What makes for true Christian fellowship?
There is a pervasive “sense of belonging” that characterizes so many churches that is no deeper than a similarity in how we dress and in merely meeting together every Sunday. A collective of strangers. Christian fellowship should be something far more profound than something that seems no different to how we feel about our national identity. We know it should so much deeper than a hearty handshake, but because of poor leadership we don’t know what to do about it.
One leader of a Christian organization, seeking to train people for the Christian ministry, told me that he assumed that every person who came to church was a Christian. I should not have been surprised since he practiced infant baptism that undermines the biblical teaching of a personal conversion, as that which alone gives us the right to be called a Christian. I have made it a matter of seeking true fellowship that I will not walk with mere pretenders.
Psalm 26 Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Examine me, O LORD, and try me; test my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth. I do not sit with deceitful men, nor will I go with pretenders. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I shall wash my hands in innocence, and I will go about Your altar, O LORD, that I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving and declare all Your wonders. O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house and the place where Your glory dwells. Do not take my soul away along with sinners, nor my life with men of bloodshed, in whose hands is a wicked scheme, and whose right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on a level place; in the congregations I shall bless the LORD.
This psalm by David very much relates to our concern for true fellowship. If you want true fellowship you must be willing to walk with integrity, to trust in the Lord without wavering, avoiding false men who offer a cheap bribe in the place of true fellowship. Even now, I could have a lovely situation, a pastoral study with stained glass windows and so many people about me, but it would not be true ministry or true fellowship. Satan wants Christians to sell out on true fellowship for all sorts of pragmatic concerns. In Psalm 26, because David has not compromised true fellowship, he enjoys ‘the place where Your glory dwells.’
As evangelical Christians we need to understand what makes for true Christian fellowship. The answer is our mutual faith in Jesus Christ. Imperatively, we cannot assume everyone is a Christian and that means we have to emphasize a biblical understanding of faith. Many people claim to be Christian or to have faith, but if we settle for an unbiblical understanding of ‘a basis of belonging’ we settle for a false or at least superficial sense of fellowship.
If we are truly saved then let us share our testimony with one another. If our church has become dull, let us repent of our want of conviction for the true gospel, casting out the many false representations of the gospel, and let us hear from one another testimonies of our mutual faith in Jesus.
One of the things that will deepen our fellowship is the risk we take in opening our lives to one another. Please let me invite you to hear the following sermon from Philemon regarding the role of risk in our fellowship. I pray that its message might be a blessing to you.
February 21, 2021 – Philemon
November 14, 2021 – Colossians 1:1-14
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