The Fellowship of the Spirit

A most important word for today.

“The church as the fellowship of the Spirit is a communion of people, a unity of people, who are bound together by nothing else than the reality of Jesus Christ in the lives as Lord and Saviour.”

“If our principles mean more to us than Jesus, even though they may be good principles, so much that we cannot let him take them over, let him carry them out in his own way, but we have to fight for them at every step, then we can’t enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit with others who have other convictions, and they won’t enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit with us.”

That’s John Peck in 1985 setting the table for us on what the fellowship of the Spirit means, and how sustaining it can be impaired. Although it was preached 35 years ago, this talk seems prophetic for our day. What day is that? you ask. It’s the day of the recent years, when arguments among Christians about social, economic, and political conditions have reached such a terrible pitch in the US and the UK that we can barley, if at all, talk to one one another civilly about these important matters. Unity? What’s that?

John could not have foreseen how extreme polarization would being playing itself out in our day, dividing Christians and churches, leaving us talking past each other, without a common mind on issues and problems, bewildered by the conflict of words, visions, analyses, and proffered solutions. He could not have seen us having little or no interest in what a Christian with a different view is arguing. He could not have seen how we have used social media to drive the nails in.

But in this sermon, John talks about such matters, and in doing so he goes to the heart of our polarized condition today by calling our attention to the much misunderstood biblical truth about the fellowship of the Spirit. If you think you are up to speed on this, hit the brakes, pull into a rest area, and have a listen. The scheduling of it, here, was not pre-planned. It came to our attention recently in what some might call a random way. We call it an example of divine synchronicity.

Also from the talk:

“The fact is that in the intellectual realm you can only have a unity of Spirit, a fellowship of the Spirit, when the thinking, the logic, the reasoning is based on the Lord Jesus Christ according to his word. And that’s why St. John at the end of his first letter says that deeply significant comment to Christians: ‘Little children, keep yourselves from idols.’ Because when you put anything, but anything, either scientific enterprise, or political power, or family, or money, or emotions, or intellect, or your lifestyle, or spiritual gifts, or doctrines, or anything else of that kind, when you put that as the criterion, the basis on which you’re going to think about things, rather than Jesus Christ according to his word, the fellowship of the Spirit becomes impaired.”