This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, Faithful in Fellowship.
There are many figures of speech used in God’s Word to describe the Church. She is described as a building, with us as her blocks and Christ as her foundation (see 1 Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:19-20), and as a Bride, with Christ Himself as her bridegroom. (See Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 19:7-9.)
The Word of God also refers to the Church as a body.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.
While Jesus Christ and the Church are not identical, they are inseparable—like the head and body.
Therefore you, Christian, need to understand the Church, and your place in Christian community.
A body has many individual members functioning together as one, all directed by the head. For the Church, Christ Jesus is that Head. (Read Ephesians 5:23; 1 Corinthians 11:3.)
In the body, members do not all function in the same way—the foot cannot be a hand, and the hand cannot be an eye. In the Church, members of the body of Christ are each given specific gifts or abilities to function as directed.
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ…
As we work together in His ministry, we must do so humbly. The pastor of a church may appear to have the most significant role, but the members take the message into the community and have a greater reach than one man does.
When the world sees the unity and Christian fellowship of the body of Christ, lives are eternally impacted for the Kingdom.
Look at someone near you. Do you see them? No, you don’t. What you see is their body. They are not a body; they have a body. Our bodies are our earthly house.
But all that you know about a person is what you know through this thing called their body. You can read what they wrote, but their body wrote it. You can hear what you say, but their body says it. The body is a manifested person.
The purpose of the Church is to manifest Jesus.
As He inhabits our humanity, we display His deity, and Jesus Christ is made known to this world. Jesus is the invisible part of the visible Church.
The body is meant to minister to the life of the person who lives inside it. We are Jesus’ hands and feet.
What makes a body work is that it not only has eyes and hands and feet, but also life!
The life of your body is your spirit. The life of Christ’s body is the Holy Spirit of God. A body without a spirit is a corpse, and a spirit without a body is a ghost. But the Church is not a corpse or a ghost: we are the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, to manifest Him, to minister His purpose, motivated by His power.
And we must do it together.
We are many members, with one agenda. Some people foolishly say, “I’m against organized religion. I have my own.” The body must be organized in order to function. When your body ceases to be organized, you are very sick. Organization is necessary for Christian life. “Let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40).
Because we are one body, we share a common life.
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body?
The Holy Spirit who is in your brother in Christ is the same Holy Spirit who is in you. You cannot be in competition with one another.
Nor should you live in isolation from one another. God made us in such a way that we need one another. None of us can function apart from the others.
You see the musicians and the preacher and so forth. But there are other members of the body whom you do not see, and they are just as vital. Who in your church are you taking for granted?
…There should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
There can be no arrogance. You can never say to your brother or sister in Christ, “I don’t need you.” There can be no envy, no rivalry, no self-sufficiency, no disunity.
Why? Because we serve the same Lord. Loyalty to Jesus means loyalty to His body. You cannot love Jesus without loving what Jesus loves. If you love the Head, you will love the body.
Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
Biblical Christian fellowship can be between two individuals.
Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). He said this to the Church—to those who are already saved.
He refers to the one on the other side of the door as “him,” singular. Jesus desires for each one of us to maintain intimate fellowship with Him through personal time in prayer and purposeful bible study.
Fellowship can also be corporate, like that of a congregation or a church small group. The 3000 people who were saved in Acts 2 were all together, and their oneness was based on their salvation in Jesus.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
The Church experienced oneness in purpose and in action, and they experienced fellowship with the Lord corporately.
This kind of church community strengthens the bond we have in Christ and with each other as we encourage one another to spiritual growth, seeking to be faithful in our walk with our Lord and Savior.
Accept your role. You are somebody in Christ body. You are important to Jesus, and, therefore you are important to His Church—and the Church is vitally important to you. This is the importance of fellowship with other believers.
Be who God made you. Do not try to be somebody else. Preachers, do not look at other preachers and think, “I want to be him.” You never can be. But you can be the best you there is.
Then give yourself. Every part of the body gives. The heart gives, the lungs give, the liver gives. You have to give in order to get to live.
When we do, Jesus will be shown to the world, because He lives in His body called the Church.
1 Corinthians 3:11, 11:3, 12:12-16,25-27, 14:40; Ephesians 2:19-20, 4:11-12, 5:23-25; Revelation 3:20, 19:7-9; Acts 2:42
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.
