Where should I gather? — A.J. Higgins

1st Corinthians and chapter 1 first letter of Paul to the Corinthians and chapter 1 while you're turning to it, let me express my appreciation to the assembly here for their kind invitation as well as their encouragement and We trust the meetings have been in some measure a help I would mention as well as far as I know there are no questions back there in the Question-and-answer box and if they're not we'll close when we're done you happen to get up.

I'll know who it is putting a question in but don't be embarrassed. Just go ahead and do it anyway. Okay, 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and verse number 9 God is faithful By whom you were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord that's all we're going to read.

Although we will make mention of a number of other scriptures throughout the Epistle of Corinthians, but just again verse number 9 God is faithful By whom you were called unto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord now just to help focus your attention and your thinking.

The Call That Gathers

Just a number of questions really that I think are vital that we we face and we address together. One is is it? Narrow-minded. Is it almost? Equivalent to bigotry to think that really there is only one place where God has placed his name today.

Is that is that really true? Are we just being narrow-minded that God has one way of gathering today? And What about this issue of fellowship, what what does it mean to be in fellowship? What does it mean to to request to be in fellowship in an assembly and then actually to be in fellowship in in that assembly?

What does it mean that we're gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus don't? Don't other churches say the same thing if you were to ask a very very sincere Baptist and ask them Matthew 18 and 20. Does that apply to you where two or three are gathered there?

Am I they would probably say yes, we're gathered to the Lord's name. We recognize him as Lord and you could multiply that by many different groups and so on they would all take the same place that they're gathered to the Lord's name and Are they and Are we being judgmental and so on?

So a number of things then that we want to focus on and that we'd like to look at and consider. But I want you to think then just to organize our thinking and to look at this in an orderly way. We read together 1st Corinthians chapter 1 in verse 9.

God is faithful by whom you are called onto the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord like they just take four little thoughts that are Present in that verse that begins the epistle of the Corinthians and I want to talk first of all about the call that gathers the call that gathers You Will notice won't you that Paul is making clear that this is not just a haphazard arrangement.

This is not just some convenience for the way people should just socialize. But there is a call that gathers people to the name to the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ in assembly Capacity and assembly testimony.

Well now obviously the first thing is what's the channel of that call? How do you hear that call? Where does it come from? And I think that we need to be very clear. It comes from the Word of God. It comes from the scriptures from reading the Word of God from Seeking to find in God's Word divine truth.

God calls Believers to the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord now. I Am thankful that so many Families can look back to generations in God's assembly. I had a Mind doesn't go back that far. Just one grandfather and then parents and then myself and now a daughter in God's assembly but We do not just follow parents.

Don't just blindly follow what your parents are doing there in the assembly and so I guess that's where we go and It's not just a matter that my friends all the crowd that I move with the friends I have from seed sowers and the friends.

I've made at conferences. They're all in assembly fellowship. So so I asked for fellowship there should be definite dealings with God about Fellowship in a local assembly. It shouldn't just be something you do because family is in it and friends are in it.

But it should be something that you yourself have had dealings with God. And I guess the question is to ask young people have you ever actually asked God to show you from his Word. Where should I be? What should I be linked with?

What is the New Testament pattern? So the call to fellowship is going to come through the Word of God, but then There need to be convictions need to be convictions about that fellowship and They come as well from the scripture and they come because first of all, I see a pattern I See in the Word of God a pattern of a New Testament assembly if I were to rid my mind of all preconceptions about what church is like and what What everything else is like and just come to the New Testament and ask myself.

What do I see? What do I find when I come to the New Testament at that? How us how churches functioned how believers met how they carried on what would I find? Can I go to the Word of God and find that and can I and can I see it now?

Many times young believers and if you've talked to anyone who is not in the assembly, you will have had the same experience. They would say window. Why isn't there just a chapter? Why isn't there just a book in the Bible that you would go to and you've got you know.

One two three and this is how you do this. This is how you do this. This is how you do this. And it would be so easy if there were just some some book that told us now. We'll call this the book of church order.

