Sort of had a hard landing there, didn’t you?
I think I just did.
I’d like to read just one verse: 1 Corinthians 1:9. You all know this verse by heart. It is a verse that is so very important:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now let’s have a word of prayer.
Lord, we’re so grateful for Your words, because Your words are spirit and life. We’re thankful, as we come to You this morning, that we do not have to trust in ourselves for Your word, but we can lean upon the One who is the Word—the Word made flesh, the Word that was from the beginning with God.
We thank You that You came to us and dwelt among us, and we have beheld Your glory, as of the glory of the only begotten of a Father, full of grace and truth.
So we ask You again this morning, as we think on Your word and share on Your word, that You would grant us real understanding into Your word. Lord, to whom shall we go? There is no one else. We wait upon You. We call upon You. We ask that You take Your word and do that thing which You can only do.
We believe what the prophet Isaiah says: that Your word will accomplish that which You sent it forth to do. In Your precious name. Amen.
Well, my burden is called into fellowship. That ought to be quite clear from this single text verse. I can tell you that the burden comes from this one verse alone.
From the beginning of this year, I have been meditating and thinking about this one verse. It has been very much impressed on my heart—the importance of this verse. I think one way to put it is that this single verse is of supreme importance.
I think it is a key that unlocks what fellowship really is, how we enter into it, and how we experience it. For that reason, we should pay much attention to it. It is one of my favorite verses, by the way, if you have not figured it out.
I think of this verse as a comprehensive whole. So much is packed into these three phrases that it is of such extreme depth and fullness. Another phrase I use about verses like this—and there are many in the Bible—is that they have within them a universe of meaning.
In this verse is a universe of meaning. We see the very nature of God. We see who God is. We see His person. We see the Caller.
Not only that, we see His desire for man—His unending pursuit of man. We see what He does. We see the called. And we see His end, His purpose. We see why He calls us. Why does He do what He does?
In those three things, and in the three phrases within this verse, we get a full meaning of what He is after and has been after since eternity past.
I remember when we were studying 1 Corinthians in our Bible fellowship. I still remember how much that book meant to me, and even more as we studied it together and shared on its importance.
I remember reading for the first time what Campbell Morgan said about this single verse, and it has never left me, even though it was years ago. He thought much of this verse. In his wonderful book, The Corinthian Letters of Paul—if you do not have it, you should get it—he said:
We shall devote this study to consideration of this one verse, for it is altogether too important to be hurried over.
He went on to describe it in a way I will never forget. He said, “It is the fundamental affirmation of this entire letter.” That is quite a thing. Remember, that is not me saying it, or you saying that. That is the one they refer to as the prince of expositors saying that.
He had an understanding that everything Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers had to do with this matter of being called into fellowship. He described Paul, later in 2 Corinthians, as that spiritual man who knew and lived in the center of that fellowship.
So this is the verse that is on my heart. Although I take one exception with Brother Campbell—and a fool speaks easily—let me say this: he said that this is the key to 1 Corinthians. Now, brothers and sisters, I happen to believe this is the key to the entire Bible.
If you understand this verse, you begin to understand who God is, what He does, and what He has been after for all time—and even before time, pre-time. All the mysteries of God seem to me to be compressed in this one verse.
Today we will consider three things. First of all, the unparalleled declaration: God is faithful. We will look at the Caller.
Then we will look at the second phrase, “by whom ye were called,” and consider the called ones. That is the universal call, I believe, and it is so clear.
Then we will look at the unfathomable privilege. It is a hard word to say if you talk as slow as I do. But the unfathomable privilege is wrapped up in this single verse: what we have been called into—“into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
First of all, the unparalleled declaration. Think of that. Think of just these three words: God is faithful.
Now, brothers and sisters, there are many words that are important in the Bible, but I think these three words are of supreme importance. Just imagine for a moment if these three words were not in the Bible. We would be left to our own devices, our own strength, our own wisdom, and our own ingenuity.
If you think for one moment that would get you through, you are sorely deceived. So I consider this the unparalleled declaration: God is faithful. What powerful words they are.
When I think of this world, and the chaos of this world—and I think most of you will agree, living through this past year, that this world is chaos—the cosmos is chaos. But God’s purpose is anything but chaos.
Living in the chaos of this world, or the conflict of our own lives—and I think most of you would probably agree with me that much of our lives is conflict—we live in spiritual warfare. It is not some phrase in Ephesians 6. It is reality for us that know the Lord.
