True Christian Fellowship

There are many people in my generation who desire community and fellowship that goes beyond the surface level of life. I hear often, “We don’t have any community,” or, “I wish we had deeper fellowship.”  I’ve been there. There have been seasons in my life when I’ve felt very alone and disconnected, despite being a part of a local church. One would think that being a member of a local church would yield close relationships with other people there. After all, we are Christians who chose the same church. But often times it’s absent, and there seems to be an aura of mystery around the reason.

What is Community and Fellowship?

A working definition of community is a group of people that share common interests. Fellowship can be defined as intimate familiarity (John 1), joint partnership and interests.

It would seem that a local body of believers would be people who are first intimately familiar with Jesus, and then each other, because they share the common interest and pursuit of Him.

But there are many people I know who would say that this is not what they experience, at least to the depth they desire.

Examining our Hearts

I think it’s important to come at this whole issue with a heart that doesn’t first look around at what seems to be lacking around us, but with a heart that examines what may be lacking in us.

What do you consider to be most precious? What do you spend your time thinking about? On what do you spend money, time, and affections? This is most precious to you. And what is most precious to you is the object of your worship (Matthew 6:21).

If the object of your worship is anything other than Jesus, it will make fellowship with other true believers very difficult. True fellowship can only exist in and through Jesus. 1 John 4 speaks of the love we can have for one another when we know and abide in the love the Father has for us. His love was demonstrated through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the sending of the Spirit to dwell in our hearts through faith.  When He dwells in our hearts, we are brought into fellowship with the Trinity, and can then experience similar fellowship with other believers. He is the source of our fellowship.  A deeper heart-level connect can only happen to the degree that Jesus is treasured in your heart and the heart of the one with whom you desire fellowship.  Our fellowship will be centered on Him whom we treasure most.

If Jesus is most precious you, but not most precious to me, then the depth of our fellowship will only go so far.

Treasure Jesus?

The desire for community and fellowship is Biblical and God-given. We feel a longing in our heart to know and be known. But we often run to empty cisterns. Often times, we treasure people in our lives more than we treasure Jesus. No human relationship, as godly as another person may be, will ever satisfy our desire for relationship.  If earthly relationships (or something else) are more precious to us than a relationship with Jesus, our fellowship with one another will never satisfy our deepest heart longings. We are seeking an idol to fill the place only God can.

The model for fellowship is in the Trinity. In order to experience fellowship with other believers, we must first be fellowshipping with the Father, Son, and Spirit. It is in the Trinity that we see community and are brought into true fellowship with our Heavenly Father, Older Brother, and Helper.  Michael Reeves explains this beautifully in his book, Delighting in the Trinity. “The Spirit stirs up the delight of the Father in the Son and the delight of the Son in the Father, inflaming their love and so binding them together in “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:4). The Father also gives us the Holy Spirit so that we might share in this fellowship!

The fellowship experienced in the Trinity is a model for fellowship within the body of Christ. When the Spirit is at work stirring up delight in my heart for the Father and Jesus, and He’s also at work in your heart, our fellowship can be rich! I think this is the heart of Matthew 18:20 when Jesus says, “When two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

Our most precious treasure must be Jesus. Then, and only then, will we be able to walk in intimate fellowship with others who also treasure Jesus above all else.  It’s one thing to experience camaraderie as we walk through life.  The deep knowing of one another that spurs one another on to know and delight in the Lord can only happen in the Spirit, as we are treasuring Jesus.

Run After Him

It is good news to hear that we can experience deep relationship with other believers on the earth, and that we were actually created to do so. We have been given a precious gift in the person of the Holy Spirit, who stirs our delight for the Father and the Son. Let’s learn to fellowship first with Him and ask Him to be our deepest delight and treasure. Let’s go to Him in our prayer closets and during the mundane of our days and learn from Him how to truly walk with others.

As we treasure Jesus most of all, we will be able to come alongside one another in deep, rich fellowship.