Now, we have seen that all believers have gifts and composite together make a picture of the body of Jesus Christ to the world as a witness to him. We have a unity, and yet we have diversity. We have mutuality, and we have harmony. The expression of these gifts make a picture of Christ that is a witness to an unbelieving world. The Lord Jesus Christ, who is in heaven seated at the right hand of the Father, is one in whom we have relationship positionally. But we also have potentially a fellowship with him. Likewise, we have a positional relationship with the brethren, but a potential fellowship with them as well. Now, our positional oneness, our positional unity does not obviate the experiential unity that Jesus Christ ordains. That is up to us. We can be one in fellowship. The manifestation of the gifts of unity are expressed as each believer exercises his gifts to his fellow believers that in turn the other might be strengthened and mutually bless him. The fellowship of the body is its expression of love as it bears the burdens of its fellows. And so the key word is fellowship. Fellowship, fellowship, it is a beautiful word and one that is uniquely and distinctly a Christian expression. I want us to look for a moment at the word fellowship. The word in the Greek is koinoneo, another of the forms of koinonos, which simply means a partner, a brother, one who shares. And then koinoneo, meaning the verb form, meaning to have mutuality or to share with each other. The idea, then, is a common intimacy, a union of communication and sharingness of love in a real New Testament togetherness. And that's what Jesus Christ was trying to do. The purpose of the gospel, you see, is to create a body. And the essence of the body is fellowship. And so we as a church are a body for fellowship. I want us to look very briefly for a few moments at three things. God, of course, as early as Genesis chapter 2, says it is not good for man to be alone. And the genius of the church is that there is a love, a commonness, a togetherness, with three important things I want us to remember. First of all, consider for a moment, if you will, please, the basis of our fellowship. What is it that makes the distinctive of the church different from any other fellowship in all the world? Well, there are an awfully lot of phony fellowships. I remember when I was in college, I was a member of a fraternity. And they had a theory that for us to be brothers and to stick through thick and thin together, we would have to learn to suffer together. And so a part of our initiation was that we all got on our hands and knees in this old three -story frat house we lived in and got a big tub full of alum water. Now, that shrivels your mouth up real bad. And each of us took a mouthful and crawled on his hands and knees three stories to the top story and spat the alum water in an empty tub and went back down. And after hours of this, suffering together, being tied up, blindfolded in the woods, finding our way back to town, little things like that, you know. We were supposed to have a camaraderie and a fellowship as fraternity brothers. I suppose that the best counterfeit for what the church is supposed to be doing in creating a real brotherly fellowship is probably the neighborhood bar. To be sure, they dispense liquor instead of grace and escape instead of reality. But there is a democratic permissiveness and inclusiveness in which friendships are often very real and an unshockable society can hear the secrets of its fellows and generally be trusted. But I might hasten to say that nobody that has really found the nature of true fellowship in a New Testament church is going to ever be permanently satisfied to settle for second -rate counterfeit fellowships. A lot of wonderful civic clubs and organizations that have as a common cause their bases of fellowship. Many denominations have a kind of social involvement in the needs of a community. They have kissed doctrine goodbye, and the needs of others outside of their koinonia are the only basis for their fellowship. Still others find fellowship in the fact that they are not members of any denomination, and in fact themselves become a denomination whose signal significance is the fact that they claim to be a part of no denomination. But the Bible teaches us that there is a real basis of fellowship. What then is the true basis of the fellowship of the believer in the New Testament church? What draws us together? What is the mystique, the wonder of it all that makes people drive all over the county and come on Sunday morning and gladly sing to God be the glory? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What makes the koinonia a reality in a New Testament church? Well, first of all, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 9, we find that God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul adds again in Ephesians that our fellowship is with the Father as well as the Son. But what of the Holy Spirit? Is our fellowship with him as well? Turn over to 2 Corinthians. We find that 1 Corinthians begins and 2 Corinthians in chapter 13 concludes with the message of the fellowship that is the believers with the Trinity. 2 Corinthians chapter 13, the very last sentence in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, look at the Trinity, and the love of God who is the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, that word is koinonia, it is fellowship, be with you all, amen. And so the basis of the fellowship is the Christian gospel. We are a fellowship. We are a body for fellowship. We are an organism designed to have a koinonia with each other, the outward expression of which, through the ministry of mutual gifts, is a testimony of Jesus Christ to the nations. Now look over in Romans 8. In the 27th and 28th verses, the apostle is talking about the purpose of God, the will of God. Now look at the last word in verse 28 of Romans 8. He is telling us what is the purpose of God. There are not purposes of God. There is one purpose of God. And we know that all things are working together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the