Then I think of the compromise of the church. I think probably most of you would agree that, as a whole, the church lives—and we live—in the Laodicean period, where there is great compromise.
But when I think of the chaos of the world, the conflict of our lives, and the compromise of the church, this single three-word phrase, God is faithful, exceeds all of those shortcomings. What a tremendous phrase it is, and how wonderful it is.
This unparalleled declaration must be our declaration from the beginning. As we go through life’s hardships and hazards, it must be our unparalleled declaration all the way through. That is the secret that comes to us in this verse.
At the end of your journey on earth, when you stand on the precipice of eternity and go into that new realm, it must be our ending declaration.
As we commence, as we continue, and as we conclude, this single phrase needs to be our unparalleled declaration: God is faithful.
I believe He is faithful in the beginning. I know you believe He is faithful in the end. But I think we all know, in this current era of life, that He is faithful all the way through.
This phrase, “God is faithful,” is what they call in the English language a declarative statement. I may be a fool to speak about English, but nevertheless, this is a declarative statement. It makes a statement—and boy, this is the statement of the universe: God is faithful.
I have to joke with people: if you want to get a tattoo—and I do not have a tattoo, by the way—get a tattoo that says, “God is faithful.” There is a statement. That will make a statement when you are at the beach.
Think of it. It not only makes a statement; it provides a fact—an eternal fact, a glorious fact, the fact, the only fact that matters.
I think of our founding fathers. They saw a lot. I know they are probably all canceled now. You cannot repeat their names, and I will be canceled because I repeated their names.
But you remember John Adams, the second president. He made a famous statement about facts. Every lawyer knows it. In every court of law it is often repeated, and even politicians—who I have less use for—all know this statement. Of course, it is their facts. We are dealing with eternal facts.
He said, “Facts are stubborn things.” I know you have heard it. Every politician stands up and says, “Facts are stubborn things.” You get so bored with it. But he did make a real point:
Whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Again, he was a politician like the rest, but we know the eternal fact. That eternal fact is irrevocable. It cannot be changed. It is irreversible.
Linda and I went to our lawyer, and I think our lawyer was a little full of himself. He said, “You’ll thank me after we do this, and your children will thank me after we do this. We’re going to make for you a revocable trust.”
As long as I have been in business, I honestly did not know what a revocable trust was. The little pennies we have left over, Jessica, it means you may get them—or you may not—because it is revocable. In other words, I can change it at any time at my discretion, and Linda can change it at any time at our discretion, because it is revocable.
But this unparalleled declaration is irrevocable. It can never be changed. It is not only irrevocable; it is irreversible.
You know, if you did not have reverse in your jalopy, it would be irreversible. My motorcycle does not have reverse, by the way. My motorcycle does not have reverse. It is irreversible.
But thank God for this statement. Thank God for this declaration. It is irreversible. How wonderful that is.
I think this unassailable declaration is true all the way through the Bible.
You remember when the children of Israel were called out of the bondage of Egypt and called to go into the promised land. In Deuteronomy—many say the second giving of the law—God had one thing He wanted His people to know.
He said, “Listen, I’m not giving you this land because you’re better than anybody on earth. I’m certainly not giving you this land, which is full of seven heights—enemies stronger and more powerful than you. But I am giving you this land because I have chosen you. I have called you.”
You see, from the beginning, God’s heart was this: called into fellowship. Deuteronomy 7:9 says the one thing He wanted them to remember:
Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God.
That was the one thing He wanted them to remember as they went into the promised land and faced all that opposition: this one unparalleled declaration.
The Bible ends with this thought. In Revelation 19:11, you remember the vision John had. It is a powerful vision. It is about the marriage feast of the Lamb. The bride has made herself ready, and there is great rejoicing and hallelujahs in heaven.
But then it says:
And I saw the heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He that sat thereon called Faithful and True.
The one thing that is faithful. The one thing that is true. This is the unparalleled declaration.
I think of 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Brothers and sisters, in my journey as a Christian, from 1972 until now, I cannot tell you how many times this verse has come to me as encouragement:
Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.
Think of those words. Where would we be if it only said, “Faithful is He that calleth you”? But Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, said, “Who also will do it.”
Think of temptation. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says:
There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that ye may be able to endure it.
No temptation has taken you that is more than can be handled. I did not say by you, but in the Lord. And God is faithful. That is the secret. How marvelous that is.
