Come with me to the book of Acts, and to the second chapter—Acts Chapter 2.
They then that received His word were baptized: and there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common;
and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need.
And day by day, continuing stedfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved.
And in Acts Chapter 4, from verse 32:
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and soul: and not one of them said that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
And with great power gave the apostles their witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
For neither was there among them any that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
and laid them at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto each, according as any one had need.
And then, in the first letter of the apostle Paul to the church at Corinth—1 Corinthians Chapter 1, from verse 1:
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus;
that in everything ye were enriched in Him, in all utterance and all knowledge;
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;
who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye be unreproveable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
The marvellous thing to understand before we come to the Word this evening is that we have an anointing. Our brother made reference to it in his prayer, and I always, before I speak, recognise that anointing.
You know the picture in Psalm 133 of the oil that is upon the head, that flows down the beard, that comes down to the very skirt of the garment. I always think of that as a marvellous picture of the anointing which is ours.
That anointing belongs to every child of God who is in Christ. If you are in Christ, that anointing is yours. It is an anointing for the speaker and an anointing for the hearer.
All we have to do is take our position. We do not have to fight to get there; we are there already. If you are saved by the grace of God, you are in Christ, and that anointing is yours.
So, one moment: we bow our heads, and we will just stand under that anointing by faith.
Dear Lord, we want to stand by faith under that anointing which You have given us in our Lord Jesus. It comes from our Head to every member of the body, and covers us all. For speaking and for hearing, Lord, we thank You.
You have given us both grace and power. We appropriate it together by faith, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for this time this evening. Amen.
Now, you will remember from last night that I felt that the Lord would have me make my little contribution in our time together these days by dwelling upon this word in Acts Chapter 2, verse 42:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers.
They continued steadfastly in four essential characteristics of the church of God. We cannot do with three of them, omitting one. We cannot do with two of them, omitting two. We need all four characteristics. They are fundamental and essential.
Any work of the Lord which leaves one or other of these essential characteristics out, in the end gets into trouble.
So last night we talked about the apostles’ teaching. I am not going to go over that tonight; otherwise, there will be no time to talk about the subject for this evening.
The apostles’ teaching is the Word of God—the whole Word of God. You and I need to continue steadfastly in the reading of the Word of God, in the meditation of the Word of God, in the digesting of the Word of God: in the Word of God getting into us, taking root in us, growing within us, and bearing fruit.
We need the Word of God. The Lord Jesus said to Satan:
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Woe betide us if we devalue the Word of God, if we make it less than what it is. Woe betide us if we just sort of emphasise favourite passages, if we seek to manipulate the Word of God, so that instead of the Word of God being the supreme authority in all matters to do with the life and conduct of the church, we make it, as it were, a vehicle for our concepts, our views, and our doctrinal systems, or whatever else. We shall always get into trouble if we so do.
They continued steadfastly in the Word of God. There never came a point, apparently, when these folks felt they had arrived and now knew all that there was to know. They continued steadfastly, discovering more and more of the fullness of God in Christ through the Word of God.
Now, this evening I want to take the second of these essential and fundamental characteristics: they continued steadfastly in fellowship.
There is no matter in which we need to continue more steadfastly than in fellowship. Fellowship is the one area where we fall out with one another. The greatest of friends fall out in time.
This is a matter in which we truly need to continue steadfastly. I predict that unless we become aware of the devices of the enemy and the schemes of the powers of darkness, no two believers will stay together in this place tonight in twenty years’ time.
We shall have suspicions about one another, reservations about one another. We shall feel that brother so-and-so overemphasises this, or brother so-and-so is in error on that; or we shall feel that for this reason we cannot commit ourselves to brother so-and-so, or cannot have fellowship with sister so-and-so.
It is a question of the enemy’s consistent, continuous attack upon this vital characteristic of the work of God: fellowship.
Now, I do not suppose there is any word more devalued than the word fellowship. What do we mean by fellowship?
Of course, we find it actually in the Greek. We find it here in Acts Chapter 2, verse 44: “They had all things common.” That word common is the root word of fellowship. We have the same thing again in Acts Chapter 4, verse 32: “They had all things common.”
This word common is the word from which we get the word fellowship: having something in common.
This word, as I say, has been devalued. We speak of fellowship as being informality. If we sit in rows like this, we are not really having fellowship; but if we sit in a circle, we are having fellowship. Apparently, the way we arrange the chairs determines whether it is fellowship or not.
This, of course, is nonsense. It is not a question of how we arrange the chairs.
Some people’s idea, in certain circles in Christendom, is that if you meet in a church building, that is not fellowship; but if you meet in a drawing room, lounge, or kitchen with a number of believers, that is fellowship. It is the same idea: fellowship is basically informality.
