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Desiring God

We Will Go Out with Joy: Christian Fellowship as a Means of Grace

By David Mathis — 5 days ago

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16991914/we-will-go-out-with-joy

Edited Notes

Let’s start with Isaiah 55:1–3:

Come, everyone who thirsts,
     come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
     come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
     without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
     and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
     and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
     hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
     my steadfast, sure love for David.

How do you drink God? How do you feed on God? It happens through his appointed means. What means? Here’s one taste in Acts 2:42:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Listen to what J.C. Ryle says on God’s means of grace:

The “means of grace” are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification. I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul and strengthens the work which He has begun in the inward man. . . . Our God is a God who works by means, and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them.

End of the Means

Here’s a summary of the means, which are God’s matrix of grace for the survival and thriving of our souls.

  • Hear his voice (in his word).
  • Have his ear (in prayer).
  • Belong to his body (in covenant fellowship).

And what’s the end of these means? Knowing and enjoying Jesus.

This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Philippians 3:7–8)

J.I. Packer said, “The more strongly one desires an end, the more carefully and diligently one will use the means to it” (Honouring the People of God, 274).

What We Have in Common

Now, what is fellowship?

The Greek word is koinōnia: the commonality. It’s what we have in common, or what we share. In the world, fellowship involves some mission, with every fellow having skin in the game. In the church, our fellowship begins with God himself. There are vertical and horizontal aspects to Christian fellowship.

God, his Son, his cross, his grace are our commonalities. That’s what we share in. We share in Jesus, which is so much more significant than sharing the same college, colors, mascot, and fight song.

Here’s a question for you: Does your heart thrill more to see someone at the mall or in an airport wearing a cross or the name of Jesus, or to see someone wearing the name of your college football team? God himself is what we have in common in this fellowship called the church. The tie that binds our hearts is Jesus and his blood. We are sinners, saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. How imponderable would it be for us to not love each other (far more than fellow football fans!).

Consider what we share — what we have in common (koinōnia):

  • Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:9); Father and Son (1 John 1:3, 6)
  • His body and blood (1 Corinthians 10:16)
  • The Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:13; Philippians 2:1)
  • Each other (1 John 1:7)
  • Our energy, attention, and goods (Hebrews 13:16)
  • Gospel mission (Galatians 2:9; Philippians 1:5), including finances (Romans 15:26; 2 Corinthians 8:4, 9:13)

Christian fellowship is not watching a game together as much as huddling together on the field to run the next play. The fellowship of the saints, and the thickness of communal life, is often implicit in the New Testament, but we’ll see a few texts that make it explicit.

“Be God’s voice to your brother, and hear God’s voice in your brother’s.”

We live in different times socially than they did two thousand years ago. They lived much more communally. Relationships were naturally far thicker. It was taken for granted that fellow humans were vital for life and spiritual life, vital for survival, health, thriving, and flourishing. The New Testament letters were written to churches (fellowships) to receive and practice together. But today we live in times of “expressive individualism.” Our social fabric is quickly thinning, as Robert Putnam famously observed 25 years ago in the book Bowling Alone. The texture of modern life is making fellowship harder, not easier. And our technology typically works against it.

But considering fellowship as a means of God’s grace means that life, health, and persistence in Christian faith is a community project. Our hearts harden and our faith fails as we distance ourselves from the fellowship of Christ’s people. But when we lean in, God makes us means of his grace to each other in the covenant fellowship of the local church.

Four Aspects of Our Call to Fellowship

Let’s focus on one main text tonight, and through it we will draw in others. Hebrews 10:23–25 says,

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let 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.

Verse 23 is for context and footing. Regarding context, the writer of Hebrews is exhorting his readers to hold fast to Jesus and not waver, drift, or fall away to other things. And regarding the footing, the point is that God is faithful. He’s the decisive Actor. He’s the backstop. We pursue these four aspects of our call, leaning on him as the one who is faithful. And the link is Hebrews 10:24–25. How does God hold us? Through each other.

1. Get to know each other.

The first part of verse 24 says, “Let us consider . . . one another to . . .” There is actually no how in the original. Literally, it says, “Let us consider one another . . .” The object and focus of our consideration is each other — our fellows in Christ. To consider (katanoeō) means to contemplate, notice, ponder, or think hard. In other words, get to know people. Say hi, ask for their name, work, address, and testimony. Get curious about each other, as humans and Christians. Learn people’s strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Cultivate friendships.

This is first a call to seek relationships and community. Pursue uncomfortably thick relationships and inconvenient community. Then, we are called to a deep considerateness (not a shallow considerateness). Get to know each other as family in Christ. Note the familial language in the church in 1 Timothy 5:1–2:

Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.

2. Learn to push each other.

Hebrews 10:24 says we should “stir up one another to love and good works.” Stir up means to provoke, but this a provoking to love and good deeds (not anger and hatred). So, knowing your brother or sister, provoke him or her to love and good deeds.