I like the Darby rendering of this. As much as I love the King James Version—and I quote often from it, and I often get confused between the King James Version and the Darby Version—it talks about a way of escape.
Certainly, that is true. How often we have come into temptation, and this faithful God has made a way of escape for us. But Darby renders it slightly differently: He will make the issue clear so that you may be able to bear it.
Brothers and sisters, in any temptation where we find ourselves, no matter how deep, dark, or difficult, He will make the issue clear that we shall be able to bear it. That being able to bear it, I believe, is that we come to know this unassailable truth: God is faithful.
Even in our failures, I often think of the last words Paul wrote in 2 Timothy to his dear beloved son in the faith. 2 Timothy 2:13 says:
If we are faithless, He abideth faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
The Authorized Version, the King James Version, which I so love, says, “He remaineth faithful.” Think of that, brothers and sisters. If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. This is who God is.
One of my favorite hymn writers is Thomas Obadiah Chisholm. Not many of you probably know who Thomas Obadiah Chisholm is, but you know his unparalleled declaration. I guarantee you.
They say he wrote 1,200 poems and hymns, and we hardly know who he is anymore. In Christ in Song, we have three of his hymns. If we understood the importance of these three hymns, what a life we would live as believers.
The first one is “O to Be Like Thee.” It begins:
O to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer.
That was his constant cry. Would to God that our constant cry would be, “O to be like Thee.” We do not sing that hymn enough.
The second hymn is “Living for Jesus.” When all the world is living for themselves—and unfortunately, we have to admit, most believers are living for themselves—his secret, in all the chaos of his life, was living for Jesus.
That hymn begins:
Living for Jesus, a life that is true.
This is true living. Just think if that were our declaration.
Then all of you know the last hymn that he wrote: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” I cannot think of a more important hymn. I would be dogmatic, although I tend to be. It is one of the most important hymns in church history.
Here was a fellow who was no stranger to difficulty. He only had a primary education. We would think that is unthinkable. He had to be self-taught, and he taught in the one-room schoolhouse where he received his primary education.
Later, he became an editor. He was editor of a newspaper, then editor of a very famous Christian periodical, the Pentecostal Herald. His dream, when he was saved, was to become a minister. He became a minister, but his health failed, and he could not continue in that ministry.
We would think this fellow, with almost no education, whose health had failed and who was known by no one, would not be much to look up to. But when you look at what his declaration was, you have to say, here is one to look up to.
He became a life insurance agent in New Jersey. I love life insurance. We can always become life insurance agents. Yet even as a life insurance agent, this passion never left him.
Because of his anxious and nervous clients—his anxious and nervous clients—he wrote this wonderful hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” He meditated on Lamentations and penned these words as a gift to his clients.
You thought he was a life insurance agent. I say he was a life-assurance ambassador. What a difference.
This hymn has affected more people, with that single repeated line in the chorus, thrice repeated—“Great is Thy faithfulness”—than many thousands and tens of thousands of sermons, including the present.
How many people have been changed in an instant when, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it dawned upon them: “Great is Thy faithfulness.”
He says:
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.
And in that chorus, so mighty and so clear:
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
What a message. This should be our message. Have you discovered this secret? You need to.
If you are going to walk worthy of your calling wherewith you have been called, you need to understand this one great secret: great is Thy faithfulness.
What do we need to do as believers to understand that great secret and make this unparalleled declaration our own experience? Three things came to my heart.
First of all, we should remember the promise of His faithfulness. Never forget it. Never forget it.
If you have to write it on your mirror and look at it every morning, and look at it every night as you brush your teeth before bed, do not ever forget the promise of His faithfulness. It will carry you through everything.
I think of Hebrews, a book that is one of my favorites for sure. Hebrews 10:23 says:
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for He is faithful that promised.
That is the secret. I think of Sarah in the hall of faith, Hebrews 11:11. Abraham’s wife was beyond seasonable age. You know what that means: she could not conceive. Even worse was her partner, this aged man. It was totally impossible—truly impossible.
But it gives her secret:
She counted Him faithful who had promised.
Write it on your heart. Remember it every day. Never forget the promise of His faithfulness. It will be a secret for you for this life.
Second, declare His faithfulness. It is not enough merely to remember the promise of His faithfulness; we must declare His faithfulness.
I think of Psalm 92, a song for the Sabbath. Psalm 92:2 says:
To show forth Thy lovingkindness in the morning,
And Thy faithfulness every night.
