Text: Acts 2:42
Proposition: Why do we need fellowship?
Introduction
Fellowship is important for our survival as Christians. People need other people. Even in creation we see the need for fellowship for the survival of animals. They want and need fellowship. We see the geese flying around this time of year. Geese want to be together. When they fly they fly in a V-formation. They can fly farther and faster if they fly this way rather than alone. They take turns breaking the wind for one another. The lead goose changes places with one farther back when he becomes tired. A lone goose wants to be with other geese.
One night I was reading to my boys a book called our Amazing World of Animals an article in the book by Alan Devoe was amazing to me. How much animals need and care for one another. Devoe wrote “Every creature has a need for companionship as biologically important as food and drink.” In that article a man was watching a blue jay. Then another blue jay with a morsel of food in its beak flew up to the first one. The first jay lifted its head and the newcomer poked the food down its throat. This was unusual. It was the middle of winter. It wasn’t a mother bird feeding its young. It wasn’t a male courting a female. It was a younger blue jay caring for an old blue jay. The lower mandible of the old blue jay’s beak had broken off and it had no way to pick up food. God did not implant in his creation just the single message “Take care of yourself” (Devoe pg. 10). God has put it in his creatures to “Get together.” It is essential to the survival of animals to be together and to work together.
Even a rhinoceros needs companionship. At the Philadelphia Zoo the keepers were having trouble with an unapproachable and grouchy rhinoceros. The only thing they thought they could risk putting in the cage with the rhinoceros was a domestic goat. The rhinoceros’s attitude began to change almost overnight. “Before long he would take all the high-spirited butting the goat cared to inflict and come back for more. He had discovered fellowship.”
As Christians we need fellowship of other Christians to survive. This is one reason Jesus built the church is to provide good fellowship. People will find fellowship somewhere. Some kinds of fellowship are not bad. There are clubs people join with people who have common interests. They want to be with people like themselves and so they join. North American Versatile Hunting Dog Association is a club for people who love and live for training hunting dogs. There are many different clubs. Fellowship for some people is bad. They find fellowship in the bar or in a gang. One article my dad told me he read a few years ago in the Reader’s Digest about a man who was an undercover agent he was working in a motorcycle gang. The men were mean hard tough criminals. They were drug dealers, thieves, rapists, and murderers. One thing they had was fellowship. They were together all the time. The undercover agent was closer to them than his real coworkers. When his mother died he needed to leave to go to the funeral. The men who were criminals were more sympathetic and caring than other agents! It was one of the hardest things he ever did was to have to turn on them and bring them to justice when the operation was over. The men loved and trusted one another they had fellowship.
The church is a place for the right kind of fellowship. The church is a family. We are brothers and sisters. The church is a flock. A lone sheep doesn’t survive for very long. The church is an army. Soldiers need and love one another. When an old man talks about his comrades in battle that are gone he many times gets tears in his eyes. The church is a body. A body needs every part.
A Christian isn’t the Lone Ranger or Super Man who fights all his battles single handedly and needs no help from anyone else. Christians need each other for Encouragement, Strength, and Companionship.
I. Encouragement
II. Strength
III. Companionship
I. Encouragement (How does fellowship encourage us?)
A. We know there are others who serving God also
1. It is discouraging to think you are the only one serving God, and no one else cares.
2. Elijah thought he was the only one left. He was in the wrong place. He was in the wilderness where there was no one else. He was so discouraged he wanted to die.
3. Elijah had been on top of Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal. They couldn’t call fire down from heaven on their sacrifice, but when Elijah prayed God sent fire from heaven on the sacrifice Elijah had prepared. He killed the 450 prophets of Baal, but when Ahab told Jezebel what had happened Elijah ran to the wilderness.
4. I Kings 19:4-10, Elijah was discouraged. He had had a great victory for the Lord. The prophets of Baal were destroyed and he had prayed for the drought to be over and the rain came. He outran Ahab’s chariot back to Jezreel.
