The key word as you already know for this part of the 40 Day Campaign is FELLOWSHIP…. As I have said in the Children’s Time, it is indeed a strange word—in English…  do a search on the web for the word “Fellowship” and you get a huge amount of hits, mostly, Christian references, a lot of Churches with the word “Fellowship”

American Churches have done some funny things in the name of what is thought of as “Fellowship”; whenever you hear the word, what is the first thing that comes to mind?….ya, eating,  or the after service coffee and snacks… churches in this country do something interesting things in the name of church spirituality and the words for it… Take for example what has actually been written in church bulletins…

An announcement for missions: Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist.  Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

An announcement for the sermons:  The sermon this morning:  “Jesus Walks On Water”, the sermon tonight:  “Searching For Jesus”.

An announcement for prayer: Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions.  She also is having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.

An announcement for stewardship:  The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge!---- Up Yours!”

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM.  All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

… yes, after the B.S. is done….  How much of what we do in the name of fellowship that is actually BS?…, and what happens when we carry on the BS, we start to view other things that are involved in church as BS----- Being Safe.

As you dig deeper into the NT and you look at this word, and it’s meaning, it is anything but just playing it safe day to day…

Let’s read Acts 2:38-47, and I’m going to add verse 37 to it, the day of Pentecost, the 120 disciples had spent days and nights together praying… the Holy Spirit came as Jesus promised, filled the whole place and they began to speak in languages they had not learned themselves; people on the outside heard all of this and wondered what was going on.. thought they were having a drunken party because of all the commotion—and Peter stands up and preaches and says first of all it is only 9am… there is no drunken party here, what this is a fulfillment of prophecy in the OT---- we are God’s children filled with the Holy Spirit of God, the same Spirit that filled the prophets of old; the same Spirit that was on Jesus while He was performing His ministry with all the powerful work---- the same Jesus that you had crucified, but God raised Him from the dead…   that message Peter had just preached and then it says in verse 37 and following….

There is not one hint of BS here, being safe…  it’s about their experiencing the presence of the living God among them, changing them, transforming them, seeing the evidence of His power through signs and wonders----  so powerful was this, that it wasn’t just on one person that everyone was following around, but it was the whole community—the more they got together, the more they experienced it… they couldn’t stop getting together, they could not, would not stop the fellowship that they were experiencing….

40 Days Campaign….  FIRST WEEK we discovered what our first purpose in life is, that is to Worship God, this week we find

OUR 2^nd PURPOSE IN LIFE IS FELLOWSHIP ; when God created us, and called us to come and know Him, He brought us into His family… as you know in general, there is something about blood that is different than just any relationship, even when you don’t get along well, when it comes down to the rubber meets the road… the blood is the difference.

When we accepted Jesus Christ into our lives, His blood, that was spilled on that cross; that blood covers everyone who asks Christ into their lives, and it is that blood that washes us clean before God. Not by any works that we do;  not by what we say or think, God loved us first, because Jesus took that punishment that cost Him his blood, that blood is the gate way into God’s special family.

That’s what was different about these first Christians to everyone else, when they came together, something special was happening.  Do we have that expectation, that when we gather together, God is going to do something special among us;  and if we have not sensed that or seen that in some time, are we praying for it, just like they did.  If Christianity is nothing but having a pretty building, committee meetings, and BS—being safe with our talk, being safe with our lives, are we not just another non-profit organization?

Thank God that is not what we are, we are God’s children, and when God’s children gather together, the Bible says that God is supposed to show up.

Last Sunday we took Communion on world communion Sunday… why do we take the bread and cup anyway?  Is it just to remember what Jesus did the night He was betrayed?  Why did the Christians in Acts 2, continually break bread together.  There is an interesting passage that explains what all that means in I Cor. 10:15-17… the word share there is a greek word, koinenia, is the word, and there is another way to translate it--- we could go back and read our first NT text this morning in Acts 2, because we read it there;  the same greek word--- koinenia====  FELLOWSHIP; let’s read the passage again, using fellowship instead of sharing…  (READ)  there is the reason for regularly taking the bread; that is the reason we take communion, yes when we take it, it is just bread, and it is just the juice from the grape--- YET when God’s family gets together and takes it together….  JESUS IS PRESENT….