Other people have the idea that fellowship is sort of a chit-chat. Provided you are not preaching a sermon at somebody, you are just having spontaneous conversation—that is fellowship, you see.
In fact, some people’s idea of fellowship is gossip. Basically, have a good little gossip, and so-and-so and I have had a marvellous time of fellowship. We would not think of it in those terms, of course, but we have torn some other believer to shreds, investigated their status, looked into their family, decided upon the way they bring up their children, and all this is fellowship. We have had fellowship.
Now, the other end of the stick is those who believe fellowship is giving someone a heavy word. The idea is that if you can give someone a paraphrase on the Book of Obadiah, that is fellowship. If you can reduce the Sermon on the Mount into one half-hour harangue, this is fellowship.
I remember when a brother got hold of me at a conference many years ago at Honor Oak and said, “I want to have a spot of fellowship with you, brother.” He got me into a corner, and with his Bible like this, he went on for half an hour, until some dear saint, whom I shall forever thank God for, delivered me from this brother.
I felt that this dear sister had come into the category of those who give another saint a cup of cold water in the name of the Lord. They delivered me.
Now, this is the opposite of chit-chat and gossip. It is the idea that fellowship is biblical. If you are only talking Bible, if you are only talking Canaanite language, if you have somehow or other got the proper phraseology, that is fellowship. Anything else is not fellowship.
Then we get this terrible artificial atmosphere amongst some of God’s people, where everybody feels that they must have fellowship with somebody else. It becomes a kind of contrived atmosphere where we speak to one another in sort of Scriptures, if you know what I mean.
Now, when it is of God, there is nothing more wonderful. The Word of God tells us that we are to make melody in our hearts, that we are to sing and fellowship in that way with one another. When it is really of God, it is a most wonderful thing—when it is the expression of a genuine, genuine oneness in the Lord Jesus.
But when it is contrived, there is nothing more terrible. It is religion, pure and simple. The heaviness that comes from it makes one want to flee as fast as one can from those who perpetrate such fellowship.
There is also an idea that fellowship is camaraderie—just a kind of bonhomie, a sense that we are comrades. It gets a little nearer to it, but it does not go far enough.
All these are ways in which the word fellowship is used, and in most cases it is a devaluation of its meaning.
What does fellowship mean? It means that you and I have something in common, and that which we have in common is the basis of our fellowship. It is the basis of our relationship, the basis of our moving on together, and the basis of our service.
Now, what do we have in common? It is a good question.
We cannot say it is the gender of our sex, because some are ladies and some are men. Whilst we do not see anything unequal about that, the fact of the matter is that there is a difference. So that is not what we have in common.
What else do we not have in common? Race. You may be Caucasians; I may be a Semite. So we are different on that. The colour of our skin may be something we do not have in common. Some of us are white, some peachy yellow, some coffee brown, and some black. So we do not have that in common.
What about nationality? No, we can rule that one out. We have many different nationalities.
We could all sit together in a meeting with our different skin colours, racial backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, different sexes, and all the rest of it. But what is it that you and I have in common?
Well, we do not have temperament in common, because some of us are very phlegmatic and some of us are very volatile. We are quite different in temperament, and that is probably the basic problem in fellowship.
Those who are phlegmatic believe that that is the most spiritual thing in the world. To look dead is to be spiritual—at least that is how the Latins and the Jews would see it.
There they sit as if they were in a graveyard. They hardly move. They never raise their hands; they never drop their hands; they hold their hands together. They are very quiet, bow their heads, and hardly say, “Amen.” When they do sing, it is never too loud, because it is indecent to sing with all your lung power.
Then you have other people who are volatile—quite different. They shout, “Amen!” and all those who are phlegmatic feel they should shut up.
“Why does he have to shout ‘Amen’? He is an extrovert. He is an exhibitionist. Can he not be quiet? The Lord can hear him when he says it in his heart, so why do we have to hear him?”
The volatile always feel, “Oh, if only the Spirit of God could fall upon the phlegmatic and somehow move them.” The phlegmatic always feel, “Oh, if the Spirit of the Lord could only discipline the volatile.” We are very different.
In many denominational groups, we are attracted by our temperament. Those who are quiet are attracted to certain denominations because that is the spiritual emphasis. Those who are very volatile are attracted to other types of denomination, because there it is much more volatile. The emphasis is upon that, as if that is in itself spiritual.
Temperament will remain temperament all the way through our lives. There are excesses from our temperament which the Spirit of God will temper, moderate, and balance; but the fact remains that you and I remain temperamentally what we are.
