Tyler Lynde: You can open your Bibles to Acts, chapter 2, and we're going to be again one more time in Acts 2.42-47.
Tyler Lynde: We're in the middle of a series where we're talking about what the early church devoted themselves to in order to encounter the presence of God.
Tyler Lynde: And all of us should have a desire to encounter God in ever-increasing ways, and this is what the early church did.
Tyler Lynde: They practiced these things and the grace of God was made available to them so that they could encounter God in special ways.
Tyler Lynde: Last week, pastor Kelly did a great job.
Tyler Lynde: If you remember the hand that he used as an illustration, let's put that back up on the screen and you can see it.
Tyler Lynde: So how are we supposed to interact with the Word of God?
Tyler Lynde: We're supposed to hear it, read it, study it, memorize it and meditate on it.
Tyler Lynde: And if we do those things, guess what?
Tyler Lynde: God meets us.
Tyler Lynde: He encounters us as we study the Scriptures and all of the other aspects of relating to God through the Scriptures.
Tyler Lynde: Today I have the privilege of taking the next message on the grace encounter of God that we get, and it's called Encountering God Through Fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: Encountering God Through Fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: So let's look at Acts, chapter 2, verses 42-47.
Tyler Lynde: And they devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching and the fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: If you write in your Bible, if you want to underline that or circle it, star it, or you can make a note on your tablet or phone, whatever you're using to the breaking of bread and the prayers, and awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need, and, day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all of the people, and the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.
Tyler Lynde: Let's pray together.
Tyler Lynde: In the name of Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: I thank you for your word.
Tyler Lynde: That is absolutely true.
Tyler Lynde: And, father, I pray that you would cause us today to have the capacity to be able to receive your word and that it would go deep into our hearts, that you would prepare our hearts even now to be good soil that the word of God can be planted in.
Tyler Lynde: And then, holy Spirit, would you water this word and cause it to grow and produce the harvest that you desire in our own lives, but also to the benefit of those around us.
Tyler Lynde: Father, I pray that you would open our eyes so that we might see clearly the things that are hindering us from walking and right fellowship and relationship with you and with others.
Tyler Lynde: Open our ears to hear clearly your truth that will make us free and we give you glory for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Tyler Lynde: So anyone who knows me really well knows that I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi or fantasy movies.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, so when I mentioned this in another service and I asked how many of them were fans of sci-fi or fantasy, I'd say 75 to 80 percent of the hands went up.
Tyler Lynde: So I guess I'll try that again.
Tyler Lynde: So how many of you in this room are fans of fantasy or sci-fi type movies?
Tyler Lynde: Okay, a little less, a little less.
Tyler Lynde: So I don't know if that's just because you're feeling bad for me, so you're like wanting to help me to feel some, you know, some connection or something.
Tyler Lynde: That's great.
Tyler Lynde: I did have a strange thought this week, though.
Tyler Lynde: I thought what if there was an actual zombie apocalypse?
Tyler Lynde: And again, I'm not kidding, like I actually had this thought what if there was an actual zombie.
Tyler Lynde: Now, again, I want to make it clear for those of us watching online or for our first time guests I do not believe in zombies.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, yeah, I heard all the gasps in the room.
Tyler Lynde: I don't believe in zombies.
Tyler Lynde: I do believe in demons and other things, but we won't get into that today.
Tyler Lynde: Just send a message for another time, okay?
Tyler Lynde: So if there were a zombie apocalypse and I thought about if they were to interact with our society, how strange would it be for them, how different would they experience it, how different would their experience be from their own experience?
Tyler Lynde: And then I kind of had another picture, if you can imagine.
Tyler Lynde: They show up here on earth and they see a bunch of people dressed in pajamas walking around with a strange glow on their face from their tablets and their phones and their iPads and all of the different things that they're looking into.
Tyler Lynde: And then they would hear us talking in code like OMG, lol, r-o-f-l, a-s-e-r-e emoji meme.
Tyler Lynde: You know, I mean they did all of those things and the question that I had is would it really be that much different?
Tyler Lynde: And, by the way, when I say all those things, I'm talking about the grandmas and the grandpas in the room, because you know all of you have done something like that before.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe not the pajamas and Walmart, but you've walked around talking to your phone or to your iPad.
Tyler Lynde: By the way, I would recommend that, if you do talk to your phone and before you send that text, proofread it.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, I don't know what autocorrect is doing, but in my world, satan tries to get into my autocorrect from time to time, so make sure you read that text a couple of times before you send it.
Tyler Lynde: So, anyway, long story short, kind of a silly intro to what I'm going to talk about today, but maybe it wouldn't be that strange for them, right?
Tyler Lynde: My point is that, in some ways, technology helps us to remain connected, right?
Tyler Lynde: Like, how many friends do you have on Facebook or I don't know what they call the Instagrammers and the?
Tyler Lynde: It's not tweet anymore, so the X, whatever.
