The Centrality of the Church #2 - "Why the Gathered Church Matters!" (Heb 10:24-25)

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Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 19. If you grabbed one of the red hardback Bibles we give away, that's on page 1067.
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Page 1067. Hebrews chapter 10 beginning in verse 19. One more time, if you're able to do so, can
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I invite you to stand with me as we read this portion of God's Word. We stand during this reading in our services because in this moment
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God is speaking to us through the preaching of His Word and we want to honor that even with the posture of our bodies.
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So Hebrews chapter 10 beginning in verse 19.
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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Therefore brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, He has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is through His flesh.
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And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
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Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering since He who promised is faithful.
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And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other.
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And all the more as you see the day approaching.
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Pray that God will bless that reading of His Word and give us understanding of it as we study this morning. Allow me to pray, ask for the
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Spirit's help and we will get to work in God's Word. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
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You so much for Your Word. We thank You that You have not left us without an understanding of who
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You are, but that You have spoken and You have spoken clearly in the pages of the
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Scriptures. And so, Father, I ask that as we spend some time in these couple of verses in Hebrews 10,
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I pray that Your Spirit would open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things out of Your Word.
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That as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, so that we would know the hope to which we've been called.
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Father, it's our habit to pray for other churches in our area. And this morning,
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I take a moment to pray for Williams Community Bible Church out there in Williams. Thank You for the work that's happening there.
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Pray for Pastor Joshua as he is preaching through the book of Genesis to the congregation there.
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Pray that You would bless his labors, bless that body of believers there. May their witness for the
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Gospel be strong and vibrant, especially in an age where that is so necessary. Bless the preaching of the
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Word happening there, and pray that You would bless it as it's happening here even now. And we ask it in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen. Please be seated. Well, this is week two of a two -part miniseries.
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We're usually working our way through a book of the Bible. We're actually in the book of Genesis as well. And we're working through that.
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We decided to take a break first for the holiday and then to end 2023 and to start 2024, thinking about the centrality of the church.
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The centrality of the church. And so I called the series, Recovering the
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Centrality of the Church. The aim of what I wanted to do with this short miniseries of two messages was to help us to think about the church and the central place that it should have in the life of God's people.
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And so last week we took some time, for those of you who weren't here, I'll give you a super quick summary. We spent some time last week thinking about what the church is.
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What the church is. And we looked at 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 15 and the three descriptions that God's word gives us of the church.
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And we saw that the church is God's ordered or disciplined family. That the church is
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God's called out gathering. And that the church is God's truth driven temple.
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Each of those pictures carries some implication for how we view the church. I won't go through my whole sermon from last week.
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We don't have that kind of time. So if you want to listen to that, it's on our website, RedeemerMedford .org.
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You can go there and you can listen to that sermon in its entirety. This week though,
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I want to move from thinking about what the church is to thinking about why the church gathers.
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So we spent some time last week thinking about the identity of the church and the mission of the church. Now we want to talk about what happens in this time.
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What happens when the people of God gather in the context of the local church?
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I put it to you that when the church knows it's God's given, knows it's God given identity and it lives from that identity.
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God's plan is that the church becomes a beautiful and a glorious display of his gospel to a watching world.
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And I use those words beautiful and glorious on purpose because those two words,
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I hope, give something of a sense of people looking and seeing something from the gathering of God's people.
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I truly believe that the gathering of God's people, be they a few or be they a lot, is a beautiful thing.
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That's a glorious thing. The sad reality is that at times the beauty and the glory of the gathered church can get lost on us.
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Well, thankfully, God's word gives us a lot of insights into how the church can be that beautiful and glorious display of the gospel.
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And I think the passage that we're going to consider this morning is one of those passages that gives us some insight.
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Why does the gathered church matter? In fact, that's part of my message. Why the gathered church matters.
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Why does the gathering of God's people each and every Sunday, why does that gathering matter?
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Why does our gathering together during the week as God's people, why does that matter?
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That's really the question at the heart of this morning's message. And as I said, we come to Hebrews 10 to find an answer.
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I won't go into the complete background of Hebrews because we've done that recently. Suffice it to say that one of the main things about the book of Hebrews that makes it so important in God's word is that it spells out for us the fact that Jesus, our
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Lord and Savior, that he is our great high priest. That he right now is in heaven representing us before the father and that he doesn't just represent us on the basis of someone else's sacrifice.
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He represents us on the basis of his own sacrifice.
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And really, what I think is the engine of the lesson to the Hebrews chapter 7 through 10, the author has been lifting up Jesus and his glorious priesthood, just stacking truth upon truth, layer upon layer to help us to understand that Jesus is the great high priest of his people.
