Hebrews 10:23–25 — Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful;24 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,25 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.
In our concluding post in this part of the series, we will review all that we have seen on the subject of fellowship. Next time, we are going to embark on a study of the reasons God gives us in His Word as to why and how we should participate in the Lord's Supper.
We began this series by seeing that true fellowship can only take place between brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an out-flowing or the union that every true Christian has with Him. His Spirit dwells in each of us, producing fruit and bestowing gifts that are to be used for the good of the entire body. Consequently, since true fellowship is essential for the well-being of the church, God commands us to enjoy fellowship together. We saw that this was something the early church wholeheartedly embraced, devoting themselves to fellowship.
We went on to explore the analogy of the church as the body of Christ, to understand why she must be harmed and hindered if true fellowship is not taking place.
Next, we embarked on an overview of some of the fruits and gifts God gives to the church to be used in true fellowship for the benefit of the body: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, wisdom, strength and power, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, faith, helpfulness, evangelism, wholesome instruction and shepherding.
Lastly, we saw that for every fruit and gift that the Lord gives to the church, there is a corresponding command that it be used for the mutual good. He does not give us gifts for us to keep to ourselves or allow to lie fallow. Neither does He command the exercise of activities in the church without supplying the necessary gifts and fruits for those things to be undertaken. Let no child of God, then, attempt to excuse themselves from their responsibility to serve the Lord in the church with all the gifts He has given them! So often we deprecate ourselves and our gifts as being insignificant or unimportant. Sometimes this is nothing more than false humility, put forward to get us off the hook because we have other priorities in our lives. For some, though, there is a genuine spirit of timidity and we would simply recommend such souls to prayerfully review the commands from God that we have been considering in the latter part of this series - they are commands, not suggestions, not options to add something extra to your Christian life. You MUST use the gifts God has given you for the good of the church. Otherwise, you risk being like the character in the parable of the talents who hid his talent away rather than using it to seek an increase for His master (Matthew 25:14-30).
We cannot end on such a note as this, though, because God never commands us to do things that are not designed for our good and our blessing. Those who have tasted true fellowship with their brothers and sisters, using their gifts and being ministered to by the gifts of others, know just how sweet it is. As with all the commands of our God, then, the ones we have seen that require us to use God's gifts in the church should not be a burden but a delight to our souls! It is only the residual corruption within us that could make us feel otherwise.
It is our earnest hope and prayer that these meditations have stimulated our desire to be present for fellowship when the church meets, and not to accept the "fellowship" that is often offered in churches, where people who claim to be Christians simply spend time together talking about and doing things that everyone in the world does also. We bear the Name that is above all names! We have been called to higher things and to deeper, richer experiences than the world can ever know, and we can share these in fellowship! Let's purpose in our hearts to do all that is in our power more closely to conform the fellowship we have in our churches to the pattern that God has laid out so clearly for us in His Word and commanded us to enjoy as the Body of Christ!