And what in it what a local church should be like and how it should function and there'd be no confusion. It'd just be so so clear-cut. But it's not the way God has given it to us and perhaps one of the reasons is to avoid imitation to avoid imitation if there were just a book of rules and a book of an outline of what a local church should be then.

Everybody that would want to pretend to be a local church would just copy the outline and there'd be lots of imitations and Also, it may be that what God desires is people who really have an interest not just in turning to page 15 line to to find out what a church should be like but people who have Such a desire to know the will of God they're willing to to look at the Word of God for themselves and to really understand it.

So there is no one page One chapter even one book we can go to that gives us all of what should characterize a local church. But as we come to the epistles and we see how and the book of the Acts and see how assemblies practiced What the Apostles taught we begin to put together in all of the All of its fullness what a local church should be like.

So there is the pattern that we find. There are the there was a practice of New Testament believers that we see in the Acts and that we see in the local churches and the letters that Paul has written to local churches and then of course there is a Principle that runs throughout the Word of God from beginning to end that God desired his people to be together.

God never intended Lone Rangers. Never intended free agents in Christianity. Christianity was never meant to be a theoretical Type of spectator sport in a lot of spectator sport people fill stadiums. And they cheer on others and they you know watch others engage in a battle.

But Christianity wasn't meant to be a spectator sport. God intended believers to be linked with a local church and to be giving their all to the Upbuilding of that local church and to be doing all they can to see that local assembly prosper.

So what then is the as far as this call is concerned God is faithful by whom you were called. What is the character then of a fellowship? What is the result then of that call? Well as I've already intimated.

It's not a matter of convenience. Well, you know, this is the closest Church and with gas prices being what they are. It's good to go someplace close. So we'll just go here. It's not a matter of convenience.

Not a matter that this is the easiest place to get to or this is the place that is closest to your home. And it's not really just a matter of companionship. You know, these are nice people. I get warm fuzzies whenever I'm around them and I just feel so good.

They're so nice and the food is pretty good and they always feed you and it's a nice place to go and nice kind of People and so I think I'll go there now. We should be nice kind of people and it'd be nice if people did get warm fuzzies when they saw us instead of you.

Know some of the other reactions, but that's not the basis for Assembly fellowship, it's not convenience not companionship and camaraderie and it's not even compromise or compulsion. But what is fellowship?

This would help hope I hope this will help you as it is going to help to me. Fellowship is not something you agree to have. It's not that we sit down and we decide now do we really have fellowship and let's decide to have fellowship.

Fellowship is something you have because you agree vastly different. It's not that we agree to have fellowship. It's that we have fellowship because we agree. It's the result of sharing. Sharing together in a body of truth.

You have it in Acts chapter 2. Don't you they that? Received his word were baptized and they continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine. They agreed about truth and the result of agreeing about truth is they were in the fellowship.

That fellowship was sustained by the breaking of bread and it was expressed rather. It was expressed in the breaking of bread and it was sustained by prayer. So there's a progression. Fellowship is the result of agreement about truth together.

And as a result of that agreement we are in fellowship and Then we express it now. You all understand what I mean, don't you when you meet a total stranger and somehow you find out they're they're Christians.

They're born again. There's something you agree about and so you have fellowship and the measure of your fellowship is Dependent upon how much you agree upon as soon as they say have you ever spoken in tongues all of a sudden your fellowship stops.

There's something that's come in that that differs from you that you cannot see from the Word of God and they claim to have in their experience so fellowship is a result of truth that is shared together and it is a result then of Appreciating that truth and as a result of that truth.

I am in full fellowship with the others who share that truth. So One thing I'm saying maybe in a roundabout way to you is. Sometimes young believers come into an assembly because they think that's going to help them be stronger Christians.

Now hopefully being in an assembly will make you a better believer. But the assembly is not you know, just for protection. It's not a place you escape to because you know I'm very I'm really a weak Christian and I need to need the protection of the assembly and I need the now if.

You can't stand for God where you are today. You won't stand for God when you're in God's assembly. You need to be able to stand for God where you are as you are. The assembly is just not a place where it's going to somehow prop you up in your Christian life.

The assembly is a result not of your need but of appreciating divine truth relative to the gathering center. The consequence of that call is. In Corinth there were believers who were called out of everything else.

