In January, I started a series called Vital
Truth.
Someone asked me, what's the difference between vital
truth and truth?
So there's all kinds of truths in the
Bible, and they're all important, and we're to
read our Bibles every day.
The growth of a Christian is not supposed
to come from sermons from a pastor.
It's supposed to come from every day reading
the Word and saying, God, teach us.
One of the worst things a pastor can
do that I shared at the Cove is
to read the Bible for sermon topics and
read it for text verses to use for
sermons.
That's the worst way to read the Bible
for a minister.
He's supposed to read it for himself, not
to preach.
We all need to be fed this Word.
Well, there's truths about, let's say, what exactly
is gonna happen at the end times, eschatology,
the coming of the Lord, and there's different
views on that.
There's truth in the Bible about that, especially
Jesus is coming again at any moment.
The church is gonna be lifted up to
meet him.
Then what happens or what happens preceding that
and the mark of the beast and the
Antichrist and all of that, that's truth we
need to discuss it, but it's not vital
truth to salvation and to your growth as
a Christian.
The gifts of the Spirit listed in 1
Corinthians 12, that is very, very close to,
I think, vital truth, although you can be
saved without knowing anything about that or having
it emphasized in your church, unfortunately, which happens
in a lot of places.
But vital truth are these things that I
wanna take as many weeks as it takes
to give you because this is a necessity
to grow in grace, to be a strong
Christian, to be a blessing to others, to
be able to fight the devil because we're
all involved in spiritual warfare, which is another
vital truth that we haven't got to.
There's a place somewhere out in Colorado where
ministers who have moral failures, have to leave
the ministry or go on the shelf, go
and a study has been made by the
people there that every single minister, someone told
me who's in leadership there, every single minister
that they have to help answers the same
response to the question about what led up
to that situation where the enemy got the
upper hand.
And that truth is also part of the
lack of full teaching that we often give
people about the calling we have from God
as Christians.
We emphasize relationship, being born again, to the
exclusion of something else.
And the answer to both those questions is
coming up.
Let's look at a bunch of verses.
First Corinthians 1.9, God is faithful, who
has called you into fellowship with his son,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
That word fellowship, koinonia in the Greek, is
a word that means communion, fellowship, sharing.
It actually is used someplace of giving.
You give, I give back.
Let's say my brother Tim Adams, we have
fellowship.
He shares his heart, I share my heart.
We spend time together.
The early church had koinonia, they continued in
fellowship one with another.
God doesn't want us to sit here, then
go home and not share each other's lives.
That is very displeasing to God.
He wants us to share one another's lives
because we all need encouragement, amen?
Now this is a thought, God is faithful,
who has called us into fellowship with his
son, Jesus Christ.
Let's look at another verse using koinonia.
First John 1.3, we proclaim to you
what we have seen and heard so that
you also may have koinonia with us, fellowship.
And our fellowship is with the Father and
with his son, Jesus Christ.
Notice the double use of the word koinonia
here.
John is writing and saying, we're writing these
things to you that you might have fellowship
with us.
In other words, brother Tim and I have
fellowship.
But our fellowship, now he's taking it to
another level, our fellowship is with the Father
and with his son, Jesus Christ.
So let's look at one other verse.
Revelation 3, verse 20.
Here I am, I stand at the door
and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in and eat with
that person and they with me, which is
Jesus saying to a church that's not doing
well spiritually, look, listen, I'm knocking at the
door.
All I want you to do is open
and I'll come in and have fellowship with
you.
I'll eat with you.
He's not talking about literal food there.
He's talking about fellowship.
And lastly, of the calling of the disciples
in Mark chapter three, Jesus went up on
a mountainside and called to him those he
wanted and they came to him.
He appointed 12 that they might be with
him and that he might send them out
to preach and to have authority to drive
out demons.
Let's get back to that first scenario I
gave you.
The first calling on Jim Cymbala, the first
calling on every soprano, first calling on every
tenor, the first calling on every alto, everybody
who's a Christian here, every deacon, every musician,
every keyboard player, every usher, every sound person,
your first calling is not to do sound
or to play an instrument or to preach
or to write books or to start churches
or to travel and teach.
The first calling that Jesus gave them was
that they might be with him.
Then that he might send them out to
preach and that they would have authority over
demons.
