We gather on the Lord’s Day not simply to congregate together but to worship together and to fellowship together. We are sojourners and exiles throughout the week, but on the Lord’s Day, we receive a foretaste of home. We can come hungry, and by God’s grace we will leave blessed and filled.

The Christian church has the great gospel reminder that the morning, the dawning of light, brings forth fresh praise and fruitful fellowship of the saints (Lam. 3:22–23). Why is this important? It was in the morning that the Lord Jesus Christ was raised, defeating death and the grave, setting forth the priority of the Lord’s Day (Luke 24:1–7). The worship of almighty God is not an individual practice but a communal one. The Lord’s Day is a day for this community, when we engage in our calling as a covenant people to fellowship with God and with one another.

The fellowship of the saints is vital to our life in Christ and our understanding of being a part of the church. The marks of a true church are the preaching of the Word, the right administration of the sacraments, and church discipline. When we survey the early church, especially as Luke outlines in the book of Acts, we see the necessity of fellowship as it pertains to the marks of a true church. Consider the well-known passage in Acts 2:42–47. Luke puts fellowship in the context of worship. Notice that fellowship isn’t simply a gathering of people who want to be social or those who share similar life experiences. What makes Christian fellowship unique is supernatural unity over common truth and teaching: the gospel of Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews exhorts us:
Consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb. 10:24–25)
Here is a call to all Christians that we must not isolate but instead come together. To be sure, there are painful seasons of isolation for some members of the church, and there are also contexts outside corporate worship that can also fit into this exhortation. In our day, however, it is entirely possible to come to church and leave without any real meaningful conversation or investment in relationship. How subtle yet dangerous the temptation to think that church then becomes more about me and what I can get than what I can give. A Christian cannot be an individualist; the church body needs what each unique member has to offer.

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Stephen became the first Christian martyr. He is an example of what it means to live well and die well. Yet, we would miss the overarching point if we saw Stephen as a model merely during trial and tribulation, when one’s life is at stake. Stephen reminds us that those who have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, having been filled with every spiritual blessing in Christ, will be shown faithful because of our faithful God even when we are not under trial. Our faithfulness is not only expressed at moments of trial or in opportunities to defend the gospel but is displayed each Lord’s Day when we demonstrate our understanding of faithfulness by coming into the presence of Almighty God in worship. 

It is not uncommon to find Christians who are confused and discouraged by the times. When things are difficult, it is easy to ask why they are so hard. There may or may not be specific answers to this question, yet the Scriptures remind us that the people of God have in every season faced opposition—yet not without purpose. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his commentary on Acts 6, said:

The Church has had to fight for her life from the very beginning. We have seen how the apostles were arrested and thrown into prison, how they were threatened, how they were commanded to stop preaching. From the moment it was born, the church has faced a world that has done everything it could to exterminate Christianity.
Although this perhaps tempts us to be more anxious than anchored, it reminds us that what we face is, in fact, not entirely unprecedented. It also causes us to look to the early church to see how they faced difficult circumstances and remained faithful. The life of Stephen, in particular, can help us understand how we are to live.
Stephen was chosen to serve the church and at his choosing, the needs were growing alongside the opposition. It is important we remember how glorious the truth is that our God is sovereign. The world does not rule, the world will not win, and the church can be confident that with every assault thrown at her, she will ultimately not fail—not because she is strong but because the One who stands behind her and dwells within her is strong. We get a glimpse of this reality in the life of Stephen. Although very little is said about him in the Scriptures, what is said has ripple effects ringing throughout eternity. Stephen lives a life full of faith that enables him to die in faith. How does this happen? Luke tells us that Stephen was filled not to be full, but to be faithful.
Luke says that Stephen was “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:5), “grace and power” (Acts 6:8), and wisdom (Acts 6:10). A “man of faith” can be used simply as a cultural phrase that amounts to nothing, so what does Luke mean when he says that Stephen is “full of faith”? Fundamentally, true faith answers the need of every person. We, having fallen short of the glory of God and therefore justly under God’s perfect judgment, need to put our faith in Christ as our only substitute and atonement for sin. Faith trusts in Christ’s work alone for the forgiveness of sins, that His record is reckoned to us as Jesus took our payment. This is why the author of Hebrews can say, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]” because it is faith that makes us right before God (Heb. 11:6).

At my former church, it was common to hear this simple reminder of faith from the pulpit: “Forsaking all, I take Him.” If we are honest, having faith and experiencing or exercising it is different. We can have true faith and yet not experience the full measure of it.

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