fellowship

Since things are a bit slow here lately, I thought I’d post something from Chip Brogden that came to me by way of e-mail. This is really good and may speak best to those fresh out of the institutions. However, it seems worth a re-visit for an old hand like me, too.

No Fellowship? No problem!
by Chip Brogden

You will never truly appreciate or benefit from fellowship until you have learned how to live without it.

There already is a fellowship of saints. It is a spiritual fellowship, and it is based on Christ having the preeminence – not the fellowship having preeminence. All this yearning for fellowship and being with others is the result of being hung-over from the religious system. You’re trying to fill a void that religion used to fill.

The purpose of solitude in the spiritual desert is to get you to see that Jesus is Enough. You’re not going to die from lack of fellowship, but if you don’t learn that Jesus is Enough then spiritually speaking you’re dead already. He’s the One you need to be focused on – not starting a fellowship, not finding a home group, not making something happen with other people.

And already I can hear the “yeah buts”. “Yeah, but God made us to be social beings. Yeah, but God knows we need encouragement from other believers. Yeah, but the Bible says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is. Yeah, but we’re all supposed to be part of the Body of Christ. Yeah, but there’s just something about gathering together with like-minded believers. Yeah, but you just don’t understand what it’s like.” Yeah, but I do understand – I’ve been through that part of the desert before, and what I’m trying to tell you is God wishes to know if you love Him or if you love fellowship with others. God wishes to know if you are in love with Him or if you are in love with things about Him. God wishes to know if you seek Him or seek a meeting about Him.

There are times and seasons where He calls you to be alone and apart with Him. I’m not saying it will always be like that, but what if it is? What if He calls you to walk alone with Him for the rest of your life? Is Jesus enough for you?

I asked that question of a group of Christians once: is Jesus enough for you? Because most Christians do not believe this. They want Jesus, but they also want fellowship with others. Really, do you know what Christians want? Not fellowship with others. That sounds so spiritual. Really what they want is acceptance from other Christians. You go deep down and that’s what they want. They want to feel accepted by other Christians. Well, all I can tell you is that you’re setting yourself up for a huge disappointment. Eventually there will come a time when you will have to decide between the truth that God has revealed to you and the acceptance of other Christians. Now it hurts when you are not accepted by other Christians. It hurts when other Christians misunderstand you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely when you have spoken the truth to them in love.

But the bottom line is your spiritual life and walk with God does not depend upon the acceptance of other Christians. You might think it does, and it sure makes things easier, but it is not a condition of following Christ – making sure other Christians understand and accept you. The deeper you go into God the more unacceptable you will be to other Christians. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is Himself, “Despised and rejected, a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Jesus would not be, and is not, accepted by most Christians, and do you know that does not change Him and His relationship with His Father? He is Lord whether you accept Him or not, my friend. And if you are His disciple then He accepts you whether the rest of the Christian population accepts you or not.

What I have found is that whenever I ignore the season God has me in, and I try to create fellowship, or seek fellowship, outside of the time and place appointed by My Father, it always ends in disaster. It creates problems, it becomes a disappointment, or it turns into a distraction from what He wants for my life.

And that is never more true than the period of time when you are fresh out of the religious system. You’ve been under a religious spirit for so many years, and don’t think you can just wake up one day, stop going to church, and be set free from that religious mindset. You think you need fellowship, you think you need meetings, you think you need other people in your life, you think you need all these things, and you are in error. That’s the religious habit talking. It’s just like a drug.

“Oh brother Chip, I’m so lonely, I’ve been going to church every Sunday for twenty years and now we just sit home on Sunday and we feel so empty inside!” Well praise God, if that’s where God has you right now then thank God for it. Stop looking for other people to fill a void that only Christ can fill. You’ve been covering up that void with a lot of religious junk and He’s stripping all that away. He’s trying to build something in you, so let Him do it according to the times and seasons that He has appointed. Don’t rush through that process. Get comfortable with just you and God. My goodness, you don’t even know what it’s like to walk with God and just be hidden in Him because your whole life you’ve been following Him in a crowd, worshipping Him in a crowd, praying to Him in a crowd, learning about Him in a crowd.

Enoch walked with God, and he didn’t have anyone else to fellowship with.

Noah walked with God and he didn’t anyone but his family.

Abraham walked with God and he didn’t have a house church to go to.

Moses spent forty years in the desert and it didn’t hurt him a bit, he came out better than he went in.

Jesus walked with God and every single one of His friends and disciples denied Him and fled when He needed them the most.

You give people too much credit for your spiritual well-being and don’t give God enough credit. I’d rather be alone with God than have a crowd of people without Him.

Now that doesn’t diminish anything the Bible says about the Body of Christ. But you’ve got to learn how to get connected to the Head before you try to get connected to the Body. Body Life is only as good as the Body’s relationship to the Head. The Body has no life in itself apart from the Head. If you read what the Bible says about the Body of Christ, you notice it doesn’t say that we are supposed to seek out our place in the Body or try to insert ourselves into place. It says He sets us in the Body of Christ according to His will. His will, not ours. You try to set yourself in place and you’ll get it wrong.

The Bible does not say “hold fast to the Body” or “hold fast to the members of the Body”, it says “hold fast to the Head.” The Bible does not say, “Seek ye first the fellowship of others”, but “seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things – including fellowship – will be added to you.” You learn to do that and the rest will take care of itself, in the time and manner that God sees fit.