Tyler Lynde: How many people do you have that are part of your circle of people that you would call friends or connection points or whatever the case is?
Tyler Lynde: And then the second question is are you receiving everything that you need from a community standpoint, from those engagements, from those connection points?
Tyler Lynde: Have you noticed how difficult it is in our world today to have a conversation with people.
Tyler Lynde: Am I the only one Like you just start talking about something and within three to four minutes or less, you find that you don't have anything else to say and the other person's looking around like how can I get out of this?
Tyler Lynde: Their eyes are glassing over.
Tyler Lynde: You know you're talking to young people and I love young people, but they're so the attention span has gotten so diminished, right, that it's like, unless you do something completely crazy, they're not even listening to you any longer.
Tyler Lynde: It's it's sometimes the things that we consider convenience and improvements and technological advance advancements are actually, in some ways, diminishing the things that we really need in our lives.
Tyler Lynde: We actually need FaceTime, and I'm not talking about over screen, I'm talking about face to face.
Tyler Lynde: We need to be able to have conversations where we speak about truth with each other, where we hold each other accountable, where we share the joys of life and the sorrows of life.
Tyler Lynde: All of those things are very hard to communicate through an emoji, right, and so that's what I really want to focus on here today how can we make sure that we are living our lives in such a way that our relationships are real, and with God, first of all, and then with each other in such a way that the world around us recognizes there's something different about those people and I want it.
Tyler Lynde: I want whatever it is that they have.
Tyler Lynde: So in order to do that, let's go back in time together.
Tyler Lynde: I do believe in time travel.
Tyler Lynde: That's a joke.
Tyler Lynde: I don't believe in time travel unless you're Jesus or Moses or Elijah, okay, but I don't believe in time travel.
Tyler Lynde: But if we could, metaphorically, just for a minute, let's imagine back to the day that Adam was created.
Tyler Lynde: So God, the Father, god the Son, god, the Spirit decide that they're going to make a person, they're gonna make a man, and so they form him out of the dust of the ground, and then it says that they breathe into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living creature.
Tyler Lynde: Imagine what it must have been for Adam when he first opened his eyes, was able to recognize what was going on around him.
Tyler Lynde: Relationship with God was normal.
Tyler Lynde: It was his first experience.
Tyler Lynde: It was so close that he could literally reach out and touch and hear and experience who God is in such a powerful, practical, personal way.
Tyler Lynde: That's the way that God created him to be in relationship.
Tyler Lynde: That's why he created mankind.
Tyler Lynde: It's not like God was sitting around heaven bored and so he came up with a project, right?
Tyler Lynde: No, in fact.
Tyler Lynde: If you go back a little further, you know that the Father, the Son and the Spirit, the Trinity, were involved in creation and they said to themselves let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Tyler Lynde: God decided to do that, and so he started with man.
Tyler Lynde: He started with Adam and he breathed into him life and he became alive and he began to walk and talk with God and experience relationship with him.
Tyler Lynde: God gave him tasks, he gave him one rule, which we'll talk about later.
Tyler Lynde: We maybe won't even talk about the one rule, right, but he encountered God in such a it was so natural, so normal.
Tyler Lynde: You see, we were made by God to relate to God and to relate like God.
Tyler Lynde: We were made to relate to God and to relate like God.
Tyler Lynde: That's how he made us, that's how it created us and that's we have to know that.
Tyler Lynde: That's part of the DNA, the spiritual DNA, whatever you want to call it.
Tyler Lynde: The fingerprints of God are on us in this way.
Tyler Lynde: He's put it in us, he's programmed us in the right way to be able to relate to him and to relate to each other.
Tyler Lynde: And if you read on in the creation story, it says and we know that the first, not good of creation was declared by God when he said it is not good that the man should be alone.
Tyler Lynde: I will make a helper for him it is not good that man should be alone.
Tyler Lynde: Now, a lot of the men in this room missed a huge opportunity in that moment to say a word that might help you for the rest of your life, or at least for the next week.
Tyler Lynde: What would you say to the, to the saying of God it's not good that man should be alone.
Tyler Lynde: All right, thank you, just trying to help you out.
Tyler Lynde: Just want to remind you also February 14th is Valentine's Day.
Tyler Lynde: That's coming soon, all right.
Tyler Lynde: So Adam and Eve came together.
Tyler Lynde: God brought them together, ordained marriage and he began to.
Tyler Lynde: They began to experience life the way that God intended for it to be experienced, so they had proper relationship with each other and they had proper relationship with God.
Tyler Lynde: In fact, it says that God walked and talked with them in the cool of the day, and again, I would just love to be able to somehow be.
Tyler Lynde: You know something in creation that could have just been there to observe what was going on, to experience this great connection point between God and the creation that he had made.
Tyler Lynde: This is the kind of relationship that God intends for his children to have with him and with each other.
