Fellowship vs. Personal Relationship
series
Fellowship with the righteous is
contingent on one thing; we must keep His commandments. Those who keep His
commandments are the only ones that God will have companionship, sharing
having, or giving a sharing in Him. Fellowship means companionship, familiar
interaction, sharing having or giving a share in the Kingdom with the God head
and the body as we are in a corporate partnership together in Christ Jesus that
by our association together we have a mutual aim and interest. Do we have
fellowship with each other? Can we have fellowship with the wicked and
unrighteous? Let’s look at these two areas in the light of fellowship.
Who is the
Righteous?
Those who are righteous are
Christians (Acts 11:26). He is righteous (1 John 2:1). We are made righteous by
Christ in Christ (Rm. 5:19 & 6:18; 1 John 2:29 & 3:7). Those that are in Him and obediently live in
Him are righteous. So all those in Him have fellowship with one another. The
Psalmist sums it up in Psalms 119:63 where he says he is a companion of all who
fear God and with those who keep God’s commandments. How can two walk together
unless they agree (Amos 3:3)?
They are one
body
We see that those in Christ are
brethren (Matt. 23:8). We see the
faithful continue in one accord in prayer and supplication (Acts 1:14). When
the day of Pentecost had fully come they were all with one accord in one place
(Acts 2:1). In Acts 2 we are on the first day of the week and we have a group
of believers (3,000) were baptized (Acts 2:41). Also in Acts 2, we see them continue
steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, and fellowship, in the breaking of bread,
and in prayers (Acts 2:42). Now this
same group shows us a statement of unity by being together and having all
things in common (Acts 2:44-45). This same unity continues even when the body
grows. In Acts 4:32 the multitude of
believers were of one heart and one soul. Acts 5:12 says they are all in one
accord on Solomon’s Porch. In Acts
11:26, they assembled together for a whole year. Here they were first called
Christians. All who were like-minded were called the same. King Agrippa makes
that apparent in Acts 26:28.
They are
called Christians
Christian was a common tittle
for those who were doing the same things for the same cause and reason. Those
were in fellowship with one another. Acts 2:47 lets us know these were the
saved believers. How can one person build such a tight nit personal
relationship with 2,999 other people? How could they grow in that and add to
the number of people daily? We see in Acts alone it was something much deeper
and much bigger than you and I. What could it be? God. They continued
steadfastly in the Word. That Word taught them about their partnership, that
they also continued in. How could they have continued in a personal
relationship after they were dispersed in Acts 8:1-4? They couldn’t have. If
that was the basses of their unity, then it would have failed. Why? They could
not have maintained it. Fellowship did, it was bound by a mutual faith.
Mutual Faith
Paul speaks of a mutual faith. It
must be the faith that came by the one gospel he preached (Rm. 1:12; Gal.
1:6-10). We were all baptized into one
body by one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). We
are many but one bread and one body. We all partake of one bread (1 Cor. 10:17,
11: 23-26). There is a fellowship in ministering to the saints (2 Cor. 8:4). We
see fellowship given to Paul and Barnabas by John, James, and Peter showing
partnership, mutual faith (Gal. 2:7-9).
Paul thanks God for the fellowship the Philippian saints had in the
gospel (Phil. 1:5). Paul also tells the Philippians that he has suffered the
loss of all things, and counted them as rubbish, that he may gain Christ. I
want to highlight the fellowship in His suffering that Paul mentions in verse
10 (Phil. 3:7-11 * 10). That fellowship is the same thing we see in Romans
6:1-6. Where Paul explains what takes place at our immersion into Christ in
water. Here we take part in Christ death, burial and resurrection, so that we
might walk in newness of life just as Christ has. This is where we are all in
fellowship with those that call Christ Lord and do what He says and are
immersed into Him (Luke 6:46; Mark 16:15-16).
Walking in
the Light
Then we can conclude the fellowship
with the righteous back in 1 John 1. John explains the fellowship we share, in
Christ. The Apostles declared what they had seen and heard so that we may
fellowship with them. We only have this fellowship with them if we walk in the
light. Incidentally in the same context that John speaks of the “declaring of
what the apostles’ saw and heard” to us was also so that we could have
fellowship with Christ and keep that fellowship with Him as we walk in the
light. The apostles’ teachings were Christ’s commands (Acts 2:42; Matt.
28:18-20; 2 Tim 3:16-17) God wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). Those that do are in fellowship with one another.
Conclusion
With this length and depth of this study and
the study to come this is a good place to pause. I know that as we continue in
our search for what biblical fellowship is we traverse a daunting amount of
scripture, for good reason. A personal relationship with Christ and others does
not include what we study; it simply highlights the commands to love, and not
in the biblical since. As we see in scripture the love we are to express is by
the word (Matt. 22:37-40; 1 John 5:1-5). As we come to our next study on
fellowship with the unrighteous, please remember that as Christ is righteous so
are those that faithfully walk in Him. Meaning that everything outside of Him
would be unrighteous and all unrighteousness is a sin (1 John 5:17).
"Fellowship With The Unrighteous"
"Fellowship with the Godhead"
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