That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:1-7)

Over the next four days we will focus on the Discipline of Fellowship.  We will continue our theme of considering the Disciplines through the lens of love.  I hope we can experience sweet fellowship electronically even as we review the Discipline of Fellowship.

For those of you who are not very familiar with the beautiful twin island state of Trinidad & Tobago, I’ll use this opportunity to briefly describe an important part of the culture.  In T&T, a fun social gathering is called a lime.  Limes are really important even in a Christian context but I hope that we will conclude at the end of this week that Christian fellowship is much more than just a lime.  We will start with a passage from 1 John (captured above) that speaks to the foundation for Fellowship.

Please prayerfully read the passage and answer the questions below.

Today’s Questions for comments:

• Based on the passage, what are some essential ingredients of Christian fellowship?
• What is your biggest struggle with fellowship?

Permit me to end this week on the study of fellowship on a personal note. My mother was one who loved fellowshipping. I don’t remember much about this side of her before she retired but after she did she seemed to thrive. She helped start a group for retired nurses like herself who cared for one another, met monthly and helped in the community wherever they could. The group is still in existence, over thirty years later. She was always seeking the interest of others, so much so that we would often marvel at how much time Mom spent on the phone (and the subsequent phone bill!). We joked at how many funerals she attended. She was instrumental in the setting up of an elderly home attached to her church and often visited there. She was always kind to family and friends.

The thing with fellowship is that if you do it well, it returns to you in kind. As my mom aged, so many persons responded to her to ensure everything with her was fine. They cared deeply for her as she did for them and others earlier in her life. Last Tuesday my mom passed away. Close friends and family readily reached out to be there for her and for us.

One last thought about fellowship. We enjoy the horizontal but never forget the vertical. My mom never did and frequently thanked God for all that He gave her and did for her. She loved Him a lot. Fellowship is the most meaningful when the vertical drives the horizontal as we can be sure to never get it wrong. Be sure to be part of the Fellowship of the Trinity. Your life will be so much richer for it.

As we have been seeing, fellowship should be prized. So anything that can damage it we want to avoid. Some things are fairly obvious, like anger, bitterness, un-forgiveness and conflict. But there could be others.

• What about exclusion, where someone feels they don’t belong or there is some form of prejudice existing?
• What about a lack of acceptance, where we have been so judgemental or condemning the other person is bound to turn away?
• What about a lack of authenticity, where the relationship is so phony that the other person sees right through us and knows we really don’t care?
• And finally, what about a lack of confrontation where we prefer to sweep things under the carpet rather than dealing with them? That one is so common. Or we go to the other extreme and do confront but so vigorously we rupture the fellowship between us.

Today, think about how you approach your relationships. We can be strong, weak, real or counterfeit. Ask God to help you see where you are and to give you the strength to make real change. There may be a need to share this with others and to work and pray together to resolve differences in your lives.

Jesus as one member of the Trinity certainly knew about fellowship. So when fellowship is affected we are certain that He would want to do something about it. Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples found that out. On the night he was betrayed, Peter himself didn’t have an inspiring time either. He denied knowing Jesus three times, each time the more vigorous and the more offensive than the time before. Peter was left heartbroken, thinking he had failed Jesus irretrievably. My relationship with Jesus is over, he must have thought.

But Jesus had other ideas. At His resurrection, He specifically said to those at the tomb to tell the disciples AND Peter. In Galilee where he later met the disciples he took the time out to specifically speak with Peter who must have felt ashamed to face Him, to restore the broken relationship and tell him there were things left for him to do.

True friends know how to restore fellowship. The idea of broken fellowship is a jarring one. This does not sit well; it has got to be fixed. Romans 12:18 tell us that if it is all possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. It’s not always possible but nothing should surmount a relationship we share with others. We need at all costs to preserve the fellowship that we share, not ignore differences that might arise but seek to work them out and say, my relationship with you is more important than what separates us. I’m putting down my stones.