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And you see, he kind of summarizes all of that in the verses that we read. So look at verses 19 through to 21 again.
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So he says, therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, again, this is all priesthood language.
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That's funny that he has inaugurated for us that he has opened up for us a new living way through the curtain that is his flesh.
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And that since we have a great high priest over the house of God, since he's been speaking about that for almost four chapters, he didn't give some exhortation, some applications in light of that.
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So look at verse 22. What are we to do in light of the fact that we have a high priest who's called
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Jesus? He says that we are to draw near, verse 22, with a true heart and full assurance of faith.
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That since Jesus has opened up a way for us to come into the presence of God, he says, he says, take it, take that way and come on in.
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Verse 23, he gives us another exhortation. He says, let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering since he promised is faithful.
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Again, the context of Hebrews is a group of Christians who are being tempted to abandon the faith and go back to the
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Judaism that they had left. But the author says, listen, because you've got this great high priest called
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Jesus who has made this once for all sacrifice, don't be tempted to. Go back to Judaism and leave that behind.
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He says, no, hold on to the confession of your hope. Hold on to what it is that you believe to be true.
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And why should we do this? Because he is faithful. So he gives us two exhortations and then he gives us a third one.
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And that's the exhortation we're going to drill down into this morning and think about a little more deeply.
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He gives a third exhortation, which is that we are to consider one another in order to provoke love and good works.
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And as he explains that exhortation, we're going to hopefully answer the question of why the gathered church matters.
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For those of you who are visiting with us, I have a habit in every sermon of giving what I call a big idea. The way I often explain that is if you forget everything else in this sermon, remember this.
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So here's my big idea for this message this morning. My big idea is this.
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Until the day we finally gather in God's presence. The gathered church is
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God's given means for the encouragement of his people.
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Let me say that again. Until the day we finally gather in God's presence.
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The gathered church is God's given means for the encouragement of his people.
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That's what I think is at the heart of the two verses that we're going to consider. The fact that we are awaiting a final day where all
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God's people will be gathered together once for all, never to be dismissed. Until then,
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God gives us what I like to think of as a little preview of that in our gathered worship together.
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So one more time, my big idea. Until the day we finally gather in God's presence. The gathered church is
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God's given means for the encouragement of his people.
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For the rest of our time, I want to consider three vital realities that are connected to the gathering of God's people.
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Three things that the author to the Hebrews gives us from this couple of verses, verses 24 and 25.
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And what I hope is that these vital realities we're going to see, I hope that we'll be encouraged to value our corporate gathered worship together.
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So three vital realities connected to the gathering of God's people that should encourage us to value corporate worship.
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Why should we value the gathering of God's people? Why does the gathered church matter?
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Well, it matters because point number one, we need help if we're going to grow. We need help if we're going to grow.
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So again, I draw your attention to verse 24. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works.
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Consider, that word carries this idea of thinking carefully, of pondering, of giving mental effort to an action.
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And in particular, the action is how we can provoke one another to love and good works.
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That word provoke is an interesting one. It carries this idea of rousing someone to activity.
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It doesn't appear all that often in the New Testament, actually. But when that word appears, it's interesting.
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It's used of, some of you will know the story if you know your Bibles well, the book of Acts. Paul and Barnabas have a disagreement.
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And the disagreement gets so severe, they part company. The term used for that disagreement is the same word for provoke here.
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It carries this idea of, in a negative sense, of something that causes irritation.
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Something that stirs up is used in other contexts outside of the New Testament for inciting a crowd to violence, even.
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Now, rest assured, this is not a call for church -sanctioned violence. Keep your hands and feet to yourself, please.
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No, this isn't a call for church -sanctioned violence. Because remember what he says?
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He says that we are to consider one another and other to provoke love and good works.
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No, this isn't a call for church -sanctioned violence. It's a call for church -sanctioned encouragement.
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The point is that we are called to intensely encourage one another to pursue love on good works with a passion that, think about this, to put it mildly, it's pretty intense.
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I mean, think about, I won't ask you to give me a specific time, but think about when someone irritates you.
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If somebody irritates you, I hope, anyway, that that doesn't just happen because of a minor thing.
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If you're irritated by minor things, that's not always great. I imagine that for most of us, when we're irritated by something, that has to have gone on for a while.
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Maybe that's how I am. One -time events don't really bug me.
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If something keeps happening, after a while, it's like poking me. Like, please stop.
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Please stop. Please, you do not want this. Please stop. But the author says that rather than thinking about how we can provoke one another to anger or irritation, we are to give careful thought to how we can prod one another on, as it were, to love and to good works.
