Fellowship
Text:
Exodus 20:24 NIV
Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.
A lot of ministries are focusing in on being blessed right now. That is a good word. You’ll find the promise of blessing all through the Bible. Right here, in the Old Testament, God says, “Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you”. I want the blessings of Abraham and the wisdom of Solomon.
However, blessings do not come unless there is first a sacrifice. One of the sacrifices required in the Old Testament was the fellowship offering. Before God would come and bless his people, there first had to be a fellowship offering.
Fellowship brings blessings.
1. Fellowship is a Sacrifice
A. The Israelites could not just march into God’s presence to fellowship with Him. There had to be a sacrifice.
a. The guilt and sin offerings were usually offered first: they cleansed people from sin.
b. Then came the burnt offerings. Whole animals were burnt to ashes expressing complete dedication to God.
c. The final sacrifice was the fellowship offering, essentially a family meal shared in the presence of God.
B. The sequence of offerings- forgiveness of sins, then total dedication, then fellowship show that the goal of the OT sacrificial system was fellowship. Before you could reach that goal, forgiveness and dedication were first required.
a. There is no sense asking God to bless you unless you are first in a right relationship.
b. A right relationship is one where you are completely dedicated to Him.
God would rather you be Hot or Cold than to be luke-warm. Being average is the enemy of being blessed. If I stick one foot in a pail of ice cold water and the other foot in a pail of boiling hot water, on average I’m just about right.
C. Today, we have fellowship through the perfect sacrifice Christ made on the cross. Hebrews 10:1 reminds us that the law was only a shadow of the good things to come.
Hebrews 9:22 NIV
… without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
a. Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law so that we could be forgiven. He is our guilt and sin offering.
b. Hebrews 10:8 NIV
Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them.
c. Instead, we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. By this we express to God what was formally a burnt offering showing dedication.
1 John 1:36 NIV
… our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ
a. Our fellowship with each other is only made possible when it is WITH the Father and WITH his Son, Jesus Christ.
b. Fellowship that leads to blessing is a life lived in the presence of God.
1. The presence of God is more than acknowledging God, saying a prayer before dinner, or pressing flowers in your family Bible.
2. Fellowship is a sacrifice
2. Fellowship brings Peace
A. Jesus is often found saying “peace” or “my peace”. It was a common Hebrew greeting. Jesus offers peace to those who are in fellowship with God. Not as the world gives. When the world speaks of peace it is only expressing a longing or a wish. Jesus’ peace is real.
B. Numbers 6:14 tells us that a Ram without defect was required for a fellowship offering.
a. The first mention in scripture of a Ram is when Gold told Abram to offer a sacrifice. From that sacrifice God would show Abram his plan to give him the promised land. (Genesis 15:9)
1. Abram was not at peace with the promise until he made the sacrifice.
2. First you obey, then you are blessed.
b. The second time a Ram is mentioned we find Abraham on the mountain top with a knife in his hand obediently ready to slay his son Isaac as a sacrifice. God provided a Ram to make peace with his promise to bless Abraham through Isaac.
1. First you obey, then you are blessed.
c. The scripture asks, “how can two walk together unless they agree?”. Abraham and God agreed. Abraham believed God’s promise of blessing and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was a friend of God. He had fellowship with God.
Psalm 85:10b NIV
…righteousness and peace kiss each other.
C. If you want peace, give fellowship.
Psalm 34:14b NIV
…Seek peace and pursue it.
1 Corinthians 14:33 NIV
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
D. Matthew 5:23-24
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be (at peace) reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
3. Fellowship is Submissive
A. There is no way to escape submission when you pursue fellowship.
The marriage partner submits to their spouse. The child submits to the parent.
The politician to the voter.
The borrower to the lender.
The employee to the boss and the boss submits to the customer.
B. Being submitted to God
John 15:14 NIV
You are my friends if you do what I command.
1 John 1:6 NIV
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
C. Means being submitted to the Body
1 John 1:7 NIV
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, purifies us from all sin.
Philippians 2:1-4 NIV
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
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