Tyler Lynde: Again, this is his design, this is his order First of all, vertical fellowship with God, like this, that is right and pure and holy, and then horizontal relationship and fellowship with others.
Tyler Lynde: That is a part of God, those that are part of God's creation.
Tyler Lynde: God intends for us to have that.
Tyler Lynde: Can you imagine, can you think of any kind of icon, any kind of visual, any kind of image that you could get in your head that would remind you of the vertical nature and the horizontal nature of fellowship?
Tyler Lynde: How about the cross of Jesus Christ, in which he made a way, with his father, for us to be made right with God and to be made right with each other?
Tyler Lynde: That's powerful.
Tyler Lynde: These words are true, but how many of you know that we have opposition?
Tyler Lynde: We have opposition, yes or no?
Tyler Lynde: Yes, absolutely we have opposition, and we know that.
Tyler Lynde: That Satan comes to steal, to kill and to destroy.
Tyler Lynde: We're gonna get back to the story in just a minute, but I want to tell you that the early church was devoted to the fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: That's what it's talking about in this passage.
Tyler Lynde: The word fellowship Kelly kind of gave a precursor on this.
Tyler Lynde: It's called Koinonia.
Tyler Lynde: That's the Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, and it means it's the close association between people, emphasizing what is common between them fellowship, participation, common sharing in, contribution, partnership with and the outcome of such close relationships.
Tyler Lynde: That's a powerful word.
Tyler Lynde: It includes a lot of different things and there are a lot of English words and a lot of scriptures in the New Testament that use the word Koinonia and in English tries its best to try to describe what it means.
Tyler Lynde: And so we're gonna, by God's grace, we're going to really be defining this and laying it out for each of us today so that we can understand what God has intended and how to walk in this kind of relationship.
Tyler Lynde: But before we continue to bask in this good news, let's go back to our story again and talk about the fact that in the garden, lucifer Satan came and he worked hard to try to undo anything that God had done.
Tyler Lynde: Remember, satan is not a creator.
Tyler Lynde: All that he can do is attempt to pervert or twist or lie or scheme and try to get us to doubt God, to try to get us to move away from God's intent or his purpose.
Tyler Lynde: That's all that he can do.
Tyler Lynde: And so he did that with this first family, with Adam and with Eve.
Tyler Lynde: Right, and you can go around and play the blame game.
Tyler Lynde: They did right, because after they sinned and they realized that they had sinned and God showed up, what did Adam say?
Tyler Lynde: Whose fault was it?
Tyler Lynde: It's the woman you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: Now I know that none of the men in this room have ever said to God or anybody else it's that woman you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: And I know none of the women in the room have said about their men that it's that man that you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: But maybe we haven't used those words.
Tyler Lynde: But do we sometimes express things that are similar to that?
Tyler Lynde: Right, the blame game is Satan's best weapon and humanity does it better than anybody else.
Tyler Lynde: Well, anything else right.
Tyler Lynde: We are good at blaming everybody else for things that we're involved with, with sin that we are involved with.
Tyler Lynde: So in the garden, you see, the Satan hates anything that God does.
Tyler Lynde: He hates his divine order, and so he attacks God's divine order to bring chaos and division among between God and the people of God, between people and people, between God and people and between people and people.
Tyler Lynde: You flip the page again to the next story, the next page, and guess what happens?
Tyler Lynde: Adam and Eve's children, their two sons, cain and Abel.
Tyler Lynde: Cain is jealous of Abel's relationship, his vertical relationship and fellowship with God.
Tyler Lynde: And so what does he do?
Tyler Lynde: He strikes him and he kills him, kills him.
Tyler Lynde: The first murder ever committed in this planet happened between Adam and Eve's sons.
Tyler Lynde: And on and on the story goes.
Tyler Lynde: You see, sin and I used that word sin is the biggest hindrance to encountering God through fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: Sin is the biggest hindrance to encountering God through fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: We can't get away from it.
Tyler Lynde: I wish that I could find some other way to say it that would tickle your ears or that you would feel good about, but I have to be honest.
Tyler Lynde: We have to start with the bad news first.
Tyler Lynde: I've chosen to do that.
Tyler Lynde: I've loaded heavy the beginning of this message with all of the bad news and we will get to the good news, I promise you.
Tyler Lynde: But we must understand and remember the state of which we find ourselves, outside of relationship, proper relationship, with God.
Tyler Lynde: You see, our own personal sin is often rooted in pride and selfishness.
Tyler Lynde: It's whatever is best for me, whatever I can gain, whatever I can get, whatever I want, I, I, I.
Tyler Lynde: It's pride and selfishness.
Tyler Lynde: James, chapter four, verses one through three, describes this very powerfully.
Tyler Lynde: He says what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you and you would think he's talking to heathen people, he's talking to the church.
Tyler Lynde: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
Tyler Lynde: Is it not this?
Tyler Lynde: That your passions are at war within you.
Tyler Lynde: You desire and do not have, so you murder, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
Tyler Lynde: You do not have because you do not ask.
Tyler Lynde: You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your own passions.
Tyler Lynde: This is a problem.
Tyler Lynde: Sin is a problem.
Tyler Lynde: It's a problem in our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other people.
Tyler Lynde: Sin is the issue that we must deal with.
Tyler Lynde: Things are not going to get better on their own.
Tyler Lynde: They're just not going to just change somehow magically, mystically.
Tyler Lynde: I wish that they would, but they won't.
Tyler Lynde: We have to deal with the root cause.
Tyler Lynde: How many of you love pulling weeds?
Tyler Lynde: I love weed eating weeds.
Tyler Lynde: Here's a problem with weed eating weeds they come back and when they come back, they bring their friends with them Before long, your garden is no longer a garden of fruits and vegetables, it's a garden of weeds.
Tyler Lynde: Now, they're beautiful when they flower, and all of those things, right.
Tyler Lynde: But in order to eliminate that problem, in order to cause that which is good and great and precious and all of those things to thrive and flourish the way that they need to, what must we do?
Tyler Lynde: We must get our hands in the soil and we must pull things out, those weeds out by the roots.
Tyler Lynde: By the roots.
Tyler Lynde: It has always seemed crazy to me.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe I'm the only one to see how easy it seems for the people of God, christians, to be more interested in strife and division than they are in walking in right relationship with God and with each other man.
Tyler Lynde: I wish I didn't have to say this, but it is true.
Tyler Lynde: The way that we talk about politics amongst each other is like if the world sees that and judges the church based on the way we discuss politics and we could go to any number of things that you could list it's somewhat embarrassing, to be honest.
Tyler Lynde: Strife and division, gossip, of course we wouldn't call it gossip, we'd call it prayer requests, right, would you pray for so and so?
Tyler Lynde: They've really gone off the deep end.
Tyler Lynde: I think it's cocaine this time.
Tyler Lynde: Come on Slander, anger.
Tyler Lynde: And here's when I'm saying these words, here's the thing.
Tyler Lynde: We can all think of other people that do all these things.
Tyler Lynde: We can think of them, we can list them, we can name them, we can blame them.
Tyler Lynde: It's the woman you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: It's the boss you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: It's the children you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: It's the president you gave me.
Tyler Lynde: It's the, whatever it is that you gave me Unforgiveness, bitterness.
Tyler Lynde: It's so much easier to live in that world.
Tyler Lynde: In some ways, my friends, marriages hang in the balance.
Tyler Lynde: This is not a game.
Tyler Lynde: Lives that are intended to be lived in a certain way for God's glory, for His kingdom, are being wrecked by Satan's schemes and our fleshest desire to be a part of that.
Tyler Lynde: Relationships are continually being destroyed.
Tyler Lynde: If somebody says something you don't like, I'll just block them, delete them, expose them, copy and paste them.
Tyler Lynde: How about reaching out to them in private message and saying hey, would you have time to talk?
Tyler Lynde: I'd just have some things.
Tyler Lynde: I'd like to run past you and see what you think.
Tyler Lynde: Is it possible that what we see, the division and strife that we see in the body of Christ, is an indication of a deeper problem.
Tyler Lynde: Is it possible that there's something at the core, that's at the root of this?
Tyler Lynde: Is there something that we're missing, that we're not seeing that clearly, that we need to, that we need the Lord to open our eyes to so that we can see it, so it can change?
Tyler Lynde: I say yes, I think so.
Tyler Lynde: Does our relationship with others reflect the state of our relationship with God?
Tyler Lynde: Sometimes the problems that we have out here are an indication of a problem that we have right here.
Tyler Lynde: Because when things are right, right here and we understand the mercy of God, the grace of God that's been poured out on me that I don't deserve, and the sin that I've committed and the fact that he forgave me and gave me another chance, gives me a lot of grace for this right here, a lot of mercy for this right here, a lot of love to be shared out here.
Tyler Lynde: But if this isn't right, then why should I have any ambition or drive or desire to make this right right here?
Tyler Lynde: But most of the time, we don't recognize it.
Tyler Lynde: We don't recognize that this is a problem because we're so, you know, just so enthralled with this problem.
Tyler Lynde: Those people, them, they.
Tyler Lynde: James Boyce writes, not James Boyd.
Tyler Lynde: By the way, james Boyce writes If you find yourself out of fellowship with God, you will begin to find yourself out of fellowship with other Christians.
Tyler Lynde: It's a direct result.
Tyler Lynde: It will come.
Tyler Lynde: You will say I don't really like to be with other Christians.
Tyler Lynde: I don't like to be with other Christians very much.
Tyler Lynde: They're all hypocrites.
Tyler Lynde: I'm sure that many of us unfortunately have family and friends who say things like that about church.
Tyler Lynde: It's just a bunch of hypocrites.
