God Lives In Our Fellowship

I’m going to ask you to do something. Indulge me for just a minute if you don’t mind. Think back a little bit to all the great experiences you’ve had at church over the course of your life. Then be specific to the great experiences you have had at church during the holidays. There is the wonderful music, the beautiful decorations around the worship center, the proclaimed Word of God centered on the arrival of our Savior and the food shared among friends. It’s a wonderful time to be at church no doubt. But the times I’ve cherished have been the time with God’s people. I want to specifically bring attention to God’s people in my Community Groups.  

A few weeks ago, I was filling the pulpit for Bob on a Sunday morning. I made the statement that you need a group in your life. Well, when the holidays roll around it seriously reflects the reason this is so important. Imagine you had no family, nobody close to you to share the holidays. If you have a family, it may be hard to imagine. But for some of our church members this is the case. This is why it’s so important. You may be thinking, well I have a family so no big deal. Sure, but what about your brothers and sisters in Christ who do not? And while you have a family now, what if they can’t be with you every year?  

When the church was created, the Lord had this kind of function in mind. He never intended you to be alone. You might say, “well I have the company of the Holy Spirit!” Yes, you do. But you were also intended to have the company of other believers, joined together, growing, being built together with Jesus as the cornerstone. This is the church in its most beautiful form. It is so beautiful that scripture calls it a “dwelling place for God.”  

When the church was created, the Lord had this kind of function in mind. He never intended you to be alone.

God lives in our fellowship! He delights in the worship and proclamation of His Word and the growing together of Christians who are following Him the exact same way the first century believers did. That fellowship is so sweet. I want to challenge you to sit in the congregation during worship at some point this year and reflect on all the ways the church has blessed you. Let the joy that brings be the wonderful gift it was intended to be when God gave it to you! 

Ephesians 2:19-22 ESV 

So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.