Fellowship with Christ. This sermon was originally preached sometime early in the year 1856 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for today comes from the book of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 16. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? and is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? There is one great difference between Christ as the founder of the Christian religion and all mere men who have attempted to create a system of belief. The difference is not merely that Christ was a true religion and there is a false one, but there is another distinction. All false prophets have sought to keep their disciples at a distance and to impress upon them not merely a high estimation of their importance, but also a superstitious reverence for their person. Yes, and sometimes completely putting aside the thought of allowing any of their disciples to hold communion with them. Look at the false prophet Muhammad. And you will see how he kept himself distant from his disciples. He taught them to regard him as something superior to themselves. And the Muslims to this day endeavor to honor their leader with solemn pomp and state. These false prophets forbid anyone to approach them without certain ceremonial acts of deference. like bowing down and gestures of reverence. They never allow their followers to hold fellowship with them. It was the same way with the old pagan priest. They commanded their worshipers to fall down before them, but they never permitted them to come near to them and hold fellowship with them. They continued to drive the people away. And in fact, the whole system of their religion depended on the eminence of one who kept himself distinct from every other man, and was looked up to as a god, being regarded as a dignitary above all the rest, with whom they might, on no pretense whatever, hold any communion at all. Look at the Pope, that great antichrist and false prophet. Does he encourage anyone to stand on friendly terms with him? Is he always accessible? No. He surrounds himself with cardinals and bishops and keeps himself distinct from others. It must not be expected that a pope is to be seen by everybody, nor can it be supposed that he should mix with common men. It is very much the same with the bishops of another church that we know. how they labored to keep men away from them with their pomp, their tinsel, their trinkets, and their parade. Christ, as the great founder of a new dispensation, revealed the idea of communion with himself on the part of every one of his disciples. And today, instead of endeavoring to keep his followers at a distance, he is always striving to bring them near to him. Christ does not blame them for being too familiar with Him, but because they are not familiar enough. He does not praise them because they stand at a respectful distance, but He praises Enoch because he walks with God, and He loves John because he lays his head on the chest of his Savior. Christ, our Master, loves to have all His followers live near Him. He loves to have them in sympathy with him. He loves to make them feel that while he is their superior and their king, he is also like their fellow man, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, in ties of blood, one with them. One object of the religion of Christ is to bring all his disciples into union and communion with its great founder, that they may have fellowship with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Our subject today is the doctrine of fellowship with Christ. We believe that there are four levels of fellowship with Christ. The first level is the fellowship of communication. The second, the fellowship of sympathy. the third the fellowship of unity, and the fourth will be the fellowship of heaven. The first level of communion with Christ is that with which all believers begin and without which they cannot attain to any other level. It is the fellowship of communication, the fellowship of communication. Probably a large proportion of those here who love the Savior will not be able to go much farther with me than the fellowship of communication. Let me explain myself. I meet with one or two of you. I talk with you. We discuss things with one another. In scripture phraseology, it might be said that we commune with one another. we hold communion with one another. So, beloved, there are times when Christ and his people meet, when he talks to them, and they talk to him, and so commune with him. That is the fellowship of communication. Let me show you how we enter into it. We enjoy this kind of communion when by faith we lay hold of Christ and when Christ in honoring faith lays hold of us, and when under sorrows and troubles we go and tell our Master what our sorrows and troubles are. We are talking with Him while He cheers us, reminds us of His promises, speaks to our heart with that sweet voice which lays our fears in their graves and causes our tears to dry. It is then that we hold with him a fellowship of communication, the communication of faith. Note that this is no easy attainment to be able to take hold of Christ's arm, to command his ear, to possess his heart, and to feel that when our lips speak to him, his lips reply to us. That when we look at him and are cheered up, That encouragement comes from the fact that He looks at us, and that we are cheered by knowing that the reason of our cheerfulness is because His right hand is under our head, and His left hand embraces us. It is a privilege for which angels might barter their crowns away, to be allowed to talk with Christ as faith does. For faith asks of Christ and Christ gives to faith. Faith pleads promises and Christ fulfills promises. Faith rests wholly upon Christ and Christ lays all of his honor upon the head of faith and is content to let faith wear his own crown. Yes, he does in fact uncrown himself to put his crown upon the head of faith. You, young believers, learn how sweet it is by holy assurance to come near your master. You put your hand into his side and you say, my Lord and my God. You know what it is to throw your arms around him and to receive that gracious smile from him without which your spirits could not rest. That is the communication of faith, the communion which we have by faith in Jesus Christ. There is, too, a communion in prayer, which is called the communion of communication. For in prayer, what do I do? If I pray properly, I talk to God. And if I pray with faith, what does Christ do? but talk with me." In prayer, the heart of man empties itself before God, and then Christ empties His heart out to supply the needs of His poor believing child. In prayer, we confess to Christ our needs, and He reveals to us His fullness. We tell Him our sorrows. He tells us His joys. We tell Him our sins. He shows to us His righteousness. We tell Him the dangers that lie before us. He tells us of the shield of omnipotence with which He can and will guard us. Prayer talks with God. Yes, it walks with Him. And he who is much in prayer will have much fellowship with Jesus Christ. Then again, there is a fellowship of communication which we derive from meditation, a fellowship of communication which we derive from meditation. When we sit down and in our mind see Christ in Gethsemane and see the blood red drops dripping down to the soil, when we look upon him shamed and spit upon and mocked and beaten, When we view Him on Calvary and hear His death shriek startling the darkness, then our heart goes out after Him and we love Him. While He holds up His hands and says, these were pierced for you, we hold up our hearts and say, here are our hearts, Lord, take and seal them. They are yours because they were bought with your precious blood. Have you never felt the sweet communication of meditation? Many Christians know little about it. They are so busy, such a perpetual flurry of business, that they do not have even a half hour to spend in meditation on God. Beloved, You will never have much personal communication with the Savior unless you have a place where you can sit down and view the flowing of his soul-redeeming blood with divine assurance knowing that he made your peace with God. You cannot expect to talk much with Christ unless your mind is free from the cares of Oh, it is then that Christ descends and talks with his children and gives us sweet interaction with him and fellowship and meditation on his sufferings. Children of God, you know this. All of you who are his people have had some taste of this communion of contact with God. You know much more of it than I can tell. Sadly, the great majority of the people of God have hardly any understanding of even this first and faintest form of communion with Jesus Christ. Let me make one or two remarks here before we pass away from this communion of communication. I would not have you despise this fellowship because you have not attained to the rest I am about to mention. But dear friends, be sure that you do have communication with Christ. There is a ladder between the believer's soul and heaven. Be sure that you climb its rungs often. In John Bunyan's book, Pilgrim's Progress, there is a road between the town of Mansoul and the celestial city. Let that road be worn down with the hoops of the horses of prayer. Let the chariots of praise race down the highway to glory. Don't let your Jesus live a day without a message from you. And don't be happy if you live a day without a word from him. I marvel at some who claim to be Christians who can live weeks and months and be quite satisfied without holding this fellowship with Christ. What? Can a wife be happy if her husband does not smile at her? And is Christ not my husband? And shall I be blessed, shall I be at rest if he shuts his mouth and does not speak a word to me? Can I be content if I have not received one smile from him all day long? Is Christ my brother? And shall I be willing to live without the assurance of my brother's love to me? Can I be content to go a whole week without knowing that my brother's heart is still beating with affection towards me? Truly, Christians, I marvel at you, and angels marvel too, that you can be so foolish, so indifferent, so much like a stone, that you can live for days beyond number. without holding even this commonest of all communions with our Lord Jesus Christ. Stir yourselves up, beloved. You have a golden engraved invitation to admit you to the king's palace. Why don't you enter it? You have an invitation to the wedding feast. Why don't you go? You have an open invitation to dinner with Christ. Why don't you go and feast on divine love? There before you are the apples made of pure solid gold in baskets of silver. Why don't you go and take them? There is Christ's open heart. There are His open hands, His open eyes, His open ears, Won't you go to Him who stands ready and waiting to bless you? And you too, you too poor sinner. I have often thought that a true description of Christ on the cross would be a fine sermon to illustrate that hymn. Come and welcome, sinner come. Don't you see the Savior there? He has his arms stretched out, as though he had them wide open to take a big sinner in. There are his hands nailed wide open, as if they are intended to wait there until you are brought to him. His head is hanging down, as if he had stooped to kiss you, and there are his feet pouring out streams of blood. as if his very blood would run after you if you would not come after it. Truly, if you saw Christ by faith, each bleeding wound and quivering part of his body would say to you, come and welcome, sinner come. Much more do they say to you, beloved children of God, come to your Savior and hold this fellowship of communication with Jesus Christ, your Lord. Now we are finished with the first level of fellowship and we pass on to another. That is the fellowship of sympathy. The fellowship of sympathy. Let me tell you what I mean by this expression. I said before that if we meet two or three friends and converse together, that is communion. But there was one friend there who had a noble project in hand. Yet, though I talked to him, I did not share his views, and I did not wish to see his project accomplished. Therefore, I did not enjoy such deep communion with him as I might otherwise have done. Another one of my friends was very sick, but I was not suffering just then, so that when he spoke of his illness, I could not commune with him as fully as I could have wished to do. There was another who was abused and scorned and spit upon, but I was not attacked in the same way, and therefore I had only partial communion with him, and that not of the deepest kind. I could not say that I had complete fellowship with him and his sufferings. Now, Christians, some of you have climbed another step on the heavenly ladder of communion. You have come to hold communion with Christ in sympathy. Here I must divide this part of my sermon into two or three points. Some of us have known what it is to hold communion with Christ in sympathy. when we have suffered just like Christ? Did you ever have a friend fail you, a friend of whom you expected far better things, at whose table you had often sat, who had gone to church with you, and with whom you had held sweet conversation? Did you not find, to your surprise, that all of a sudden, without cause, he lifted up his heel against you, and did all he could to bring evil and injury to you? Did you not put your hand to your forehead and say, ah, Christ had his Judas, and now I can hold communion with Christ because my friend has deserted me too. And I can sympathize with Christ in the desertion of men. Did you never have a false report spread about you? Possibly somebody said that you were a drunken man and a friend of sinners. Or perhaps someone said that on a certain night you committed an evil act. Or if they could not stain your character by charging you with immorality, they said that you were insane. And didn't your spirit at first rise with passion as you thought that you would answer the slander? But in a moment, You put your hand to your heart as you said, ah, he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, likewise he did not open his mouth. And didn't you sit down and say, now I can hold fellowship with Christ in my reproaches, Now I can bear a part in the brunt of the battle. Now I can feel as he did when he too was oppressed by wicked men. Some of you also have been very poor. Here and there one could say, I don't have a place where I can lay my head. And looking down on your ragged clothes, you may have thought, Ah, now I know how Jesus felt when he said, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. And so you thought, I am holding the fellowship of sympathy with him in his poverty. There was also a time when you prayed and received no answer. Your agonized spirit went backward and forward many times, while you cried to God, but no reply came. In the intensity of your insistent request, you could almost have sweat as it were great drops of blood, just as Jesus did, yet God did not answer you. Rising from your knees, you only rose to fall down again, and finally you joined your hands together in agony and said, Oh, my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. And you started to get up. You thought you heard your Lord say those same words in tones of deeper woe. and greater agony than you could have ever dreamed of. And you said, ah, I in my humble measure have held fellowship with him whose bloody sweat has made him ever memorable and whose agony and Gethsemane helped to make him my savior. And perhaps too, you have known what it is at times to lose sight of the face of God You have said, oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to him. Your heart melted with agony because God seemed to frown at you. Your prayers were rejected and you had no peace, no light, no love, no joy, no God, and you cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And just then you remembered that Christ said those very same words too, and that you were holding communion of sympathy with him. For you were feeling just as he felt. You had entered into a part of his agony. You had drunk some drops of that awful cup which he drained to its dregs. You have dived a little into the bottomless sea into which Christ plunged. You had the fellowship of sympathy for you suffered with him. That is the most wonderful fellowship in the whole world, the fellowship of sympathy. Those two holy martyrs who were burned at the stake at Oxford have this link forever between them, because they were burned in the same fire. Oh, what a sweet fellowship they had, because they died together. Nothing makes us love Christ like feeling the same whip on our shoulder which Christ had on his. To be pierced with the same nails, to be spit upon by the same mouth, and to suffer, though in a very humble degree, the same kind of sufferings which Christ himself endured. Oh, wondrous grace that we should be allowed to share in our body the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of us are not called to suffer so much as to serve, and we too have our communion with Christ in labor. Some of us are not called to suffer so much as to serve, and