True fellowship, a true family spirit is vital to our identity as the body of Christ. And it’s vital for our growth and development as a congregation, both because of the fact (as we’ve already discussed) of the special relationship which exists as a family, but also that that relationship will help us to be unified AND it will be an assistant for discipline, if that is necessary. I suggest to you this morning that this kind of fellowship was good enough for the first congregation of the church, and it should be good enough for ours.

Finally, that first church of Christ was devoted to corporate worship and prayer. There is depicted in the New Testament a pattern of the Christian assembly. There are a number of passages which refer to Christians meeting, or assembling, together.

In Acts 11, verse 26, Paul and Barnabas met with the church at Antioch. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 7, the church in Corinth met, and in Hebrews, the 10th chapter, verses 24 and 25, we are admonished not to forsake the assembly. I think this last passage in Hebrews 10 is of particular importance because it succinctly states the intended result of our meeting together, and that result is to encourage one another and to spur one another on to love and good works.

Paul was so concerned about this kind of result from the assembly—that is, encouragement, love and good works—that he was concerned that the church in Corinth was having just the opposite effect as they assembled (if you’ll remember in 1 Corinthians, chapter 11). He said, “I’m concerned that your assembly together is doing more harm than good”—sort of the antithesis of what we’re talking about here.

The objective of meeting together was, and remains, mutual improvement and encouragement. Hebrews 10 gives an individual responsibility to think about each other rather than self. “Consider how to stir up,…” or provoke, as one translation puts it, “…one another.” Each one of us has the responsibility to stir up, to spur on, to provoke the other.

Meeting together is the essence of what it is to be a church. The Greek word translated “church”, ekklesia, means “assembly.” And this does not primarily refer to, or intend to mean, the people, but it actually means “the assembly itself.” Let me suggest to you that a church is NOT a church, or ekklesia, if it does not meet! A congregation may survive a poor education program. It may overcome little evangelism, or no benevolence. But a congregation, a church, will not survive if it does NOT meet together, because the church of Christ exemplifies its true nature in assembly. Of course, the purpose for our assembly, as it was the purpose in the early church, is to worship and glorify God.

The first century church loved to assemble together. Our text says that they met daily. As the time passed, however, it grew more and more difficult for Christians to assemble. But you know what? They did it anyway! They went from being “house” churches to being “catacomb” churches in some places, particularly in the city of Jerusalem as they began to be persecuted. They could no longer meet in Solomon’s Colonnade. They could no longer meet in their homes. They met underground—but they still met. And they still grew. As I think back to what I spoke about in terms of my family’s personal experiences, remember that I said that our greatest periods of personal growth and development and work for the Lord were in circumstances which were less than convenient, more difficult, and so on. I suggest that this proves my point, because this is what the first church of Christ did. And they may not have met in the same catacomb every Sunday. They may not have known from one week to the next which catacomb they might be in, or what might happen to them when they were there. But nonetheless, the church continued to assemble.

Our assembly together will probably never be dangerous. I doubt we will see, in our lifetime, a time when we would be threatened and told not to come together as the body of Christ. However, at the present time, and for the foreseeable future, our assembly together will be a little difficult, will be less convenient than we have been accustomed to. Let us just remember that it is not the building that makes the church. Let’s not be discouraged or disheartened, but let us be like the first century church—like that first church of Christ—and be characterized and defined by our frequent and regular assembly together.

My “calendar” says that the time is almost gone. But in conclusion, let me say that the church is depicted as the bride of Christ. Paul says that in 2 Corinthians, chapter 11, and verse 2. We have been espoused, or promised, to one husband—that is CHRIST. We must be presented to Him as chaste and pure. This is both an individual responsibility and also a congregational responsibility. In other words, each individual, each congregation is responsible for maintaining its own purity. It is not up to the elders of another congregation, nor is it the responsibility of some headquarters located in some far off place. This entails many things. It implies great responsibility. I suggest to you this morning that the only way to accomplish this task of keeping this congregation chaste and pure is to seek and pattern ourselves as closely as possible to the first century church so that we can be the bride of Christ that we read about on the pages of the New Testament—to pattern ourselves to be like her in our WORSHIP, in our ORGANIZATION, in our DOCTRINAL OBSERVANCES, and in our PRACTICES. To do that, we must be steadfast, devoted to corporate learning and teaching, devoted to corporate sharing, and devoted to corporate worship and prayer. This will be a constant and continual struggle for purity, and this will be a constant and continual struggle to live up to our great heritage as the CHURCH, God’s elect, God’s chosen people.