What a secret. Declare His faithfulness. What a recipe for living that is for us believers.
Then the third thing. I will tell you the honest truth: this has only come alive to me in the last five or six-plus years. Time slips by. We need to feed upon faithfulness.
This came alive to me when a dear sister in our midst, who is no stranger to difficulty, shared it as a testimony: “Feed upon faithfulness.” Darby renders that, “Give yourself to faithfulness.”
It comes from Psalm 37:3-4. I was saved in the charismatic movement, and I owe much to the charismatic movement. I am thankful. I may still be a bit too charismatic for most of you, but I owe much to what the Lord did through the charismatic movement.
The latter part of Psalm 37 was our tagline, our watchword:
Delight thyself also in the Lord;
And He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Oh, that is charismatic. We knew that. You want something? You want a Cadillac? You want a nice home? The secret is in verse 4: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We knew it by heart.
But it is only in recent years that I have come back to verse 3:
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
What a secret. This is how this unparalleled declaration becomes your own experience. If it becomes your own experience, you can go through anything with the Lord, who is your portion.
I want to speak about the second phrase: the universal call. “By whom ye have been called.” This is very important, because this tells us what God does. Every one of us is called.
In this verse is the great heart of God for man. How wonderful it is. He calls, and He never stops calling.
We are considering Ephesians in our Bible fellowship. In Ephesians 1:4-5, it tells us what the great heart of God is for His people:
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
That we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love:
Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself.
Think about what was in the heart of God before time—pre-time. It says, “before the foundation of the world.” I encourage you to look up that phrase in the Bible. It will give you much light on what God had in His heart for all eternity for His Son.
The great thing in the heart of God is almost unimaginable when we think about it: this matter of being called into fellowship.
I remember Brother Kong, in 2007—not so many years ago, as time flies—sharing messages with us on the Corinthian letters. He titled them Called into the Fellowship. It is now a book, by the way, Called into the Fellowship of His Son.
Those were powerful messages that made us see more clearly what God was after. Our brother said something most profound in those messages, speaking of the Godhead. He said, “They came to the conclusion that they wanted to expand Their fellowship.”
How tremendous that is. They wanted to enlarge Their fellowship. The exact words our brother used were: “They wanted to extend it to mankind.”
Have you ever thought about that? Called into fellowship. They did not need to do that. But they decided, in pre-time counsels, before the foundation of the world, to extend this great fellowship even to His creation—to mankind.
Think of the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1:26-27. As you meditate on it, you begin to understand from the very words of those verses this great thing that was in the heart of God:
And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.
Can you imagine? We as human beings have been made in the likeness and image of God Himself. How unthinkable that is. This is what it means to be called into fellowship.
Then verse 27 says:
And God created man in His own image,
In the image of God created He him;
Male and female created He them.
If you look particularly in Darby, “Man” in verse 27 begins with a capital M. The thought is not merely of a person or an individual. It is a corporate vessel that He would bring into fellowship. This man is really mankind—the Adam, if you prefer.
His design for man was to call them into this fellowship: “by whom ye are called.” That was the thought behind it.
Think about this: the Creator so loved this creation as to include them in His great purpose. Not as a minor part, but as a major part.
I do not think much of Hollywood either. But if you are an actor or actress in a movie or play and you do not have a very important part, it is called a bit part. You understand that. You have a little bit, but you do not have much.
Brothers and sisters, in the high counsel of God, in the consideration before the foundation of the world, in the mighty heart God had, He was determined that we would not just have a bit part. We would have a major part in His purpose. How wonderful that is.
What He had in His thought was creation. Then He had in His thought calling. Then He had in His thought response. If only those He created could see this great thing He had reserved for them, hear the calling of God’s heart, and respond to it.
When you come to the New Testament, you begin to understand what that corporate vessel really is. You begin to understand that the corporate vessel of fellowship is, in fact, the church.
All of us know the Greek word for church is ekklesia. But do you really know what it means? It simply means the called-out ones. They are called out of something, and they are called into something unthinkable.
That unthinkable thing is fellowship with the living God—full fellowship, not limited fellowship, not part fellowship, not a bit part, but everything He has for us.
The word also carries the thought of meeting. Some may not believe me here, but just look into it and be honest. I have heard a brother say it has nothing to do with meeting. I think he is wrong.