Tyler Lynde: And of course they're right.
Tyler Lynde: Hypocrisy has always been found in the church.
Tyler Lynde: It's always been found in the church in different levels, in different degrees, because we're all sinners in need of a savior and His mercies have to be new every morning.
Tyler Lynde: Can you imagine if all of us walked around completely sanctified, completely holy, completely pure?
Tyler Lynde: I mean, I can't imagine what the conversations would be like.
Tyler Lynde: But we're all in process, right?
Tyler Lynde: We're all being changed.
Tyler Lynde: We're all being made into His image and into His likeness, as the Holy Spirit works in us to sanctify us.
Tyler Lynde: Here's the problem with those who blame hypocrisy for their reason to get out of church, to leave it behind, to say it's no longer relevant.
Tyler Lynde: I don't need the church, I just need Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: A lack of fellowship actually reveals more about a person's own distancing from God than the state of the church.
Tyler Lynde: I have hardly ever in my life experienced somebody getting fed up with the church and leaving the church behind because of their relationship with Jesus and their relationship with Jesus growing as time goes on.
Tyler Lynde: In fact, the majority of the time.
Tyler Lynde: From my own experience, and I'm sure maybe you I love the fact.
Tyler Lynde: If you could think of an exception, let me know, that'd be great.
Tyler Lynde: But for the majority of the time, people who walk away from fellowshiping with other believers end up worse off than what they were before, and it's because God intends for us to walk in proper fellowship and relationship with Him and with others who are children of His.
Tyler Lynde: I once talked to a man who had been to many, many churches all over the world and has experienced that every one of those churches he experienced hypocrisy, he was disappointed, he was hurt.
Tyler Lynde: In fact, if anybody could qualify for church hurt, this guy could qualify.
Tyler Lynde: But you know the thing that was most amazing to me in conversation with this guy he still loved the church, he prayed for the church.
Tyler Lynde: He did everything that he possibly could in every scenario that he was put in, to bring about a peaceable change, transformation and resolution.
Tyler Lynde: This man's name is Jesus If anybody deserves to use the phrase I've been hurt by church is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and yet he still loves the church.
Tyler Lynde: The church is his bride that the Father has been preparing for him from the beginning of time, and we will be made one day into that spotless, perfect, pure, blameless bride and we will be with him forever and ever and ever, and that is good news.
Tyler Lynde: One of the things about church hurt and many of the people that I've talked to and I'm not trying to downplay the fact I have experienced in my life if I stood here and told you the stories of times that I have been personally hurt by life happenings within a church setting, we'd be here a very long time, longer than the three hours we're going to spend together right now.
Tyler Lynde: He said three hours, but I'm here to tell you guys there is something so something so sinister about the way that Satan works so hard to try to break people away from what they actually need to thrive To thrive.
Tyler Lynde: A lot of times, when people say that they leave the church because they're hurt by church, it's because somebody had the guts to speak to them and say to them hey, I'm concerned about this aspect of your life.
Tyler Lynde: Have you prayed about that?
Tyler Lynde: Have you thought about it?
Tyler Lynde: Have you went to the Lord about it?
Tyler Lynde: Are you concerned about it?
Tyler Lynde: Something bad is going to happen if this doesn't change in your life.
Tyler Lynde: You see, satan does anything he can and our flesh loves it when we can blame everybody else and then we can disconnect.
Tyler Lynde: But a disconnected Christian is a disobedient and unfruitful Christian.
Tyler Lynde: And, by the way, I'm not just trying to, we're not promoting this is not a church growth drive or a.
Tyler Lynde: You know, you must stay at Trinity Drive.
Tyler Lynde: That's not what I'm trying to say here.
Tyler Lynde: I'm trying to help us to understand the importance of being devoted to fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: We need each other.
Tyler Lynde: God has created us with this capacity for fellowship, but sin has distorted our ability to enjoy it without conflict.
Tyler Lynde: How many times have you read a text or a message from somebody and you have misinterpreted their motivation or you've added to it a certain tone that was never intended to be read or understood in the reading of the text?
Tyler Lynde: Right, I have decided.
Tyler Lynde: A few years ago, I decided, after having a knock down, drag out, fight with one of my children on text messaging that I was not going to play that game anymore.
Tyler Lynde: If I had an issue that I needed to talk through, I was going to either meet with them individually or I'm going to call them.
Tyler Lynde: And again, please don't mishear me.
Tyler Lynde: Technology is great.
Tyler Lynde: It's a great gift and tool that we can use for the building of the kingdom of God, but please don't settle disagreements over text.
Tyler Lynde: How's that working for you?
Tyler Lynde: It's not Even the sins that many of us view as personal have a corporate impact.
Tyler Lynde: They affect the body as a whole.
Tyler Lynde: Your personal, our personal, individual sins affect the church and they must be addressed in order to have proper fellowship with God and with others.
Tyler Lynde: We're a part of a body.