Yet so often we try to manipulate one another, change one another, and conform one another—especially leadership, because so often leadership in the work of God believes that its own temperament is actually the law, and actually the work of God.
So if you have someone who is volatile, he tells you all, in time or place, “Stand on your chairs and lift up your hands,” as if that is something spiritual, as if by the very act of standing on a chair and lifting up your hands you are going to be released.
Then you have the other kind of person who feels that somehow we should be deadly quiet. It is amazing to me: they tell us that to be spiritual we should not have musical instruments—only the Spirit. It is a very strange thing. These people sing with their tongues and their vocal cords, which is a very physical thing.
It is very strange, these kinds of doctrines that we have, all of which run along our temperamental stance or position—the type that we are.
Well, I am afraid that on this matter we are not one. We do not have this in common.
Of course, we can start a denomination. If anyone wants to join me, we can start a denomination, and we can start it on my temperament. The Lord help you! We can start on something that is my kind of temper. We shall say, “This is the work of the Lord. This is what the Lord wants. Everybody has got to be like me. They have got to act like me and be the same type of—” Would that not be terrible?
Yet this is the curse of the work of God. I tell you, I travel all over the place. I used to be able to tell you, by the way a person shakes your hand, what denomination they belonged to—and that is not a joke. It is actually true.
I could tell you a whole list of denominations and the type of handshake they had. In exactly the same way, I used to be able to tell you, by the way a person preached, what denomination they were. There was a certain tone and a certain way of preaching that belonged to different denominations.
Praise the Lord, in the great move of the Spirit in the last two decades much of this has been levelled out. But nevertheless, it is an indication of the way temperament has been used as if it is in itself spiritual.
But we do not have temperament in common. We are quite different from one another in this way. Whilst there are broad lines of temperaments, so that we can move together in this type or that type or another, the fact remains: not all believers are of the same temperament.
Then what do you and I have in common? The Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus is the One that you and I, if we are born of God, if we are saved by the grace of God, all have—the same Lord Jesus.
He is the one and only foundation upon which God builds His spiritual house. He is the one and only foundation upon which God is building His temple, upon which God is building His church.
Now, I am in Christ. God put me there. I did not get there by my own works, my own energies, or even by my own desires. When I confessed that I was a sinner and could not save myself, and put my trust in the saving work of the Lord Jesus on Calvary, in that moment the Spirit of God placed me in Christ.
From then on, by the grace of God alone, I have been in Christ. In the sight of God, I am in Christ. Is that not marvellous?
Listen to a very well-known Scripture:
Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus became my sin—He who knew no sin—that I might become the righteousness of God in Him, not apart from Him, but in Him. Is that not amazing? That is where I am.
Now, I am there. Are you there? Do I have a different Lord Jesus to you? Of course not. I have only the same Lord Jesus you have. He is so great. You are in the same Christ that I am.
Now, you say, “Ah, no, just wait—there is a difference. Christ is in me. He lives in me.” And you say, “By the grace of God, He lives in me also.”
Now we have a twofold unity. I am in Christ; you are in Christ—the same Christ. The same Christ is in me, and the same Christ is in you.
Now we have this Lord Jesus, this same Lord Jesus, in common. Now we can, in one sense, be ourselves. We can make our own real and genuine contribution.
I do not have to try to be like you, and you do not have to try to be like me. What both of us have to be is conformed to the image of God’s Son. That is where the change needs to take place.
The weaknesses, failings, and imbalances in me need to be ironed out. Sin needs to be dealt with. I need to be brought into a place where He can instruct me, teach me, educate me, and cause me to grow up in Him—and you likewise.
But the marvellous thing is this: you will remain you, and I will remain me. We will be, in our own way, quite different, and we can rightly be ourselves.
Then, when you and I stay together because of the Lord Jesus, there is a fullness. I can contribute my experience of the Lord Jesus, and you contribute your experience of the Lord Jesus. I contribute my revelation of the Lord Jesus; you contribute your revelation of the Lord Jesus. I have my gift; you have your gift. You have your function; I have my function. And so there is a fullness.
Now, this is exactly what the apostle said in 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, verse 9:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is not, as some modern versions put it—I think very sadly—“God is faithful, through whom ye were called into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” I think literally it is, “into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Now, it is wonderful to be called into fellowship with His Son. Can you think of anything more wonderful, more privileged, more advantageous, than to be called into fellowship with God’s Son—to get to know Him, to experience Him, to enjoy the unsearchable riches of God in Him? My dear friend, it is a tremendous thing.
But I say there is something more in this statement in 1 Corinthians Chapter 1: “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This word, having in common, can be translated a whole number of ways, and indeed is in the New Testament. It can be translated as partners, partakers together, partners together, or sharing. That is the word I like most.
