Msg 2 – Addendum to God’s Household Order: New Testament Ministry Produced Fellowship

Genuine Fellowship

What we have on YouTube is genuine fellowship. I’ve recently seen on my wall people saying this is the best fellowship they’ve ever had in their Christian life. Gregg Jackson said recently that he’s been going to institutional church, but has never experienced the kind of fellowship he’s enjoyed with people he’s met on YouTube. Why is this? It’s because our gathering is not based on geographical convenience, similar interests, or anything of the flesh — it’s the Word and the Word forms a wall around us. We speak the same language because our focus is on Christ. He is the door into that fellowship and He’s the pastor. Christ is the reality of the fellowship. He’s the food. To the degree we enjoy Him, we have the expression of that fellowship. God has made a way for us to do it virtually, even though we’re all over the world. Just because you’re sitting behind a computer screen does not mean you are not enjoying the fellowship.

Our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son — that’s the fellowship. There is no fellowship between us without the Father and the Son. No, the fellowship with the Father and with the Son is extended to include us. This is important because a lot of people think they have fellowship and they don’t, they merely have a social life. What we have is something better in that no matter where I am, I get to enjoy God.

The woman at the well could not go to Jerusalem because she was a Samaritan, so for all intents and purposes, she’s out of the fellowship…she’s not allowed. How devastating to believe in God and yet not be included among His people. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” John 4:21-24 KJV

The first thing to enjoy the fellowship is for you to enjoy Christ. Anytime where we get together not based on the enjoyment of Christ is going to be a clique, or a club, or something of the flesh. In that situation, you get locked into something you wish you could get out of. What we want is to enjoy Christ and then we want to find others who also enjoy Christ. When this happens, we have a lamp stand — a testimony. But this is all based on the Word — it’s all based on the New Testament ministry, the witness concerning Christ. You don’t have the fellowship without the Word.

There had to be a communication from the apostles, the witnesses. This is how it is spread. The fellowship spreads through the teaching of the apostles. We’re simply looking at their teaching. We’re not adding anything new to it. We’re not coming up with our own terminology. We’re not doing anything, but looking at the writings of Paul, John, Peter, Luke, Mark, and Matthew to see what they say about Christ. This brings us into the fellowship. Then, when we share that word together, it’s our bread we can enjoy together. To the degree this occurs, then we have an expression of the fellowship. We’re made perfect into one and we’re being built together to be habitation of God in spirit.

You’re not missing anything if you are enjoying Christ as He is revealed in the Word! You are being built up. The pursuit is still the same — it’s to enjoy the fellowship of the Father and the Son through the teaching of the apostles, but then God raises up gifts to help open up that teaching and bring our attention back to it. Whenever that happens, there’s fellowship. We call it a revival, but it’s not, it’s just the normal Christian life of fellowship enjoyed among believers who are discovering the Word. It has to be discovered in each generation. We don’t inherit it…we really have to go through our own groping until we’re brought into contact with the Word where it becomes the answer to our problems and the comfort for our afflictions. It is then that it becomes our fellowship.

So, there’s a personal ingredient to all this. God has a plan to nourish and raise up a household by dispensing Christ as the food and drink through the New Testament ministry. You might think, “This is so glorious, I’ve never even heard that before.” No, it’s just Ephesians. Ephesians has been there long before any of us were around. If you have believed in Christ and have enjoyed something of Christ through the Word, you have been part of God’s building.

Sometimes God will raise up people to speak these truths with more clarity and it will bring an intensification of the reality of God’s building…at least an expression of it, which is called fellowship. We label it “revival”, but it’s really just the fellowship being expressed. Often, people don’t have much fellowship because there’s a lack of teaching, lack of equipping, and not many stewards.

Just meditate on the vision. Don’t feel like it’s a burden for you to shoulder…that’s the common mistake people make is to turn it into a work. Instead, just enjoy the fellowship.