Today we will continue in our study of what it means to be devoted to fellowship. So far in this series we have learned that a devotion to fellowship is a necessary requirement in our obedience to God. God created us from His unity for unity with Him and with each other. Fellowship is actually part of our created purpose. Fellowship, to again use the Moody Bible Commentary’s definition of “intimate, not casual, community spirit” was the first thing ruined by sin as Adam and Eve covered themselves from each other, then hid themselves from God and then Adam blamed Eve for his decision of distrust and rebellion that became his sin. In a moment Adam and Eve went from naked and unashamed in fellowship to guilty and guarded in wounded if not broken relationship. The reason this is important for us to understand is that Jesus’ work on the cross, His blood that brings us forgiveness of sins by God is also meant to redeem and restore our fellowship with each other. Restoration is not complete and redemption is not finished until our hearts are not only pure before God but also pure before each other. Jesus didn’t merely die for my sins, He died for our sins and so salvation that is received personally must be lived and shared corporately or else it is not fully worked out in its function and purpose. We have learned that the purpose of the Scriptures is to reveal God’s character, last week we talked about the purpose of fellowship being that it builds our character and reveals Jesus’ glory. God told Moses to build Joshua’s character through a relationship focused on God’s Word and God’s voice, Moses told Israel to build their relationships with each other in the same manner in which he was building a relationship with Joshua. The author of Hebrews commanded us to exhort and encourage each other daily, to not become lax in our meeting together and to realize that our relationships with each other actually fight off unbelief, strengthen our hearts in truth, motivate us to love and good works and keep us concentrated on and believing in the promised return of Jesus. Fellowship builds our character by keeping our hearts and minds focused on the character of the Father and the work of Jesus. Jesus told His disciples, in the last teaching He gave them before He went to the cross to serve each other as He had served them and to love each other as He had loved them and then He promised “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another.” The key to the world around us recognizing the church as Jesus’ true followers is our relationship with each other, our fellowship reveals Jesus’ glory. Jesus went on to pray, twice in John 16 and 17 that the church would live in unity so that the world would believe that God indeed had sent Him as the Messiah. Once again, our fellowship with each other is what reveals Jesus’ glorious identity; the first step in making Jesus known is living in right relationship with each other. Today we begin talking about what fellowship actually is. I have hinted at it a bit and probably talked around it some in the last couple of weeks but today we start to dive into the two specific things that Luke told us about the fellowship of the first church, the “breaking of bread” and “prayer”. We probably believe we understand the role of prayer in fellowship although I’m not sure we are right in all of our understanding, we will look more closely at that next week, today I want us to concentrate on what meals and fellowship have to do with each other. They are not one in the same, having a meal does not mean we have had fellowship and having fellowship does not mean we need to have a meal and yet the Bible has more than a few examples of food and fellowship seeming to be tied to each other. Today I want to ask the question, what does food have to do with fellowship?