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The Value of Fellowship
We don't really grasp the need for fellowship. We don't grasp what the Lord desires to do in a gathering; and because of that, there is a lackadaisical attitude toward it. There is this thought, "I don't know if I'll go to church today or not." There is something missing from our lives when it comes to the gathering of the assembly. It has become something of a religious duty. We do it because we don't want to get a call from the pastor on Monday. We do it because, "I guess I should. My kids should know I go to church. That would be a good thing." We do all of these things and it has become nothing more than a religious exercise — fellowship with no meaning and no desire for it. Something is missing!
What did God have in mind for fellowship? What does God desire real fellowship to produce in those who gather? If we can see that, perhaps we can acknowledge we don't have it. But if we can see what God really intended for fellowship, it might awaken something within us, to place a greater value on it. Hopefully, our understanding will be opened and we can appreciate fellowship, and what God intended to transpire in the gathering.
Malachi 3:16
Let's begin by looking at a situation in Malachi. We know this was not one of the better times in Israel's history. Malachi describes a dire condition among God's people. God begins to address issues, and they begin scratching their heads, wondering, "What's He talking about? When did we do that? When did that happen?" They were completely oblivious to what was going on with their condition. It wasn't a very good hour. But there was something in the midst of that dark period, in the midst of that condition, that was prevailing. There was another element that is revealed in verse 3:16,"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it."
In the midst of this horrific condition, there was a people that were fellowshipping; there was a people that were gathering, and God noticed it. He saw it and He heard it. He took notice of what was going on. Notice how valuable it was to Him, as noted in this passage: "The Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him."
This seems to indicate that what was going on, in that gathering, was of great value to God. He heard it. He noticed it. He recorded it and declared "These are mine". He took possession of them. He acknowledged them. This gives us a glimpse of the value of fellowship and how God views it. This is how God sees it, and the value that He places upon it.
Clearly, our value system has to change. We must begin to pray, "God, help us value this, the way You value it." God was listening then, and I believe He's still listening today. God's ear is attuned to the earth, and He desires that there might be a people like in the book of Malachi a people that are gathering, that are speaking, that are filled with the fear of the Lord, a people that are thinking upon His name.
Now, what has caused this devaluing of fellowship, or the missing element of it, is that we have so majored on the externals of the gathering. We have majored on how to build a church and how to structure a church, and how to run a service and the how to's. We have thought that if we get the how to's right, we're having fellowship. Yet we find that it has not produced anything near the fellowship that God highly values. What all that has produced is the attitude of, "It doesn't matter if I go. What difference is it going to make?" When that is the major, when we focus on the externals, the how to's, the perfect church, the perfect gathering, the perfect service, and the order of service; when we focus on the what not to do, how to do it, when not to do it; when all that has become the mere objective of producing the ‘perfect service', we have missed exactly what God is after. It is only going to gender, eventually produce, apathy and indifference: a devaluing of fellowship, a forsaking of the assembly.
Luke Chapter 1
God has something higher in mind for fellowship. I think we can find the seed of it the seed of what God had in mind when He thought about fellowship. We will find it in the gospel of Luke. I think this incident recorded in Luke Chapter 1, this transition from the old to the new, is the one record of the first gathering the first fellowship where the Son is the central focus.
Something is about to happen here, and it is dramatic. Luke records that, after a few hundred years of silence, after a condition that had prevailed in Israel under Roman rule, things couldn't be worse for a Jew to think that Gentiles were in the land, of the darkness that prevailed, and the mockery of Herod the King. This King that Rome had put in place was actually the seed of the one that hated them. He was from the seed of Esau –the Idomian seed. The thorn in their side was declared the King of Israel, and he wasn't even a real Jew. Imagine what these people were feeling. Imagine the horror of what was happening. But all that was going to change.
The way it was going to change was that a word came. God broke in. The priest Zacharias was in the temple when an angel appeared and a word from heaven came. This word was the beginning of dramatic and imminent change. The silence that had prevailed for hundreds of years had been broken and now God was speaking again. He spoke to Zacharias and declared what He was going to do in his wife, who had been barren for years, and that there would be a miraculous birth that was going to take place. He described the call that was upon this child.
Six months later another word came. A word from heaven broke in upon a young woman named Mary. Two people had heard a message from heaven. A word came unto the lives of God's people. It was a message that was to be the beginning of the entire fulfillment of God's purpose and design.
