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Inviting people into an intentional relationship is part of the challenge, but perhaps the first challenge is finding someone to partner with you in intentionality. Who will help challenge me? Who can I challenge and bless?
This is the first question we must ask and the answer is probably more obvious than it appears. You can have an intentional relationship with anyone you know, respect and trust. The challenge is not to find a new friend but take an existing friendship to a deeper place.

Consider perhaps as a “Paul” in your life: a parent, a small group leader, a man or woman older than you who can guide you through your present life stage. Find someone who has lived their life well, who you say, “I’d like to end up like them.” Once you find them ask , “Could you help me navigate some obstacles in my life now and help guide me with prayer.” I’ve asked that question of several people and I’ve yet to be turned down.

For a “Barnabus” look to a spiritual friend you have, perhaps someone in your small group or church. A friend whose mind is turned towards the things of God. If a “Paul” is your coach helping you know how to train, then a “Barnabus” is your workout partner calling you at 5:30am making sure you’ll meet him at the gym.

Finally a “Timothy” is someone your heart is drawn towards, as you look out in your church at some younger people, or younger Christians, who do you see yourself in? Who is facing a struggle you have faced? Who could be blessed with a word of hope from you?

Take time to discern these people in your life. Pray. Ask God to reveal someone that you can be intentional with, I can personally testify that he honors this prayer. Recently after moving I was looking for a Barnabus and through prayer I was guided to a friend. We still have our intentional friendship and we still encourage each other.  The steps to intentionality are challenging and perhaps awkward, but if we’re to have strong fellowship we must take these steps.

Small group was great tonight, as we explored the meaning of fellowship a great question came up. How do we form truly deep fellowship relationships? As we looked at a model common in the church to have a Paul (mentor or coach), a Barnabus (running partner) and a Timothy (little brother or sister) the question was asked, “How do I get these relationships?”

I think that is the question we all are asking, “How do I get rewarding relationships?” What does it take to get relationships that are mutually beneficial and bring us to a place of growth? The answer – intentionality.  By being intentional in our relationships we can move beyond surface acquaintance into a deep connection. The reason we have so many shallow relationships is because we haven’t offered and risked anything to take them deeper.

There is a risk associated with deep relationships.  I must disclose more of myself, give more of myself in order to deepen a relationship.  The info on my Facebook page isn’t enough to sustain a long term relationship.  I have Facebook friends I’ve never communicated with, how deep is our relationship?  I have acquaintances I’ve not talked to for over fifteen minutes, what do I risk with them?

What would happen if I approached one of these people and asked, “Would you enter into an intentional friendship with me?”  How would they respond?  Confused?  Afraid?  Both?  What if the question was less formal, perhaps ask, “Could we get together once a month? Call me and let me call you to encourage you in our faith.”  This is the start of fellowship, this is the relationship God desires us to have with the church – will we pursue it with intentionality?

“In the beginning, the church was a fellowship of men and women who centered their lives on the living Christ. They had a personal relationship with the Lord. It transformed them and the world around them.    Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy.    Later it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next it moved to Europe, where it became a culture.    Finally it moved to the United States, where it became an enterprise. We’ve got far too many churches and so few fellowships.”    -U.S. Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson, quoted by Karl A. Pohlhaus in his religion column for The Glendale Star [Arizona], July 16, 1998, C5.

How can we move beyond this?  1 John is written by John toward the end of his life and throughout this book he calls the people of the church his, “dear children.”  John calls us the reader his “children” 15 times!  Listen to the words of our spiritual father as he pleads with us to hear and obey.

As he approaches the end of his life, he thinks of his children and writes down all the really important things that we need to know about being the church.  He talks a lot about love, righteousness and remaining pure.  He wants to guard the fellowship and gives us five marks of fellowship in 1 John.

1. Separate

• 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; 16 for all that is in the world-the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches-comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.”
• The church, or literally ekklesia means the “called out ones.”  We are those who have been called out from the world.  Therefore we should be different, 1 John 1:6 tells us that we can’t claim to have fellowship with God and with the darkness of the world at the same time.
• Sometimes we go a bit too far and form our own ghetto Christian communities. It’s not subbing the world – or being “better” just different.  We should be recognizable as different, we should be light in the world – we’ll talk about that next week.