So let me put it this way, and see if it comes home to you in a new way:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the sharing of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Oh, now does that put a new complexion on this? Does it give you a new window into its meaning? You and I have been called into the sharing of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
He is so great that He cannot be contained in any one of us. He cannot be expressed in any one of us. He needs all of the saints, and many more, for His fullness to be expressed.
Now you and I are sharing Him. I have something to express of Him. You have something to express of Him. It is the same Lord Jesus.
Think for a moment—think for a moment—how wonderful this is. What a calling! Is it not interesting that it is prefaced with this word: “God is faithful”?
God is faithful in spite of all the conflict over this matter of fellowship, in spite of all the devices of Satan. God is faithful.
If you and I will only continue steadfastly. If we give up, if we depart, if we divide, if we are divorced, if we are alienated from one another, then we are out of it—not that we lose our salvation.
But the lesson that you and I are supposed to learn, we have refused to learn. That means we may go wandering round in a wilderness for forty years, but God will not take us on until we learn the lesson we refuse to learn. Very simple—very simple.
The whole of Christianity is filled with people who leave this fellowship for that fellowship, this group for that group, and this church for that church. Sometimes it is understandable, but very often it is just incompatibility.
We have come up against something and are not prepared to face it. Rather than face it, we say, “I believe God is calling me somewhere else. Goodbye.” Off we go to another delusion, until we discover—because God is faithful—that before very long, even if it takes years, we come up against the exact same incompatibility.
So, you see, it seems to me that it is much better to experience the faithfulness of God, stay together, and learn the lesson. It is amazing what God can teach us when we stay together.
If, on the very minimal side, He can at least teach us what we should not be by observing one another, there is much more than that.
I take 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, verse 9, and find it right at the beginning of this letter. Now let me tell you: if you feel that you have problems over fellowship, let me tell you straight away—you do not, as far as I know, have these problems.
This church had a member in it who was sleeping with his father’s wife. This church had people taking fellow members of the body to court and suing them.
This church had people drunk at the Lord’s Table—not once, but apparently regularly—so that the apostle has to say in 1 Corinthians Chapter 11, “Do not get drunk at the Lord’s Table.”
This church had divided into factions. There was the Petrine faction, the Apollonian faction, the Pauline faction, and the exclusives. They said, “We are of Christ. We do not touch the other three factions in this fellowship. We are of Christ. We are the faithful ones—and, by the way, the superior ones.”
“Just so that you understand, we do not touch the dirt that is in the others. We are pure. We are the going-on saints. We have separated ourselves from the others entirely. We would not touch them with a ten-foot pole.”
My dear child of God, I do not care who you are: I doubt very much that you are in a fellowship—no, I am not talking about something on a false basis; I am not talking about something half dead; I am not talking about something in which two-thirds are not even born of God and yet are on the membership roll.
I am not talking about that type of thing called a church. I am talking about a living fellowship of God’s people, based in Christ, on the foundation of Christ. You might have problems, my dear brother, my dear sister, but I doubt very much that you have the problems that some of these folks at Corinth had. Think.
Right at the beginning of this letter, when he is going to talk about immorality, lawsuits before unsaved judges, drunkenness at the Lord’s Table, division, and faction amongst God’s children in this particular fellowship, he says:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
One would have thought he would have said to them, “You are absolutely out of it. You have fallen away from any hearing in Christ. You have no place and no calling. Those who have drunk are out of it. Those who are immoral are out of it. Those who are factious and divisive are out of it. Those taking one another to law in unsaved courts are out of this thing altogether.”
No. He says, “God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is recovery.
But there can be no recovery if people are not prepared to continue steadfastly. If the Lord is going to continue steadfastly in His work of recovery, He needs to put the same determination in us.
Through thick and thin, through storm and sun, we are going to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus.
It is in this same letter that the apostle Paul said:
I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Could he find the crucified Lord Jesus in some of these members of the body of the Lord Jesus in Corinth?
Some of them did not like Paul. It says a lot for Paul. He had a Pauline faction there, and most great preachers—certainly if they are empire builders—would have been thrilled by the matter.
They would have said, “Now, those who have seen what I have seen, I must commend you. You are definitely the faithful ones. The Petrine faction are just a faction. They are all superficial; they are all crusades and evangelism. That is all it is. You have only got to read his letters to see the kind of standard.”
“And the Apollonians? All teaching. Apollos’ teaching is Alexandrian teaching—very fine, very sophisticated; not much practical consequence. And I do not like those exclusives either. But you, you who see what God has given me and are faithful to it—you are the church at Corinth.”