The thought was of the town gathering in the town square: called-out ones gathered together. Thus, this corporate vessel of His choosing, which He purposes to experience all the benefits and wonder of fellowship, is the church of God—the called-out ones gathered together.
I believe the Lord came to this earth for two purposes. One was to satisfy all the righteous requirements of God. He completed that work. Before He ascended, He could pray, “Father, I have completed all You have asked Me to do. Not a thing is lacking.”
But the second thing He did was not merely to complete His work. It was to call His church into fellowship. This is very important. If you miss it, you miss the New Testament.
I used to mistakenly say for years that the Lord only spoke of the church twice: in Matthew 16, when He said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build My church,” and in Matthew 18, concerning the local church and the sinning brother.
He said that if he does not listen to the two or three, take it to the church. He described what that church was:
Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.
Brothers and sisters, I implore you: do not listen to anybody who tells you gathering is unimportant. If you do, you will fail to understand what the New Testament was, is, and what the great plan in the heart of God is.
The Lord spoke of the church again and again. It is true that He only spoke of it twice during His incarnate state, but when you come to Revelation, He spoke of the church.
Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, but it is also the revelation of God’s heart for the churches. In the first chapter, He told John, “Go, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia,” naming each church by name.
Then in Revelation 2 and 3, you begin to see God’s great heart for the church. He poured His heart out. I believe it was a pouring out that said, “Do you not know what you are for? It is being called into fellowship.”
The message to the church is this calling back, this adjusting, this correcting, this strengthening. What hindered fellowship, He corrected. He walked among the lampstands. What had to do with making fellowship real, He strengthened.
He ended with that divine call, that same universal call to every assembly:
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
Then He said to every church, “He that overcometh.” The only way to overcome is in fellowship. That is what we have been called to.
May the Lord really help us to enter into this depth of fellowship. Let me state some very important facts about calling.
Without calling, you will never understand the Christian life.
Without calling, you will never understand the church.
Without calling, you will never enter into fellowship.
Those are facts that are true. I think the Bible, from beginning to end, has to do with this matter of calling.
You remember when sin came in—Genesis 3—when sin came to Adam and Eve. In verses 8 and 9, God walked in the cool of the day in the garden, and man and his wife hid themselves among the trees from the presence of the Lord.
Then God called unto them and said, “Where art thou?”
Brothers and sisters, do you understand the importance of that? His fellowship was broken. What He was after was never to give up on His purpose, but to go to those fallen ones and restore them to fellowship.
Some of you in this room may, through your lifetime, have fallen from that place of fellowship. God, in His mercy, is intent on going back again and again, whatever it takes, and calling you into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
You remember Israel. Israel rejected the Lord. Can you imagine that? Everything was given to Israel, and yet they rejected the Lord.
In His mercy—make sure you remember I said that—in His mercy, He sent them into captivity. That was mercy. You may think that was cruel. It was not cruel at all.
They had abandoned the very purpose to which they had been called. They had lost fellowship with Almighty God. His one aim, right to the end of the Old Testament, was to restore that fellowship. However harsh He had to be, it was with one aim in view: to restore fellowship.
You remember the last two books of the Old Testament, Zechariah and Malachi. There are two verses that are very much the same. In Zechariah, He called out:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.
Then Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament—Malachi means messenger of Yah. God had a message for His people at the very end. In Malachi 3:7, He said:
From the days of your fathers ye have turned aside from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.
Listen to this painful response:
But ye say, Wherein shall we return?
Can you imagine how that must have broken the heart of God? There was divine silence for four hundred years because of that response. He was looking for the right response. He got the wrong response.
That is why I am saying the Bible is about calling and response. He is always looking for it.
I think of that great calling in the New Testament:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
And ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.
That was the universal calling.
In 1 Corinthians 1:2, Paul described the saints in Corinth as called saints. It means saints by divine calling. That is what it was about.
When you go to the great closing argument of Paul in Romans 8, you begin to understand that we are called according to purpose. We quote, “All things work together for good.” It would be a hard stop for many of us.
But Paul goes on to say, “To them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” This is the universal call. This is how important that second phrase is: ye have been called.
Do you understand the importance of it?
There is a strikingly controversial verse in Matthew 22:14. You remember the wedding feast and the man who came in without the proper garment. He was dismissed from the wedding feast into outer darkness. There is much to say there, which we will not go into now.
Then the Lord said something that has confused saints forever:
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Have you ever thought about that? We need to think about that. It has to do with the ultimate universal calling. I do not understand all that it means. We will have to ask Brother Stephen to explain that.