call together according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, know what? How they would decide. Them he also predetermined, predestinated to be conformed, what? To the image of his Son, that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he called. Whom he called, he also justified. Whom he justified, he also glorified. In this classic passage of Scripture, Paul says simply that the purpose of God acting redemptively in mankind is that he might bring many sons unto adoption. And when a man becomes a Christian, he receives the nature of Jesus Christ. It is implanted into his being. God determines, based on man's will. Then he calls him, he justifies him, and he glorifies him. That means in his final consummate resurrected state, he has a perfect mind, a perfect heart, perfect emotions, and a perfect body like unto his glorious body. Such that ultimately all of heaven is filled with people who are like Jesus Christ. That's what the Father wanted, an eternal heavenly fellowship. Now Paul says that he gave us the Holy Spirit as the earnest. That means like earnest money in an earnest money contract, a part of the completed price, the down payment of our salvation in heaven. So that the Holy Spirit in us is creating on the basis of the gospel of Christ, a commonness, a uniqueness, a oneness that is a foretaste of what heaven is going to be like for the believer. Back in the 50s, there was a little song called, Got a Little Bit of heaven shining in my baby's eyes. That's what shines out of the eyes of the believer. It's a little bit of heaven right now, and it is a foregleam in the body of what heaven is going to be like. Somebody sang the song, everybody talking about heaven and a -going there. Well, I'm talking about it. I'm a -going there. I tell you, that's a wonderful place to go. But you and I can experience in the fellowship of the church, on the basis of the gospel of Christ, a little heaven right now. Now, how did this occur? Paul says he slew the enmity between man and woman, between Greek and Jew, between illiterate and educated, between black and white, so that there are no differences in the body of Christ. All are one. And he slew all differences by what he did in the cross of Christ. That's why the cup of communion, as it is often called, is the expression of the symbol of our commonness together in Jesus. Because the wine is the symbol of the blood. Therefore, the commonness, the communion, the fellowship, has been created by the blood of Christ, which it signifies on the cross. So there is a basis for fellowship, which is stronger than alum water and liquor, which is stronger than the togetherness of social commonness and civic projects. It is the common basis of the gospel of Jesus' death on the cross for us. We went to Nigeria last year, as you know, as your missionaries. And all the joy, the experience of going in the deepest part of the jungle in Africa, way up a canoe trip on a Sunday afternoon, and going to a remote village that had never even seen a white man until a month before, where people had only been believers in Jesus for three weeks, and their style was different, and their color was different, and their eyes were different, and their society was different, and their food was different, and we couldn't understand a word they said, and they not a word we said, save through an interpreter. But immediately, when they met us, when our eyes met, when we were under that little thatch cut, where hundreds and hundreds of sweating bodies, and the temperature and the humidity was so blinding you couldn't even see, yet you knew, you sensed that there was something there. What was it? There was a fellowship, because we had a mutual commonness in our faith in the death of Jesus Christ for our sins. I'll tell you, there's no civic club. There's no social movement. There's nothing in this lifelong world to compare to the joy of the fellowship of believers all over the world who are one in Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something. When your best friend has forgotten your name, when your mother and dad have forgotten you exist, your brothers and sisters in Jesus and the church will be there to love you and to bless you, because blood, when it's His blood, is stronger than any blood or water or togetherness or spirit or camaraderie this live -long world has ever seen and ever shall know. The gospel of Jesus' death is the basis, then, for the fellowship of the body. Secondly, I would call for a moment to your attention the dangers to the fellowship. They are listed in 1 John chapter 1. Turn over just very quickly for a moment, if you will, there with me, please. 1 John, yonder toward the very end of the New Testament, and let us look for just a moment at the danger to the fellowship within the body and between the Father and the body member. 1 John 1, 3, that which we have seen and have declared that we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. Verse 6, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, linear action verb, keeps on cleansing us from all sin. Look at verse 9, but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You know, there's a lot of confusion about what confession is and how we confess our sins. I had a story the other day about a young priest who was hearing his first confession and he'd ask the older father to come in and overhear and give him some advice as how he did. Well, he heard his confession, thought he did pretty well, went into the chamber to meet the older priest and he said, well sir, how did I do father? Give me a critique. And the father said, son, well you did pretty good. He said, except for one thing I would suggest that at the end of the confession that you simply say, may God bless you my child instead of golly. Well, if we confess, if we confess our sins to him, he, why our sins confess to him. Listen, because the basis of all fellowship with the believer and with the father is in the enmity between that has been slain by the cross and sin breaks the fellowship and confession follows the sin and