There was come to chapter 10. You would read it. There was the synagogue of the Jews there was the Temple of the heathen the Gentiles and there was the local Church of God the local assembly in Corinth called out.

From everything else that was in Corinth. Now obviously there is this Significant difference in our day. There are many things out there that claim to be Church of God so God's original plan. God's original plan was one thing in many places a local church in many different cities one thing in many places.

What's happened today is many things in one place many things claiming to be Church of God in one place so now Let's face honestly the question thrown at you and at me at times. Aren't you being awfully narrow-minded?

To think that there really is only one way of gathering today. Aren't you being awfully close-minded to think that all the other places that say that they are Churches and that they are honoring God.

Aren't you being awfully narrow-minded in thinking that God really only has one way of gathering today. God is very narrow-minded. God is very narrow because God is not a broad-minded tolerant. God truth is very narrow so Nothing wrong with being narrow-minded when you have the truth.

But we have to answer that question very fairly and very honestly and very openly for others. Let me just turn the question for a moment in a different way. If you were to meet one of those people and let us assume for a moment.

They're genuinely saved. Would you ask them is God narrow-minded that there's only one way of salvation? Oh, no only one way. We're all clear on that only one way of salvation only one way of getting to heaven only one means of Having your sins forgiven that certainly is not narrow-minded.

Well, God only has one way of salvation. He's not narrow-minded there. No. Well, do you think the God that had only one way of salvation might only have one way of gathering? Do you think he's still narrow-minded?

Do you think that somehow God said find your save do what you want or is there possibly in the Word of God a way? That believers should gather to bring honor to him and to represent his son here upon earth now.

It is not my responsibility. Nor do I think it is yours. To go around and say God is not there. God is not there. God is not there. God is not not my responsibility to go around and decide what is and what is not it is my responsibility to obey the Word of God my responsibility to move on the light that God has given me and If God has shown me the character of what a church ought to be it's my responsibility not to judge others.

It's my responsibility to judge myself that I am being obedient to the truth of God. It's also my responsibility to give that truth to others. But primarily my responsibility to obey what God has revealed to me not to judge others not to be critical.

Some would say well now isn't God everywhere, how can you claim that God is just there? Or how can you claim that that God isn't everywhere that God is just there? Well. That is a difficulty in some minds because obviously God is omnipresent.

God is in his person everywhere. So what does it mean when it says where two or three are gathering in my name there am I in the midst of them? Well, let me give you an example and let me give you a biblical illustration that that might be of help.

I notice in passing in your sheet that was given out as to your Bible study. There is one title of Jehovah Jehovah-shamma. The name of that city in that day. That's how Ezekiel ends the last verse the name of the city in that day shall be Jehovah-shamma.

The Lord is there Zephaniah the Lord in the midst of thee the Lord in the midst of thee. So what does it mean all of a sudden that he's in the midst and yet he's everywhere. Well, let me just take you back if I can to the book of Exodus, you know the story you know it all so well the details so let me just fill them in.

God gave Moses a pattern and Time it again. He said see that they'll make us all things according to the pattern the pattern the pattern and so time and again the pattern was stressed and you've got those various Mentions, you've got them the mention of the of the instructions given it's mentioned again the materials gathered it's mentioned again when everything is constructed and then finally in chapter 40 everything is brought and Moses begins putting everything in place and.

And Exodus 40 ends that everything is made according to the pattern that Moses had made all things according to the pattern and it says the glory of the Lord descended in a cloud and A boat upon it. What was happening?

God's presence was ratifying that this is according to the pattern. God's presence was there. So that's the idea. It's not just that God is everywhere. But in the midst means his presence is here in an approving way that this is according to the poem so when you come then to the idea of him in the midst the only the only Basis upon which I can claim the presence of God in that sense is.

If we are following the pattern of the New Testament as to a local church, he's on the present. God is free to work wherever he chooses to work. It's not mine to tell God what he can and can't do in that church down the street or in that building down there.

God is free to work and Because God loves his children wherever they are. He will feed them. He will bring blessing. He will save souls. But as far as my responsibility it is mine to recognize the pattern He has given and to recognize that his presence can only be recognized and Appreciated where the pattern is being kept in keeping with that just so you think you know, you keep saying the pattern the pattern the pattern and.

