THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE HOLY SPIRIT – SHARING GOD’S LIFE
Acts 2:1-42 1 John 1: 3–7 John 14: 8-17
The ‘fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ is a phrase we all know. We bless each other with it whenever we say the Benediction. The Greek word for ‘fellowship’ is koinonia. It occurs 19 times in the New Testament and gives us a clear view of both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal fellowship with each other.
1. OUR FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
1 John 1.3-7 says: We write so that you might share our life – and joy. Our life is shared with the Father (= we have koinonia with the Father) and with his Son, Jesus Christ. To talk about ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ means to affirm that WE SHARE GOD’S LIFE! The New Testament shows how the disciples walked with Jesus.
They experienced his amazing love. When he rose from death, they knew he was present with them. More than that, they knew that they were experiencing GOD’s presence in the risen Jesus. No wonder they walked with joy and courage and the power to witness!
This, of course, is the foundational invitation we now give to everyone: Be open to experiencing the presence of the risen Christ, alive with God’s power.
And then came the Ascension – which meant that Jesus was always powerfully present everywhere – and Pentecost, which meant that Jesus was sharing his power with his disciples. So ‘the fellowship of the Holy Spirit’ means that we can all now truly share in God’s life. That is the heart of Christianity – a personal, living relationship with the Father God, a personal, ongoing experience of the living Christ, a personal sense of being energised by the Spirit. That’s what we bless each other with every time we say the Benediction!
2. OUR FELLOWSHIP WITH ONE ANOTHER
Because every true Christian lives in this ongoing energising relationship with God, we all also have an energising relationship with one another as Christians. John says it absolutely clearly: because we all joyfully share God’s life … we have a share in one another’s life, and so our sin is eradicated: the irritations we harbour are done away with: our memories of hurts are washed away. So we are enabled to forgive each other!
And then in Romans 15.26 Paul says that he’s going to Jerusalem to take with him for the persecuted Christians there the generous contribution from God’s people in Greece. And he calls that generous contribution a koinonia! (See also 2 Cor. 9.13) Again in Hebrews 13.16, we Christians are reminded that God is pleased when we do good and share our resources (literally when we ‘do koinonia’!) So it is that we can share God’s life with each other.
Rev. James Massey