Let's begin reading in verse 37. This is the word that came to Mary from the angel that described this promise. He described the One that was going to be born of her. He described His person, His mission, the purpose of God, the Reign, and the Kingdom. He explained the fullness that was going to come. This young girl, Mary, was overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed by what she was hearing, and by the silence that had prevailed for so long; but now a word had come. I am convinced that this is part of the solution, that is, a word must come again - a word from heaven. A heavenly message must come into God's people that will impact them, that will impregnate them, that will apprehend them in such a fashion, that life, miraculous life, will begin to work within them in a greater way. Part of what is missing in our day is this heavenly message a word.
Of course, Mary didn't understand. She said she had never known a man. In verse 37, the KJV translates, "for with God nothing will be impossible." I'm not a Greek scholar, but I do know that this is a very poor translation of what is being said. I believe Weymouth is the one that comes closest to what was actually being said. To paraphrase, Weymouth translates, "for no word from God shall be void of power." That's what the angel said. "How is this going to be?" was the question. The response from the angel was not just "everything is possible with God." That's just like a blank check. No, the response from the angel was that, "no word from God shall be void of power." He was saying to Mary, the word itself carries with it the power to fulfill. A similar thought is recorded in the book of Isaiah, but worded a little differently. Isaiah 55:11 reads, "So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
The principle is the same. That very principle was at work during creation. God spoke and it was. The word carried the power to fulfill what was said, and that was what the angel told Mary. That is also why her response, seems to be out of the ordinary. However, her response was in line with what the angel said. The angel said it is the word that carries power. In light of that word, Mary responds in verse 38 and said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word." That was why she responded that way. Because the angel said, "It's the word, Mary. The word is going to carry power to accomplish." So Mary replied, "So be it unto me according to thy word." Let that word have its way in my life. That is what she was saying. She was agreeing with what the angel had said.
I love the position that Mary took. This is tremendous. We see that Mary and Elizabeth, both mothers-to-be, responded in the same manner to the word that was at work in them and would be at work in their sons. The same quality that was to be in their sons, was first at work in their mothers. Mary said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." This was a woman, a young girl, who had just been told she was going to become pregnant. At this point, she didn't know if Joseph was going to receive her. She didn't know what her own family was going to do. But what she did know was, though she may not have a family, and she may not have Joseph, she did have God and His Word. She said, "I am Your handmaiden. I am Your servant. I now belong to Your house. I may not have a house any longer here, but I know one thing. I now belong to You and I am a part of Your house. I am Your servant."
The very cry that was the identity of Mary, was fulfilled in her Son. He became the servant of the Lord. He became the ideal servant a desire to always do the will of another. That was what Mary was saying: "Your will is now my will. What You have declared is now me and mine. I embrace it. Be it unto me according to thy word. I accept it. I receive it. I obey it. I submit to it."
The angel departed. That's the final word that the angel left with her. Here is now the beginning of what we want to focus on. Look at her response. The angel also told her that her cousin, Elizabeth, who had been declared barren, was pregnant. That was news to her. Six months, no phone calls, no way to communicate this story, and besides that, the scriptures tell us that Elizabeth hid her condition for five months. Nobody knew she was pregnant. Nobody knew this, except God. God told Mary that her cousin, Elizabeth, was also expecting; this one that was barren. It strengthened Mary's resolve to what had been said. Now what did Mary do? Verse 39 tells us – "and Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste into a city of Judah." This was her response to the word. Her response to the word was ‘haste'. There was a need within Mary to fellowship. The word had impacted her life. There was now a need, an urgency, to get with someone else who was experiencing the same thing she was experiencing to fellowship with someone else who had received a heavenly word, with someone else who had the Word of God and the power of that word at work within his or her life.
Nobody told her she had to do this. Nobody said to her, "to be a good Christian, you need to go to church." Nobody told her this. There was a compelling within her an awareness that this was necessary. "I must seek out Elizabeth." And with haste, she went to the hill country. It's very possible that where she went was Hebron. Hebron was in the hill country, and Hebron was also a city for priests. Zacharias was a priest, and Hebron was one of the cities that was set apart for the priests. If this truly was Hebron, we understand that Hebron means fellowship.
That's where she was going. She was going to fellowship; and as we said already, it was a place of ascending, wasn't it? She arose to go to the hill country. It was for fellowship that was higher than just the natural plane. What she was after, what she was looking for, what she was hoping to find, was something higher than herself. It wasn't just a cousin visiting a cousin. It was more than that. This was not something of a natural order, not just a natural visit. These women had nothing in common, except that they were cousins. You have Elizabeth, an older woman, who had been raised as the wife of a priest, living in the hill country of Judah for many years, who was barren. In Mary, you have a handmaiden, a young girl probably 12 or 13, 15 years at most, going up into Galilee of the Gentiles, of all places. They had nothing in common.