Tyler Lynde: One part of the body suffers or is sick or is dealing with something, but rest of the body is affected by that as well.
Tyler Lynde: Right, let's flip the page and get to some good news.
Tyler Lynde: Jesus has made a way for our fellowship with God and each other to be restored.
Tyler Lynde: Jesus took our place so that we might be made right with God.
Tyler Lynde: Aren't you glad for this?
Tyler Lynde: Second Corinthians 521, for our sake?
Tyler Lynde: Who's sake?
Tyler Lynde: For our sake?
Tyler Lynde: He made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Tyler Lynde: Jesus made a way for this relationship to be made right with God.
Tyler Lynde: Come on, it's the truth.
Tyler Lynde: You and I couldn't do it.
Tyler Lynde: We couldn't do it.
Tyler Lynde: We couldn't make it right, but Jesus did.
Tyler Lynde: There's a response required of us, isn't there?
Tyler Lynde: If we repent and believe on Jesus, god will forgive us and cleanse us.
Tyler Lynde: He will.
Tyler Lynde: There's no might or maybe, or hopefully, or if I say the right things in the right order or do the right things in a certain way.
Tyler Lynde: No, god is quick to forgive.
Tyler Lynde: He's slow to anger.
Tyler Lynde: He loves being merciful and gracious and kind.
Tyler Lynde: John 1, verses 5-9,.
Tyler Lynde: We read these verses as spoken to unbelievers, but these words are also very applicable to the church, to our relationship with God and with each other.
Tyler Lynde: It starts in verse 5.
Tyler Lynde: This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.
Tyler Lynde: If we say we have fellowship with him, which fellowship is that?
Tyler Lynde: This one right here.
Tyler Lynde: If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Tyler Lynde: But if we walk in the light, if we're in proper relationship with God.
Tyler Lynde: This way, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with what One another.
Tyler Lynde: This way we have fellowship with one another.
Tyler Lynde: And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
Tyler Lynde: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us If we confess our sins.
Tyler Lynde: He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Tyler Lynde: Did you see the sunrise this morning?
Tyler Lynde: I was in my shower and above my shower I have one of those narrow windows and all of a sudden, purple and red and orange and pink and yellow light saturation started beaming through that window.
Tyler Lynde: Can I be honest with you?
Tyler Lynde: I started repenting.
Tyler Lynde: I started making sure I was right with God, because I literally was thinking, jesus, are you coming back right now?
Tyler Lynde: Because that was the way the sky looked to me.
Tyler Lynde: It looked that spectacular, that splendid the Son of God, the King of Righteousness, coming back.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe it was a religious of me to feel like my first thought was to repent, but I'm so thankful that his faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us.
Tyler Lynde: And the last thing about Jesus in this aspect is Jesus is praying for us to walk in unity with God and with each other.
Tyler Lynde: How do I know that?
Tyler Lynde: Because it's written down for us in John, chapter 17.
Tyler Lynde: I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that's us, that they may all be what One, just as you, father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me the glory that you have given me I have given to them.
Tyler Lynde: That they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me.
Tyler Lynde: That they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me.
Tyler Lynde: That sounds like a God who just really doesn't want to be involved with humanity.
Tyler Lynde: He's kind of asleep somewhere in the distance.
Tyler Lynde: The cry of Jesus' heart is that we would be one, as the Father, the Son and the Spirit are one.
Tyler Lynde: Come on, this is good stuff.
Tyler Lynde: This is important.
Tyler Lynde: It's interesting to me that in Genesis, chapter 2, when God brought Adam and Eve together and instituted marriage, it says that the two became what One flesh unity, covenant, relationships, marriage.
Tyler Lynde: I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God.
Tyler Lynde: There's all these old songs that have been rolling through my head.
Tyler Lynde: Found us together, lord, you know.
Tyler Lynde: There's all of these songs that are so powerful from the past.
Tyler Lynde: Maybe we should write some new ones about us being together, fellowshiping.
Tyler Lynde: Fellowship involves the regular interaction of repentant believers who have a desire to provide for the spiritual and material well-being of others.
Tyler Lynde: I want to tell you right now I know that we're talking about change that needs to happen in our hearts but I want to brag on you because in all of my 40-something years of being in the Lord and being a part of church life, I've never experienced a more generous, caring, genuine church than this church.
Tyler Lynde: The reason that I can say that is because there are times when I show up in hospitals and people's homes and funeral homes in many different places, where you've been there first and you've been there to love on, to honor, to cherish, to provide food and shelter, whatever is needed for whoever needs it.
Tyler Lynde: That should be our normal rhythm of life, rhythm of grace.
Tyler Lynde: That should be an example.
Tyler Lynde: One of the things that's amazing to me is that the world should be beaten our doors down, not so that they can beat us up because they want to get in, because they're not experiencing any of the fruit that we get to experience.