Today think about where you are. Are you like Jesus in a position to restore, or like Peter in need of the restoration? Maybe it is time to take the first step, to move towards the other person like Jesus did and say sorry over an action or a word long past, or say to the other let’s get together so we can work this out. It’s never easy I know but it’s worth it.

Tomorrow we will look at some things which can destroy fellowship.

How do we exhibit fellowship to one another? There’s a story in the Bible about a man who was paralysed and could not help himself. Jesus was close by and some friends, knowing of his situation took the bold move to pick him up and take him to Jesus. When they got there the crowd was so large that they could not get in to the house. So these devoted friends took him up to the roof, made a hole and let him down right in front of Jesus! We often concentrate on what happened next but let’s not forget these friends. They were surely good friends to have around who would go the extra mile.

Real fellowship is like that. We all have some sort of paralysis, some problem or imperfection that’s ours, which we carry around. Do we have friends that we can share this burden with? Do we want to share the burden? This last Sunday at church we had the privilege to share burdens with each other as we spent time in prayer. We were able to answer “How are you” truthfully and then saw other persons take on our burdens for and with us. That’s real fellowship.

Some of you may already enjoy this kind of fellowship with others. That’s great. Make sure it continues to be genuine. For the rest of us, let’s try to answer “How are you” truthfully so that others can see us and remember us in prayer, with a word of encouragement, take us to lunch, shine our shoes, whatever it takes. I know this requires trust and you won’t always be able to do this with everyone but I pray that you can find those close friends who can be there for you.

Tomorrow we will see how the ultimate Friend, Jesus was able to restore a fellowship that was broken.

Where does fellowship really begin? Not with the first man and woman although that was crucial as God saw that it was not good for the man to be alone. It begins with God himself or to be more specific the Godhead, the Trinity, the Three in One. The Father, Son and Spirit enjoy perfect fellowship. There is complete oneness. They identify with, understand and appreciate each other. The Spirit points to the Son and tells us to worship Him, be devoted to Him, to love Him. The Son didn’t get conceited from this attention but instead ensured that everything he did was for the Father and in obedience to the Father’s will. The Father in turn said He was pleased with the Son and that we should all listen to Him.

We could learn a lot from the Trinity. The deep care, the love, the humility. These are the hallmarks of fellowship and God, because He thought it was a very good thing gave them to us. We are made in his likeness when it comes to fellowship. That has been messed up because of sin but inherently is still there for us to practise and pursue. To fail to prize fellowship or community is fundamentally at odds with God’s purpose for us.

Today thank God for the Fellowship of the Trinity. Give Him praise for demonstrating this aspect of His godliness to us. Think about where you may have not demonstrated this fellowship to a person or small community. Ask God for help and see what you can do about it.

Tomorrow we will see how fellowship works among ourselves.

In Trinidad & Tobago, every year a competition is held for the best Calypso singer. The winner is called the Monarch. The 2013 Calypso Monarch, Pink Panther sang as one of his winning songs “Travel Woes.” In it he described seeing many “ships” but not one was the “Partnership.” It was obviously a clever play on words describing our current political scene but I also do not recall hearing Pink Panther mention seeing the “Fellowship.” That’s a shame for as we shall see this week, fellowship is so critical to us in our lives.

The very root of the word fellowship means to hold something in common. For us that means each other, that we have community with each other. We can have many different communities, for example, of professions, our neighbourhoods, our church and our friends. God has made us fellowship or community people, that is, we can’t live without it. A man thought he heard a woman say “There’s no mayonnaise in Ireland”. What she really said was “No man is an island”. So true. No one lives or dies only to themselves. We all need relationships. John Ortberg reminds us that no one succeeded at relationships and yet had a bad life.

Today think about the fellowship you share with others. Think about the close ones, your family, friends, church. Thank God for them, appreciate them (value them highly) and tell them thank you for being a friend.

Tomorrow we will see where fellowship really begins.