2. Loving

• This mark helps us to combat the ghetto from forming and our heads from being too puffed up.
• 1 John 3:23, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”
• Our faith should equate to love, that’s what we’ve been talking about.  Lately my children who are very young have started playing together, sometimes they’ll run off into one of their rooms and just start laughing together.  Nothing warms my heart more and nothing warms the heart of the Father more than to see his children get along.
• We here at BGCC encourage, desire, need for every member to be in a small group – whether it’s a BFC or home group.  We want you to be well loved and cared for – we want you to know people you can love and care for.
• We see that the early church met in large groups in the temple and from house to house.  Now houses then could not accommodate the thousands that had been added to the church – so they broke into small groups.
• This love and concern is more than a small group meeting it is giving as well.  Last week we talked about giving which includes finances was a way of worship.  It’s also a mark of fellowship as well.  In ancient Judaism a minyan was a group of ten Jewish men and whatever city in the world had a minyan there was a synagogue.  Why?
  • Well the Jewish people took meeting together seriously and wanted to have services.  They would do this without a synagogue but when they got ten Jewish men they could formally gather as a synagogue.
  • Ten Jewish men, represented ten Jewish families and ten Jewish incomes.  When ten men tithed, or gave a tenth they had one income – that income provided for their rabbi.
  • The rabbi then would tithe and give a tenth – his tenth would provide for the supplies of the synagogue and so church could happen. No one gave anonymously, no one gave less, they all carried their own load and as such their fellowship was sustained.
• We see a model of small group fellowship in the early church and the grandmother of the church – the synagogue was a small group.  Today we must continue to get small as we desire to grow as a church pleasing to God.

3. Discerning

• 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
• The command to “test the spirits” is plural.  We need to test the spirits.  As we live in a spirit filled community such as this church we need to rely on each other for wisdom.  We have more wisdom together than separately, more insight together than apart.
• Last week we saw in Acts 13:2 that when the church got together to worship, the Spirit gave them the perspective they needed to discern his will.  We need each other to hear the voice of God.  A community that cares, gives, and worships together will discern together.
  • This is why there is a plurality of elders, no one man is capable of discerning the whole and total will of God alone – we need each other.
  • We together as a body of believers have great insight and wisdom into God’s heart and mind.
  • Some churches practice a process of discernment where young people come for prayer and discernment for everything from vocation to marriage.
  • That’s why I want to drag everyone up here who is going off on a mission trip or to Bible college.  Let’s pray for these people and be discerning for them.
• 1 Corinthians 6:3, tells us we will judge angels and that as such we are more than capable of judging daily matters.
• I would delight to hear of a church, or church member who comes to an eldership or other church and says, “Will you please settle this matter between us?”  We don’t need courts to arbitrate, we have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth among us.

4. Incarnational

• As we discern the voice of the Spirit and move as one body we become Incarnational, it’s a process and we mature in this. Incarnational is not a word evangelicals use often but is popular in other flavors of Christianity.  Simply stated it takes Matthew 25 literally where it says when we minister to people we meet Christ in them, particularly in the poor.
• We meet the incarnate Christ in other and in turn we become Christ to others.  There is an intentional order to the mission statement, it starts with worship, moves into a fully functioning community and then once we’ve done that our love becomes so attractive to the world that evangelism comes naturally.  We must master this.
• 1 John 4:16, “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.   God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
• This week it was shown so clearly when we descended on the home of one of our young at heart lades in the church because of the downed trees in her yard. I put out two emails on CCB to the men’s ministry and we had vans, cars and a truck arrive to finish the job.  As we were unloading the branches a family from the church pulled up and went to work raking. It doesn’t have to involve money, that one hour made a huge difference.

5. Confident

• Finally if we exist as a separate, loving, discerning and incarnational community then we will be a confident community.
• 1 John 5:4-6, “for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. 5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.”
• Definition of “Fellowship” or Koinonia is literally “common” all things in common – we belong to each other.  Therefore there are times when we lend our spirituality to our neighbor in discipleship, or lend our joy in celebration with each other, or lend our tears in mourning with each other.
  • I remember studying this epistle with another student who had a Bible that had been translated into Hawaiian pidgin where they had a community word for something that belonged to the community or village.  It was a word that literally meant our community owns this.
  • We each have gifts that belong to each other according to Ephesians 4:11-13, “11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
  • 1 Corinthians 1:7 says that the church in Corinth wasn’t lacking any gift, why because they had come to share them and I dare say we too are not lacking any spiritual gift among us.
• Look at the diagram and see that God blesses “Me” and gives me gifts.  Why?  So that I might turn around and give them to the church.  How does the church get all its gifts through us, through me!  Our confidence comes from knowing, serving and completing the body of Christ together.

Today is the day some of you need to start loving the church by committing to this place your fellowship.  We call it membership and it’s nothing more than a public commitment of your love for this church.