Now, I know as a servant of God that it is very difficult to go amongst people when you know that some do not recognise you, do not accept what you have, and sometimes feel you are in error. It is a humbling experience to go amongst people when you feel they say, “Some of the things he says are very good, and some of the other things—you take them with a pinch of salt.”
There is a kind of atmosphere. It is a very difficult thing. So what do you do? You can turn in on yourself and decide, “Well, let them go on with it.”
But not the apostle Paul. He says, “I determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ.” So he was going to find Jesus Christ and Him crucified in the Petrine faction, the Apollonian faction, the exclusive faction, and the Pauline faction.
He was going to make sure that the basis of all his fellowship was the sharing of the Lord Jesus.
You know, sometimes, dear brother, dear sister, it takes an awful long time, once we have got to know one another well, to see beyond the temperament, beyond the personality, beyond the weaknesses, beyond the failings, to the Lord Jesus in a person.
But once we have gone beyond the exterior, beyond the failing, and sometimes even beyond the sin, and found the Lord Jesus in that person, we have discovered a lesson we shall never be sorry we learned.
Now you have touched rock bottom in fellowship. It does not matter what you discover about your brothers and sisters; at least you have this one rock-bottom foundation: Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Now you can let the Lord do a work in you through your brothers and sisters, through their failings and sins—things in which you will not be a partaker, but which you will grieve over, weep over, and still love them.
Over some of the things you see, and the way they behave, you are taught by God not to behave in the same way. How much God can teach us in fellowship! Difficulties that we have with people work the greatest treasure in us.
So, dear brothers and sisters, here we have at the beginning of this incredible letter—with all its sin, all its failing and failure, all its transgression, lovelessness, and division—a marvellous statement:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, just in case anyone gets me wrong: I am not saying that when something has gone off the way, when something has become other than the church, when something has become cultic, when a false spirit and doctrines of demons and seducing spirits have been at work, we are meant to remain faithful.
Then we become faithful to it, and not to the Lord Jesus.
Though, may I suffer one other word in connection with this digression? I always say this because wherever I go now, I meet people in one group or another who have been thoroughly disillusioned and have now left. I am always finding folks coming to talk with me about their problems and everything else.
I always find the same thing: we are all unbelievably proud. We will not admit that we were deceived. So we blame brother so-and-so. “Brother so-and-so deceived me. Brother so-and-so deluded me. I went this way and this way, and he did this, this, this, and this.”
Then we spend our time blackening the name of brother so-and-so, or sometimes sister so-and-so. We blacken their name. Now, it may be absolutely true, all the things you might say about brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so, but the fact remains: it does not help you.
You were deceived because there was something in you that could be deceived. The only way you can come out of it is by repentance. You and I have to repent. Then, and only then, can we be safe.
Suffer that little word.
Now, I remember the Exclusive Brethren in Britain. Oh, what a tragedy hit that work. Of all the brothers and sisters in the old days in Europe and Britain, the deepest of all were the Exclusive Brethren—the most sober, the most serious, the most well taught.
When all that immorality came into them, and all the division, they would spend meetings of one-and-a-half hours in what they called laughing in the Spirit. I do not have any problem, now and again, in having a good laugh. But believe me, the Exclusive Brethren could spend a whole one-and-a-half hours in hysterical laughter. It was unbelievable.
Still, they all remained faithful, until they found the leader in bed with one of the elders’ wives. Then they discovered that he was an alcoholic. Then they blackened his name left, right, and centre. Everybody blackened his name, as if he were an arch-demon and an arch-villain.
But really what they were trying to say was, “I am good and he is bad.”
I always said to those folks, “How come you stayed in that for so long? Did not anything make you aware that there was something wrong?” If you can be deceived once, you can be deceived again, and again, and again.
Only when we repent—truly repent before God—does God begin to make us safe, so that never again will we be deceived or deluded in that way.
Well, my dear friends, when I am talking about fellowship, I am not talking about something which calls itself a church and is not a church. I am not talking about something which is the world dressed up as the church. I am not talking about something which once was a real movement of the Spirit but has become cultic, into which doctrines of demons have been introduced.
I am talking about fellowships where, with all their failings, weaknesses, and a lot of personal sin, believers are meeting in Christ and in Christ alone.
Now, what do we do? Because once we have found that kind of fellowship, we are not supposed to leave it unless we move address. Now, that is one way of getting over it. If you live here in Santa Barbara and want to move, get out—go to New York; then you can move.
But if you are living here in Santa Barbara and you are in a little fellowship like that—or somewhere else; forgive me, those of you who live here in Santa Barbara, I do not want to single you out—you know what I mean.
