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God’s Heart for the World
Every church that follows Christ is part of the kingdom of God. If you are a true disciple of Jesus, you must obey His clear command:
If we are to truly follow Jesus, God’s kingdom must be our priority just as it is Christ’s.
Notice the heart of God as revealed in the Bible:
On Mission to the World
The Spirit who bonds you to other believers in a local church also connects you to all believers around the world. Christians are kingdom people, and Christ Himself is the eternal King over His kingdom. He “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (Revelation 1:6).
Jesus gave His disciples a commission to “go…and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). As they obey that command, every congregation becomes a world-missions strategy center.
In Acts 8:26-39, God had a plan for getting the gospel message to Ethiopia. He chose a key leader in the government and used Philip to lead him to Christ. God used Philip’s obedience on a single day to carry the gospel to a strategic kingdom in Africa.
Woman at the Well (John 4:1-41)
One Sunday while Blackaby was preaching in a church in Florida, he spoke about the woman at the well in John 4. Blackaby stated that when the woman faithfully shared with her countrymen what Christ had done in her life, she saw her entire region come to faith in Christ. Then, Blackaby asked, “Who will be the woman at the well for those places who still do not know Jesus?”
People from all over the world lined up to tell Blackaby that God had convinced them that they were to return to their native countries to share with their people what Christ had done in their lives.
Too often a church receives new members who are from other countries and merely adds them to its membership roll without asking God why He brought people from around the world to join the church body. God will equip each church to carry out the Great Commission if it will be a careful steward of every person God sends to it.
Isn’t it tragic when we become so self-centered we enter God’s presence and say, “O God, bless me. Bless my family. Bless my church”? Then God says, “I want you to deny self. Pick up your cross and follow Me. I will lead you to places where I am working, and I’ll include you in My activity. You will be an instrument in My hand, so I use your life to touch a world.
Koinonia
The Greek word koinonia, most frequently translated fellowship, is the best way to describe what a church ought to be. Koinonia means the fullest possible partnership and fellowship with God and with other believers.
You cannot be in true fellowship with God and out of fellowship with other believers.
When we fellowship with God and when others come into fellowship with Him and with us, our joy is made complete, and we experience the cleansing work of Jesus’ blood.
Fellowship Among Believers
First John clearly states that your relationships with your Christian brothers and sisters are an expression of your relationship with God. You cannot be in true fellowship with God and out of fellowship with other believers.
If you love God, your love for your fellow Christians will be obvious. You will be patient and kind. You will not be envious, boastful, proud, rude, self-seeking, or easily angered.
Your relationship with God and others ought to parallel each other.
Koinonia in the Kingdom
Koinonia takes on new dimensions, new possibilities, and new richness as churches relate in the wider circles of the kingdom.
Guiding a church to walk with Christ as the Head of His body is one matter. Guiding an association of 11 congregations to walk together with God with one heart and one mind is quite different.
Would God speak to the churches individually and then bring them to one mind as they functioned together as an association? Would the churches have the same kind of koinonia (fellowship) with one another as believers have with other Christians in a local church?
Helping a group of churches learn to walk with God in intimate koinonia with Him and with one another took time, but God is the One who does that kind of miraculous work.
A church’s resources don’t belong to the people themselves. The church is merely a steward of them. Everything a church has belongs to the Kingdom.
When koinonia exists among churches, it is evident in their relationships. We cooperated in our commission to reach our world for Christ. We were able to do things together that no one church could have done effectively. We shared anything we had if it would meet the need of a sister church. We spent time together and loved one another.
Can that kind of koinonia exist among churches not only on an associational level but also on a state, provincial, national, or international level? Can Godlike koinonia exist among churches of different denominations as they cooperate to achieve greater Kingdom purposes? Yes! However, humans left to their own ways cannot achieve these kinds of relationships. Only God through His Holy Spirit can create and sustain koinonia among His people.
Cooperative Relationships Among Churches
The churches of the New Testament were interdependent. Each was independent before the Lord; yet they needed one another. They helped and encouraged one another. They had cooperative relationships that enhanced their experience of God.
The Young Church in Jerusalem
They shared their material resources with any believer who had a need.