Where would they know where to go to
preach and how to preach better?
Oh, they would get that by being with
him.
How would they have authority over evil spirits
and have spiritual juice, shall we say?
Oh, by being with him.
So what did that mean to them?
It meant they went with Jesus.
When he turned right, they turned right.
When he went left, they went left.
When they had a meal, they ate with
him and they would bring questions to him
and then they would listen and he would
speak to them and they would just be
together and laugh together and rejoice together and
pray together.
That was the first calling.
Don't do anything.
First, just be with me because unless you
receive something from me, how can you give
anything to somebody else?
And that's the answer to that question about
that place in Colorado.
Every minister confessed that before the dilemma blossomed,
they had broken down in fellowship with the
Lord, communion, just being with him, with an
open Bible, in a chair, in a room,
all alone, listening, not just talking, listening, quiet,
sometimes praising, asking questions, hopefully getting answers, getting
direction, just being with him.
That's the first calling.
Now, we have emphasized a very important truth
to the exclusion of the fellowship part.
We have emphasized relationship.
You must be born again.
He that believes in the Son, Jesus Christ,
that he died for our sins, has life.
You passed out of darkness into light.
Behold what manner of love the Father has
showed upon us that we might become and
be called the children of God.
How many are happy to be in God's
family, lift up a hand and say amen?
So we're sons and daughters of God through
faith in Jesus Christ.
That's relationship, but there are people, many in
our church, many I have counseled, who have
relationship and proof of biological relationship, but no
fellowship with the person they're related to.
A woman who got saved here, wonderfully saved,
many years ago, she now lives in Virginia.
She was molested by her dad starting at
about nine, 10, horrible, fled, ran in the
street, ended up in a terrible situation, topless
dancer, drugs, just every kind of crazy thing.
Hurt, pain.
So even after she got saved and found
Christ, all those years, she told me, she
had relationship.
She could show you a certificate, look, I
am the daughter of such and such a
man.
Relationship, yes.
Fellowship, no, no fellowship.
And God had a breakthrough in her heart,
and she went up to reconcile her to
her father and actually told him, I wanted
to actually kill you, several times, and hit
a screwdriver under my pillow, and all of
that, but now I'm a Christian, and I
want you to know, the one I've hated,
now God has put love in my heart
for you, and she tried to lead him
to the Lord.
Isn't that beautiful?
So relationship is different than fellowship.
So it means you can be born again
and come to this church, or any church,
and be born again.
But your life is lacking power, lacking joy,
lacking peace.
You don't get direction, what to do in
life.
You keep bumping into brick walls.
The answer probably is, you're not doubting your
relationship and my relationship, but fellowship, communion with
the Lord, that's where we're lacking.
And we live in a day today that's
very hard to have fellowship, because we're texting
the universe.
The universe is texting us.
We have emails, we have smartphones, which lead
to, many times, dumb lives, right?
Smartphones make for dumb lives sometimes.
And our priorities are totally messed up.
And now, because of the phone, we don't
even have fellowship with other people.
We only have communication with them, right?
So that you can see four people in
a restaurant, as I saw it recently, and
none of them were talking to each other.
They were all on the phone, but they
were having lunch together.
I mean, why even go to lunch with
them?
Why don't you just stay in your office
and text everybody, right?
So communication, real meaningful, even with humans, is
bad now, right?
And now, more so with the Lord, we
emphasize church as production, in some places with
lights and smoke and camels and cannons and
whatever else.
But communion with the Lord, wouldn't you agree
that many people are gonna go to church
today in America and never make contact with
God?
Never.
They'll listen to a sermon, but a sermon
is not God.
They'll listen to music, but a song is
not God.
God is God.
And is it not amazing that He is
the one that wants to have fellowship with
us, not the other way around?
Oh, let's just stop and think about that.
He wants to have fellowship with you and
me.
Not go to church, not do good works,
that all has its place.
But the main thing is, He wants to
be with us.
Have you ever thought of it that way?
God is faithful, who has called us into
fellowship with His Son.
What He's saying is, be with me.
I will help you, I will bless you,
but I love when you're with me.
Now, why God would wanna be with me?
He is my witness, I have no idea.
But I know this much, when you love
someone, you wanna be with them.
Any boyfriend who tells his girlfriend, I really
love you, and then texts her once a
month and otherwise does not see her, he
is a liar and the truth is not
in him.
