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THE SPIRITUAL FELLOWSHIP OF THE EKKLESIA
by Chip Brogden
The thought and intention and purpose of God is for a
spiritual oneness, a spiritual unity, a spiritual fellowship, a
spiritual communion (and even in that word "communion" is the
idea of union, a "common union"), a sharing of life together; and
towards this end He calls us - Jesus calls us - out of this world, out of
the earth, out of our very selves, and into another place that He has
prepared for us, a place He says [where] He will come again and
receive us unto Himself. And I believe this indicates that this place
that He has prepared is a place within Himself: "the Secret Place
of the Most High God" - not some external thing that we go and we
meet Him in, but within Himself. Because that is where all of this
is heading. That is God's Thought, His Purpose, and His Intention:
"to gather together in one all things in Christ." And we who are
the Ekklesia have simply entered into Christ already and we have
taken the first step into this Kingdom of God, and we are - the moment
we have entered into Christ - we at the same time are
immediately brought into a very large circle, this vast company of fellow
believers (past and present) who have entered into this living union
with a living Christ.
And that will be the topic of this message: "The Spiritual Fellowship of the Ekklesia"; and all these other things we have discussed prepare the way for this Spiritual Fellowship. We cannot enter the Ekklesia until we let go of all expectation for something "here and now", something in this earth, something in the natural. At one time or another we have all been guilty of taking the spiritual reality and bringing it down to earth. We go here and there looking for what we call "spiritual fellowship" but really what we are
looking for is a "meeting". We are looking for a church service, or a
home group, or a conference. These things are not the Ekklesia; they
are things that we do, and things that can be done, completely in the
realm of the world. That is to say, we can attend church services
and still not touch upon or enter into the Ekklesia. We can have
meetings and sermons and conferences and still not know anything
about the spiritual fellowship that exists within the Ekklesia.
I'd like you to turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter 18, because I
want to show you the basis of this spiritual fellowship in Christ.
This is very simple, yet it's very deep and very profound, and so it's very easily misunderstood. But let's read Matthew 18, verse 20.
Jesus is speaking. He says:
"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there
in the midst of them."
That's not a very long verse. It's a very short verse. Very succinct.
But very, very profound because it gives us all the ingredients of
spiritual fellowship. Let's read it again. Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there
in the midst of them."
I just love the simplicity of Christ and the simplicity of everything
Jesus does, including the simplicity of this Church, this Ekklesia
that Jesus is building. Spiritual things are very easily implemented
once we apprehend them spiritually. Once we see them they are very
easy to implement and put into practice.
Now take a look at this fragment of Scripture. Jesus does not say
there must be two or three million gathered, or two or three thousand
gathered. He does not even say two or three hundred, or two or three
dozen. But isn't that how we judge something? How many people do you
have on the membership roll? How many people did you have in the
service this morning? They keep attendance records so they can
measure the thing to see if it is getting bigger or smaller, and they
put the numbers up on the wall so they can see what they are doing
compared to last year – better or worse. Well, that has nothing to do
with spiritual fellowship, and Jesus made it clear that His Presence
in the midst is what counts for something, even if the group is so
small as two or three.
The key thing is not how many people are gathered, but
that, howevermany there are, they are gathered together "in His
Name", and He is there in the midst of them. Now we should probably
search that out, because many things done "in the name of Jesus" have
nothing to dowith Jesus. It is the spirit of Religion, not the
Spirit of Jesus. So even when we say we are gathered "in His Name" it is
not what we saythat really matters. The proof is whether or not Jesus
in the midst. Is He there?
Remember, the Ekklesia is a spiritual house, so we do not take signs
and wonders and manifestations and feelings and excitement and good
music and good preaching to be the presence of Jesus. When Jesus is
in the midst it will not be something we can see or hear of feel in
our flesh; His words are Spirit and they are Life.
This is aspiritual house that He is building, and it is a spiritual oneness,
and it is a spiritual Life that must be discerned spiritually. So either He is there or He isn't there, and having a lot of music and noise and sermons and crowds of people will not make up for a lack of Jesus being in the midst.
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in
the midst of them."
Well, the numbers don't matter to Jesus. They really don't. He doesn't even say there must be two, or there must be three. He just says, "Two, or three". Just two or three. He's very relaxed about the whole thing isn't He?
Well then, what about the place? Where do we gather? Jesus did not say anything about where they had to be gathered together. He did not tell us
to go to church on Sunday and seek His Presence. He did not tell us to
go to Jerusalem and search for Him there. He did not say start a fellowship
in your home and I will meet with you there. You can do all those
things and still not have spiritual fellowship.