There is nobody here from Las Vegas. Well, I say, if you are there in Las Vegas and are meeting with believers in Christ, and now you have come up against problems, are you going to run a thousand miles from them? Are you going to spiritualise it and say, “They are all wrong. I cannot bear it anymore. I cannot find the Lord”?
Actually, you can find the Lord in the dimmest and dumbest of saints, if you look far enough and long enough. You will learn your biggest lessons by discovering Christ in the dumbest and dimmest of saints. You will find that God has treasure sometimes in some life.
So I must watch the time. Fellowship. I find that the apostle actually illustrates this after having dealt with most of the problems and got them behind him. Then he comes to 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, and he says this 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.
Then he goes on to talk about how the eye cannot say to the ear, “I have no need of you,” and one member cannot say to another, “I have no need of you,” because they are all placed together in the body for a reason.
In some marvellous way they all function together, and they need one another for the health of the whole, for the functioning of the whole. They need one another.
Now, is this not a marvellous illustration of sharing the Lord Jesus?
I think of my body. You look at yours; you do not have to look at mine. Look at your own body. Think for a moment how amazing this body is.
My fingers do not look like my ears, do they? Look at yours. They do not look alike. When you get back, you can stare at yourself in the mirror for a while. Just look how different every part of you is. It is all so different.
Yet if my ears said they wanted to be my fingers, what would I do? I would be deaf. And if I was deaf—think of it—some of you would praise the Lord; I would be dumb. When a person is totally deaf, they are dumb. See how interrelated this body is?
Supposing my fingers said, “I do not like being fingers. I would rather be the nose.” What would I do without my hands? How would I lift my Bible up? Better still, how would I eat? What would I do without my hands? Think.
Supposing my feet said, “Oh, we do not like being down here. We are such smelly and lowly creatures down here, always in touch with the earth. We would prefer to be at the top, thank you.” What would happen to my body if I had no feet? How could I walk?
Your body is a marvel. It has so many members, and yet all those members are interrelated with one another.
Supposing my finger said, “I do not like that ear. It is such a strange shape—nothing like me. Just look at that weird thing, like a half-moon with a hole in it.” My little finger says, “I do not think I am going to have anything more to do with that ear.”
Then, in time, paralysis is going to come into this body.
That is exactly what the apostle is saying in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. He is saying that every one of these parts needs the other part for the health of the whole, the soundness of the whole, and the functioning of the whole.
Now, my dear friends, what a wonderful thing it is that there is one body but many members. Though there are many members, we do not all have the same function. We are not all fingers, feet, ears, or mouths. We are all different.
Somehow or other, each one of us has to relax about this. He or she has to be himself or herself in the Lord, and give what you have of the Lord.
Now, I do not want to spend too much time on this, because I want to move on to the practical side before I finish. But I do want to say: it is all very well to say you belong to the Lord Jesus. It is all very well to say you have been saved by the work of the Lord Jesus. But do you understand what God has done with you?
He has put you in His Son. Now, whether you like it or not, there are a lot of others in His Son. We cannot always choose the stone that is next to us.
All of a sudden, we discover that in Christ here we are, set with other stones, and God knows just what He is doing.
We are so deceitful, many of us. Some of us would rather run a thousand miles than face up to the problem.
But God’s way of shaping us, of disciplining us, is through one another. If we do not continue steadfastly in fellowship, we shall find that the work of the Lord in our life has been blighted—more than blighted: it has been arrested.
We shall grow in knowledge. We shall grow in Bible knowledge, but that Word of the Lord will not be inborn. It will not be implanted.
How interesting it is that the Lord Jesus used such a severe word when He taught us the great pattern prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven.” At the end of it He said:
For if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Is it not interesting that that is the only thing the Lord Jesus emphasised in the whole pattern prayer? As if He was saying, “If you cannot stay together, if you cannot forgive one another, if you cannot overcome the differences, everything is arrested.”
That is rather serious.
Of course, the Lord Jesus reinforced this in other ways. He said, “If you come to the altar with a gift and you know that a brother has something against you, go to your brother and get it put right. Then come and make your gift.”
It was a serious matter, because the Lord Jesus shows us that this matter of fellowship can be the making or the breaking of it.
It is much easier, I must tell you from my own experience, to be in a large fellowship than a small one. When you have a large fellowship—preferably at least a thousand—anyone who is running away, choose a fellowship with at least a thousand people.
Get into a fellowship with one thousand or two thousand people. There you can be yourself and not be disciplined. You can go, sing, worship, lift your hands, bow your head. You do not have to go to the prayer meeting. You can naturally feel, “My presence would not be missed if I did not come next Sunday.”
Do you understand what I am trying to say?