We should be pushing each other toward love. John 13:34–35 says,

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Love one another in two senses. First, in love for your brother, provoke him to love and deeds that help others. We provoke the heart and the hands, but the heart first and most importantly. Second, from that, the fellowship as a whole becomes the recipient and catalyst of love and good deeds.

In learning to push each other and open ourselves up to being pushed, it will be countercultural today. Instead of just informing, we are also seeking counsel. We offer counsel and ask for counsel. Christian fellowship is a two-way street.

3. Major on the magic of words.

The first part of Hebrews 10:25 says, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another . . .”

There are two parts here, the negative and the positive: first, not neglecting, and second, encouraging (parakaleō). It also mentions the assembly, but we’ll come back to that.

How do we not neglect meeting together? Just showing up really can be half the battle at times, especially when church life is not based on family of origin, living in the same neighborhood, having the same job, or participating in the same hobbies, but having the same Jesus, the same Spirit, and the same God. If we don’t show up, if we neglect the fellowship, we can’t cultivate regularity of relationship and get to know each other and push each other as individuals and not just general humanity.

And then we use helping words for their joy and everlasting good in Christ in the ups and downs of life. Christian fellowship is word-centered fellowship. I say “helping words” because that word for “encouraging” in Hebrews 10:25 is the same one for “exhorting” in the sister passage, Hebrews 3:12–13:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort [parakaleō] one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

How Helping Words Work

First, note the stakes. He says people can “fall away from the living God.” Eternity is at stake.

Second, the word today is a call for regular vigilance and attentiveness — both daily and weekly.

Third, we are our brothers’ keepers. The many watch out for any so that none may perish. Take action against the incrementalism of unbelief.

Fourth, observe the power of our words in Christian persistence. We “exhort” to treat an “evil, unbelieving heart.” Preempt hardening. Put grace into the heart through the earhole. Note the centrality of words in fellowship and Christianity. We don’t coerce behavior from the outside; we aim to change hearts on the inside. How? Through words.

Fifth, be God’s voice to your brother, and hear God’s voice in your brother’s.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Ephesians 4:29)

We receive grace and give grace:

Grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. . . . He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:7, 11–16)

Fellowship, as an irreplaceable means of grace in the Christian life, offers us two priceless joys: receiving God’s grace through the helping words of others and giving his grace to others through our own.

Place of Corporate Worship

What about “the assembly”? Here’s a word about corporate worship. Like no other single habit, corporate worship combines all three essential principles of God’s ongoing supply of grace for the Christian life: God’s word, prayer, and fellowship.

  • We hear from God in the pastor’s call to worship, in the reading of Scripture, in the faithful preaching of the gospel, in the words of institution at the Table, and in the commission to be lights and his witnesses in the world.
  • We respond to God in prayer, in confession, in singing, in thanksgiving, in recitation, in petitions, and in receiving the elements in faith.
  • And in corporate worship, we do it all together.

Before and after the gathering, we flood each other with helping words in the context of spiritual conversation. Here are some questions we might ask each other in those precious moments over coffee before the service or as we engage with each other afterward:

  • How can I pray for you?
  • Has God been teaching you anything in particular this week?
  • How did the sermon land on your heart?
  • How do you see God at work in our church right now?

Push past small talk to spiritual conversation about the soul, the Spirit, and Christ’s grace.

4. Hold even faster as you mature.

Listen to the last part of Hebrews 10:25: “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

“All the more” means increasing, not decreasing. As the end draws near, let it be all the more. As you age, let it be all the more. There’s no “all the less” in the Christian life; it’s all the more. And this gets harder as you age. We can experience the “friendship dip” of middle age. My charge to myself and to my peers and older is this: Don’t let it go. Don’t let it slip. Thick, deep Christian fellowship doesn’t just happen overnight. You’ll awake one day to realize you don’t have it, and it will take weeks and months, maybe years, to build it. Hold onto it; it’s precious!

Do this “as you see the Day approaching.” That’s the day when the church will be spotless, without wrinkle or blemish.

Listen to statement 5 of your EPC Essentials:

The true Church is composed of all persons who through saving faith in Jesus Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit are united together in the body of Christ. The Church finds her visible yet imperfect expression in local congregations where the Word of God is preached in its purity and the sacraments are administered in their integrity, where scriptural discipline is practiced, and where loving fellowship is maintained. For her perfecting she awaits the return of her Lord.

“Maintained” means it’s not automatic. It takes initiative and effort. Sometimes you just show up even when you “don’t feel like it.” Make the fellowship a habit.

Where does “her perfecting” come from? Ephesians 5:25–27 says,

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

And brothers and sisters, on that Day, we will go out with joy together! “You” in plural in Isaiah 55:12–13:

You shall go out in joy
     and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
     shall break forth into singing,
     and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
     instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
     an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

The fellowship is a vital means of God’s grace, a vital means of our joy together in him, and therefore a means of his glory in us.

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