“Gather to Hear” – FBC Morning Light (10/17/2023)

Well, a good Tuesday morning to you. Today, in our Bible reading, we're in Jeremiah chapter 35 and 6, Hebrews chapter 3, and Ecclesiastes chapter 5. I want to focus on the opening of Ecclesiastes 5 for a few minutes this morning.

You know, the other day, the day before yesterday, I trust you were able to go to church, gather with God's people. We like to speak sometimes of the church building, as we gather, as the house of God.

It's where God meets us when we gather together in a corporate way. It's appropriate to refer to the church building as God's house, the house of God. And so with that in mind, let me ask you, what's your approach?

How do you approach going to church? What's your frame of mind when you go to church? I think that's an important question to ask, an important thing to think about. I hope that it's our habit, so what I mean by that is, you know, habit is something you don't have to consciously think about and make yourself do.

So I hope it's our habit to go to church with the right frame of mind and the right attitude. Ecclesiastes 5 gives us a little bit of guidance in going to church, if you will. Listen to how it starts.

Ecclesiastes 5 says, walk prudently when you go to the house of God. Walk prudently. Think thoughtfully, wisely. Not flippantly, not casually, not as if you're going to the movie theater or to some athletic event or, you know, some other kind of convocation, even a political rally.

No, walk prudently, walk thoughtfully, intentionally when you go to the house of God. And then it continues and says, and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.

Then he says, be not rash with your mouth and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God. So the sense of those couple of verses is that when we go to God's house, we go conscious of God's presence with us as a body of God's people who have corporately gathered together, and that he is meeting with us.

And therefore, we want to be quick to hear, we want to be eager to hear, what does God have to say to me today, rather than thinking about what do I need to, what kind of conversations do I need to get into with my friends and fellow church members.

Now, by the way, I am not saying don't get into conversations with your fellow church members when you go to church. I think a fellowship with one another is an important component of God's people gathering together.

But what should be our priority, what's our primary focus when we go to church? We're going to hear from God. We're going to God's house so that we might hear from him. We can get together with our friends anywhere, anytime that we want to.

We can go out to dinner together, we can have one another over to each other's homes, and we can have all kinds of fun times together in conversations, and so on and so forth. But we can only have church and meet with God as a body, when the body comes together at God's house to hear from him.

And so when we do gather, let's be sure we go with the right attitude, with the right frame of mind. I'm going to hear from God, and then be tuned in. Be tuned in. What is God saying to me today? His Word is going to be opened, his Word is going to speak through his Word.

What does he have to say to me? I think sometimes we can go to church without that conscious awareness, and therefore we become sort of passive listeners in our church attendance, almost like we're an audience rather than a congregation of God's people who have congregated to hear what God has to say to his people.

So let me encourage you this coming Lord's Day, next time you go to church and gather with God's people, be conscious ahead of time what your frame of mind is as you're going into God's house. Am I going to talk, or am I going to listen?

I trust that you will be going to hear what God has to say to his people. So our Father and our God, we thank you that you are a God who speaks, and in your speaking you tell us about yourself, you tell us what you are like, and you tell us what you like, what pleases you.

I pray that when we gather as God's people on the Lord's Day, that we would be gathering eager to hear what you have to say to us about yourself and about your will and desires for your people. And we ask this in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.

All right, well listen, I hope you have a good rest of your Tuesday, and may the Lord bless you in it. Good day.