Remember the woman at the well, and how (in John chapter four) she
tried to get Jesus to answer this religious question, this question
of WHERE are we supposed to GO and worship God? "Now the Jews say
Jerusalem is the place where God is to be worshipped, because that is
where the Temple is. But my people say it's in this mountain that we
are to worship. So which is it Jesus? Just tell us which you prefer.
What location should we gather at, and we will go there to worship."
And what does the Lord say? "Neither! Neither!
Neither! Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The time has come for
Spirit and Truth worship," He says, "And that has nothing to do
with geography, location, where you hold the gathering, where you
conduct the meeting. I am not interested," He says, "In the
earthly side of things, only in the spiritual side, only in the heart.
God is SPIRIT, and so if you want to worship God, you will have to
worship Him in Spirit and in Truth."
Simply put, the Ekklesia is a group of people who are
learning how to worship God in Spirit and Truth, how to serve God in
Spirit and Truth, how to love God in Spirit and Truth, how to
make warfare in Spirit and Truth, how to enter the Kingdom of God in
Spirit and Truth. The Ekklesia is a spiritual house of living
stones who offer up spiritual sacrifices to God and are growing into a
spiritual Temple! That's it! Nothing at all to do with feasts
and festivals and holy places and holy objects and holy vestments and
holy rituals and holy ceremonies. Spirit and Truth is the only real
holiness that counts in this Kingdom of God.
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."
Just meditate upon the simplicity of this.
O.K., Lord, if the numbers don't count for anything, and the
place does not matter, then WHEN are we to gather together? Is it
once a week? Is it twice a week? Is it three times a week? Is it the
Sabbath Day? Is it Saturday? Or is it Sunday? We get into such bondage
with these things. Here we are, trying to project our own
religious mindset and add to the simplicity of Christ.
Well, what did He say? Nothing at all about how often to gather, or when the gathering is to take place! Take a look. He does not say,
"Where two or three are gathered together in my Name
on Sunday, there I am in the midst of them." How absurd! "Where two or
three are gathered together in my Name on Saturday, there I am
in the midst of them." Absolutely nonsensical.
Here's my point: if it were important then He would have mentioned it, wouldn't He? Since He didn't mention it, it must not be that important to Him! And if it's not important to Him it doesn't need to concern you and me. And that's all that matters.
Oh, the religious mindset is keenly interested in all these external
things! Because that's the only way they can measure themselves by
themselves and compare themselves and lift themselves up above one
another. "Oh, we worship God on Saturday." "Well, we worship God on
Sunday." "Well, we keep the Sabbath." "Well, we keep the Lord's Day."
And in the midst of all of that they can't understand the Ekklesia
because it is a spiritual reality, something beyond your ability to
measure and record and schedule! The Spirit of Jesus is not bound by
your schedule! He is not bound by your place of meeting! He is not
bound by your rules and regulations for religious activities!
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in
the midst of them."
All right, Lord. If the numbers don't count, andthe place doesn't matter, and how often the gathering takes place isn't important, then surely you must have some instruction for us,some thing we ought to perform, when we gather. What do we DO when wegather together? Shall Peter open us up with a word of prayer? Shall James lead us in a song? Shall John bring us a
teaching? Shall Judas take up an offering? Give us some order, give us some
kind ofstructure for the gathering! What are we supposed to do? And you
know, Jesus doesn't give us a plan, He doesn't give us
a schedule, He doesn't give us an order of service, He does not give
us a checklist, He doesn't even say what these two or three gathered
together aresupposed to do! Now why do you suppose this is? I'll
tell you why: t's because a spiritual fellowship is led by the Spirit.
The Lord says, "You just gather together in My Name,
and I will be in the midst, and then I will show you the next step.
You'll have tostep out in faith. You'll have to let go. This is what
it means to be in My Ekklesia. You'll have to give up your desire to
control things, to direct things, to manage things, to systematize
things, to organized things. That is the spirit of Religion. I am
building a spiritual house, and I am teaching you how to be led
of the Spirit, and so I'm not going to get into the specifics of what
to do, and where to do it, and how often it should be done, and
how you should go about it. Just remember one thing: when two or
three of you are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst
of you. It will be all right! Just relax. Let go. Let me be the Head.
Let me be the Good Shepherd. Let me be the Bridegroom. And whenever,
wherever, you allow that to happen, I AM THERE!"
Praise the Lord. Now folks, that is absolutely amazing. That is the
Ekklesia. It is Jesus in the midst of His people, leading us, guiding us, teaching us. That is spiritual fellowship...
AMEN!
