The second last Core Value for our church’s vision, which we’re preaching through this term, is ‘fellowship’; which is defined as ‘a close association involving mutual interests and sharing’. As we saw last week, our mutual interest is in Christ, and the thing we ‘share’ is our lives.
The best way to share our lives together, according to Acts 4:32-37 is to treat each other like true friends. The people we would lend our car to, or help move house, are our close friends. In the same way, the early Christians sold property to support those in need, because they were treating them like their close friends. Ensuring no Christian was in need was more important to these early Christians than money.
The reason these Christians went to such extremes for their church family was because the Holy Spirit had convicted them at Pentecost of the infinite extreme Jesus had gone to for them. As we know, the physical suffering Jesus endured on the cross was nothing compared to the emotional torture of Jesus breaking fellowship with His Father (‘my God, my God, why have you forsaken me’). When we realise what our fellowship around God’s throne costs (i.e. Jesus breaking his eternal fellowship with the Father), it should make us want to treat that fellowship accordingly.
So may we learn to be true friends to all manner of people who attend Earlwood Anglican. Not only will this blow the minds of visitors, who simply have no category for the type of fellowship Christians are called to exhibit, but it will make our lives even more blessed. For that is what fellowship is; God pouring out his blessings on his people, by empowering them to care for one another.
Brendan McLaughlin