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This is one of the reasons why the gathered church is so important. We gather because you, individual Christian, that Jesus loves and gave his life for, the reality is you,
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Christian, cannot live for the Lord on your own. That you can't pursue godliness on your own.
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That you can't pursue love and good works. Love for God and good works for your neighbor. You can't pursue that on your own.
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We gather because we need help in encouraging one another to love
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Christ and to serve one another well. You see, it's one thing for us to study the word of God, to know its truth, and it's another thing entirely, isn't it, to put shoe leather on that truth, as one of my pastors used to say, and to live it out.
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And not just to live it out in our sort of individual bubble, so to speak, but to live it out together.
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Remember, these words are not written to individuals. They're written to a group of believers.
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John Owens summarizes it well. In his commentary on the Hebrews, he says this.
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This is the great end of the communion that is among Christians in the mutual consideration of each other.
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Considering the circumstances, conditions, walkings, abilities for usefulness of one another, they do excite one another unto love and good works, which is called the provocation of them, or the stirring up of the minds of men unto such good works.
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Beloved, one of the reasons we gather and why the gathered church is so important is precisely because we cannot be all that God wants us to be if we don't gather together.
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The reality is, I need you to give me a hand in this thing called the Christian life, and you need me to give you a hand, and we need that from each other.
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Again, it's interesting that Owens says in his day, and bear in mind, he's writing in the 1600s, quote, this was the way in practice of Christians of old, but is now generally lost with most of the principles of practical obedience, especially those which concern our mutual edification, our mutual building up in the faith, as if they had never been prescribed in the gospel.
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It's interesting, Owens can say in his day that Christians had lost sight of why we gather, of the fact that we gather for mutual encouragement.
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I know we use this phrase negatively in our culture, the mutual appreciation society. Well, the church is
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God's mutual encouragement society, but isn't it tragic that sometimes churches can forget that reality?
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Oh, by the way, when we say encouragement, we'll talk more about this in just a moment. This isn't just a sentimental, let me say something that makes someone feel happy.
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Encouragement in the Bible is this idea of coming alongside somebody and strengthening them. In this case, strengthening them in the pursuit of love and good works.
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It's something of a tragedy, isn't it, when Christians forget that? It was a tragedy in John Owens' day, and I think it's a tragedy now, especially when you read the
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Bible. So Paul can say, if you're taking notes, Galatians 5 .13. Galatians 5 .13,
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he says, you have this glorious freedom in the gospel. Just don't use that freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
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Paul could say that he prayed for the Thessalonian Christians, 1 Thessalonians 3 .12. That God would cause them to increase and overflow in love for one another.
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You see, beloved, when we gather together, we should gather. Let me get practical for a moment. We should gather not with the question, what does gathering together do for me?
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As you, if you're visiting, you probably pick up on an accent. I was born and raised in London. I believe it was one of the great
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American presidents, JFK, who said, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
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And I think that principle applies in the church, too. Sometimes we get very fixated on, the church didn't do this for me.
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The pastor didn't do this for me. The people didn't do this for me. That might be true. But before you go there, might
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I suggest that it might be helpful to sometimes ask, what am I doing for my brothers and sisters?
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The question we ought to ask is not what does coming together do for me, but rather, what does
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God desire from me? And how in light of that, how can I minister to others?
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Beloved, it's ultimately our gathering is about God first and then others and then you.
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And may I put it to you that when you think of our gathering together in that sense, that it is first and foremost about God.
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And then as a result of our coming to worship God, we then turn towards the people that he loves and we serve others.
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And then it's about your own personal growth. When you view gathered worship together and you view the gathering of God's people together.
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Can I put it to you that that changes the way we view this time together?
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I mean, let's be honest. It might be easier if you find a church where no one expects you to do everything and people you just turn up, you're served.
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And hey, if you're not being served, then, hey, you can get upset and they will fix that for you real quick. It might be easier to do that.
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After all, who doesn't like being served? But I think we can all agree, isn't it harder to be intentional about serving others?
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But can I put it to you that maybe sometimes it's hard for us to think that way because we view our ministry of provoking, of encouraging one another to love and good works primarily in terms of how we feel.
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So I'm having a good week. I think I can be encouraging today. My week was rough. I can't be encouraging today.
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But can I put it to you that our calling to provoke one another to stir up one another to love and good works, that ministry of encouragement isn't tied to a particular shared culture.
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It's not tied to a particular shared set of experiences. It's not even tied to how you feel.
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Because when we open up God's word, we see that as Paul says in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 1, that there is encouragement found in Christ.
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As he says in 2 Thessalonians 2 16, a passage we often use to close our services here at Redeemer. That God our father is the one who has loved us and has given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace.
