Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): What's the purpose of the church? And how is it meant to impact your life? Find out in today's message from Stewart Briscoe. But first, right now is one of the most important times of the year for telling the truth because we're approaching our financial year end June 30th. So to help close the books on the strongest possible footing, some generous friends of the ministry have stepped forward with a $91,000 matching grant which will double any gift you give today. That means your support right now is worth twice as much. Your gift doubled by this matching grant will help take Stewart and Jill's teaching and resources even further, reaching more people with the life changing truth of God's word through radio, digital platforms, global partnerships, and even social media.

And to say thanks for your gift today, we'd love to send you Stewart's two message series Let Your Light Shine. In this encouraging teaching, Stewart unpacks how your everyday life, no matter how ordinary, can reflect the light of Christ to the people around you. So request your copy when you give today and thank you for helping shine God's light into the hearts of people everywhere. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Stewart Briscoe with this message Gathered for Fellowship.

Stuart Briscoe: We're going to continue our study of what I like to call the prototypical church. That is the original church that was founded on the day of Pentecost in the city of Jerusalem when Simon Peter explained to the crowds who had gathered what was going on when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the 120 disciples. And as a result of his explanation and his challenging message to them, 3,000 people were added to their number. The result was that now they had a burgeoning community centered around the person of Jesus. And what we do know from Acts chapter two is that the prototypical church gathered together for certain activities and then scattered in mission.

And that is the fundamental picture and that is something that I think we're in danger of forgetting in the present area. We are gathered for certain reasons and those reasons are stipulated in Acts chapter two. They gathered and they devoted themselves for the apostolic teaching, for the fellowship, and for the breaking of bread and prayers. And we simplify that by saying they gathered for discipleship, they gathered for fellowship, and they gathered for worship. Well, last time I talked to you, we looked very very briefly into the idea of them devoting themselves to the apostles teaching or if you like to discipleship, a major task of the church in all ages.

The second thing that we were told is that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. Let me read to you from John's first epistle. The opening words of it are in the beginning of the epistle, not the specific opening words. Verse three of chapter one. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard. In other words, that is the apostles teaching. They were simply passing on what they had seen and what they had heard. But he then goes on to say we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us.

So now there's fellowship, this fellowship of the 12 disciples and the apostles that who came out of the group of disciples, the fellowship they had with Jesus, he is now opening that up. And he is saying to the people to whom he is writing now we are explaining the Christian gospel to you so that you might enter into the fellowship of which we ourselves are apart. And then he describes this fellowship. Our fellowship, he says, is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. In other words, they gathered together in order first of all that they might learn more and more about the relationship they now had with the Father, the relationship they now had with his son Jesus Christ, the relationship that they had with the Holy Spirit.

And then as a result of that, the relationship that they had with all the other people who had a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Now the Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. That is koinonia. It comes from the root word koinē, koinē. It means that which is common. So for instance, there is a kind of Greek that is not classic Greek. It is koinē Greek. It is the language spoken by the common people. It is the language of the marketplace. So the idea of koinonia is to have in common or to share or to participate or to have a relationship to be in a sense of oneness with.

And incidentally, coming from the word koinē, there are many words like koinonia that have to do with sharing, participating, partnership, etc, etc. Now this is emphasizing something that we need to emphasize today. And it is this, that when we come as an individual to an experience of Christ, many of us think purely in terms of the benefits that accrue to me the individual because of the experience of Christ. Now there's a legitimacy to that. Very very often, particularly in the evangelical church to which I belong, we encourage people to, as we put it, give their testimonies or speak of their personal experience.

And there's a sort of formula that is developed over the years. People tend to say the same thing, use the same phraseology. One of the most common phrases that is used in people's testimonies is I accepted Jesus as my own personal savior. Well, that's good news. I accepted Jesus as my own personal savior. That's true, but it's not the whole truth. In actual fact, it's not so much that I accepted Jesus. The incredible thing is that he accepted me. But not only that, he is not my own personal savior. He is the savior of the whole world.

In general, that is potentially his death and resurrection is efficacious for all people. Not that all people will universally enter into it, but it is it is potentially available to them all. But more importantly, when we recognize what John is saying here, we want you to have fellowship with us for our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son. What he's really saying is this, when you came into a relationship with Jesus and through Jesus with the Father and the Holy Spirit, when you did that, you entered into a community of people all of whom share this huge secret, this huge foundational statement.

In other words, it wasn't a case of you accepted Jesus as your own personal savior. It was a case of he graciously drew you into a relationship with himself. And in so doing, you discovered yourself in a relationship with everybody else that he had drawn to himself. In other words, there is a personal dimension, but there is a community dimension as well. And this is the fellowship that he's talking about. Now we've come a long way from meeting my friends and having a cup of coffee with them. Now we're talking about something mysterious, something transcendent, something that I share with innumerable people who are very very different from me.

What do I share? They know the same Father I know. They love the same Jesus I love. They experience the same spirit I do. Goodness, just look at what we have in common. One of the sad things that's happening in the contemporary church in my view is what I like to call generationalism. Generationalism. Generationalism seems to be predicated on the idea that each generation is different from every other generation. Now we've got churches that are designed for certain segments of people. What would the apostle Paul make of that, do you think? I remember what he said to the Romans.

What he said to the Romans was this. He said I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone everyone who believes. Then he goes on to explain that he is eager because he's not ashamed of the gospel to preach the gospel. And then he says, and I have a feeling of obligation. I am in debt to the wise or the unwise, to the educated or the uneducated. Now we don't say that today. We say, well, we major on the up and outers, or we major on the down and outers, or we major on the boomers, we major on the busters.