How many say amen?
Because if you care for someone, you wanna
be with them, and if you wanna read
some heartbreaking stuff, study World War I and
World War II, when soldiers from America were
called away from their brides, from the one
they loved that they hadn't married yet, from
their children, and they had to go who
knows where, to face who knows what, and
the letters that they wrote back will just
bring you to tears, because when you're torn
apart and you love someone and you can't
be with them, you can't eat at a
restaurant with them, you can't take a walk
with them, that pain is incredible, and this
is the pain that God is talking about.
Like, I wanna be with you, Jesus is
saying.
He called them that they might be with
him.
I want you to realize that tomorrow when
you wake up, because a lot of us
need an alteration in our lives.
We gotta get our priorities different and we've
gotta discipline our time in a different way.
When you and I wake up tomorrow, should
we, know this, he wants to be with
you.
Not with a lot of other people, although
you can be with him in prayer and
worship right here, but he wants to be
with you.
Do you think he wants to hurt us?
No, he wants to help us, but he
wants to be with us.
But Pastor Simba, you don't know how I
lived.
I'm not what I should be, and I
have failed him so many times.
He knows all of that, but after giving
his life on the cross, don't you think
he wants to give you everything else you
and I need?
But it happens most times when you're with
him, when you're with him.
What happens when we're with him?
And the pace of life today mitigates against
this in tremendous ways, because we are hyper
type A society.
Am I not right?
But the truth of where God's word stands
firm, he called them that they might be
with him.
John says, I'm writing this to you because
we love you, but listen, we saw him,
and we touched him, and we heard his
voice, and now we're telling you about him
that you might have fellowship with us, and
our fellowship, not relationship only, our fellowship is
with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.
That's the calling we all have.
And even to a church that was lukewarm,
it was neither hot nor cold, and they
were Christians.
Jesus couldn't say to the church at Laodicea,
Revelation chapter three, he couldn't say to that
church, listen, get saved, they were saved.
He couldn't say be born again, they were
born again.
But what did he say?
You're neither hot nor cold, but because you're
lukewarm, I can't take it.
In other words, either be hot and fervent
in your love for me and serve me,
or be cold and not even know me,
but don't be in between.
Just don't go to church on Sunday, and
then I'm not part of your life.
But notice his answer, and it's the answer
I have found in my life, if I
could share this to you personally, it's the
answer to 95% of all my problems,
be with me.
Low, no commands, I stand at the door
and knock.
Don't you hear him knocking in some of
your lives, sir, ma'am, sir, ma'am
up there behind me, don't you hear him
knocking and saying, I just wanna be with
you, I'm not gonna hurt you, I love
you, and who you're spending time with, and
what you're occupying your time with is not
helping you, is it, that much?
I'm not saying to be a hermit and
to go away and be a monk and
live in the desert somewhere, but we gotta
find time to be with the Lord.
How many are with me so far, just
lift your hand.
If you don't find time to be with
the Lord, what are you finding time to
do?
Well, I'm too busy, Pastor, no, you said
it, you're too busy, I'm too busy.
We gotta change our busyness, because without the
Lord, what happened in Laodicea can happen, you
go through the motions for a while, you're
in the choir, you come to the practice.
Nobleno, different, you lost something, that glow.
Notice, the way to get out of a
backslidden condition is just to be with him,
and you don't have to talk and get
hyper, you can just sit in his presence,
just sit in his presence.
Notice what happens, when you're with him, eternity
and invisible things become big, and the problems
of this life become small.
When you're not with him, the things of
eternity and his power and his promises become
little, and I can't do it, I can't,
I can't make it over this mountain, I
don't know what I'm gonna do.
But if you just were with him, if
I was just with him more, you would
realize I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.
Can we say amen to that?
But that comes by being with him.
Lastly, have you ever had a good friend,
a good spiritual friend, I've had a few
in my life, really good ones, and no
matter how you're feeling when you're with them,
when they get done with you, and you
just have fellowship, you feel better.
Anybody have anybody like that in your life?
You just feel more encouraged.
There's a choir member who, every time I
run into this person, they'll just say a
few sentences to me, but I invariably leave
saying, praise God, God is good.
Well, imagine if a sister or brother in
the church could lift me by just being
with me.
