fellowship

Attending a Royal Feast

by Ben Zornes · Oct 10, 2023

Due to various movements of culture and emphasis, the Lord’s Supper has come to be treated more like the somber quiet of a funeral home, when we should observe it as if in a royal feasting hall. Since this is the case, we ought to shape our attitude and disposition during this meal to reflect what we do here.

First, Jesus’ parable about the man invited to the wedding feast who refuses to wear the provided wedding garments is applicable here. You must come to this feast in the robes of Christ righteousness which God has provided for you; for no other garments are appropriate for this heavenly banquet hall.

Secondly, we should examine ourselves. This should be a regular habit of life as you read the Word and sit under faithful preaching of the Word. It is also why we confess our sins corporately earlier in the service.

Third, and this ties in with the previous point, examining yourself according to Paul’s instruction is in the context of consideration for your fellow saint. You must not rush forward to gobble up all the food before anyone else has eaten. Since we practice paedocommunion, parents ought to teach their itty-bitties not to eat until we’ve all eaten together. In short, delight in both our union with Christ and with each other.

Lastly, as you partake, look around at each other with joy & love. Sing these praises with all your gusto & strength. Do not hold back out of fear that you might be a little too over the top; for God went over the top & gave His Son to you. This is a royal banquet which celebrates God’s eternal covenant with us. That covenant was accomplished by Christ’s conquest of our enemies, & He shares that conquest with us. So feast like kings & priests to God, for that is what you are.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

The Gospel of the Pentateuch

1 John 2:24-27 | The Pastoral Prerogative for Run-on Sentences

by Ben Zornes · May 11, 2022

24 Let that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If that which you have heard from the beginning abides in you, then in the Son, and the Father you shall abide. 25 And this is the promise that He has promised us: life eternal. 26 These things I have written unto you regarding those who are seducing you. 27 But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you have no need for any man to teach you, but even as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and according as it has taught you, you shall abide in Him.
1 John 2:24-27

John continues to return to themes he previously introduced, only to deepen and expand them. Here the theme of fellowship is deepened by noting the reciprocal nature of it. As we receive the Apostles’ gospel and doctrine, the Truth contained in their teaching abides in us. If we’ve received the plain Gospel witness which was first preached to us––that Jesus was the eternal Christ, manifested in the flesh to be our Advocate before the Father––then we abide in the Father and the Son. The Gospel comes into us (by the Spirit’s effectual work, it should be noted), and by that power we are brought to abide in God. We have here another “if/then”, a favorite rhetorical tac used by John. If the Gospel abides in you, then you abide in God. In other words, Christian doctrine is personal and covenantal.

The life which was with God in the beginning, is assuredly ours for eternity. This is the good and glorious Gospel promise. In the Greek, life eternal is accompanied by the definite article. This is the Life Eternal. We aren’t talking about a way of life amongst many ways of life. Rather, this is the only true and eternal Life.

Verse 26 brings us a warning that there are seducers who would woo us away from this Life Eternal. Throughout John’s apocolyptic vision, the devil is described as busy with the work of deceiving/seducing (Cf. Rev. 12:9, 20:8 & 10, 13:14, 16:14). The same word is used there. Satan busies himself with leading astray, seducing, deceiving. But John also previously used this word in regards to the self-deception of claiming sinless perfection (1 Jn. 1:8). The devil deceives us, yes; but his best work is done by deceiving us into deceiving ourselves.

As we arrive at verse 27, we see the pastoral prerogative for run-on sentences. When truth like this is in play, it is hard to refrain from carrying on about it. The lure of the seducers should be countered with the anointing which we received. Our fellowship with God, through being covenantally joined with Christ by having heard His Gospel news and being sealed by His Gospel sign, is the antidote to the adder’s poisonous lies. There is no secret knowledge that needs to be added to the plain Gospel which John had previously preached to them. This anointing (our baptism into Christ) is didactic. By that I mean that we grow up into it, but we never add to it. We learn to apply the Gospel to all things, and as we walk in the light which the Gospel brings we see that there is no lie in it. Once more, as we rest in the Gospel, we are in fact abiding in Christ.