we too have our communion with Christ in labor. See the Sunday school teacher who takes the little children on his knee as he teaches them. He seems to say, as did his Lord, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. There is the same spirit in the servant as there was in his master. and he is holding communion with Christ in labor. Look at the faithful evangelist. He is standing in an open field and he is preaching to the people with hands uplifted and with a seriousness and intensity that makes him eloquent. Look, he has concluded. He feels a sweet stillness in his soul and he doesn't know the reason for it. but it is because he has been having communion with Christ and has felt in a measure as Christ did. When we have wept over your poor dying souls, when on our knees we have asked God for your salvation, when we have groaned and cried to bring you near to God, when with passionate supplication we have wrestled for your souls, Then, beloved, we think we have had some communion with Christ, for cold mountains in the midnight air witnessed the fervor of his prayer. He too wept over Jerusalem, and Jesus said, If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes, Laboring Christians have sympathy with Christ, and when they work hard, with good intentions, with earnest desires, with cries and tears, they can say, O Lord, we have entered into fellowship with you. So, too, we have fellowship with Christ, a heavenly fellowship of desire, when we neither suffer nor work with Him. but yet sympathize with him. We have a fellowship with Christ, a heavenly fellowship of desire. Perhaps you are not often sick, but you often feel a fellowship of compassionate pity and love. You are not persecuted. You almost wish you were. Perhaps you have very little talent and you cannot labor for Christ. But you have sometimes said on your way to church, what I wouldn't give to see sinners saved. Oh, I think I would be willing to die if I might but have my son and my daughter converted to Christ. Do you know that just at that moment you were holding communion with Christ? For you felt just as Christ did, who loved us with a love so pure and so perfect that he gave up his body to death, that he might redeem us from hell. You have perhaps also said to Jesus sometimes, I have but little that I can give to you, but if I had 10,000 hearts, dear Lord, I'd give them all to thee. If I had 10,000 tongues, they all would join the harmony. Yes, You had fellowship with Christ then, for you desired to do all that you could for the extension of his kingdom. I will show you now how we hold fellowship with Christ in our compassion. How we hold fellowship with Christ in our compassion. You see two men in a court of law. One man stands there to be tried. and there is every probability that he will be condemned. There is a person in court who is about to plead. He is his lawyer. But besides that, he is also a friend of the prisoner. The man is being tried for his life. Do you see the awful agony on his face? But up rises his advocate. And you notice that as he pleads, he turns his eyes towards the prisoner. And when he sees the tears start from the poor man's eyes, out comes an eloquent defense. There is a sigh heaved by the prisoner. See how the counselor speaks with fervor. The prisoner begins to weep excessively and hides his face. Do you notice how the advocate gets more fiery and more zealous as he proceeds? And how much more compassionate his speech becomes? And how earnestly he pleads as his tongue is set free? Why is that? Because he is in fellowship with the poor man. He feels for him. He is not talking to him. That would only be the fellowship of communication. He is feeling with him. and their hearts are almost one. Even supposing that they have not seen each other before, if they feel for one another, they are even closer than a blood relationship could make them. Beloved, when you see a minister pleading with souls as if he were pleading for himself, When you hear him contending for Jesus Christ's divinity as much as if he were contending for his own honor, that minister is holding communion with Christ. And when you see a saint speaking to a poor sinner about the Redeemer's death and pointing to his wounds, why, every drop of Calvary's blood seems to make the man speak more eloquently. and every groan he thinks he hears makes him urge his plea in more desperate earnestness with men. This, beloved, is sympathy with Christ, fellowship with him, and that I call a higher level of communion than the fellowship of communication. I hope some of you have arrived at it. If you have, you will be more useful than those who only understand the fellowship of communication. God grant to all of us the fellowship of empathy, the fellowship of sympathy with Christ. The third point this morning is the fellowship of unity, the fellowship of unity. Do you see this hand? Do you see this forehead? This hand and this forehead are more nearly allied together than my brother's heart and mine. Although he loves me with all his heart and would plead for me even to death, but this hand and this forehead have not only a communion of empathy, they have the same feeling. The members of the body have positively the same feeling, so Christ's mystical members feel the same emotion as he does. You ask, do Christians ever arrive at this level of fellowship? Yes, they most certainly do. And the Lord's Supper was intended to establish that highest level of communion which Christians ever hold with their Master here below. It is not a communion with Him in His sufferings. It is not a communion with Him in His service. But it is a communion with Him in His person. You believers are invited spiritually to eat the flesh of