TheSchoolOfChrist.Org | The Spiritual Fellowship of the Ekklesia
by Chip Brogden
The thought and intention and purpose of God is for a
spiritual oneness, a spiritual unity, a spiritual fellowship, a
spiritual communion (and even in that word "communion" is the
idea of union, a "common union"), a sharing of life together; and
towards this end He calls us - Jesus calls us - out of this world, out of
the earth, out of our very selves, and into another place that He has
prepared for us, a place He says [where] He will come again and
receive us unto Himself. And I believe this indicates that this place
that He has prepared is a place within Himself: "the Secret Place
of the Most High God" - not some external thing that we go and we
meet Him in, but within Himself. Because that is where all of this
is heading. That is God's Thought, His Purpose, and His Intention:
"to gather together in one all things in Christ." And we who are
the Ekklesia have simply entered into Christ already and we have
taken the first step into this Kingdom of God, and we are - the moment
we have entered into Christ - we at the same time are
immediately brought into a very large circle, this vast company of fellow
believers (past and present) who have entered into this living union
with a living Christ.
And that will be the topic of this message: "The Spiritual Fellowship of the Ekklesia"; and all these other things we have discussed prepare the way for this Spiritual Fellowship. We cannot enter the Ekklesia until we let go of all expectation for something "here and now", something in this earth, something in the natural. At one time or another we have all been guilty of taking the spiritual reality and bringing it down to earth. We go here and there looking for what we call "spiritual fellowship" but really what we are
looking for is a "meeting". We are looking for a church service, or a
home group, or a conference. These things are not the Ekklesia; they
are things that we do, and things that can be done, completely in the
realm of the world. That is to say, we can attend church services
and still not touch upon or enter into the Ekklesia. We can have
meetings and sermons and conferences and still not know anything
about the spiritual fellowship that exists within the Ekklesia.
I'd like you to turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter 18, because I
want to show you the basis of this spiritual fellowship in Christ.
This is very simple, yet it's very deep and very profound, and so it's very easily misunderstood. But let's read Matthew 18, verse 20.
Jesus is speaking. He says:
"For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there
in the midst of them."
That's not a very long verse. It's a very short verse. Very succinct.
But very, very profound because it gives us all the ingredients of
spiritual fellowship. Let's read it again. Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there
in the midst of them."
I just love the simplicity of Christ and the simplicity of everything
Jesus does, including the simplicity of this Church, this Ekklesia
that Jesus is building. Spiritual things are very easily implemented
once we apprehend them spiritually. Once we see them they are very
easy to implement and put into practice.
Now take a look at this fragment of Scripture. Jesus does not say
there must be two or three million gathered, or two or three thousand
gathered. He does not even say two or three hundred, or two or three
dozen. But isn't that how we judge something? How many people do you
have on the membership roll? How many people did you have in the
service this morning? They keep attendance records so they can
measure the thing to see if it is getting bigger or smaller, and they
put the numbers up on the wall so they can see what they are doing
compared to last year – better or worse. Well, that has nothing to do
with spiritual fellowship, and Jesus made it clear that His Presence
in the midst is what counts for something, even if the group is so
small as two or three.
The key thing is not how many people are gathered, but
that, howevermany there are, they are gathered together "in His
Name", and He is there in the midst of them. Now we should probably
search that out, because many things done "in the name of Jesus" have
nothing to dowith Jesus. It is the spirit of Religion, not the
Spirit of Jesus. So even when we say we are gathered "in His Name" it is
not what we saythat really matters. The proof is whether or not Jesus
in the midst. Is He there?
Remember, the Ekklesia is a spiritual house, so we do not take signs
and wonders and manifestations and feelings and excitement and good
music and good preaching to be the presence of Jesus. When Jesus is
in the midst it will not be something we can see or hear of feel in
our flesh; His words are Spirit and they are Life.
This is aspiritual house that He is building, and it is a spiritual oneness,
and it is a spiritual Life that must be discerned spiritually. So either He is there or He isn't there, and having a lot of music and noise and sermons and crowds of people will not make up for a lack of Jesus being in the midst.
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in
the midst of them."
Well, the numbers don't matter to Jesus. They really don't. He doesn't even say there must be two, or there must be three. He just says, "Two, or three". Just two or three. He's very relaxed about the whole thing isn't He?
Well then, what about the place? Where do we gather? Jesus did not say anything about where they had to be gathered together. He did not tell us
to go to church on Sunday and seek His Presence. He did not tell us to
go to Jerusalem and search for Him there. He did not say start a fellowship
in your home and I will meet with you there. You can do all those
things and still not have spiritual fellowship.