Imagine what being with Jesus will do.
Didn't our hearts burn within us on the
road, confused disciples after he rose from the
dead?
They didn't know what to believe.
If you're confused today, if you're needing direction,
what you need is not a meeting with
me or a counseling session first.
You need to be with Jesus.
You know why everybody's seeking counseling, counseling, counseling,
counseling, and there's a place for counseling, but
you really shouldn't counsel with any of us
until you're first with him.
Believe me, he's a better counselor than I'll
ever be.
His name is wonderful, Counselor, and when he's
with you, he'll iron out things, he'll build
up encouragement.
Are you weak today, are you running out
of gas, you're lacking endurance because we are
in a fight, we're in a race, we're
in a battle?
No, listen, I can't tell you all the
times that that word has proven true in
my life.
I was just with him, just with him,
for five minutes, for five hours.
That's why if you come on Tuesday night
to the prayer meeting you not only can
pray for those cards, but I challenge you,
just come because you'll be with him.
You'll be with a lot of people who
wanna be with him.
See if it doesn't change your life.
Turn off that TV.
Turn off that phone.
Turn off everything and tune into Jesus.
Can we say amen to that?
Come on, let's do that loud and strong.
Oh God, how many times have you helped
me?
It's a lost art.
Christians don't take time every day just to
be with him, with the word, let the
word talk to you.
The spirit can also talk to you.
He'll never contradict his word.
You pour out to God, share your heart,
he'll share his heart with you.
He'll encourage you, he'll give you direction.
Let's close our eyes.
I described a situation in your life as
I was telling you about my own and
giving you examples and you say, pastor, that
word was for me.
I'm in a choir, I'm a deacon, I
work in sound, I'm a musician, I'm a
member, I'm in the balcony, I'm a visitor,
but I want God to know, God, I
need to be with you and I'm not
even gonna wait.
Tomorrow and daily I have to change, gotta
change my schedule, got to, got to.
Not an option, got to.
Because before I can do anything, I have
to be with him.
Before I can preach or witness or sing
in the choir, effectively, I have to have
communion with him, not just relationship.
I'm talking to Christians now.
I know God wants to change that in
my life, pastor.
So just stand where you are.
If you'd like me to pray with you
and I'll stay with you for a little
while.
Just stand right where you are.
Pastor, I needed to hear that.
Balcony, downstairs, just stand.
Lord, I acknowledge my need of being with
you.
That's what you're saying.
I need help in being with you more.
I need to be with you more.
I need more fellowship.
I have relationship, thank you for saving me,
but I need fellowship with you, Lord.
If you're standing, this was a special word
for you.
Come out of your seat.
Stand here in the front.
Father, we thank you for your word and
I pray for all my brothers and sisters
who have come forward, that today, as they
have fellowship with you, communion, sharing, you will
bless them and make them a blessing.
And God, this is really amazing.
Jesus, we're astounded.
We need to be with you and yet
you're the one who says, come and be
with me.
And yet you do need to be with
us because you love us.
And love always says, be with me, talk
with me, share with me, I'll help you.
And people that we've loved here on earth,
Lord, we love to be with them and
we've shared with them.
We've shared what we have to help them.
How much more will you, Jesus, give us
everything we need in life?
Just help us now, Lord.
Not just now, but this afternoon, tonight, before
we go to bed, tomorrow.
Help there to be a change in our
lives.
Not just a passing emotional moment, a service
on a Sunday at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, but
Lord, for me, beginning with me, help me
to be with you more.
Yes, preach, I'll travel, I'll teach, I'll do
whatever you want me to do, but Lord,
help me to be with you first, to
be with you, to tell you what I
need, my request, to love on you, to
bless you, to praise you, to receive from
you, to listen.
That's what we're praying for today, Lord.
Closer communion with our Savior, Jesus Christ.
I know you're gonna help all the folks
who came forward, Lord.
They've humbled themselves, and they're saying, I need
that, Lord, and you're gonna help them with
the discipline and the self-control and the
wisdom.
Because we know the devil is against all
of what I'm talking about.
He knows that apart from you, communion with
you, we're weaker, we're weaker, and he's a
predator.
He's always looking for weakness.
That's why your word says, be strong in
the Lord and in the power of his
might.
Let your power flow through us today.
For we ask it all in Jesus' name.