5. Then he hears about Jezebel threatening to kill him. Elijah must have thought that since he won a great battle the war was over. The war wasn’t over, and instead of staying and fighting Elijah retreated to the wilderness where he could be of no use to God or anyone else. God asked Elijah, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” He had no fellowship with anyone and no one there to encourage him and no one to encourage. Elijah thought he was the only one who wanted to serve God. He was like Jeremiah. Jeremiah wanted a place in the wilderness that he could go to too get away from all the evil people, Jeremiah 9:2. Elijah felt so bad he wanted God to kill him. He ran away from Jezebel so he wouldn’t be killed and then asks God to kill him.
6. Elijah needed some fellowship with other people who served God. God had some more work for Elijah to do. God told him to anoint Hazael king over Syria, Jehu as king over Israel, and Elisha as prophet in his place. There were 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed to Baal. That is a long way from just one person serving God.
7. Be with God’s people. Fellowship with them for encouragement.
B. We can hear words of encouragement.
1. Barnabas was an encourager. His name was Joseph, but the apostles called him Barnabas, which means Son of Encouragement, Acts 4:36.
2. Acts 9:26 and 27, When Paul was a new Christian, the other Christians didn’t want to associate with Paul. They were afraid of him and suspicious of him. They didn’t believe he was truly a disciple. They thought maybe he was a spy. This was a time when fellowship is important. What would you think if you came to church, and you were a new Christian and no one would talk to you? If you tried to be with them they would avoid you and walk away. That would be discouraging, but Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, took hold of Paul and brought him to the apostles and told them about Paul’s conversion. He was an encouragement to Paul.
3. When many Gentiles were converted in Antioch the church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch. When Barnabas came to Antioch he encouraged the people there, Acts 11:22 and 23.
4. If we have fellowship with other Christians we can have words of encouragement.
II. For Strength (How does fellowship give us Strength?)
A. Two are better than one.
1. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
2. God can and does use individuals, but it is better to be with other Christians in our struggles than to be alone.
3. Two horses can pull more together than either of them can individually. Let’s say two horses can pull 9,000 pounds. How much can four horses pull? The arithmetical response is 18,000, but it is wrong. Four horses can pull over 30,000 pounds. My brothers have a construction business. They put trim in houses. They know that two men working together can do more than double the work than if they were working individually. The word for this is synergy – the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect I greater than the sum of their individual. There is a good return for their labor. Two are always better than one.
4. If one falls the other can help them. Sometimes we need help. When we fall spiritually we need help to get back up and get going again.
5. On these cold winter nights it is nice to have someone to snuggle up close to in bed and stay warm with. Sometimes I am cold and most of the time Alissa is cold. There is nothing better to keep you warm that your wife or your husband in bed. If you get hypothermia the best way to get warm again is a warm person next to you. When David was an old man they found Abishag to sleep with him to keep him warm.
6. Two can fight better than one. We are fighting against Satan. He wants to destroy us. We need fellowship with Jesus, I John 1:3 and 7. That makes two. If we have Jesus and a Christian brother or sister that makes three. We can resist Satan.
III. Companionship (Why do we need companionship?)
A. It isn’t good for man to be alone.
1. God made man to be with other people
2. Genesis 2:18
3. A married man is generally healthier and lives longer than a bachelor. It is good to go through life with a companion.
4. I used to go with Seymour Fox, my neighbor, up to his farm. He liked to go check on everything and make sure everything is alright. He sometimes asked me to go along with him. He said, “I am not doing anything I need help with. I just need some company.” He wants somebody to talk to on the way up and back.
5. Most people like to have a companion. We are social people. God built the family and the church to provide for the social needs of man.
6. We also don’t want to wear out our welcome. Being together is good, but don’t over do it, Proverbs 25:17.
B. If we don’t find good companions we will usually find companionship in the wrong places.
1. I Corinthians 15:33, bad companions will corrupt.
2. Psalms 119:63, Good companions will help you and encourage you to serve God. Fellowship with the people of God.
Conclusion
Everyone needs fellowship. People will find fellowship in clubs, bars, sports, and work. The church is the best place to find fellowship. We don’t have to limit fellowship to Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday. Having each other over for meals is a good way to fellowship. The early church took their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. Attending rallies are a good opportunity for fellowship. I would encourage you to fellowship with one another. Maybe you don’t need it, but other people may. You will encourage people with your fellowship.
We need fellowship for encouragement, strength, and companionship.
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