The time that Jesus was breaking the bread that night with the disciples, was Passover… and part of the Jewish Passover meal was eating the, bread, unleavened bread, like this pita bread----  the leaven makes bread rise, when there is not leaven, it is flat like this; the leaven symbolizing sin—so they ate the unleavened bread;  and the Scripture says that He broke it and said take and eat, this is my body broken for you---  as we just read, the pieces are broken and distributed from the one loaf--- and as we take it from the one loaf, we are sharing the same body of Christ together--- the same with the cup, we share from the same vessel, therefore sharing the same blood of Christ---- FELLOWSHIP-------  so what is the difference between eating this pita bread here together, and eating this pita bread down the street at a sandwich shop with stuff in it???   IT IS THE FAITH AND THE GATHERING OF GOD’S FAMILY

So as we continue to gather for the campaign, as we gather in committee meetings, as we gather together for worship, we need to recognize the level of spirituality that exists there…  God wants to make His presence known among us…

So in light of all that, we can see why they wanted to be together…they experienced 4 levels of fellowship each time:

FOUR LEVELS OF FELLOWSHIP

LEVEL 1: MEMBERSHIP: CHOOSING TO BELONG

LEVEL 2: FRIENDSHIP: LEARNING TO SHARE

Learning to share God’s way… I used to think that meant that we need to be open books and let the chips fall where they do;  no we have to realize that we are not only hanging out with God’s people, but we have to cut each other enough slack to realize that we are all at varying stages of our spiritual growth, so to just open up ourselves like an open book would not be wise---- “well he calls himself a Christian”….  We share the grace that God has given each of us to one another…;  that kind of friendship is priceless

LEVEL 3: PARTNERSHIP: DOING MY PART

We begin to pull our weight in God’s house… we find our place to partner in what God would have us do…  even in family, when a member comes to sit and soak and take and take and not give, something begins to stink….

LEVEL 4: KINSHIP: LOVING BELIEVERS LIKE FAMILY

We begin to recognize the fact that God loves us all the same and He calls us to love each other…“Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that

you      are My disciples.”       John 13:35 (LB)

Family looks out for each other;  family wants to make sure that the other family member has a roof over their head, clothes on their backs, food in their stomachs…  FAMILY BECOMES DISFUNCTIONAL when all the family does is give, and the one receiving does not seek to move forward…  there are times when God calls His family to exercise tough love on another family member when the other family member willfully chooses to not work out their own place in God’s family.

The greatest privilege you will ever be offered in life is a privilege of being a part of God's family. You see, God's family is a laboratory for learning to love. Some of you grew up in homes that didn't have a lot of love. And, honestly, you don't know how to love. In fact, I have come to the conclusion after pastoring for all these years; most people don't have the slightest idea how to love. The only love they know how to do is sexual love, romantic love. They don't know any other kind of love. So we have to be taught, and the church (the family of God) is where you learn to love real people, not ideal people. Nobody in your small group is ideal and neither are you. We learn to love real people, and that's what God put us on earth to do.

So let me ask you a couple relevant questions: which of these levels of fellowship are you at? Have you even made it to the first one, choosing to belong? Are you still floating around attend here and there? You've never gotten committed. You've never gotten into membership. You need to choose a church. You need to be baptized and say, “I’m not ashamed.” That's the most basic level. If you haven't done that, that's your next step.

Then you need to learn to share. And where do you do that? In a small group,. where you can get to know someone more and understand them better and they you--- and you share Christ’s grace given to you with them, and we all partner together to do our part in helping advance God’s family in this world.

Perhaps all of this is beyond your grasp this morning, something you’d like to experience but haven’t;  do what the disciples did before that day of Pentecost;  they devoted themselves to praying and seeking God for His answer, and it came…