They had nothing, in the natural, in common. They were from two different worlds. But what they did have in common was a Word a message from heaven that had broken in upon their lives and changed them. That was what was going on. Right? Both of these women were filled with life, and man had nothing to do with it. It was a direct result of Heaven's Word coming into their lives. Mary went with haste into a city of Judah to Elizabeth's house. A word, and as we will soon see, a person, was what bound them together.
Verses 40-45 read, "She entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and she spake out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." And then Mary went into that song of heightened worship (vs. 46ff).
That was the first gathering. This was the beginning of fellowship around the person of the Son; it was here with these two women. Luke recorded this, and left behind such a tremendous privilege for us to understand what it actually is that God is able to produce in a real gathering. What happened in this gathering? Listen to what happened in these few verses. There was joy, there was a quickening or making alive, there was an infilling, there was worship, there was revelation, there was brokenness. All of that happened in the gathering. That is what fellowship is meant to produce. This is what God intended - real fellowship around the Son.
This is the activity. This is the fruit. This is what should be happening. All of this, to one degree or another, is all and always available in the gathering. Oh, I want this. I want this. I want this kind of fellowship.
This was the first occurrence of fellowship. This gives us an indication of what was on God's heart--what God intended it to be. Mary entered into the home and she saluted. Luke is silent on what she even said. But whatever Mary said, Elizabeth was quickened by it-- that life within her leaped. There was a witness, and there was a quickening that was going on deep inside of Elizabeth. Perhaps Mary didn't even realize the weight of what happened as she greeted her cousin, but it created within her a quickening, a witness deep within her that caused the life to be stirred deep, deep inside of her. This is a stirring in the depths of the inner man.
It is then written that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. She was filled! Part of what happens in fellowship is an opportunity for an infilling. It is an opportunity for the person of the Holy Spirit to be with us and to fill us in a new and fresh way. She was filled. I love what Luke wrote next. He didn't want to leave to our imagination what he meant when he wrote Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. If you follow his writing in the book of Acts, Luke was very clear on what he meant when he wrote of an infilling of the Holy Spirit. He always associated it with speech. Here, then again in Luke 1:67, and in Acts 2:4, Acts 4:8, Acts 4:31, and Acts 13:9 every time Luke mentioned the infilling of the Holy Spirit, there is speech that is a direct result of it. That shouldn't surprise us, because the person of the Holy Spirit is what? – He is the one who is coming to testify. If we are being filled with heaven's ‘testifier', He is going to give us utterance. He is going to give us speech, because that is what He does.
What I love about this, also, is that this speech, rising out of the infilling of the Holy Spirit is not for me. Yet most of what we have experienced in today's outpourings or revivals – all of it has to do with me – doesn't it? It is my experience, and what I am going to get from it, and how I benefit from it. It's all me, me, me, me. This is going to happen to me, and that is going to happen to me. Me, me, me. But when Luke described it, the infilling of the Holy Spirit was not an experience for Elizabeth, but it was that an utterance would come forth, for the benefit of someone else; that a word would come to impact another life. The person of the Holy Spirit and the infilling of the Holy Spirit is never self-centered. His very nature, Jesus said, will not speak of Himself. That's not even a part of who He is. He is speaking of someone else. So the real infilling, the real impacting of the Holy Spirit, is never to generate an experience just for me, to make me feel good, to make me feel this, to make me do that. That is not His nature.
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she spoke out with a loud voice...with boldness. This is the first thing she declared: she said the same thing the angel had said to Mary, 70 miles away..."blessed are you among women...." This was the initial greeting heaven's greeting of Mary when the angel came. The first words out of Elizabeth's mouth, were the same thing that the angel had already said. Imagine what was going on in Mary. There was a confirming word a confirming word that had come to Mary. That is, clearly, much of what prophetic ministry does. It is often confirming what God may have already said to us in private, out of the hearing of anyone else. A word comes to confirm to us, that this is what God has said.
Imagine what was going on in Mary when she heard her cousin open with this statement that she made, declaring the very same thing she had just heard, when she had left with haste. There's nothing like that, is there? There is nothing like when God confirms His word. It causes strength to come into us. It enables us to stand in difficult situations. "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." She was clearly acknowledging that Mary was blessed. But she was also acknowledging that Mary was blessed because of the One that was in her. The One who was in her, had the approval of heaven upon Him.