Tyler Lynde: We're too worried about what so-and-so thinks about us, or on and on.
Tyler Lynde: The Word of God was the early church's motivation for fellowship and remember.
Tyler Lynde: These four devotions that are found in this passage are the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Tyler Lynde: The apostles' teaching was a motivation for fellowship, which is partially expressed through the Lord's Supper and through prayer.
Tyler Lynde: Fellowship is the fruit of receiving the apostles' teaching.
Tyler Lynde: Let's look at how the early church adopted the apostles' teaching.
Tyler Lynde: How do we know what the apostles' teachings were?
Tyler Lynde: Because, thank God, god gave Paul the apostle the ability to write a huge portion of the New Testament, and so we can read with our own eyes and understand the things that this early church was being taught.
Tyler Lynde: So the first thing that they that caused them to understand the value of fellowship from the Word of God, they shared in a common identity in Christ.
Tyler Lynde: First Corinthians 1-9 says God is faithful.
Tyler Lynde: By whom you were called into the what?
Tyler Lynde: The fellowship, the coinonia of his Son, jesus Christ, our Lord.
Tyler Lynde: I'm going to even know none of us would need to be here this morning if it wasn't for Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: We are here together, we are friends and we are a family because of Jesus Christ Right.
Tyler Lynde: Secondly, they shared in a common relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Tyler Lynde: In 2nd Corinthians 13-14,.
Tyler Lynde: The grace of the Lord, jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the fellowship, coinonia of the Holy Spirit, be with you all, father, son and Spirit, all three a part of their relationship to this relationship and then also this relationship.
Tyler Lynde: They shared also in a common heavenly Father to whom they prayed.
Tyler Lynde: Remember Jesus's words that we should pray to our heavenly Father in the name of Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: They also shared in a common partnership.
Tyler Lynde: In the gospel they were on mission together Philippians 1-5, because of your partnership another English word for the word coinonia in the gospel, from the first day until now, they also shared out of their abundance to meet the needs of others.
Tyler Lynde: They had common beliefs and common possessions, and I know we might pause here for just a minute and then say to ourselves yeah, but they had it way easier than we do.
Tyler Lynde: They didn't have all the distractions, they didn't have all of the technology, they hadn't been through all of the wars and rumors of wars, they didn't have two political parties that were complete odds with each other.
Tyler Lynde: They didn't have all of these different things that we have to deal with.
Tyler Lynde: Are we being serious right now?
Tyler Lynde: So here's what we had.
Tyler Lynde: We had 120 people who were shell shocked as they're staring up into heaven.
Tyler Lynde: As Jesus ascends into heaven, the angel has to tell them he's coming back.
Tyler Lynde: But now remember, he told you to go to Jerusalem.
Tyler Lynde: They go to Jerusalem.
Tyler Lynde: They're waiting in the upper room for the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Tyler Lynde: The Holy Spirit comes down in power and might.
Tyler Lynde: Every single one of them is filled with the Holy Spirit and they begin to speak with other languages that were not their native languages.
Tyler Lynde: They spill out into the streets where there are people from every nation, no one to man, every tribe, every language, different culture, different race, different socioeconomic levels, different political persuasions, different financial situations.
Tyler Lynde: All of these people that were just in Jerusalem for these feasts.
Tyler Lynde: And what did they hear?
Tyler Lynde: They heard the gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time in their own languages, because the power of the Holy Spirit that had filled these 120 powerful people at this point in time, as they spoke with these new languages, god caused them to go across the vast sea of people and for them to hear the gospel for the first time in their own language.
Tyler Lynde: And then Peter gets up.
Tyler Lynde: This is mysterious to me.
Tyler Lynde: How did this work?
Tyler Lynde: But Peter gets up and he preaches a message, a gospel message, to everybody, and before he can finish they stop him.
Tyler Lynde: I don't get any ideas this morning.
Tyler Lynde: Okay, I can see some of you All right, that's enough.
Tyler Lynde: But they stopped him and they said what must we do to be saved?
Tyler Lynde: Peter, of course, tells them to respond by repenting, putting their faith in Jesus that they would receive the same Holy Spirit.
Tyler Lynde: So you have, in one day, 3,000 people added to a church of 120.
Tyler Lynde: Different cultures, different climates, different languages, all of the things that I said before.
Tyler Lynde: How do you think that's going to work?
Tyler Lynde: It would be like this if next week, 7,000 refugees were dropped at our front door and they came to church next Sunday From all over the world, from anywhere that you can imagine, every tribe, every language, how would we handle that?
Tyler Lynde: Would it be peaceful?
Tyler Lynde: How many of us would be running to the children's ministry to make sure that their kids were not going to be in the same room as our kids?
Tyler Lynde: How many of us would be concerned if they sat in our seats, because we all know we have our seats right.
Tyler Lynde: We don't have our name on them like they used to do in the olden days, but we have our seats.
Tyler Lynde: Do you see what I'm saying?
