Devoted to Fellowship

Pastor Robarge’s Sermon

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The industry out there that has the sports memorabilia, t-shirts and hats, it’s a multimillion dollar industry. You see it every day. You walk around, people are wearing their sports jerseys, their hats and it’s identifiable for people. They say, “Ah, you’re a fan of,” whatever team they might be wearing. But is there another reason why they might wear a jersey that signifies what team they enjoy? Is there something that says, “Hey, I’m a fan of,” let’s say, “the Cyclones.” It’s to tell other people, “Hey, I’m a fan.” But also, it invites other people in for a conversation. Maybe that other person is a Cyclone fan and it gives them an automatic connection.

You see a lot of this happening right here in Iowa. They say Iowa doesn’t have a professional sport but they have more people who are dedicated to these teams here in Iowa than I’ve ever seen anywhere else. It’s the truth. Everywhere I go, it’s on license plates. There are entire cars and motorcycles that are dedicated to these sports teams, these college basketball teams and football teams, colleges here in Iowa. It’s unavoidable. It’s right before us, every single day. And there it is, they’re saying, “Hey, I have a dedication for this team. My favorite.”

And then we start to look at things like tailgating parties. Why are they so enjoyable? It’s because when you go to that game and you’re there and you’re celebrating with your team but also, those fans are there to support you when the team doesn’t win, when you’re there commiserating with one another. Do you see what happens when they’re surrounded by this common purpose, this common thing that’s happening. They’re there. What would have happened if you went to a party or you went to some gathering and you had no idea who many people were but if you saw somebody and they were wearing a t-shirt with your team on it, then there’s an automatic connection. Before, you may have nothing else to talk about but now, there is a connection. You can talk about the big game. You can complain about the coach. You can complain about the refs from the last week’s game. Any other of these wide variety of topics are now on the table that weren’t before. You see, there’s a common understanding. There’s a common reason that brings these people together.

And that’s why, as we start to look at this early church again this week in this devoted series, we see there’s a common purpose that brings people together. Let me bring you back to that Acts passage once again. “Now the full number of those who believed were one heart and soul.” It wasn’t just a common purpose but it says these people were of one heart and one soul. What brought them to this place? What gave them this understanding that yes, we are linked not together just with a common a purpose but now it says they’re linked together in their heart and their soul. It seems much greater than just the common source.

You see, we have that same common source as those early disciples, the same common source that brings us together today to worship and praise the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. And that’s where their power came from as we continue to read on in that Acts passage. In Verse 33, “And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” This is shortly after the resurrection and this is shortly after we celebrate the resurrection. We see the power that’s connected to this.

But we’re here today because we also have a common bond. We have a common purpose that brings us here today. And it was the same as those very apostles as they started that early church, as they were coming together for a very common purpose. But what happened when the apostles were gathered together around this common purpose? All of a sudden, things faded away. There were no possessions anymore. There was nothing that was going to separate them one from another. It says, all of a sudden, my stuff is now your stuff. There was nothing that separated them, nothing that kept them from one another.

And you see this just doesn’t happen when you’re just gathered together for a common source and nothing else is there to connect you. You see, today, when we think about devoted, they were devoted to fellowship, fellowship that brought them together with this common source. But everything else faded away and their relationship together brought them closer.

It was funny that after looking at some of the things that were happening in the early church, there was an early church writer who was an unbeliever. He was commenting on the church and this is what he said, “Look at how they love one another. Look at how they’re willing to die for one another.” We start to think about that. Are the commentators today saying the same thing about the Christian church? Do people outside the Christian church, are they looking at us today and saying, “Oh, look how they love one another. Look how they are willing to die for one another.” Well, I would venture to say, as I looked around, I could not find a single commentator today looking at the church saying, “Look how they love one another.” It was basically the opposite. “Look how much they dislike one another. Look how much they fight with one another. Look how much that separates them one from another.” There’s no agreement. There’s no sharing of anything common. We might be here for a common source and we’re here for a purpose but, when people look in on us, what do they see? Do they see people who are disconnected from one another? Or do they see the love that we should have for one another?