Christ. and spiritually to drink his blood. And that is a nearer, clearer fellowship than any of which we have spoken of before, because it brings you into positive unity with him. It makes you feel that you are not only pleading for him as your friend, but that you are a part of himself, a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Many of those who hear the gospel don't understand this great mystery. Some even think it is profanity to talk of this oneness with Christ. It would be the very height of profanity for a man to say, I am one with Christ, if the scripture did not reveal that all Christians should be able to say it. To call oneself a friend of God would be a blasphemous presumption But Scripture says that believers are His friends and therefore there is no blasphemy in repeating the declaration. Some may think it is absurd to talk about our being one with the Savior. It is not absurd because it is scriptural. We are one with Him and we feel when we drink the wine that the blood of the Savior is spiritually in our veins as well as in His, that we are brethren by ties of blood. I hope we will be able to say that we were one with Him when He died, one with Him when He rose, one with Him when He triumphed over the grave, one with Him when He ascended up on high, one with Him now, and one with Him eternally. I do believe that many of us will get so near to Christ that we will not only lay our heads on his chest, but we will do more than that. We will put our heart, not against his heart, but right into his heart. And we will feel as much one with Christ as the little raindrop is with the stream into which it falls. I hope that we shall be as much a part of Christ while we sit around the communion table as the particle of flesh is of the body, and shall feel that each pulse that beats in him also throbs through our frame, that the blood of Christ runs through our veins, that each sigh we heave, he heaves, and that each groan we utter, he utters. I hope we shall hear him say, I feel in my heart all your sighs and your groans, for you are most near me, my flesh and my bones. In all your distresses I feel your pain, yet all are most needful, not one is in vain." Beyond this, the Christian cannot go while still on earth. It is the highest style of communion till that happy hour of full discharge will set his ransomed soul at large. Unbind his soul and drop his clay and speed his wings far, far away, up where Christ lives. And there, beloved, we will know communion with Christ in a sense which only folly will labor to depict. for our wisdom knows nothing of it. There at his feet we will sit, and on his chest we will lean. There from his lips we will hear sweet music. From his mouth he will breathe perpetual comfort. From his eyes we will draw divine light. We will press his hand inside these palms. We will kiss him with these very lips. We will put ourselves within his arms. We will stand all day right next to our beloved. We will talk with him and we will be with him wherever he goes while he leads his sheep to living fountains of waters and will wipe away every tear from their eyes." This fellowship This fellowship of which I have been speaking of is a stepping stone to that best, that blessed fellowship which we will have in a few more years, the fellowship of heaven. Yes, the fellowship of which we have been speaking of today is but a stepping stone to that best and blessed fellowship which we will have in a few more years, the fellowship of heaven. Oh, Christians, do you ever imagine how sweet it will be to be with your Lord? I sometimes think to myself, oh, how strange it will seem to have a crown on this head, to have sandals of gold on these feet, to have a white robe on this poor body, to have rings of everlasting love decorating these fingers, to have a harp over which my delighted fingers will run, making the sweetest melody in praise of Jesus. To have a throne on which to sit to judge the tribes of Israel, to have songs more harmonious than music ever evoked, perpetually rolling from my lips, to have my heart full to the brim, full with bliss, and my soul baptized in love and glory. Above, beneath, around, within, without, everywhere it is heaven. I breathe heaven. I drink heaven. I feel heaven. I think heaven. Everything is heaven. Oh, what must it be like to be there? To be there is to be with Christ. Wait only a little while, dearly beloved, and you will realize what Paul meant when he said, Now we know that if the earthly tent which we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Soon, world, I will say farewell to you. Soon, beloved friends, I will shake hands with you for the last time. Soon this eye will see its last dim sight. Its last tears will have been wiped away forever. My last sighs will have been blown away by the breath of God. And there, ah, there, God knows how soon, there, far from a world of grief and sin, with God eternally shut in. I will be with Him forever. Do you believe that concerning yourselves, my dear Christian brothers and sisters? Then why are you afraid to die? Why are you so often fearful of death? What, men and women, brothers and sisters, do you believe that in a few more days you will be in heaven and leave all that you love and all that you live for here below? Do you believe that in a few more months or years you will embrace your Savior and be blessed forever? Why, beloved, it is enough to make you leap for joy and clap your hands in ecstasy. What? You are troubled? You are despondent? No, go your way. Eat your bread with joy. Be happy all your life long. For you know that your Redeemer lives, and though after your death worms will destroy your body in the grave, yet in your flesh you will see God. Amen.