Tyler Lynde: Think about how much energy and focus they must have put into devoting themselves to these four simple things.
Tyler Lynde: One of the things that transformed the entire world from that moment in time moving forward, was the fact that they figured it out.
Tyler Lynde: Not perfectly, not entirely.
Tyler Lynde: We see throughout the book of Acts and several of Paul's letters.
Tyler Lynde: You see corrections and things that needed to change and people getting riled up.
Tyler Lynde: We see all of the stuff that we deal with still.
Tyler Lynde: Somehow, by God's grace and a commitment to each other, to this and to this, this church became a beacon of light to the world around it.
Tyler Lynde: No-transcript you can't obey, we can't obey the one another's scripture without proper fellowship.
Tyler Lynde: The Bible is filled with all kinds of commands that tell us what we must do.
Tyler Lynde: We must be devoted to one another.
Tyler Lynde: We must love one another, admonish one another, serve one another and love, bear with one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, honor one another, protect one another, care for one another, bear one another's burdens, be kind and compassionate, submit to one another, build one another up.
Tyler Lynde: How can we do that?
Tyler Lynde: Hiding sitting on our couch, staring at the back of somebody's head for two hours on a Sunday morning?
Tyler Lynde: How can we do these things unless we engage in fellowship?
Tyler Lynde: You know, as I read this list of one another's, I want God to manifest himself to me in all of these ways.
Tyler Lynde: I want him to be kind to me, I want him to encourage me, I want him to love me, I want him to accept me, I want him to care for me.
Tyler Lynde: I want him to bear my burdens.
Tyler Lynde: I want him to be kind and compassionate toward me.
Tyler Lynde: I want him to all of these things.
Tyler Lynde: And yet he's saying I am all of those things to you.
Tyler Lynde: Now I want you to take what you've been given and I want you to give it away, just like this Give it away Kindness that you've received from Jesus, give it to somebody else.
Tyler Lynde: The good news is, as we finish, god encounters us when we prioritize proper fellowship with him and with other people.
Tyler Lynde: Just a couple of verses and there are so many I just can't, for the sake of time, hit all of them.
Tyler Lynde: But Matthew 1820, for where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
Tyler Lynde: God encounters us when we fellowship with others, with other believers.
Tyler Lynde: He encounters us, he promises us that he will be there with us.
Tyler Lynde: That's powerful.
Tyler Lynde: Psalm 133, verses one through three, one of the most poignant and beautiful statements in all of the scripture.
Tyler Lynde: When it comes to really focusing down to what this is about, it says Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters dwell in unity.
Tyler Lynde: It is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron running down on the collar of his robe.
Tyler Lynde: It's like the dew of Herman which falls on the mountains of Zion or there.
Tyler Lynde: And that's when it says there.
Tyler Lynde: It's not talking about Mount Herman or all of the descriptions of places or even people.
Tyler Lynde: You know what it's talking about.
Tyler Lynde: In a place of unity, there the Lord has commanded the blessing life forever more.
Tyler Lynde: There's a place of commanding, there is a place of commanded blessing where brethren in unity dwell.
Tyler Lynde: And that, my friends, is what God intends for us and expects from us.
Tyler Lynde: Let's pray, father.
Tyler Lynde: God, thank you so much for allowing me to speak these words this morning.
Tyler Lynde: I ask, lord, that you would do the work in my heart that needs to be done, for the change that needs to occur.
Tyler Lynde: Help me to be much more, much more eager to not only be in good relationship and fellowship with you, but to really be a part of the kingdom of God and the body of Christ and the fellowship of believers.
Tyler Lynde: Help me, lord, pray for those who are not yet a part of the body of Christ, that may be either here this morning or listening to this online.
Tyler Lynde: I pray that today would be their day where they would recognize their need for a Savior and, just like those 3,000 people on the day of Pentecost, that they would turn away from their old way of living, that they would recognize that their life without you is nothing there's no hope, no life, no future.
Tyler Lynde: I pray, father, that they would now, even in this moment, that they would just say words of a prayer to you, that they would acknowledge their need for you and that they would believe that Jesus Christ did what he said, that he did.
Tyler Lynde: And, lord, would you save them?
Tyler Lynde: Would you save those who are not saved?
Tyler Lynde: Also, I pray, lord, for those who have been hurt in many different aspects of church life.
Tyler Lynde: I pray, lord, that there would be a time of healing and restoration and, lord, that we would recognize that we're not going to always get those things from other people.
Tyler Lynde: It's not like, even when we forgive others, lord God, we can't control how they respond.
Tyler Lynde: But we know, lord God, that when we're walking in this life the way that you walk toward us, that good things happen, that your purpose is done and that you give people chances for change, even in the way that we act and react around them.
Tyler Lynde: We declare to you, lord, we need your help and we ask you for it In the precious and mighty name of Jesus.
Tyler Lynde: Amen.