But here you have a little fellowship of thirty people, forty people, and every single constituent—every member of the body there—is so important. One person only has to come with a glum face, and everyone wonders what is wrong.
Then you get some little incompatibility and you cannot get away from it. When you are only a few people, how can you get away from it? You cannot go and sit over the other side so you cannot see sister so-and-so; you are there, staring at them.
In these little house fellowships, we are just sitting all around the room looking at each other. You cannot get away from it. It is almost like being naked. Everybody can see exactly what you are. Very difficult.
Yet this matter of fellowship is so important. In the question of fellowship, remember this: there are a number of lines.
First and foremost, fellowship is with the Head. If we try to find fellowship with one another and maintain the unity of the body first, then we find that sometimes we fall out with the Lord.
In other words, if the whole work goes off the rails, we go with it because we are holding on to one another, not the Head. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
That is why it says a most amazing thing in Ephesians Chapter 4, talking about the body and the body functioning in the measure in which every single joint is a joint of supply:
Growing up in all things into Him, who is the head, even Christ;
from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth…
Is it not interesting that it prefaces this whole matter of the growth of the body, its increase, and the building up of itself in love, with growing up into Him who is the Head?
Now, my main thing in fellowship is to keep fellowship with the Lord Jesus absolutely clear, absolutely pure, absolutely open. That is the most vital thing.
I cannot find my brothers and sisters until I have found the Lord. Do you understand what I am trying to say?
In Colossians it puts it even more remarkably. It says in Colossians 2:19:
And not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together…
Holding fast the Head—what a marvellous word. We have to hold fast.
Sometimes you and I can have an argument. You and I can get irritated with one another. In the argument and irritation we have with one another, we lose sight of the Head. In that moment we do not hold fast the Head.
We only see one another, and the thing looms bigger and bigger and bigger until, in the end, we are divided and divorced.
How important it is to hold fast the Head. If you hold fast the Head, there is no way you can hold fast the Head without determining to discover Jesus Christ and Him crucified in your brother and sister with whom you have the argument. It is impossible. It is impossible.
Now, I know this finds us all out because we are all human beings. But how important it is that you and I should know this whole matter of fellowship is a question of growing up into Christ the Head. It is a matter of holding fast the Head.
I cannot find my brothers and sisters in a proper way until I have found the Head and held fast the Head. Then I find my brothers and sisters. If we all hold fast the Head, we will not go off the rails.
It is only when we do not hold fast the Head, and trust brother so-and-so to hold fast the Head, that he goes off the rails and we all go off with him.
But it is interesting that all the members are to hold fast the Head. Then they discover the body.
Now, fellowship has some rather hard lines. One is upward. I am talking about the human upward relationship. I know some people would not like me talking about upward, but it is upward.
Listen to this, Hebrews 13:17:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them: for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account; that they may do this with joy, and not with grief: for this were unprofitable for you.
Here is a relationship in fellowship upward. Would it not be lovely if all those in leadership were absolutely perfect?
Even the apostle Paul had so many faults that apparently the churches in Asia turned away from him. I have no doubt that if we talked with the churches in Asia and said, “Why have you turned away from this wonderful man, this apostle?” they would say, “You should see the way he dealt with so-and-so. You should see what he said about such-and-such.”
I have no doubt that the apostle Paul, being a human being, had many weaknesses. You only have to read his letters. In his second letter to the Corinthians he says, “You pushed me into boasting.”
One person would say, “Well, in our groups, especially the groups I was in at the Honor Oak fellowship, you should not say that kind of thing. That is not the Spirit of the Lord: ‘You pushed me into boasting.’”
Then in another place he says, in a rather disgusting reference, “I wish they would even go beyond circumcision.” You think, “Surely, is this the Spirit of the Lord?” This is all Scripture.
So you can quite understand that these churches would say, “Well, he is not spiritual enough. He really needs to be lifted on to a higher level.”
I do not care which servant of God, or which servants of the Lord, you are with: if you are with them long enough, you will be able to make a list of their faults and failings. I mean it.
I thank God for all my experience of our brother Austin-Sparks. But I tell you, I saw some faults and failings in our brother. He saw many more in me, I might say.
I saw those in him, and I was tempted many times to think, “I will let this brother go. I am not going to go any further. I am not going to go into it.”
But the fact of the matter is that that man was a prophetic voice in a whole generation, anointed by God, raised up by God. It seemed as if the whole of hell broke its fury over him and his ministry. I am so glad that I, for my part, never seceded from him.
I once asked Sister Elizabeth Fischbacher, when I was quite young and first met her—I was so thrilled with Brother Nee’s ministry—“Sister, did Brother Nee have any faults?”