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2 Thessalonians 2 16. You see, the reason that we can be encouraging people is not because we necessarily have encouraging circumstances.
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If your reason for being encouraging is, well, life is great. Why complain on easy street?
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But what happens when you're not living on easy street? Does that now mean you are sort of absorbed?
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You're free from the obligation to encourage one another? No. No, we're encouraging people, not because we have encouraging circumstances necessarily, but because we have found encouragement in Christ.
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You see, it's not about giving encouragement in proportion to how much we receive. So you're not loving me.
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So unless you love me, I can't love you. Can I put it to you? That's a law -driven way of viewing love.
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No, it's not about that kind of love, which I put in quotes is not real love at all.
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No, it's about giving encouragement as a response to divine mercy, as a response to what
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God has done for us in Christ. Because God has encouraged us in Christ, we become those who are looking for a way to encourage others.
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Sometimes it's just a kind word. Sometimes it's sharing something from the word this week that encouraged us.
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Again, as we receive encouragement from Christ through his word, we may think, hey, you know, that was so helpful. I think this might help so -and -so person this week.
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It might be something as simple as asking, how can I pray for someone? As my brother
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John Benzinger said when he was here with us last year, come to church asking, who can I serve? One last observation on this point and we'll move on.
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Please note that this is not solely a pastor's or elder's responsibility.
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Again, this passage is written to a general group of Christians. Yes, pastors and elders are called to set an example in this kind of care.
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They should be the front runners in this. But let's be clear, nowhere in the Bible is it limited to them.
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Why? Because we all have a responsibility to care for one another.
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We all need to help each other if we're going to grow.
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So why should we value gathering together as the people of God? Well, number one, we should because we need help if we're going to grow.
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But there's a second reason why we should value the gathering of God's people according to this passage. Not only do we need help to grow, kind of related to that point, point number two, we can only help each other by gathering together.
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We can only help each other by gathering together. So if verse 24 is the what, if you will, of the church's gathering, that we gather to encourage one another in love, to love and good works.
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Well, verse 25 gives us the how, gives us the how.
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So look at verse 25, the first part, it says, not neglecting to gather together.
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And you know, as some are in the habit of doing, neglecting carries this idea of not taking proper care to something, of not being diligent about something, of letting something sort of fade away.
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It was used of buildings that were not maintained and they would fade into disrepair.
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The order to the Hebrew says, if you're going to pursue this mission of helping one another, the only way in which that happens is when we gather together.
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Can I put it to you that unless we are committed to the gathering as God's people, we're not always going to be in a position to help one another.
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A few observations I think will be helpful for us in thinking about this section.
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First of all, we want to be careful not to be confused about what the author is commanding us here.
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The command is not so much to gather. If I can get technical for just a moment,
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I'll try and keep the grammar talk to a minimum. Verse 24 is what we call the imperative.
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Imperative is a fancy way of saying that this is the actual command. This is the thing the author wants you to do, which is to consider one another in order to provoke love and good works.
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That's the command. That's the imperative. Verse 25 is the means by which you bring about that imperative.
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This is how you actually fulfill the command to love one another. Well, how do we do that?
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Well, we provoke one another by not neglecting, by not letting fade away our commitment to gather together.
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I say that because sometimes, especially if you've grown up in church, this verse often gets kind of wheeled out as the verse that says, this is why you should come to church.
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Well, yes, but let's be clear about why. It's not come to church because this verse says you should.
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It's no, we come to church because this is how we encourage one another. And the only way in which you can do that is by coming together.
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Is that clear? Okay. That's the first observation. Second, clearly, the author knew of people in his audience and the audience apparently knew too.
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He knew of people who were in the habit of not gathering together. Why? Because what does he say?
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Not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing. These are professing
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Christians, by the way. Why? Because there's no expectation for non -Christians to gather. The only people who are expected to gather, does it make sense?
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Christians. So there were some who were professing Christians who, for varying reasons, weren't making gathering a priority.
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Again, John Owen gives a number of reasons in his commentary as to why this may have been the case. Like I said,
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Hebrews is written to a people who are facing a lot of external pressure. And so some people just didn't gather because if I'm not there and people see
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I'm not there out in the world, then they're not going to associate me with those
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Christian people. So some neglected gathering together because of the fear of suffering.
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Owen knows that for some it wasn't suffering, it was just slothfulness. They were lazy about this. Owen says other things will offer themselves in competition with diligent, diligent attendance unto the assembly of God's people.
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If men stir not up themselves and shake off the weight that lies upon them, they will fall under a woeful neglect as to this and all other important duties.