Take your hands off that whole issue of fellowship and cast that concern onto the Lord. Go to Him and say, “Lord, here I am in a desert place, it’s dry, and it’s lonely, and it looks like there’s no fellowship. But You are My Rock, My Fortress, My Hiding Place, You lead me and direct my steps. You be My Fellowship. If you see fit to bring me into relationship and fellowship with others, fine; but if not, then I trust that You are more than Enough to meet my spiritual, emotional, and social needs. I can live without fellowship Lord, but I cannot live without You!”

Now folks, I have been in that place so many times I don’t even have to pray about it anymore. I’ve just learned to trust God in this area, and I know He is sufficient. It’s settled in me. It’s not even a thing I pray about anymore. I want it to become settled in your heart as well. Let the desert do its work.

Something good happened this evening. All day I was near tears with the great joy of the things God is doing in my midst. But, the only problem — there was no one to share them with in person. How could I pass them on if I had no one? I decided to pray and ask the Lord to begin to grow a fellowship around me. In fact, I sked Him for a plain all-out miracle if that’s what it took.

Then, decided to go out for a spell. On my way downstairs from my upper level apartment, I ran into a lady who lives downstairs. We run into each other now and then and chat. I knew she had married a man who is not, as far as we know, a man who walks with Christ. However, she told me this evening that she has been “out of church” for about six years and feels bad about it. She watches Christian television sometimes, but reports feeling dead and wonders if her heart is just hard. Aha…shades of things a number of us have been through. I told her no, and cracked open more of my personal journey and shared some of what I’ve been seeing.

It is interesting that she sees some of the same things but has not had to yet undergo some of the deeper griefs of many I know who are trying to find their way to the “true church”. She was very receptive and I saw a spark of recognition in her eyes as I chatted away. I’ve invited her to fellowship some time and she says yes! (That is enough to shock me right there.)

I told a friend that I am going to start having worship on Sunday mornings, our Lord’s day of Resurrection. Maybe I will do this even if no one else is here. What I’m seeing is to develop very simple community traditions so that the narrative is passed down and we don’t forget how to have community worship. I don’t need the habits and God doesn’t need them, but the generation to come needs the story and I need to honor God. After that, I need to listen to what people have to say and learn from them as they learn from me. God willing, we will learn to walk together in shalom and in the common faith that was handed to us through the apostles. We will let God prepare us in the time of peace so that we may bring others in and stand in the day of trouble.

God is doing an excellent work!

I have just had a startling thought regarding what we call “fellowship”. It started when I quoted this verse to someone:

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (Gal 6:10)

The reader commented that the phrase “the household of faith” seems to distinguish those who have identified Jesus of Nazareth and have committed to following Him. It sounds exclusive, perhaps — and it is — just not in the way of a social clique that refuses to associate with outsiders.

It honors God for us to treat all of His creation with care. I suspect that the statement from Galatians was a way of regarding the deposit in the believer, which is actually the spirit of Christ. We should always honor and care for the spirit of Christ above all else.

John wrote much about loving the brethren. It is the witness to the world that we are Christ’s disciples (John 13:35). [Cf. 1 John 4:8] It does not mean that we do not care for others, but to care for the world at the expense of caring for the spirit of Christ and the unity of the Body is backwards.

Caring for the brethren is literally caring for Christ. When Paul was on the road to Damascus a light from heaven blinded him. He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The voice answered, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute.” Jesus introduced himself by His earthly title when, in fact, He was in resurrection. This suggests that He identifies with the frail humanity of His people. They are literally His Body on earth. Everything we do to His people, we do to Him:

…Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Mat 25:40)

(Notice that the word “brethren” is in apposition to “one of the least of these”. The brethren — not the world — are both the doers of the action and the recipients.)

We do not share this same absolute identification with humanity at large although they reflect a marred image of God. They have not yet the spirit of Christ, but we treat them as pre-Christ bearers in hope that they will one day become brethren. But our real communion is with God — that is, with the Father and with the Christ in one another.

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)

If our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, then it follows that our transformation and fellowship with other believers is made possible only through nurturing the indwelling Christ. Our fellowship cannot take place between our natural persons, but between the spirit of Christ in one with the spirit of Christ in another. In other words, our true fellowship is the communion that God has with Himself expressed through human vessels.

Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)

Jesus mentioned this communion with believers (not unbelievers) in the context of his words here:

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (Rev. 3:20)

Unbelievers, on the other hand, do not have the Father and the Son dwelling with them. It is spiritually impossible. And yet, “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son….” (John 3:16) God’s heart and hands are always stretched forth to the unbelievers dwelling in the earth. Even when we were His enemies, He loved us.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Romans 5:10)

We cannot fellowship (have communion) with one another unless we first have communion with God. If it seems that some believers look like the world — yes, it is very hard sometimes to tell a believer from an unbeliever when they behave so much alike. Paul indicated that there is a process of being filled to the brim with the spirit of Christ:

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you… (Gal. 4:19)

God’s ministerial gifts were given for the express purpose of completing this process:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:…
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Eph. 4:11-15)

If it seems so hard to love one another and to love the world… if it seems so hard to forgive grievous wrongs and injustices… know that the world has no solution. Only continued communion with the Father and with the Son will bring us into that reconciliation in all things that we long for.