reinstates the fellowship. Sin in the church, sin in the believer is the danger. When a man is out of fellowship with God, he's going to be out of fellowship with his brethren. And when he's out of fellowship with the fellows, he will in turn be out of fellowship with his heavenly father. Down through history, God has exacted a strenuous price on those who broke the fellowship that he created. Lucifer broke the fellowship of heaven and was banished. Adam broke the fellowship in the garden of Eden and was expelled. Cain was the first murderer and broke the fellowship of the first home. And God judged him all the days of his life. You will remember the story of Miriam. Miriam broke the fellowship of the camp of the assembled Israelites that were making beautiful progress toward the promised land of God. And she swore against her brother and raised a murmuring in the camp that he had been married to a woman from Africa. And they were of Ethiopia. And they were murmuring and grumbling. And God severely judged she and her brother. And a plague of leprosy came upon her. And God said, this camp will not move forward until the judgment of God has been fixed upon the woman that disturbed and murmured against the leader and murmured against God's koinonia and broke the fellowship and the trust of the people in the entrusted under -shepherd. You come to the book of Acts, Ananias, and Sapphira. There was a beautiful fellowship in the church. Now they're all trying to be so spiritual and do the right thing. Ananias and Sapphira were on the spot. Everybody was giving away their goods. They were making pledges. They were giving offerings. And they wanted to look very pious. So they sold a piece of land and said, well, we got about so much money for it. But they really got twice that much and held back the price of it. And Ananias lied to God, said we got so much and they got so much more. Peter said, you've not lied unto men, you've lied unto God. They broke the fellowship. They broke the chain. They broke the harmony in the church. God saw that they dropped dead on the spot. The deacons, the first deacons were organized. Why? To wait on tables? No, not in a million years. To deal with the grumblings and murmurings that arose in the church over the matter of waiting in the tables. Look ye to this problem. Look ye to this mess, literally, says the apostle. God would not have that the deacon would do anything but be the guardian of the fellowship. How often I've preached that to our deacons for five years and how beautifully they have done it so. You come again and again all through history when men break the fellowship of a home, of a church, of heaven, of the garden, of society, of an assembled body of believers. God is not often very long in judging the one that breaks the fellowship. Now in closing, let me suggest to you a word about the nature of our fellowship. Let the word speak. Here God says it far better than could we. Turn back again, please, now, dear friends, if you will, to 2 Corinthians chapter 7. 2 Corinthians chapter 7. I want you to notice the commonness as one receives that another might receive from the one strengthened. 2 Corinthians 7, 5 for when we were coming to Macedonia our fellowship our flesh had no rest but we were troubled on every side without were fighting within were fears nevertheless God that comforted those that are cast down comforted us by the coming of Titus and not by his coming only but by the consolation wherein with he was comforted in you or of you or by you he is saying that we were comforted by Titus because you were able to comfort Titus to make him strong to come and comfort us now look over if you will please in Galatians chapter 6 now that's just ahead just forward a little bit Galatians the very next book after 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 the last chapter of Galatians listen to the commonness listen to the bearing of burdens listen to the lifting listen to the helping of each other brethren if a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such in one kicking busting gossip about him stomp on him scandalize him ridicule him kick him out of the fellowship no restore such in one in the meekness in in the spirit of meekness considering thyself lest you be tempted also now verse 2 bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ verse 5 for every man shall bear his own burden let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him the teacher that all things bear each other's burden teach each other restore each other lift each other what does he mean in verse 2 he says bear each other's burdens in verse 5 he says bear your own burden there are two different greek words the word when he says your own burden is like a roman pack it is the everyday burden a roman soldier would carry the word in verse 2 means extra burden it means extra heavy it means there are certain things in life we're to carry of ourselves but it means that when the pressures of life come it means when there's tragedy where there's just too much temptation and too much trial that a brother will pick you up a sister will be your helper a fellow believer will bear and carry with you those extra things that's the nature of the fellowship it is a commonness a giving a bearing of one another's burdens let me show you these things quickly i've just plucked from the new testament he says we are not to judge one another lie to one another fight with one another devour one another envy one another provoke one another speak evil of one another or grumble one against the other but he says we are to build up one another to receive one another be kind to one another tender -hearted one to the other to forbear one another and forgive one another and serve one another and to practice hospitality one to the other to admonish one another to instruct one another to submit to one another and to comfort one another i've been your pastor for five years now and uh i suppose that every every day i have uh prayed and and been concerned that the lord would help me to be more and more of a pastor one of the things that