Sermon: Roman 12, Biblical Fellowship

At the end of September 2018 I was privileged to speak at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany that I and the Grace Baptists in Europe team of Grace Baptist Partnership organised with the Evangelisch-Reformierte Baptistengemeinde Frankfurt. Conference speakers included ERBF elders Peter Schild and Tobias Reimenschneider, Dean of African Christian University Seminary Voddie Baucham, President of the IRBS Theological Seminary Jim Renihan, leader of the Grace Baptist Partnership and pastor of Dunstable Baptist Church Barry King, and me. My task was to speak on Biblical Fellowship. You can watch the sermon, with German translation, here https://vimeo.com/292268900 or read my notes below. 

When thinking about the subject of Biblical Fellowship a couple of passages come to mind.

There is Acts 2, where we have, at the conclusion of that eventful chapter, a glimpse at the life of the newly established church in Jerusalem. It would be hard to find a more communally and generously devoted, that is to say, fellowshipping church anywhere.

We see what they were devoted to - The apostles teaching and fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers.

We see how they were devoted:

They were devoted with unity. “All who believed were together.”

They were devoted with impact. “They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.”

They were devoted with worship. They did this “with glad and generous hearts, praising God”.

They were devoted with witness. They were “in the temple”, they were “from house to house”, they had “favour with all the people.”

And we see to why they were devoted. “Awe came on every soul.” They were amazed by God.

Then there is Hebrews 10, followed by 13. The first of these chapters provides two key aspects of the  theological foundation on which Christian fellowship is built. Put simply they are:

First, God does not need you. You need God.

Second, God does not need your sacrifices for sin. He has already received Christ’s sacrifice.

Upon these great truths are laid a number of practical implications:

You need to draw near to God, with a true heart - cleansed and believing, committed and submissive to God.

You need to hold fast the confession of hope against the battering waves of temptations to apostasy, not because you are faithful but because he is faithful.

You need to draw near to each other. It is an apostolic command flowing from the gospel that you should not neglect meeting together, but get together and when together stir up one another to love and good works.

Christian fellowship is not then about sacrifices for sin, a tick box exercise of going through the motions to appease God and turn away his anger. It is however about the sacrifices of praise. As Hebrews 13:15 and following would say “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Fellowship is not the communal body of believers itself, the body of Christ’s church simply gathered together, but it is in fact what the body does. As Jim [Dr. James Renihan] helpfully pointed out yesterday, New Testament fellowship is seen in things such as generous giving to support our brothers in need even as we have received abundantly from God. It is all very fine and biblical to meet together, but the mere act of meeting does not entail biblical fellowship. Everything about meeting together might be in lock step with biblical theology and sound doctrinal principles, and everyone might be present at every meeting but that does not necessarily mean the fellowship is healthy. It could be stiflingly rigid and lifelessly performed, and the congregation present because they are coerced by leaders not compelled by love. I am led then today to move beyond surface level expressions of fellowship and to get at the heart of what creates and sustains fellowship.

The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ as the Cornerstone, so we must see who we are in Christ. The church is variously gifted for building up and blessing one another, so we must see what we have by the Spirit. There are three things that must forever remain in a healthy church: faith, hope, and love and the Apostle says “the greatest of these is love”, So we must see how fellowship is created, sustained, and fulfilled in love.

Locate in your Bibles the letter of Paul to the Romans, chapter 12. (Read verses 3-8)

Biblical fellowship comes from what the church is

One body

The church, though multiple and even many different people, is one body in Christ. It is the local assembly of God’s people, set apart for distinctiveness positionally in Christ, called to distinctiveness progressively in Christ, and a part of a global body of different people in different places who may or may not know each other but know and are known by the same Jesus who is Lord over all. We can share the good things that we have horizontally with one another, because vertically we already share the same Lord, the same faith, the same baptism, the same God and father., and because by the power of the Holy Spirit according to the redemptive work of Christ we have a share in the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, not merely as subjects of a King but as sons of a loving Heavenly Father.

The oneness of the church, out of which generous sharing proceeds is made all the more remarkable by how fragmented and broken we were in our sin. We were separated from Christ, we were alienated from the covenant commonwealth of Israel, we were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus we who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, who is our peace, who has made us one, who has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, who has created in himself one new man and so made peace, reconciling us together to God in one body through the cross thereby killing the hostility.

Christ was broken to put us and our relationship with God back together!

In the text here using your gifts is here framed as the natural, rational, spiritual response of humble not haughty, transformed not conformed, living sacrifices not lifeless substitute people to the mercies of God. You’re not fragmented anymore, so be faithful with the gifts God has given you and generously use them to the blessing and help of others.

Biblical fellowship works with what the church has

Many members, individually members one of another. 

Biblical fellowship is made of different lives. It is not about uniformity, but about unity, and unity is often best seen against the backdrop of diversity. Here the text’s emphasis is on the diversity of functions and gifts.

Different functions and gifts: Prophecy, service, teaching, exhorting, contributing, leading or giving aid, and acts of mercy.