You see we have a need, we have a purpose here as we continue to think about fellowship even though we start to say, “Well, let’s not worry about what other people are saying about us here,” and that’s okay. “Let’s figure out how we can start to build and deepen relationships within the Christian church because we have a purpose.”

God talks about it right in the beginning and I think that’s where we’ll head back to, Genesis 2, and this verse is often overlooked and even passed over but Genesis 2:18, “Then the Lord God said ‘It’s not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.’” You see, God Himself sees this moment and He says, “It’s not good.” Why is this significant, though? Because in the moment of creation, all of creation, the six days of creation, God says, “It is good.” After each day He creates, He says, “It is good.” He looks at everything and He says, “It’s perfect.” This is the first time in creation that He says, “It’s not good.”

And, therefore, we should listen. Because as God says, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” And He then created a helper. It’s not good that we should be alone and cut off from everything and this is where we see it right here in the beginning of the story. God has created us as beings who are relational. We’re supposed to be with one another, not separated and not alone. You see, this is a need for us. When we start to say, “Yeah, we can do it on our own, we can be apart, we can do it all by ourselves, that’s the mantra of the American dream,” but we’re not made to be alone. We’re made to be relational. We’re made to be in fellowship. We see the varied structure of who God is, as we see God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they are in fellowship with one another, not alone but together. And then Christ calls us into that relationship. And right here as we go back to John in his epistle, “If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.” You see, this relationship that we have is not just one with another but it includes Jesus Christ and, as He talks about it in the gospel, as His connection with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we’re in fellowship with one and another.

And yet we see also this need that extends out, this purpose for us as we’re centered on this common understanding, this common reason, Jesus Christ in Him resurrected. But we come together to declare forgiveness. We looked at last week that central message of repentance and forgiveness being preached in His name. And that’s the reason that fellowshipping matters because we come together. We hold each other accountable which means sometimes it’s not going to be easy but when we start to say all the lines are now blurred, we say, “I care about my brother and sister in Christ and I don’t want to see you fall away. I love you too much in order to see you go in another direction.” And you see, this is what happens in the community that there’s fellowship because then they no longer see it as you attacking them but they see it then as you caring for them. And this is exactly where the relationships went in the early church. They didn’t care about possessions. They didn’t care about these other things. They cared about their brothers and sisters in Christ.

It’s centered around a common purpose, brought together just like we see clubs and sports. There’s that common link that brings people together. We’re here for a greater purpose. We’re devoted to Christ. We’re devoted to fellowship and it has its purpose. We have a need to be in fellowship with one another but there has to be intent. We have to start to say today, “How is it that we can look at relationships in a different way?” “How is it that we might be able to get to that point in the early church of being one heart and one soul?” It has to be intent. We have to say, “Today, I’m going to do things differently.” “Today, I’m going to figure out how to build a relationship that I haven’t had before.” Or, “I’m going to take a relationship that I do have and figure out a way to deepen it.” Too often times, we separate ourselves from who we are at church to who we are outside the church. You have to start to look at drawing those links together and saying, “Who I am here is who God has made me to be and I can’t deny it.” There has to be intent.

We start today maybe with our family and say, “Today, I’m not just going to walk out the door but today I’m going to build a relationship and get deeper.” Today when we leave the church, we don’t just say, “Well, here’s a good opportunity for fellowship in the narthex but how is it that I’m going to deepen relationships right here with my brothers and sisters in Christ?”

You see, the church had one heart and one soul. How can we get there? How do we get to that point when we say, “You are my brother and sister in Christ and I care for you.” Paul talks about it to the Thessalonians and it says, “Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that is indeed what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia but we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more.”

And that’s what I urge you this morning. As we continue to look at this devoted series, as we continue to think about the early church but thinking how that applies to us today, we’re united in Christ. We’re united in a common purpose. We have a need to be together and now we need to make that intent. We need to make it intentional, to go and build and deepen those relationships in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church