Jerusalem Shares with Antioch
When the gospel began to bear fruit among the Greeks in Antioch, the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas. When Barnabas saw God’s activity there, he enlisted Saul (Paul) to come and help. Together, they remained in Antioch teaching the new converts (Acts 11:19-26).
Antioch Provides for Needs in Jerusalem
Word came to the church in Antioch that their Christian brothers and sisters in Judea were suffering from a famine. Because of koinonia “each of the disciples, according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brothers and sisters who lived in Judea. They did this, sending it to the elders by means of Barnabas and Saul” (Acts 11:29-30).
The churches were bound together by their common koinonia with Christ.
Antioch Sends Out Barnabas and Saul
The church at Antioch was “worshiping the Lord and fasting, and the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off” (Acts 13:2-3). The church at Antioch had freely received leaders, and they freely gave them for the advancement of the Kingdom.
Jerusalem Helps Maintain Sound Doctrine
When a dispute arose about the nature of salvation, Paul and Barnabas went to Jerusalem for consultation. The apostles, elders, and church in Jerusalem helped settle the dispute.
Other Churches Cooperate for Kingdom Purposes
The faith of Roman Christians encouraged others all over the Christian world (Romans 1:8-12).
The church in Philippi frequently provided financial support for Paul, so he could preach the gospel and start churches in other cities (Philippians 4:14-16).
The churches at Colosse and Laodicia, shared workers (Epaphras) and letters from Paul (Colossians 4:12-16).
Experiencing More of God
A believer cannot experience God in every dimension God intends for him or her apart from the body of Christ—a local church.
As you experience koinonia with other groups of God’s people, you experience greater dimensions of God’s presence at work in your world.
Essentials of Koinonia
1. We Must Love God with Our Total Being
The threat to fellowship is anything that causes you to lose your first love for God. This was the problem with the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7).
Materialism is a terrible trap that robs many people of their love for God. Churches can also become selfish, greedily hoarding their resources for themselves even though there are new church plants or poorer churches that would be greatly blessed by their help.
2. We Must Submit to God’s Sovereign Rule
Yielding your loyalty or allegiance to anyone other than Christ is spiritual adultery. If a pastor, the deacons, influential businesspersons, or a committee tries to dominate the rule of the church, koinonia is threatened.
Every member of the church must submit to Christ’s lordship over his life and to Christ’s headship over the church.
3. We Must Experience God in a Real and Personal Way
Your koinonia with God is based on your personal experience with Him. No substitutes will do. You cannot rely on the personal experience of your spouse, your parents, your pastor, your Bible study teacher, or your fellow church members. Your koinonia with God must be real and personal to you.
Individuals experience koinonia when they follow God’s leadership and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish God’s purposes.
When programs and ministries become ends instead of means, activity for activity’s sake, or superficial signs of success, koinonia is in grave danger of being obscured and lost. Churches must not concern themselves only with numerical results. Are lives being transformed? Are broken people finding spiritual and emotional healing? Are people personally encountering the living Christ at work in the church?
4. We Must Completely Trust in God
To experience genuine koinonia with God, you must depend on God to do things only He can do, you must trust in God alone.
Placing your trust in anything other than God—yourself, your abilities, your resources, other people, their abilities, their resources, or programs & methods—breaks your fellowship with Him.
God provides people, relationships, resources, methods, and programs to be used by a church. However, a congregation that yields to the temptation to trust in these rather than the Lord displeases Him.
The Holy Spirit manifests Himself through believers and empowers them to accomplish God-sized tasks. God grows His church. The Holy Spirit produces unity. Christ brings forth spiritual fruit. You and your church must depend on God to accomplish His purposes in His ways through you. Completely depend on God.
Faithful in a Little
So, how do you live a life that impacts the world and the kingdom of God?
Be faithful in a little, and God will entrust you with more.
Always remember, though, that any assignment from God is more than we deserve.
Don’t be anxious to have larger and larger roles. Don’t keep pushing and asking for greater tasks from God or lobbying with others for positions. Trust that when God is pleased with your faithful service, He will entrust you with more in His perfect timing.
Summary
God loves the entire world. He is constantly at work extending His kingdom. His kingdom includes every believer on earth.
God looks for those who will make the pursuit and extension of His kingdom the chief aim of their lives. Those who are faithful in the assignments God gives will be entrusted with more.