Essentially what we see in this passage is that there are gifts of communication and there are gifts of care. Identify your gift and use it. Some in leadership may have many gifts, there is for example a distinction Paul makes elsewhere between the elders who direct the affairs of the church well, and those who are perhaps less involved in that aspect of eldership, those whose primary task is preaching and teaching and those who may do less of that but are still important to the leadership and accountability structures of the church.  To fellowship biblically, worry less about what other people’s gifts, calling, and responsibilities are and work at sorting out your own and serving with it. Worry less about whether another person is being a living sacrifice, and you seek to offer yourself up at a real, tangible, practical level as you are gifted. Similarly, leaders of churches, it is your Christian responsibility to use your gifts but it is your pastoral responsibility to encourage members of your congregation, even at a personal level to identify and use their gifts, providing them with opportunities to do so.

Biblical fellowship is sustained by how the church uses what is has

“Having gifts...let us use them.” Put yourself forward. Offer to help. Say what you can do and when you can do it, and if no one else joins you, that’s fine - maybe they are using their gift in another place at that time. With appropriate respect and submission to the church leadership, take initiative. Proactively seeking to initiate the use of our own gifts kills our self-centred individualism (the mindset that asks “why do I have to or why would I do that?”) and our self-righteous judgementalism (“why are they not doing this?”).

Do not give God anymore lifeless substitutes for a living sacrifice. Looking to Jesus, who endured the cross and despised the shame for the joy laid before him, pour yourself into whatever you can in the best way you can in such a way that God is worshipped, your brothers and sisters are built up, and your neighbour's good is sought.

And do it all with love.

Biblical fellowship exists because Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Biblical fellowship exists to love God and neighbour in a gospel-proclaiming community of faith and hope.

Biblical fellowship is sustained as the church proclaims the love of God and portrays the loveliness of Christ to one another and the world.

Paul summed up the society of his day in the first chapter of this letter, words written two millennia ago that ring true today, and could just as well describe this city in which we meet:

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

We however are called to distinctiveness. Not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed. To be different. So in a world endlessly pursuing the satisfaction of its own lusts, Paul calls disciples of Christ to love.

Love is the highest and noblest expression of human affection, the truest form of friendship and devotion, as though the object is infinitely precious and worth sacrifice.

There are many enemies of love, enemies that Paul faced and that we face.

There is racism - a rejection of beautiful humanity - and so Paul had to address animosity and insensitivity between Jews and Greeks. He does not, as perhaps some would have it, deny the existential realities of Jewishness and Greekness, but presents the transcendental reality of a reconciliatory Saviour whose work in us causes us to consider others more highly than ourselves, labouring to consider their needs and preferences above our own.

There is classism - a rejection of basic equality - but at the beginning of this letter Paul felt an obligation to preach the gospel to those deemed wise and well educated, and those deemed foolish, and concludes the letter by greeting households of slaves same as he greeted freemen.

The answer to these two abiding problems is not worldly notions of colourblindness (denial of ethnic distinctions), or “collar”blindness (as though our society is not filled with haves, have nots, and many in between). The answer is Christ - Christ above all, over all, in all, reconciling us to God, reconciling us to each other, compelling us to consider and care for each other in the sacrificially sharing love of Christian fellowship!

There is pluralism - a rejection of biblical exclusivity - so Paul points to the one true God revealed in creation, conscience, and Christ and points to the only way by which sinners can be saved.

There is individualism - a divisive rejection of community that insists on its own way, craves rights without responsibilities and looks for personal success in life without the strain of labour, and kids itself that it is striving for the glory of God while ignoring the good of our neighbours. 

There is consumerism, a destructive refusal to be content, as other people’s generosity - of money, time, or some other precious resource - is abused with impunity and we clamour for more and more. Our culture is all too used to getting, and despite its patronising colonialist pretensions, knows very little of what it means to really and truly give. To share. To fellowship!

There is sentimentalism, a deluded rebellion against common sense that says you cannot love unless you feel something that the world calls love. That you cannot love against your inhibitions, your scruples, your preferences. This is because the love that the world primarily envisions is the love of sexual attraction and romance. The Bible gives us a deeper love, a love that in Christ creates community where there would otherwise be chaos. This love is not born out of sentiment but out of salvation, and it is not a feeling that you can check in and out of like a hotel but it must be a fact that you settle down into and make your home.

Walk with me quickly through verses 9-21 and we will see that this love is

A meaningful love - Let love be genuine.

The Greek word translated here as genuine or sincere, anypokritos, carries the sense of “not playing a part”. Don’t be fake, phony, artificial, superficial, acting, putting on a show in your demonstrations and displays of love.

This love is

A moral love - Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.

Love unequivocally acknowledges and affirms the existence of good and evil and those areas that have been greyed by human sinfulness, seeking to isolate and separate the light from the dark. The act of abhorring what is evil and holding fast to what is good is an act of love.

 This love is

A mindful love - mindful of who you love, how you love, and why you love

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

This love is

A ministerial love

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.

This love is  

A merciful love

Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but  k give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you,  l live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written,  “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary,  “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Biblical fellowship is built on faith and united in hope, but it is expressed in the greatest of the three: love, as we share with one another, as any has need, of the bounty with which God has blessed us. Give yourself then to the sharing community of believers so that they may be strengthened and stirred up, so that your neighbours may be loved, and so that God may indeed receive the honour, glory, and adoration due to him as we follow Christ our Lord.