Remember the woman at the well, and how (in John chapter four) she
tried to get Jesus to answer this religious question, this question
of WHERE are we supposed to GO and worship God? "Now the Jews say
Jerusalem is the place where God is to be worshipped, because that is
where the Temple is. But my people say it's in this mountain that we
are to worship. So which is it Jesus? Just tell us which you prefer.
What location should we gather at, and we will go there to worship."
And what does the Lord say? "Neither! Neither!
Neither! Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem. The time has come for
Spirit and Truth worship," He says, "And that has nothing to do
with geography, location, where you hold the gathering, where you
conduct the meeting. I am not interested," He says, "In the
earthly side of things, only in the spiritual side, only in the heart.
God is SPIRIT, and so if you want to worship God, you will have to
worship Him in Spirit and in Truth."
Simply put, the Ekklesia is a group of people who are
learning how to worship God in Spirit and Truth, how to serve God in
Spirit and Truth, how to love God in Spirit and Truth, how to
make warfare in Spirit and Truth, how to enter the Kingdom of God in
Spirit and Truth. The Ekklesia is a spiritual house of living
stones who offer up spiritual sacrifices to God and are growing into a
spiritual Temple! That's it! Nothing at all to do with feasts
and festivals and holy places and holy objects and holy vestments and
holy rituals and holy ceremonies. Spirit and Truth is the only real
holiness that counts in this Kingdom of God.
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."
Just meditate upon the simplicity of this.
O.K., Lord, if the numbers don't count for anything, and the
place does not matter, then WHEN are we to gather together? Is it
once a week? Is it twice a week? Is it three times a week? Is it the
Sabbath Day? Is it Saturday? Or is it Sunday? We get into such bondage
with these things. Here we are, trying to project our own
religious mindset and add to the simplicity of Christ.
Well, what did He say? Nothing at all about how often to gather, or when the gathering is to take place! Take a look. He does not say,
"Where two or three are gathered together in my Name
on Sunday, there I am in the midst of them." How absurd! "Where two or
three are gathered together in my Name on Saturday, there I am
in the midst of them." Absolutely nonsensical.
Here's my point: if it were important then He would have mentioned it, wouldn't He? Since He didn't mention it, it must not be that important to Him! And if it's not important to Him it doesn't need to concern you and me. And that's all that matters.
Oh, the religious mindset is keenly interested in all these external
things! Because that's the only way they can measure themselves by
themselves and compare themselves and lift themselves up above one
another. "Oh, we worship God on Saturday." "Well, we worship God on
Sunday." "Well, we keep the Sabbath." "Well, we keep the Lord's Day."
And in the midst of all of that they can't understand the Ekklesia
because it is a spiritual reality, something beyond your ability to
measure and record and schedule! The Spirit of Jesus is not bound by
your schedule! He is not bound by your place of meeting! He is not
bound by your rules and regulations for religious activities!
"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in
the midst of them."
All right, Lord. If the numbers don't count, andthe place doesn't matter, and how often the gathering takes place isn't important, then surely you must have some instruction for us,some thing we ought to perform, when we gather. What do we DO when wegather together? Shall Peter open us up with a word of prayer? Shall James lead us in a song? Shall John bring us a
teaching? Shall Judas take up an offering? Give us some order, give us some
kind ofstructure for the gathering! What are we supposed to do? And you
know, Jesus doesn't give us a plan, He doesn't give us
a schedule, He doesn't give us an order of service, He does not give
us a checklist, He doesn't even say what these two or three gathered
together aresupposed to do! Now why do you suppose this is? I'll
tell you why: t's because a spiritual fellowship is led by the Spirit.
The Lord says, "You just gather together in My Name,
and I will be in the midst, and then I will show you the next step.
You'll have tostep out in faith. You'll have to let go. This is what
it means to be in My Ekklesia. You'll have to give up your desire to
control things, to direct things, to manage things, to systematize
things, to organized things. That is the spirit of Religion. I am
building a spiritual house, and I am teaching you how to be led
of the Spirit, and so I'm not going to get into the specifics of what
to do, and where to do it, and how often it should be done, and
how you should go about it. Just remember one thing: when two or
three of you are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst
of you. It will be all right! Just relax. Let go. Let me be the Head.
Let me be the Good Shepherd. Let me be the Bridegroom. And whenever,
wherever, you allow that to happen, I AM THERE!"
Praise the Lord. Now folks, that is absolutely amazing. That is the
Ekklesia. It is Jesus in the midst of His people, leading us, guiding us, teaching us. That is spiritual fellowship...
AMEN!
TheSchoolOfChrist.Org | The Spiritual Fellowship of the Ekklesia
