Draw Near (2)
Draw Near • Sermon • Submitted
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· 8 viewsWe were created to fellowship with God and each other.
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Transcript
He Wants to Fellowship
He Wants to Fellowship
Good morning CHURCH!
Are you ready to be equipped today?
Let me see your Bibles. (Start my timer)
Let’s go to the book of John for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.
This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination
John 15:15 ESV
John 15:15 ESV
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Today’s message title is:
He Wants to Fellowship
He Wants to Fellowship
Fellowship – koinonia G2842
Fellowship is a participation in a partnership, contributing.
Fellowship is the essence of the Christian life—fellowship with God and fellowship with other believers.
Question?
Is the majority of your fellowship with believers or non-believers?
And if it’s with non-believers, are you consistently influencing them to become a follower of Christ?
Or is it a neutral ground relationship.
Like when they have a gang infested area.
You might have a church or a barber shop that is neutral ground meaning no violence or turf wars while in this space.
Is that the kind of relationship you have with non-believers?
Or is every meeting a chance to, in some way gain ground to get them on team Jesus.
You were created for fellowship.
Point #1
Point #1
He created us with Fellowship in mind
He created us with Fellowship in mind
God desires to fellowship with you. And that’s a big deal.
If you are not in right standing with God, you can’t have fellowship with him.
1 John 1:6-7 ESV
1 John 1:6-7 ESV
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie, and the truth is not in us.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Let’s continue.
How do we know that we were created with fellowship in mind?
The Bible says that the LORD God would walk in the garden and talk to mankind.
Genesis 3:8-9 ESV
Genesis 3:8-9 ESV
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
We also see in the creation events that once man broke fellowship, God began to show his love and how he would get it back.
First, he stopped man from being able to eat from the tree of life in that fallen state.
Genesis 3:22-24 ESV
Genesis 3:22-24 ESV
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
After everything is rectified, our fellowship will never be broken again.
Revelation 2:7 ESV
Revelation 2:7 ESV
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
And there were other ways he showed us as well.
God said things like, And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36)
We saw some the men of the Bible described as having fellowship with God.
In the O.T. we saw that Enoch was described as a man who walked with God in the 5th chapter of Genesis.
Noah was said to have walked with God in Genesis chapter 6.
In James chapter 2 Abraham was called a friend of God.
But God also wanted man to fellowship with other humans.
Point #2
Point #2
Fellowship was intended with God and each other
Fellowship was intended with God and each other
Genesis 2:7-8 ESV
Genesis 2:7-8 ESV
then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:18 ESV
Genesis 2:18 ESV
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
Genesis 2:21-22 ESV
Genesis 2:21-22 ESV
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Genesis 2:24 ESV
Genesis 2:24 ESV
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
We also see this point made by John the apostle in 1 John 1.
1 John 1:3 ESV
1 John 1:3 ESV
That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Point #3
Point #3
What happens if we lose fellowship with God?
What happens if we lose fellowship with God?
The three Ds happen.
Deception – Desire – Disobedience
Satan can Deceive us.
Then we Desire wrongly.
Finally we choose to Disobey.
Genesis 3:1-2 ESV
Genesis 3:1-2 ESV
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
The devil will attempt to get you to question God.
That’s when the first D, deception gets in.
We listen to lies or we question truth.
We see the next two Ds in verse 6.
Genesis 3:6 ESV
Genesis 3:6 ESV
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
That’s when the first D, deception gets in.
Once he gets us to desire something, it’s almost inevitable that we will disobey.
And when this happens in our relationships, we lose the fellowship because we begin to blame each other like the first family.
Genesis 3:11-13 ESV
Genesis 3:11-13 ESV
He said, “who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Adam blamed God and the woman.
The woman blamed the serpent.
If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.
What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?
What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?