But I know something it means: the many that are called are the universal calling. The few that are chosen are the ones that respond. He is always looking for those ones to respond.
Brothers and sisters, I think there are two questions for you and for me:
The answer to these two questions will affect your eternal destiny. They are that important.
Let me end with a few thoughts on the unfathomable privilege. I have spoken about privilege before, so I do not want to spend much time. But think about that final phrase.
It says, “Ye have been called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Many of us think we have been called to eternity. Some of us think we have been called into ministry. Many of us do not understand what this unfathomable privilege is: you have been called into the center of everything, from eternity past to eternity future.
You have been called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Think of that word into. How important is that word? We have been called out of, and we have been called into.
Colossians 1:12-13 speaks of us being delivered from the authority, or domain, of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. That is what we have been called out of, and that is what we have been called into.
It is like the children of Israel in the Old Testament. They were called out of the bondage of Egypt, but they were called into the promised land. That is a weak illustration of what you have been granted in this unfathomable privilege.
Colossians says how great this fellowship is: Christ is everything. Think about that. Christ is everything.
In this calling into fellowship, you have not just been given one thing, or some things, or a few things, or many things. I do not care what adjective you put on it.
Listen clearly to this word about this unfathomable privilege: you have been given everything.
To emphasize it, the Holy Spirit spoke through the apostle Paul and said, “Christ is all, and in all.” That is what you have been granted in this call into fellowship. How wonderful it is. What a privilege.
It makes me think of Hebrews 3:1:
Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling.
That is what fellowship means. It means partakers. It means sharing in the portion.
Colossians 1 says that we are sharing in the portion of the saints in the light. What that portion is, this sharing of the saints in the light, is this calling into unfathomable fellowship—to share all that Christ is, not only for now, but throughout eternity.
Ephesians 2 says that in the coming ages—notice, it does not say age, but ages: the kingdom and eternity—He will display the unsearchable riches of His grace in Christ Jesus toward us.
This is how deep this calling is. I believe it is the highest calling. I believe it is the holiest calling. I believe it is the most heavenly calling that could be imagined.
Think how exclusive that fellowship used to be. In the pre-time period, it was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They were the only three who had this fellowship.
You might say, “Well, certainly the angels did.” No, no, no, do not be wrong about that. They were peripherally around it, but they did not enter into that fellowship as we do.
It says in Hebrews that He has not taken hold of angels, but He has taken hold of the seed of Abraham. What a privilege. What an unspeakable privilege.
I think there are three questions, and I will end with this thought. Let me turn to Romans 8. Paul, in his closing argument in Romans 8:31-32, ended with three questions to describe this unfathomable privilege.
He said:
What then shall we say to these things?
Have you ever thought much about that? Do you think it is a little filler verse? I do not think it is a filler verse at all. “What shall we say to these things?” It is a very deep, searching verse.
Then he says another question:
If God is for us, who is against us?
Think of it, dear saints. What privilege has been poured out on you. If God is for you, who is against you?
Then he ends with this wonderful question:
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Is that not a wonderful question? It is not a question that is in doubt. These are declarative questions. These are absolutely clear. How shall He withhold from us anything?
Well, that is the burden: called into fellowship—an unfathomable privilege indeed.
I remember Brother Kong, in those messages, Called into the Fellowship of God’s Son, speaking of 1 Corinthians 1:9. He said, at the very beginning of the first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul gives us this tremendous statement.
He said, “The more I meditate on it, the more I marvel at it.”
Then he quoted:
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then he said:
Can you think of anything nobler, higher, more heavenly, more spiritual, or more perfect than to be called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord?
There is nothing like it. There will never be anything like it. It is set apart.
Remember those three phrases:
Father, we think of this verse, and we cannot imagine that such favor has been shown to us. It is almost too much to take in, but it is altogether true.
We ask Your Holy Spirit to write it upon our hearts, where men’s words are too weak to communicate what is true. Would You speak to us? Would You write it upon our hearts?
Would You call us, in this life that we now live, to know what it means to be called into fellowship? Lord, only in that way will we fulfill our purpose, and only in that way will we fulfill Your desire.
Above everything, God has chosen this for His Son. We meditated in our time of remembrance that You were the unspeakable free gift. But this is unquestionably the highest, the most spiritual, the most perfect privilege ever there has been.
To this we give ourselves for the rest of our days. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.