Having true fellowship

The third purpose for our home group is fellowship.

I guess it is fair to say that the meaning of 'Fellowship' has been watered down over time and I am quite certain that the fellowship exercised by the early church is quite different from what some people, or dare I say it, some churches in this day, would understand fellowship to be and to mean.

For instance, would you consider two friends who both share a passion for golf and who spend every weekend playing the game they love, to be fellowship?
Would you even consider two Christian friends who both supported the same rugby team and often spent time together talking about their team and discussing the various selection dilemmas if they were the head coaches to be fellowship?
Consider a Christian family sitting at the dinner table, sharing a meal and talking about the events of the day. Is that fellowship?

The problem is, many people don't really know. Many don't know what true fellowship is. They don't really know how to experience fellowship and they probably wouldn't even recognise it if they actually experienced it.

So, in order for us to find out what true fellowship is, we need to go back to God's Word and see for ourselves.

The word fellowship in the New Testament is the Greek word koinōnia and it means contribution, participation, sharing.
It appears some 19 times and is translated (in NASB) as fellowship 9 times. In the other instances, it is translated as Contribution, Participation or Sharing.

So fellowship is a word that speaks of close partnership.

The first instance we find it in the NT is in Acts 2:42:

"They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Here is another example found in 1 Corinthians 1:9:

"God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

and another. This is in 1 John 1:3:

"what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."

It is interesting to note 3 things from the passage in 1 John 1:
1) The source of our fellowship
2) Who can have fellowship
3) The reason why we have fellowship

1) The source of our fellowship is Christ.
In verses 1-3, John goes to great lengths to explain that what he is telling us he knows from personal experience. In verse 1, he says "what we have heard, what we have seen, looked and touched." For emphasis, John repeats this in verses 2 and 3.
His reference of course is to Christ. Christ is the source from what he has heard, seen, looked at and touched.
Just as God revealed Himself to Israel in the Old Testament through various prophets, so God chose to reveal Himself to the world through His Son in the New Testament.

From verse 3, John explains to his readers how they can have fellowship with the apostles and God. He knows this from what he heard and saw from Christ.

2) Fellowship is designed for believers.
It is likely that John's readers are Christians. It is only possible for believers to fellowship with God since fellowship follows salvation.
Verse 3 also indicates that not only is fellowship a vertical thing (between the believer and God), but is also allows fellowship horizontally, that is, with other believers. This also illustrates that not only is God the source of fellowship, but salvation must be a pre-requisite for fellowship.

3) The reason to have fellowship is so that our joy will be complete (v4). We cannot experience real joy until we have a relationship with God and it is growing. Unless we are in Christ, we cannot have real joy in our relationships with other believers (John 15:11).

In short, fellowship is understanding that through our relationship with Christ, we also have a relationship with all believers. Fellowship is spending time with other believers, studying Gods Word, praying with and for each other, edifying each other through encouragement and gentle correction in order to contribute to our sanctification.
It is sharing with one another the common entity that unites us, communicating to each other what things our Great God has done for us and revealed to us through His Word that encouraged and strengthened us.

Next time you are in your own home group, put away the conversations about the weather, politics or the state of the country's economy.  Put aside your pride, but instead reveal to others what you have been struggling with and ask them to pray for you. Discuss with each other ways in which you can keep your quiet times fresh and invigorating and find new opportunities in which you can serve others.

Don't waste time on unimportant things and meaningless conversation. Sanctification is a life-long process and fellowship is a special gift we have been given to help us along the way.