“that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.””
John wants you to know that what he and the other apostles are sharing out of personally experiencing Jesus, they are sharing for the purpose of the hearers entering into fellowship with them and into fellowship with God. The Greek word for fellowship that John is using here is the word “Koinonia”, which means sharing something in common, experiencing community or joint participation. This entering into fellowship means far more than attending a mere worship service. It is to enter into the intimacy of shared relationship; an entering into deep spiritual community, like a family. You see, when you recapture the wonder of experiencing Jesus, you’re moved to…
INVITE THOSE WHO HEAR INTO FELLOWSHIP.
It’s like early in our relationship, when I was dating my now wife Deedre, and a friend of hers joined our church. She had become apart of one of our sister churches in South Florida. But when Deedre started sharing with her about the church that we were apart of, which placed a greater emphasis on Christ as the center of our beliefs and practice, and also what she had been learning from me regarding this same emphasis, her friend began to be drawn to our church. After visiting our worship service a few times, she expressed a desire to go deeper in seeing our beliefs through the lens of the Gospel. So, we set a time on Friday evenings for us to meet, pray, eat some food and study the Scriptures. Since she was living as a roommate with a young couple, she soon shared that they were interested in participating too. We stared to have such a good time being in spiritual community together, centered around Jesus, that when there was a need we were there for each other and they started to naturally invite their friends from time to time. What we were experiencing was Kononia, fellowship with each other and fellowship with God.
We were made to thrive in this kind of vertical and horizontal fellowship because we were made for life in God’s love and love for one another. God, Himself, is an eternal fellowship of Three divine Persons. Therefore, when we share Jesus and then create spaces to invite a small group of people into fellowship, we are essentially bringing them into the life and love of the Godhead or Trinity. Creating and multiplying this kind of small group fellowship is literally what Jesus modeled and taught as the foundational form for the church He was building. It is why He said that wherever 2 or three are gathered in His name, there He is in the midst. This is why you find repeatedly throughout the New Testament those who are following the way of Jesus regularly gathering from house to house, eating together, praying together, meeting each others needs, studying Scripture in light of the Gospel together and loving one another. This is how the church grew and rapidly multiplied into a movement! As a matter of fact, I’m convicted that without this type of experience in small group fellowship you have not yet really experienced church as Jesus intended it and have a high chance of dying spiritually. My friends, it’s because we need each other. It’s not just about having a large gathering in a building on Sabbath mornings! As a matter of fact, the bigger a church gets in its worship gathering, the smaller it needs to get through small group gathers during the week!
So, if you’ve truly seen the love of God for you and received Jesus by faith, then out of love and gratitude, you should be desiring to fulfill the Great Commission of our Savior King to make disciples in the spaces where you do life. And here’s the thing, it’s actually a lot simpler than a lot of you have been led to think. Making disciples means that you are essentially seeking for the Holy Spirit to lead you to a few people in your spheres of influence to build a relationship with that organically lead to you creating space for them to experience small group fellowship. It’s within this fellowship that they learn how to live and love like Jesus, which is to follow Jesus. Here at Vienna, we’ve wrapped language around your being called by Jesus to make disciples and it’s called leading a Grow Group. A church of our size should have a minimum of 20 groups meeting during the week and we currently only have 7. I wonder who is going to respond to the call of Jesus today? We are ready to equip and resource those who will be obedient to the call in a way that’s so simple and easily reproducible. In doing so, you will recapture the wonder of experiencing Jesus!
You see, because this experience results in something we all deeply need and John tells us what it is in verse 4. “And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” 1 John 1:4 NKJV. And here, he is only restating the very thing Jesus taught at the Last Supper about abiding in Him and loving one another. He said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” John 15:11 NKJV. Please allow your heart to hear what Jesus is saying. He wants you, as His followers, to have fullness of joy. And this is because… When you recapture the wonder of experiencing Jesus, you’re moved to share Jesus out of your personal experience and invite those who hear into fellowship, which results in the fullness of joy.
To experience the wonder of Jesus you have to come to the Scriptures and go to Calvary.