That sounds like you know, we're just following a certain guy, but maybe I should just put it frame it in different words there is nothing about a local assembly and the way it functions. Now I'm not speaking about the color of the chairs the color of the carpet.

But I'm speaking about the the character of an assembly. There is nothing about a local assembly that you can discard without in some way discarding a truth about the person of Christ. Every aspect of assembly function Comes back to something about the person of Christ.

Whether it's the multiplicity of overseers. Whether it's the functioning of gifts whether it is the covered head of the sister the silence of the sister the the priesthood of believers whatever it is that is is Characteristic of a local company of believers it all is linked with the honor of the name of Christ.

It all has to do something about his person something about his his life. His death his burial his resurrection his ascension his coming all of it is linked with the person of Christ in some way and to discard it all as being obsolete for our day and To be really, you know.

Just out of keeping with society is to set aside something that we are to be a testimony to as to the person of Christ. So I have perhaps labored that the call but let me just to stress that again the call that gathers.

There should be dealings that you have with God about about your fellowship in a local company the call that gathers. But let me talk about the commitment that glues. The commitment that glues to a local company called unto the fellowship the fellowship of his son.

Commitment to the Fellowship

You all know what commitment means. It's a it's a word that is kind of obsolete today. Commitment is not a major thing either in the workplace or even in human relationships. I think the best the best illustration I have seen of commitment is The story that's told about the the hen and the pig as They watched the farmer Working so hard in the barnyard out early providing food milking Really weary with his work early in the morning and the hen looked at the pig and said, you know He has worked so hard.

I think we ought to really try to reward him for all the work. He's done. I think we should make him a breakfast of ham and eggs and the pig said that's fine for you. It's a contribution for me. It's a commitment so.

That didn't go over too. Well, okay, think about it. Think about it for a while. And you know if you start laughing in five minutes, I'll know you caught it. Okay. We want to wake. We wait with me. Okay, you know pigs ham bacon, you know how they do it, you know how they do it anyway.

Okay, I thought you're all farmers. I'm the city boy. I'm the city boy. You know, I thought milk came from the corner store and anyway Commitment means that I'm really giving myself to something without reserve.

So I want to talk about the the commitment then that that glues. I want to talk to you first of all about the boundaries of fellowship. The breadth of fellowship the blessings of fellowship and the burden of fellowship.

The Boundaries of Fellowship

What does it mean to be in? Fellowship. Let me talk to you first of all about the boundaries of fellowship. Now the moment you start talking about boundaries people start having problems limitations. Restrictions legalism and all the rest gets thrown around.

Well, let me just ask you to go back in your mind for just a moment. Because God had no sooner brought life to planet Earth. Then God began establishing Boundaries. First of all, he put a boundary around the garden.

Adam didn't have access to everything his sphere of responsibility was the garden and then he put a boundary around a tree. And it's not too long after that God starts putting a boundary around a man named Abraham and then a boundary around a nation called Israel.

God was constantly moving towards boundaries and You believe in boundaries. If you've got a garden you put a fence around it. If you've got something that you think is valuable you you put a boundary around it.

You try to protect it in some way. It may not be a physical protection, but but you believe in boundaries. But not only that but just a moment's reflection. Will show you that the problem in Corinth Was that they kept moving boundaries.

That's the whole problem in current boundaries were being moved. What was outside which should have been on the other side of the boundary got inside? And what was inside was being taken outside but what I mean by that is the the philosophy of Corinth was brought into the assembly and the Immorality of the world was brought into the assembly and the legal problem that should have been solved in the assembly was brought outside the assembly and The boundary between male and female was suddenly blurred and what Paul is doing is reestablishing Boundaries keep the world outside of the assembly keep its philosophy and its its principles outside.

And keep your problems inside the assembly and take sin outside the assembly and time and again He's he's working on boundaries throughout the epistle. So there are boundaries linked with with fellowship.

They were called out of The Jewish synagogue they were called out of the heathen temple and they were gathered. There was a call that gathered them to the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord Corinth.