We are focusing on the 35 year old upwardly mobile people. No no, that's not the koinonia. The koinonia is it doesn't really matter what their background is, what their socioeconomic standards are, what their knowledge of theology is. What really matters is this, they have now discovered a relationship with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Spirit. And by definition of therefore entered into a relationship with everybody else related to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the koinonia. The apostle Paul puts it this way. He says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither male nor female, there's neither slave nor slave owner.

We are all one in Christ Jesus. Koinonia. Now then, that's the theory. Koinonia fellowship is not a subjective experience. It is an objective truth. That's the firm foundation that we need to build on. Okay, so now they gather regularly. And what do they gather regularly for? They gather regularly for the fellowship. They gather regularly now to put into operation the practicality of this fact that they are now all one in Christ Jesus, as Paul told the Galatians. Now how do they do that? Well, one of the interesting things about Acts chapter two is where it begins to explain the life of this fellowship.

How often the word together occurs. Together, together, together. Well, this makes sense. If there is a fundamental spiritual fellowship, a koinonia, then it should have a practical outworking. This practical outworking, if they have a spiritual oneness, it should have a practical togetherness. And that is what we're developing in this early church. In other words, they were not a bunch of disparate individuals who have Jesus as their own personal savior only. There were people who began to recognize the koinonia that they had with the people of God. And how did they demonstrate that? Well, I would suggest to you two key words here.

They demonstrated it by caring. And they demonstrated it by sharing. They demonstrated it by caring. They demonstrated it by sharing. Caring for each other, sharing with each other. First of all, the sharing part of it. We are told of something very very fascinating about this prototypical church in Jerusalem. It said that those who had property sold their property and gave the proceeds to the leaders of the church. And the leaders distributed this to those who were in need. Now this has led some people to say, oh, they must have had a compulsory requirement if you became a member of that church.

And that was that you handed over all your property to the leadership and then they distributed it. It was a kind of communism. No, it was not a kind of communism. It was a communalism but not a communism. Communism says basically what is yours is mine. Communalism says what is mine is yours. One is mandatory, the other is voluntary. So what they're actually saying is this, that there was an attitude of sharing. There was an attitude whereby if there were people in need, other people with resources were willing to share their resources with the people in need.

This makes sense. It makes sense if they are all one in Christ Jesus. It makes sense if they recognize that because they all have the same Father, love the same Son, and are indwelt by the same Spirit, that they are one with each other. That makes sense. And so there was a sharing there. Some people have pointed out incidentally a unique situation in the church in Jerusalem. One was the the people who came to faith in Christ on the day of Pentecost, many of them didn't live in Jerusalem at all. They had traveled it from all over the region for the Pentecost feast.

And they would be going home at the end of it. But they heard this message of Jesus and they'd heard that Jesus had ascended into heaven and the message had been given at his ascension. And the message was this, this same Jesus that you have seen go into heaven will come back in like manner. So what did they think? Oh, he's coming back. And he is gone from here, he'll come back to here. So we ain't going home. We're staying here and we're going to wait for him. Well, if they had traveled in with enough resources for a vacation in Jerusalem at the feast and then they stayed, guess what?

They ran out of money pretty quickly. Not only that, it was well known in Israel at that time and I think to this day as well that many Jewish people preferred to die in Jerusalem if at all possible. They believed Messiah would come to Jerusalem at the great day of resurrection. They wanted to be right on the front row. And so very old people and very sick people would come from the various parts of the region in their dying days. And they would move into Jerusalem. So what happened? There were a lot of widows there, a disproportionate number of widows.

This was the community. A lot of people had run out of money, a lot of widows who were practically destitute. So by the law of averages, many of those people came into the Christian church. A lot of need there. And so what does Paul teach? And what did what did the other people recognize before Paul? It was this, that there were those with resources and those who were in need, there would be a oneness, a koinonia sharing. But there was also a caring. One of the fascinating expressions in scripture is the one another expression. And let me just leave you with one passage of scripture that that illustrates this.

In Romans chapter 12 and verse 10, I think it is. Let me start with verse nine. Love must be sincere, hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another. This is the expression that occurs over and over again in the New Testament, one another. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Verse 16, live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, etc, etc, etc. And so Romans chapter 12 gives us practical exhortations on caring for each other. Not only that, the word for a bishop or the word for elder in the New Testament is episcopos or episkopos.

And this word means literally to watch over or to see to it. Hebrews chapter 12, check it out sometime. Hebrews chapter 12 has all kinds of exhortations to believers in the community of faith. And one of the exhortations is that we are to see to it that other believers respond appropriately to the Christian gospel. This requires an awful lot of work, an awful lot of humility, and an awful lot of relation building. And that is what the church does when it gathers together. Thanks for joining us today. We're so glad you're with us and we pray today's message has helped you experience more of the abundant life Jesus offers.

We have a message from a listener named Jackie. I feel like I know you all, especially Jill. I can so relate to your teachings, your words of wisdom. Yours is one of the first radio ministries I listened to when I became a Christian. I am so thankful to our Lord for his guidance to you all. Endless blessings forever. Thank you for those words, Jackie. Right now is one of the most important times of the year for telling the truth because we're approaching our financial year end June 30th. So to help close the books on the strongest possible footing, some generous friends of the ministry have stepped forward with a $91,000 matching grant which will double any gift you give today.

That means your support right now is worth twice as much. Your gift doubled by this matching grant will help take Stewart and Jill's teaching and resources even further, reaching more people with the life changing truth of God's word through radio, digital platforms, global partnerships, and even social media. And to say thanks for your gift today, we'd love to send you Stewart's two message series Let Your Light Shine. So request your copy when you give today and thank you for helping shine God's light into the hearts of people everywhere. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org.

We're glad you joined us today. Listen in tomorrow as Stewart shares more about all the ways God designed the church to transform your life and help you transform others. That's next time on Telling the Truth.