7.1 Key themes⤒🔗

• When Adam and Eve sinned, people lost the thing they need most: fellowship with God.
• God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, so that everyone who believes in him can have fellowship with God again.
• Our fellowship with God is:
  - In Christ
    - We are part of Christ and we share in God’s covenant with him.
  - Through the Holy Spirit
    - The Holy Spirit helps us to enjoy our fellowship with God the Father and the Son.
• By the help of the Holy Spirit, we should grow in our fellowship with God.

7.2 Philippians 3:3-11 (NIV)←⤒🔗

^3. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh –

^4. though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:

^5. circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;

^6. as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

^7. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

^8. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ

^9. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

^10. I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

^11. and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

7.3 Fellowship with God←⤒🔗

Why is the world so full of discontent? Why do people always want more? One of the reasons is that we have lost the thing that we need most. As Augustine, the famous Christian writer, said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

As people, we were created to have fellowship with God. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, lived in the Garden of Eden. It was a place where they could walk and talk with God!

But when Adam and Eve sinned, God sent them out of the garden. Their fellowship with God was broken (Genesis 3:8-24). Since that time people have been restless.

The good news of the gospel is that Christ has come to bring us back to God. Christ gives us the thing that we need most: fellowship with God. That is why we can rejoice. That is why we can have contentment.

The Bible tells us two important things about our fellowship with God. Firstly, our fellowship with God is in Christ. Secondly, our fellowship with God is through the Holy Spirit. In this lesson we will think deeper about each of these truths.

7.4 Fellowship in Christ←⤒🔗

God had a covenant (a holy relationship and agreement) with Adam. In this covenant God promised his friendship and eternal life to Adam. Adam’s task was to trust and obey God.

This covenant was not only a covenant with Adam. It was a covenant with all of us. Adam was our first father. We were part of him, and we shared in the covenant that God made with him.

Adam broke God’s covenant when he listened to Satan instead of listening to God. On that day all of us became covenant-breakers. Sin and death came to all of us.

Then God sent a new “Adam” into this world: his own Son, Jesus Christ. God made a new covenant with Christ. Christ never broke this covenant. He said “No” to Satan (Matthew 4:1-11). He obeyed God in everything.

In the past we were part of Adam. But if we believe in Christ, we are now part of Christ. The Bible even says that believers are “in” Christ. Because this can be difficult to understand, the Bible explains it with many pictures. For example:

• Christ is the vine, we are the branches (John 15).
• Christ is the head, we are his body (Ephesians 4:15–16).
• Christ is the cornerstone, we are the building (Ephesians 2:19–22).

If you are in Christ, then Christ’s righteousness is also your righteousness (Philippians 3:9). God’s covenant with Christ is also a covenant with you. You have fellowship with God–not because of what you do, but because of what Christ has done! You are safe in Christ.

7.5 Fellowship through the Holy Spirit←⤒🔗

While we live in this world, we are not where we want to be. We want to be with God, in the new heavens and earth. We want to have our Lord Jesus Christ with us. But even while we wait for this to happen, we can already enjoy the fellowship that we have with God. How? Through the Holy Spirit.

Through the Holy Spirit, God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, are with us. The Holy Spirit helps us to experience God’s love and to love him back. The Holy Spirit gives us peace, joy, and faith in God (Galatians 5:22-23). When we have troubles in this world, the Holy Spirit comforts us with God’s promises (John 14:16; Romans 8:16-17).

7.6 Growing in fellowship with God←⤒🔗

We are called to grow in our fellowship with God. By the help of the Holy Spirit, we must strive to know Christ better and better. We must strive to become more and more like Christ.

How can you grow in your fellowship with God? Firstly, make sure that you are not trusting in anything else than in Christ. Christ is the only way to God (John 14:6).

When Paul became a believer in Christ, he stopped trusting in his family background (Philippians 3:5). He stopped trusting in the “good things” that he had always tried to do (Philippians 3:6). He said, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

Secondly, to grow in fellowship with God, you should pray. The most important thing that you should pray for, is for the Holy Spirit to work in your heart (Luke 11:13).

Thirdly, make sure that you listen to the Word of God (the Bible)–especially in the church’s worship gathering. And do what the Word says! The Word of God comes from the Holy Spirit. It is the “food” that the Holy Spirit uses to make us grow. 

Lastly, you must desire to become perfect like Jesus Christ. That is the “godly discontentment” that you have learned about in Lesson 4. As Paul writes in Philippians 3:10, “I want to know Christ–yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…” (NIV).

You and I do not need to be restless like the world around us. We can be content, because God has given us the thing that we need most: fellowship with him. We can use our time in this world to grow in fellowship with God, and to help other people grow in their fellowship with God.