The Center of Our Fellowship

by Ben Zornes · Feb 9, 2022

Fellowship flows from this table. But man often wants the locus of fellowship to be placed elsewhere. He wants the deep joy that’s found in companionship, but wants to place the hinge on flimsy alternatives: knitting clubs, sports teams, political movements, MCU Stans. Notice that as our nation has drifted from faithfulness to the Word, we’ve accumulated a great host “sub-cultures”. For all the mantra about inclusion, we’ve never been more isolated.

While this symptom is quite evident in our culture, it has also infected many in the church. The thinking goes that fellowship will grow out of the soil of church programs, para-church ministries, Christian conferences and concerts. Those things of course aren’t innately bad, but they must be downstream from this table.

New folks to this community, you might imagine that there are hubs of fellowship and companionship that you are somehow missing out on. You imagine you need to learn some password before getting “in”. Those who’ve been here awhile might feel the ache of drifting from friends they were once closer to. But the solution to the ache for fellowship begins here. When longing for fellowship the question to ask is, “Do you have a table?” If you do, imitate Your Father and send the invitations far and wide, spread your table as abundantly as you’re able, and beam with joy over those who come. The reality is that this table, and the fellowship we enjoy here with God Most High and with each other, fuels the fellowship around our own dining tables.

As the Apostle John’s epistle teaches, fellowship with the brethren is downstream from fellowship with God. What’s more, it’s only by fellowship with God, found through the Incarnate Word, that fellowship with the brethren is even made possible. You receive here at this table, that you might give there at your own table.

So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…

Fellowship Instead of Forsakenness

by Ben Zornes · Apr 2, 2021

Weâ€™re gathered here in the midst of a multitude of fellow saints. We are gathered in, rather than scattered; assembled together, rather than cast out. This fellowship with God and each other is ours because the Son of God was forsaken. Although your sin earned desertion, outer darkness, and utter forsakenness, instead it pleased the Father to crush His Son.

He did this so you could be joined together with an innumerable company of saints and angels, and be received into the bright beams of Godâ€™s pleasure. As we reflect this evening on Christâ€™s death, and His cry of holy despair â€œMy God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?â€, remember that it was all done so that you might not be forsaken.

How sweet and awful is this night? Sweet because our sins are washed away, awful because we see the great horror of our sin and the sacrifice greater than our sin which purchased our pardon. By the Spirit, the cross is held forth to us, that we might savor the glory revealed in the horror. God gathers us who were once far off, and brings us and our fellow saints, into the infinite joy of His Triune being.

1 John 1:7 – Fellowship in the Light

by Ben Zornes · Feb 12, 2021

But if in the light we habitually walk, 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.
1 John 1:17

Again, John rocks back and forth between contrasting ideas. Having just noted the impossibile arrangement of the Nicolaitan heresyâ€“â€“and others like them in historyâ€“â€“who sought to remain in the dark and maintain their dark deeds while claiming to be in fellowship with God the light, John goes around to the contrasting arrangement: that of walking in the light.

The Greek, and in my translation I seek to bring this out, underscores that the “walkingâ€ is continual and habitual. Remaining in the light, or as John puts in His Gospel, â€œabiding in the vineâ€, is the basis for our fellowship with each other. There is no fellowship between branches which have been severed from the vine, and those still on the vine. There is unity, however, between the fruitful branches.

Howeverâ€“â€“and this is a point upon which I must wave my hands vigorously so as to ensure that you not miss the pointâ€“â€“we walk in the light â€œas He is in the light.â€ The basis for our walking in Godâ€™s light is Christâ€™s obedience. Being in Christ ensures that though we are dark as midnight in our sin, we have been brought into the light. This procures for us two things.

1) Fellowship with the brethren.
2) Being cleansed, by Jesusâ€™ blood, from all our sin.

In other words, we are reconciled with our neighbor, and with our God.