Elizabeth's son would hear this 30 years later--at the River Jordan. John was going to hear that voice that said, "This is my beloved" (blessed of God). Elizabeth heard it first. Mary heard it. There is this recognition in all of us that we are what we are, by the grace of God. We are blessed only because of the One who resides within us. The One who is within us, is the blessed of God. He is the One who carries Heaven's approval. It is because of Him; it is because of the approval of Christ that we carry any blessing in our life at all. It is all because of Him.
In verse 43, Elizabeth says, "And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" In that statement, there is revelation, because Elizabeth was declaring the mystery of the incarnation. The revelation of the God-man is born in this atmosphere of fellowship. The unveiling of the Son, the unveiling of His work, and the unveiling of His person, is what takes place in fellowship. The Son, the revelation of His person, and of His work, was what came into the understanding of Elizabeth. She declared as that revelation broke upon her, and it humbled her, because she said, "Who am I?" That is a quality that must be kept alive in our lives.
We must never get beyond the sense of awe; who am I? Who am I, that my Lord should come to me? Who Am I? Every gathering where His presence is sensed, every gathering where our eyes are being opened to His person, there is a work on our behalf to continually fill us with a sense of humility and brokenness before Him. The awe of "Who Am I?" is what must mark our gatherings.
Isn't it interesting that Elizabeth didn't go to Mary, but Mary, and the Lord, went to Elizabeth? God went to where she was. He took the initiative. The God-man came for us and to us. That is the gospel, that God sought me out. May we never lose site of that – that God came to us. The wonder and the mercy of His presence, and of His voice, should continually fill us with awe. Who am I? Isn't that missing today? Isn't there something missing in a gathering that doesn't leave God's people even more aware of their humility instead of leaving them unchanged in a so-called meeting ‘charged with the glory.' Isn't that something? There's no sense of awe.
"For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." It was the joy of the gathering! The joy that this awareness of the God-man had come; God had finally come the one that had been promised had arrived! For the night season that the earth had known from Adam's fall--morning had come. Morning had now come to the earth and with that morning was joy. The joy of fellowship between God and man had come. And with it, the joy of fellowship man to man. There was joy that was going on in this little gathering.
That was what John wrote in his epistle. John made that appeal when he wrote about fellowship. The passages read about the wonder of fellowship, and the desire for them to enter into this fellowship. He wrote, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son...and I desire this for you that your joy may be full." That out of the arena of fellowship between God and man and out of entering into a fellowship with us, one would experience a reality and a fullness of joy.
Paul wrote a similar thing. Read what Paul wrote in II Timothy. Of course, II Timothy was Paul's last letter. He was in prison, but notice what he wrote. In chapter 1, verse 4, "Greatly desiring to see thee." ... that is powerful! "Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy." Paul knew that fellowship with Timothy would bring him joy. "I am greatly,"... look at that... "I am greatly desiring to see thee." Mary made haste to go to the hill country. There was something within Paul that was longing for fellowship, that was longing to once again see Timothy face to face, in order to create within him the result of fellowship; this being joy itself.
Elizabeth began by saying to Mary what the angel said, and she also ended by saying what the angel said. Verse 45 reads, "Blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord." Here, once again, she said exactly what the angel said. There shall be a performance of all that God said. She said the same thing--a word that was confirming, and a word that was strengthening.
There was a real possibility that if Mary arose with haste in that day, after this meeting with the angel, it would have taken her perhaps three days to get where she was going. It's more than likely, that she did not yet have an outward indication she was pregnant. It's very possible that there was no way for her to know what the angel said was real. She could have been pregnant and she would not know. She was carrying a seed within her, and yet there was no indication. She didn't yet know. There was a period of time that went on before she was physically aware of it.
For some of us, we are also like that. There has been no outward indication in our life that what we have received from God is true. There is no way yet to confirm it; we merely trust that what God has declared in His purpose for our life, He is going to do. Yet there may be, right now, in our life no indication that it's true; nothing outward. Why do you think Elizabeth hid for five months? It was because she had gone years in her barren condition. She had gone years living under the reproach of barrenness. She wasn't about to go out and declare, "I am pregnant," after all this time, until there was a real confirmation that it was the truth. She had lived under reproach for too long and she wasn't going to go out and risk her reputation by saying she was pregnant.