She looked at me with those grey, mystical, big blue eyes, as if I was just mad. I have never forgotten her remark; it has remained with me ever since. She said, in her characteristic way, “Brother Nee was a very great man in God with very great faults.”
I have never forgotten.
So it is with every servant of the Lord. Peter, you will remember, got swept away by the Judaizing party, and he and Paul had an argument publicly.
Then Peter even says in one of his letters, “Our beloved brother Paul has written things that are very hard to understand.” You think, why did he put that in a letter? He had no idea that Christians were going to study that for the rest of the millennia.
When it comes to it, your brothers and sisters, the Word of God is clear. We learn very much by the weaknesses and failings of those that God has set in authority. We will learn that we have a thousand more.
Then we have to look beyond the weaknesses and imbalances to the Lord Jesus, see what He is doing in them, what He has called them to, the ministry He has given them, and be with them, support them, strengthen them, and go right through with them.
Authority is authority. There is no such thing as perfect leadership down here. We hope the Lord is doing a work in us all, but there is no such thing as perfect leadership. Well, suffer that little word.
Then, of course, there is the question of fellowship with one another—the horizontal level of fellowship. We have said quite a lot about that.
How interesting it is that the apostle Paul takes so much time in his letters—Colossians Chapter 3, Ephesians Chapters 4 and 5—talking about horizontal relationships within the family of God.
He talks about how we should not lie to one another, how we should not defraud one another, how we should not get angry with one another; and if we do get angry, do not let the sun go down upon it. In other words, seek forgiveness. Do not let it go over a day into another day.
Oh, how much there is in this matter of fellowship, and how much we learn by maintaining the unity of the Spirit.
Then, of course, there is fellowship downward—that is, those of us who have responsibility, whatever it is. We are responsible for other lives.
What does the Word of God say about that? Listen to this in 1 Peter Chapter 5, verse 2:
Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
Here is something about fellowship, if you understand what I mean, downward. You have a responsibility for other lives in the work of God, in the family of God, in the flock of God.
Then you are to be one who tends the flock. How few brothers tend the flock! We like the status of leadership, we like the aura of authority, but very few brethren tend the flock.
Do you know, sheep are extraordinary creatures? I have learned this since I have lived over the years in Israel. Goats only need to be looked at once a week because they are not disease-prone, but sheep need attention every day.
That is why the shepherd gets to know each sheep individually. It is not a sentimental thing. It is because he has to look at every one of the sheep. He knows the weaknesses of certain sheep for certain diseases.
Every day he goes to see whether foot rot is developing, whether there is an ulcer on the skin, whether there are ticks causing a problem to the sheep. It is not for nothing that God has called the church sheep.
Shepherds are meant to tend. They are meant to watch over the flock, spot disease, spot danger, and take action in time. Tend the flock willingly—not out of duty, not out of some compulsive, heavy sense of duty that you have to do it because you are one of the leaders in this flock—but willingly.
Then he says, “Do not throw your weight around, but be an example.”
This finds us all out, I can tell you. Be an example. It is no good telling the people of God, “We ought to pray,” if we are not the first in prayer. It is no good telling people to give if we do not give.
It is no good exhorting others to lay down their lives if we are not prepared to lay down our lives. It is no good telling everybody that we need to be broken when we are clearly unbroken. We need to be an example.
This finds us out in the whole matter of fellowship. Oh, there are so many other things we could talk about: fellowship in the gospel, fellowship in the work of the Lord, fellowship in suffering—so many things in the whole area of fellowship.
But here it is: it is an essential characteristic of the church of God, and of any recovery work that the Lord is doing. Here is something else that is essential:
They continued steadfastly in fellowship.
Are you?
Let us pray.
Lord, in one way or another, every one of us is found out before You in the whole question of fellowship and of continuing steadfastly in it. Lord, there are those we can get on with, and there are many we cannot.
Lord, we pray together that You will challenge us deeply by Your Spirit this evening in this whole matter of fellowship and of continuing steadfastly in it—not seeking just to maintain something human and social, but to continue steadfastly in the sharing of the Lord Jesus with other believers.
Oh, our Father, will You be merciful to us? Where forgiveness should be sought, help us to seek forgiveness. Where forgiveness should be given, help us to give that forgiveness.
Lord, where we should humble ourselves, help us to humble ourselves. Where we need to be teachable, meek, Lord, bring that spirit of gentleness and meekness into us all, whatever position we have amongst the saints.
Lord, help us all to continue steadfastly in fellowship. Help us to provoke one another to love and good works instead of depression and disillusionment.
Help us, Lord, to really inspire that kind of love in one another. Stir it up, Lord, and bring about, as it were, the initiation of much good work.
We ask it together in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.