The assembly at Corinth was to be distinct from everything else around totally different totally unique totally separated. Now separation you've heard it before so this is redundant it is not isolation.

Separation does not mean isolation. And if we needed any better illustration any better proof of that The Lord Jesus was the most separated man that ever lived and Yet he was the most available man that ever lived.

He was available to people in need. They knew where to find him they knew. If they approached he would meet me so it's never isolation. It's never a self-righteous looking down at people. It's never a holier-than-thou or a better-than-thou attitude.

But it is a recognition that as a believer and as one called to fellowship with his son I cannot be linked with that but yet I can be available to people in need. So we should as believers as assemblies be marked by those who are available those who are open to Meet needs and to welcome people if they come but we are separate From all else that is not in keeping with the pattern of of New Testament gathering.

There are boundaries to to fellowship. Young believers sometimes have difficulty with that. Well, you know, aren't there good speakers there and Aren't there good things there and you know, couldn't I learn something over there?

Yeah, you could. There are good men elsewhere. There are able men elsewhere. There are men who are sincere elsewhere. It's not the issue. The issue is Would my going there support? What really is contrary to the Word of God?

Would my going there lend credence to the fact that it's okay to carry on in that fashion. Okay for a man to get up and to be the pastor over a group of people and usurp a place that is not his. Okay for me to go to a place where women's heads are uncovered and where women take part.

And I I'm going there and what I'm saying by my presence is then this type of thing is okay this type of thing isn't isn't wrong and is not dishonoring to the Lord and So even though there may be good there My presence there is Condoning something which is dishonoring to the Lord and contrary to the Word of God.

So Boundaries as to my fellowship. I am called unto a fellowship and as such I'm linked with him again the need not to be marked by a Self-righteous superior attitude, but rather to be marked by an appreciation.

I Have to be honest. I just in fact this summer. I Some of you would know the Shuts from Michigan and Danny Shutt would be I Guess a great nephew. I'm not sure but Debbie would be a niece by marriage my wife's niece and so on.

We were invited to the wedding there where he married a girl in, Massachusetts the vodka girl in Massachusetts and it was in one of these Picturesque New England church buildings that was you know just the kind of thing you'd see on a on a CD label if you want to have a nice nostalgic homey looking church and And I thought of sitting there, you know If I had never known about assemblies and I were linked with something like this.

I Don't know if I would have the grace to leave it to be linked with just Few simple believers in a plain building, you know, this is so warm so nice. So so Pleasant, you know emotion rises the nice organ and the beautiful windows and you know, just everything just So perfect and I thought you know, so thankful I didn't get mixed up in something like this at the start.

Because I wonder if I would ever be able to leave behind something like this for the simplicity of of gathering to the Lord's name. There's something in me that is given to sentimentality and to that type of thing and I just have to thank God.

And so I don't look with any disdain or any sense of superiority and others. There's only the mercy and kindness of God that I am where I am. So, please do not think that for a moment. We we take an attitude of superiority.

But what we have received and we my generation and certainly the generation After after us you've received the truth of God given to you and Others paid a tremendous price for it and we've been given it.

God help us to preserve it and to value it as we ought. So there are boundaries to fellowship, but What about the breadth of fellowship, you know, how far does it go? Well fellowship itself I mean the word itself suggests doesn't it if nothing else that fellowship is mutual.

The Mutuality and Totality of Fellowship

There is a mutuality in fellowship meaning I receive and you receive we have fellowship we receive we basically accept each other and As such we we share in common truth and we appreciate that truth together.

That's the basis for our sharing together the basis for our fellowship. So now let me just address an issue and with this could be we could come at this from different ways. But let me just address it from this standpoint.

There is something known out there in other places as open reception meaning Assembly is meeting someone comes in and they say they're saved well then that means we must bring you in and you have every right to remember the Lord because after all you're saved and who are we to to refuse and you come in and You enjoy the privileges of fellowship, but not just a minute.

If fellowship is a two-way street. Have they received you? You're very quick to receive them, but have they received you. If they knew all that you stood for and all you taught would they be quick to receive you.

