Speaking the Truth in Love
Good Fellowship
We are members of the Oak Ridge church of Christ. We call ourselves Christians (Acts 11:26) and we hold to the Bible as our one and only Truth. Church of Christ is a biblical description of Christians who work together for the cause of Christ (Romans 16:16). We are independent assemblies with no organization beyond our own number as described in Philippians 1:1. There are Christians across the world working with local congregations of God’s people such as described in Revelation 2-3. Christians are members of Christ’s body, which is also known as His Church (Acts 2:47, Ephesians 5:23). Our mission is to stand for God’s truth (the gospel) and teach it to all people (Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 1:16, 1 Timothy 3:15). We are accountable to our one and only Head Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:18).
God’s word speaks about “fellowship” quite often. Tonight we want to go through a number of passages to understand what good fellowship looks like and then make some personal applications.
FELLOWSHIP DEFINED
Fellowship is defined as partnership, communion, sharing in common, communication, and participation. The example that immediately comes to my mind is when a sports team (e.g., Nashville Predators) is in good fellowship with one another and with their coaches. By working together in good fellowship, they can accomplish things they never dreamed of. The same is true for the Lord’s church! Now we would like to go through some passages and see what these teach us about good fellowship.
GOOD FELLOWSHIP FROM GOD’S WORD
Proverbs 20:19, 24:21
John 13:34-35, 15:14
Acts 2:40-42, 46-47
Romans 12:9-18
1 Corinthians 1:1-9, 10:16-17, 10:20-22
2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1, 8:1-5
[In Oak Ridge, we are blessed to be able to support a number of preachers throughout the world. We have fellowship with these brothers in Christ!]
Galatians 2:7-9
Ephesians 3:8-12, 5:8-11
Philippians 1:3-7, 2:1-4, 3:7-11
James 4:4, 7-10
1 John 1:1-4, 5-7
2 John 1:9-11
CLOSE
1. Are you in good fellowship with Jesus today?
2. Are you a friend of the world or a friend of God?
If you are not a disciple of Jesus, you are not in good fellowship with God and His children.
1. The first step is to do what Paul did as recorded in Acts 22:15-16. In sin you cannot have true fellowship with God!
2. Then you need to join the fellowship of brethren in a local church as Paul did as recorded in Acts 9:26-28.
Please check the scriptures we have covered tonight. We want to help you in any way we can. Contact us for Bible studies, by telephone, e-mail, or simply come to one of our assemblies. Our next live program is planned for September 18, 2017 when we hope to study "Let Us Reason Together". We plan to run a rerun on Monday, September 4, as the CTV studios will be closed for the Labor Day Holiday. We hope to see you next time on "Speaking The Truth In Love".
