Rev. David Holwick C Purpose-Driven Life #3
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
January 18, 2004
1 John 1:3
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I. God is a family kind of guy.
A. Personal testimony: when asked how she lived to be 112, Adelina
Dominquez, the oldest American at that time, said,
"I knew God had a purpose in my life."
B. Ephesians 3:15 - God wants a family.
C. The Bible is the story of God building a family.
1) It is an eternal family.
II. Second purpose of life - Love your spiritual family. 1 Peter 2:17
A. Why?
1) Your physical family will fall apart.
2) You will spend more time with your spiritual family.
B. God wants you to learn to love them.
1) It makes us more like God, because God is love.
2) He wants his children to get along together.
3) We need fellowship.
a) It signifies a close relationship between people.
b) It even signifies a close relationship between us
and God. 1 John 1:3
C. Misunderstandings of fellowship.
1) Not just casual conversation, or parking lot conversation.
a) "Handshake time" doesn't qualify.
2) Fellowship is loving God's family. 1 John 4:21
a) Church is more than a place you "go."
b) Church is a family you belong to.
1> You were not meant to go through life alone.
2> We need other people.
III. Four levels of Fellowship.
A. Membership: choosing to belong.
1) The Christian life is not just believing, but belonging.
a) It requires a choice on our part.
2) Many rebel against belonging to a church.
a) Like being a football player without a team.
b) "Church hoppers" - go where it is hot.
1> No church is perfect.
2> Spouses neither - "I love you but not your body"?
A> Church is body of Christ.
B> Don't disrespect it.
3) Symbol of belonging - baptism.
a) A public way to say I died and live with Christ.
b) Also - I am a part of God's people.
B. Friendship: learning to share.
1) A deeper level of fellowship.
a) We were made for relationships. (not good to be alone)
b) Friendship requires time, and a choice on your part.
1> They don't just happen.
2) Early Christians were bound to each other.
a) Acts 2:44 - "they shared everything with each other."
b) What kinds of things should we share?
1> Share our experiences.
A> Everyone is ignorant in some area.
B> Proverbs - iron sharpens iron. Prov 27:17
2> Share our homes. Romans 12:13
A> For three centuries, there were no churches.
B> Christians met in homes.
1: San Clemente in Rome.
AD 1100 -> 4th century -> 1st cent home
3> Share our problems.
A> We don't have to fix everyone's problems.
B> We just have to share them.
In 1996 Ted Stone walked across America.
As he walks, he preaches in churches and talks to Christians.
It opened his eyes to what really goes on in churches.
At Texas City, Texas, he found a deeply troubled couple waited for
their guest speaker on the front porch of the thriving church.
When they spotted Ted, they said, "Thank God you're here.
God sent you!"
They soon explained that their teenaged son had just been arrested
and charged with capital murder in the slaying of a convenience
store clerk.
When they had completed detailing the sad history of their wayward
son, they gratefully confided, "Thank God, we're members of
this church.
We don't have to be afraid to cry or express our pain in front of
our fellow church members.
They love us, and they even love our son, in spite of the terrible
thing he is charged with doing."
A few days later another church member confided to Ted, "My brother
has a serious cocaine problem, and I'm worried to death about
him."
She said this with tears in her eyes.
"I love my church," she continued, "but I don't dare try to
discuss my brother's drug habit with our members.
At my church they play a game of 'let's pretend.'
Let's pretend no one is hurting.
Let's pretend no one has a problem.
Let's pretend everything is all right.
But everything is not all right," she lamented.
"My brother does have a problem, and he is hurting and so are we."
Whenever he speaks in churches, Ted often asks the congregations,
"What kind of church is your church?"
#7497
3) Everyone needs encouragement.
a) Hebrews 10:25 ties it in with meetings.
b) Usually we think of church, but can just as
well be small groups.
c) Small groups are the heart of any church.
1> I was nurtured through one in high
school.
C. Partnership: doing my part.
1) Everyone has a contribution to make.
a) Families have chores...
1> "Josiah, go get the newspaper..."
"Josiah, go get the mail..."
"Josiah, go walk the dog..."
2> (I did my bit when I was 12, too)
b) Churches have chores as well.
1> Our love must be put into action.
During World War II, Britons placed large signs at the entrance
to their munitions factories.
The signs carried only five letters: "IADOM."
A stranger in England during that time probably didn't understand
what the signs meant.
But the British people knew that the letters were an abbreviation
for the words, "It all depends on me."
It was a slogan to remind them that they were fighting for their
land and lives, that victory depended on them.
Your contribution makes a difference.
And you are not alone.
There are millions of Christians who still love Jesus and are
serving Him faithfully.
There is a special fellowship of which each of us is a part.
We are a part of something big and beautiful, and that fellowship
encourages and blesses us.
#10367
2) Everyone has a niche.
a) "Membership" - a Christian word.
b) Each part of the body of Christ - you - has a purpose.
c) Look for a practical need, and do something about it.
1 Peter 4:10-11:
"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve
others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various
forms.
If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very
words of God.
If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God
provides, so that in all things God may be praised through
Jesus Christ."
D. Kinship: loving believers like family.
1) The deepest level.
a) Kinship not limited to "Beverly Hillbillies."
b) Love believers like they are family.
c) This is ultimate sign we are Christians. John 13:34-35
2) God's family is a laboratory for learning to love.
IV. Which level are you at?
A. Perhaps a need for a basic commitment - membership.
B. Always a need for a deeper commitment - involvement.
C. Our ultimate goal.
Richard Foster, a popular Christian writer, says the goal of
Christians is not heaven.
That is our destination, but not our goal.
Our goal is that "Christ be formed in you," to use the words
of the apostle Paul in Galatians 4:19.
A close Christian fellowship is where this happens.
We have to nurture each other.
We have to be accountable to each other.
Christlikeness is not merely something an individual has to
work on.
Instead, it grows out of the dynamics of a loving fellowship.
#3627
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
This sermon closely follows one by Rev. Rick Warren titled "Formed For God's
Family."
# 3627 "What Is Supposed To Happen In The Christian Life?" by Richard
J. Foster, Online Christianity Today (through America Online);
February 5, 1996.
# 7497 "Is Your Church A Welcome Mat Or A Locked Door?" by Ted G. Stone
and Philip D. Barber; Baptist Press,
http://www.baptistpress.org/; March 28, 2002.
#10367 "It All Depends On Me," from the Fredericksburg Bible Illustrator
Supplements, 9/1997.101.
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html.html
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