You see many times. They just want the privileges. They they want fellowship be a one-way street. You receive me, but I don't have to receive you. But you see when a person doesn't into assembly fellowship.

It's mutual. The assembly receives the person the person receives the assembly. There's a mutuality it's not a one-way street. Fellowship is mutual. So when you came into God's assembly, you may have thought simply that they are receiving me and that's wonderful.

But you are also receiving the assembly receiving the assembly relative to the truth it stands for and proclaims and upholds and receiving the believers to yourself. So an interesting thing to sit as I do and brethren here do as well and interview individuals who are looking for fellowship requesting to come into assembly fellowship.

Interesting to tell them now. You realize that when you come into assembly fellowship. You become responsible for my welfare. And of course, you know an 18 or 19 year old boy or girl looks at you, you know I'm responsible for you.

Yeah you are. Become responsible for every other believer in the assembly. You it's your responsibility to do all you can to help those believers may just mean praying for the oversight. That may be all that's involved.

You may think there's so little you can do where you can pray for the overseers. And it may mean older Saints that have been saved maybe 50 or 60 years longer than you and how can you help them? Pray for them visit them when they're shut in tell them how much you appreciate them and help them in every way you can.

Just encourage them. You become responsible and we become responsible for you. It's a it's a mutual thing. There is a mutuality in fellowship that will preserve us from all the strange ideas that somehow Just because a person says they love the Lord that we receive them.

But of course, they have no interest in receiving us. Because next week they're going somewhere else on different principles altogether gathering in a different way altogether and have no interest in What we hold as far as truth and therefore there really is no fellowship in that sense.

So there are then the breadth of fellowship. There is a mutuality but then there is also what I have called a totality a Total received to all to all the responsibilities and privileges of an assembly.

Fellowship means when I am brought into an assembly. I am received to all of its responsibilities and To all of its privileges. So there is no partial fellowship. There is no limited fellowship. There is no trial fellowship.

It means I have all the privileges involved in being in an assembly. But I also have all the responsibilities. The welfare of this assembly becomes my responsibility. Attendance at meetings becomes my responsibility.

Helping in any way I can becomes my responsibility. We live in in a day and I Try to avoid it, but I find myself also falling into the trap. We live in a day of what's called a service economy. What that means simply is that today?

We pay people to do things that we used to do ourselves. You know. You can pay someone to change the oil in your car and you pay someone to mow your lawn. And you pay someone to clean your house and you pay someone to wash your clothes and you pay someone to cook your meals.

You can pay you can have service done at any level that you want it done in today's society. There's someone out there who will provide the service for a fee. Unfortunately, we have taken that service mentality into our Christianity and we think well the preachers do that the elders do that and I'm just here on cruise control.

To go for the ride. When really. Everyone is needed in God's assembly. All the time. Giving all they have committing themselves to the welfare of that assembly. There is a totality the responsibility of the welfare of the assembly of a furtherance of the testimony in whatever form if it's time to give out tracks time to give out Invitations time to visit time to try to bring children in.

Now I know we all have our spheres of special usefulness. But still I should have an interest in every aspect of the assembly and seek to give myself wherever I can to further that. That really then is linked.

Isn't it with the vitality of the very life of the assembly we read there concerning Paul when he Joined himself. He glued himself as the word an accident. He glued himself to the assembly. He was with them coming in and Going out now if you want to apply that to in for worship out for service, whatever way you want to apply it.

It just simply means that wherever they went he went whatever they were doing he was doing he was he was with them a hundred percent in all that they did and in all that they sought to do and What That really means is when it comes to a local assembly and its meetings we could have read further on in 1st Corinthians.

Paul picks up his pen and says when the whole church has come together. When the church is gathered together when the whole church is gathered. What's he saying? He's saying that there should be no intentional absence from assembly gatherings.

No intentional absences. Illness work demands family demands we realize all those things that are in but Shouldn't be that. I plan to be absence that I intend to be absence. No intentional absences when the whole church is gathered together.

Our brother was mentioning to me about Sam Hamilton walking over mountains in my mind now is going to the island of Dominica in the West Indies and Dominica is a totally mountainous island. I Was saying the the longest level straightaway of road in the entire island is about a hundred feet.