has troubled me through these years is that i have tried to be a ministry in times of sorrow and death and bereavement to those that are experiencing it when i in fact have never experienced such an experience myself i had never until this week ever gone through personally the experience of death the death of a loved one uh last uh wednesday night we were at a a a uh tuesday night we were at a home with several couples who had invited us to come for dinner and it was a lovely experience and there was great christian fellowship and we sat around witnessing and talking and praising the lord in a little testimony circle at the end we were real excited and had a wonderful time we could hardly sleep we were so so happy and so high and the next morning uh after a restless uh but but but happy night uh my wife and i just decided we were going to call it all off and go to bed and sleep and catch up we were just sound asleep about 10 30 11 in the morning when we didn't know that our phone was out of order they told us they'd cut a cable out there in our community and uh some of our dear people came and knocked on the front door and they rang the bell and awoke us and going into the living room they come to tell me that they had not been able to get word to me over the telephone about two hours earlier in periocloma my father had gone on to be with the lord jesus i'd uh i didn't know what what to do i didn't know how i'd reacted i would react for 40 years i've waited with uh with fear that i who had preached faith and courage to others, would somehow find, frankly, that I had not had the faith to do myself what I told others was sufficient. And with fear and trembling, I approached that situation. We arrived that afternoon in Perry. And I want you to know that for 48 hours, I walked through an experience that I'd never known before. I told my mother not to leave the house, that I would do everything. Aline was still in Houston. And I lived through that experience alone of comforting her after the first shock, of going to the cemetery and selecting the lots. My father was quite a man. He played football at Texas A &M. He was a hatcheryman and had been in ill health for 25 years. I went to the funeral home and picked out the casket and selected his clothes and his ties and his socks and took it over and paid the bill and went through it all and selected the music and called the pallbearers and came home last night late with my wife, who in turn came on Thursday for the service on Friday. We went down and I had asked the office to ask folks to not send many flowers, to just give a little memorial to the building fund if they chose to do so. I felt that he would want it that way. We went at 1130 for what they call a little flower service up there. And they read all of the flower arrangements and who they were from at the church. A beautiful thing I had not seen before. And there was one from our dear staff, one from the church, the most beautiful one from our church family as a body collectively. And then there was the one from the deacons and as some had gone together like that. And that afternoon I did what I felt I wanted and had to do. And I sat on the platform after the preliminary moments with my mother and family on the second row and went to the pulpit and conducted and preached the funeral service myself. We went to the grave site and buried my father. He always wanted to be buried at the foot of a pine tree. And there was one pine tree there in the highest corner of the cemetery. And we found the little two lots side by side and purchased them and planted the remains of his body in the ground. I said goodbye to my family yesterday and came home, as I said, late in the afternoon. And I don't know if I'm just in a state of shock. I don't know if there's something yet coming that I've not experienced. But I tell you what I do know. I've been the Lord's work for 21 years and a Christian for 21 years, too. And alive for 40. And I've been the pastor of this dear, precious congregation for five years. And I have never had anything as vivid a spiritual experience in my life as through those 48 hours a sense of a protectiveness and of a presence of a fellowship of hundreds and thousands of people. You say, I know it was the Lord, but let me tell you something. The Lord does what He does through His people. You're His body. He has no hands but your hands. He has no eyes but your eyes. The Spirit has no voice. He has no platform in which to preach. He has no hands to give out flowers. He has no feet with which to walk. You're His feet. I say again, I have experienced the most uncanny and powerful and vivid and beautiful and blessed experience of my life. Feeling that for those 48 hours, I was encompassed by hundreds and thousands of people that knew me and that were loving me and that were praying for me. And that as Brother Wagner and Brother Pilon said and Brother O 'Kelly when they called, we're walking through this with you. And they, you were there. You were there. My thoughts were never off of the presence of our people that I could just fence, since I could reach out and touch. I want you to know that this, in this area of my life, I've experienced something that I've only preached in faith, secondhand, believing. Now that dimension of my life is a faith of my own. And I want you to know that when the dying hour comes, when the trying hour comes, when the testing hour comes, that the Christian faith that you have believed and given your money and yourself and your very lives to for all of these years is a valid and victorious reality because Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again and established a body, a fellowship, a koinonia. There's nothing in this world like the fellowship of a church, like the people of God. And I say as we begin another, if Jesus should tarry and God will it, five wonderful, glorious, conquesting happy years together, I say to you what I've said for many, many years. Buildings, temples, tabernacles are really not all that important, but the fellowship of the church is what makes the church the church.