So Elizabeth hid. She hid until the evidence was there. But Mary didn't have that. The word that came to Mary through Elizabeth was that God would finish what He began in her, and that is the hope we must all carry. There is a word that we must hear in our gathering that helps us through our struggles and through the times when it doesn't appear as though the fulfillment of what God has called us to, and what He intends for the purpose of our life, is evident. Nor is there evidence in the church, the house of God, or the gatherings that we are involved in. At times, it doesn't appear that fulfillment is going to happen, but we must be in a place to hear a word, a word in which, Paul said, is a power that is working within God's word that He has declared and has spoken into our lives.
Peter said we have been born again by the Word of God. That Word, that is resident within us, is enough to carry us to fulfillment. It is enough to develop within us the likeness of Christ. We must be convinced that what God has begun within our lives, He will perform. He is going to do it, and that is what Elizabeth left with Mary. Her final word to Mary was, "It doesn't look like anything right now. You might not even know you're pregnant, but there is a guarantee that what God has declared, He shall perform it."
It is from that awareness, from that fresh conviction, confirmation, and strengthening, that her heart responded and resounded with one of the most tremendous songs of worship..."My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior..." (1:46-55) Her heart was lifted beyond her inability; her heart was lifted beyond her frailty; and her heart was lifted beyond impossibility. She set her gaze upon the One who reigns, the One who is worthy. She set her gaze above, and a song of worship was released that began to impact the gathering; and even in us, to draw us upward unto the Lord who is able. This is it. This is fellowship.
This is fellowship the way God intended it. We may not have it, but we can have it. This may not be what is going on now in our gatherings, but I believe it is what God intends. This first example of fellowship is what God desires. It was small and seemingly insignificant, but it was where God's purpose was being born. God's own purpose was right there in that little house in the hill country of Judah. Nobody knew it. No one else was aware of it, but it was there, where God's presence was.
Luke is silent, but there was someone else in that house; Zacharias, whose mouth was without speech. Imagine what was going on in Zacharias as he heard this fellowship, as he heard this song. Imagine what was working within Zacharias a man whose day to speak had not yet come. But a day would come when he would speak forth and be filled with the Holy Spirit. For the next three months that Mary stayed there in that atmosphere of fellowship, a word was growing in Zacharias. There was a specific group that needed to hear what he had to say. I believe that there are some, like Zacharias, who have not yet found a full release of the word of the Lord in their lives.
Perhaps it was from this gathering, that Jesus would later say, "Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them." Maybe this is what He meant. He surely knew the history of this gathering. Perhaps that is what He is drawing upon, to take us back to that gathering what happened in that first fellowship that is what I'm after. That is where I will be. That is where I will declare, like Malachi, "They are mine."
"They spoke often one to another." Elizabeth and Mary responded to that same fellowship that goes on before the throne in Isaiah chapter 6. One seraphim cries, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts!" and the other responds back: "The whole earth is full of His glory", and it brings yet a further response. They said: "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts", and the response back is: "The whole earth is full of His glory." It is the speaking one to another, the truth of His Person, and the truth of the purpose of God. That is it. They think on His Name, and it is the declaration of the Person and the echoing back of the purpose of God that the fellowship of the gathering is meant to produce. May God arrest us. May God's Word grip us in a fresh way and create in us, what was created in these women as new life was working in them.
Concluding Prayer
Heavenly Father, we're asking, O God, that you will enable us to see a glimpse of that which is on Your heart-- what Your design for fellowship was always meant to be. We ask that You will forgive us for our apathy, forgive us for our indifference, and forgive us for the doubt that creeps in upon us, O God. Forgive us, Lord, when we take lightly the thought of the gathering; where we have become so indifferent that it no longer matters whether we are coming unto You, O Lord, whether we are gathering with those of like precious faith, where there is a fellowship that is going on between God and man, and man and man.
We're asking that you will reawaken within us the potential, reawaken a heart that is intent upon our God. Impact us that there will be within us a haste, a desire to arise to the place of fellowship, to arise to the dimension where there is divine activity, where we embrace within the house of God and within the gathering of your saints, oh Lord. Grant it, Father. As we took communion, we remembered it was a great price that you paid to make this possible. Lord, you paid a great price to make fellowship possible and available for us. Oh, that we would experience fullness of joy, that we would experience revelation of the Son, that we would experience a confirming word, that we would experience a quickening, that we would experience a fresh infilling, that we would experience a worship of the Son in our midst. This is what your design was in the new covenant, and we ask that we will begin to live, in a greater way, in the good of it. Blessed be Your Name. We thank you, O God. We magnify Your Name. Amen.
* [This article is transcribed from a message given by Ric Vargas at the Christ Ministerial Fellowship gathering May 1, 2009]
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