we all know them. But the Lord covers it with His beauty. People coming in amongst us touch the Lord and see the Lord.
We are very conscious of the work that is being done inside—the cutting work, the shaping work, the fitting work, the knitting-together work. But when people come in, they are not conscious of any tension, strain, or problem; they only see the Lord.
What a wonderful thing it is when unsaved people come to you and say, “There is something about this company. I have never seen it before.”
I know an atheist who came week after week after week to the company in Richmond. He said to me, “I have been in the high temples, Hindu temples, mosques, synagogues—I have been everywhere. But there is something about these people here that I cannot explain.”
Sometimes he said it with tears in his eyes. He never found the Lord—not yet, anyway. But even an atheist had to confess that there was something more than people.
Oh, that not only in Washington, in Richmond, in New York, but in all the many other places we come from, there might be such a touch of fellowship amongst the people of God, such a sharing of the Lord, that Christ could be expressed.
It is not only unsaved people who need to see the Lord. Many Christians need to see the Lord. There are many casualties amongst the people of God, many people who are downcast. They do not know where to turn. All they see everywhere is what is wrong.
Oh, that they could see the Lord.
Then there is another thing I would like to mention as a result of true fellowship: the matter of authority. Authority.
You can have your deliverance ministries, but unless they are related to the church, all of them will ultimately fail. I do not know of a single deliverance ministry that has not gone off the rails in the end unless it is church-centered—that is, unless it knows something of the meaning of fellowship.
Authority. You know that God longs above everything else that His people here on earth should be, as it were, the means by which His authority is established in the localities and areas where we live.
For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
There is a sense in which what God wants to do is to build us together, that the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ might be manifested in our communities.
Somehow or other, the will of God should be done in the areas in which we live. We are so helpless. I know some companies of Christians who do not even know what is happening in their areas.
Pornographic filth can sweep over the city, and it does not seem to bother them. But the Lord Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” All they are concerned about is growing in the Lord. They do not seem to think that, if they are a company, they should ever stand there spiritually.
In the unseen, they should, in the name of the risen Christ, confront those powers of darkness and paralyze them. It can be done. It must be done.
It is the job of the church to take the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ and put them under His feet, where they belong. But if you and I do not do it, God will not.
The Lord Jesus said:
Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
And whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
But we have to say that the gates of Hades have prevailed against it again and again and again. Why? Why?
What our Lord wants is a company of His people so built together, whose lives have been laid down for Christ and for one another, that the authority of the risen Christ can be manifested in the areas in which we live.
It is not right, dear child of God, for us to just say that the Bible says things are going to get worse and worse and worse, and so we throw in the towel, as it were, and say, “All right then, so let it be.”
Our job is to maintain things for God and to see that the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ do not overcome the work of God and do not destroy the building work of Christ.
Now let me say this: if there are evil things in your area, whether you know it or not, they are affecting the building of the church in your area. For all these things are spiritual realities.
Until they have been dislodged, paralyzed, and bound, there is no way for the work to go forward. What did our Lord Jesus say? If you want to spoil the strong man and take his goods, first bind him.
Woe betide any believer who thinks he can exercise the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ outside of fellowship. Woe betide any agency, deliverance ministry, or anything else that thinks to exercise the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ in the whole realm of principalities and powers, world-rulers of darkness, and hosts of wicked spirits outside of fellowship.
These are church matters. These are things that belong to the realm of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. They belong to that realm of fellowship where we are hid in Him.
Lastly, another result of fellowship is that the presence of the Lord is found.
In 1 Corinthians 14, the apostle says that an unsaved man shall come in and shall fall down and worship, saying, “God is among you indeed.”
Beyond our preaching, beyond all our meetings, beyond all our presentation of doctrine, the most glorious thing of all is the presence of the Lord.
When the presence of the Lord has gone, the rest is so much paraphernalia. But when the presence of the Lord is there, things happen.
God commits Himself when He finds people who know something of the fellowship of His Son in experience. It is the presence of the Lord.
I do not think that the United States could have anything more wonderful or more glorious than that in every company represented here in this place tonight it could be said, “The presence of the Lord is committed there.”
When they gather, they gather unto the Lord. When they are found together, it is the Lord who manifests Himself through them. It is His presence that makes the lasting impression upon all who come in.
Oh, may the Lord do it. Lord, God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we lift up our hearts together to Thee. Thou knowest our needs, Lord. Oh, we pray that Thou wilt not allow any of what has been said this evening simply, Lord, as it were, to be dissipated.
But we pray, beloved Lord, cause what is Thy Word to dwell in us richly. O Father, blot out anything untoward, anything that has been said which has been unbalanced or wrong.
But Lord, everything that is of Thyself, Lord, watch over it to perform it. Oh, we pray, Lord, that we Thy people in these days may know something of this fellowship in reality and practice.
Work it into us, Lord. Thou knowest all those areas of individualism. Thou knowest all those areas of resistance and rebellion. Oh, Father, by Thy Spirit work in us all, we pray.
So that we not only see what fellowship is, but we commit ourselves to be in it in a new way. May we know that blessed fellowship of Thy Spirit.
O Father, we commit ourselves to Thee, in the name of Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.