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Such persons as are influenced by them will make use of many specious pleas.
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In other words, they use a lot of flimsy excuses for why they don't gather. Taken for the most part from their occasions and necessities.
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These things will plead with men. These things they will plead with men, excuse me, and there is no contending with them.
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This is there are some people. It's not that there is legitimate danger tied to their gathering. They're just lazy about it.
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And they make excuses for not gathering. Owen finally knows that for some they stopped gathering because unfortunately they were drifting away from the faith entirely.
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The reasons kind of will vary. There are so many other reasons people can give. And by the way, I'm not speaking about people who are legitimately unable.
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So I'm not talking about somebody who's housebound. I'm not talking about somebody who's travel. I'm not talking about that at all. Those things are all the saints used to call being providentially hindered.
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That's not the audience here. But when we think about even the most illegitimate reasons, they can and will vary.
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But those of the Hebrews really doesn't give much quarter for any of that. For him, failing to gather together is failing in the work of encouraging one another.
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It's clear that the office of the Hebrews had such a high view of what happened when Jesus's people come together that he was willing to plead with his brothers and sisters not to stay away, but to be here when we gather.
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This is one of the reasons that at times I, for those of you who are regular here at Redeemer, I can sound like a broken record in talking about gathering as God's people.
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In fact, at times I've been accused of making gathering together a mark of spiritual maturity and a mark of spiritual faithfulness.
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Normally I would say that's a false accusation. But on that one, yeah, actually I do plead guilty to that one. And I think
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I'm in very good company. Owen, once again, super helpful on this whole section.
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He says, great diligence is required of us in due attendance unto the assemblies of the church for the purposes that they're appointed for as they are instituted and appointed by Jesus Christ.
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The benefit we receive by them, the danger of their neglect, the sense of authority of Christ, the importance of his glory in them with the vanity of the reasons for neglecting them all call out for diligence in this matter.
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Now, I'm a child of my times. I can probably tell you what some people will say when you say something like this.
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Kofi, that sounds legalistic. Just this week I saw someone on the
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Internet saying this, did a whole video saying that, you know, I don't have to go to church to be a Christian.
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You know, that's a legalism. That's whenever a Christian asks you that, that being a Pharisee. Well, first of all, no one is more sensitive to legalism than the preacher standing in front of you right now.
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But can I put it to you that it is not legalism to take the commands of King Jesus seriously and to rearrange our lives so that we can obey those commands better?
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One of those commands being for us to give earnest thought to how we exert every effort to encourage one another to love and good works.
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That kind of leads to my third observation just from this first half of verse 25. Beloved, can
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I put it to you that gathering together is not just a means of encouraging one another? It is that.
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Can I put it to you that gathering together by its very nature is an act of encouraging one another?
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Look at verses 24 and 25. Because look what he says. He says not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.
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So do you see how on the one hand he sets up neglecting to gather together?
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Don't do that, but encourage one another. Do that. Which implies that the act of gathering together by its very nature is encouraging for one another as God's people.
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It's encouraging for you as you witness your brothers and sisters worshipping our great prophet, priest, and King Jesus.
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As you hear his voice serenading your soul as it were through his word. As you sing in praise to him for who he is and what he's done.
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As you partake of the food that he provides for the strengthening of your soul. As you minister to one another.
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It's encouraging for us as we check in and see how we can serve one another better. Can I put it to you that when we come to church, it's not just because this is a tradition that we have to do.
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It's a box we have to tick. And if I don't, someone's going to call me and I really wish they wouldn't. So let me just get it out the way.
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No, let's view gathering together as a means of encouragement and as encouragement itself.
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Can I say I'm encouraged by seeing all of you this morning. It's great to see all of you and say, hey, God has been good to us.
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Even we've got people who are out sick and what have you. But even been checking with one or two of them this morning.
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But even for the folks who are here, it's an encouragement to see all of you. I hope it's an encouragement for you to see all your brothers and sisters here.
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And so why is the gathered church important? It's important because we need help if we're going to grow. And it's important because the only way we can help each other is by gathering together.
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But there's a third reality that should fuel our gatherings together that should make us desire to gather together more earnestly.
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And it's point number three, that we gather regularly today in preparation of a greater gathering to come.
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We gather regularly today in preparation of a greater gathering to come.
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So look at the end of verse 25. So he says, not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other.
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And all the more as you see the day approaching.
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Don't skip those three words there, all the more. Given what happens when we gather, the author suggests that, catch this, we don't need less gathered time together as God's people.
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We need more time together as God's people. Now, if you view gathering together purely as I have to do this because this is what
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Christians do, then you're not really going to be incentivized. You're not really going to see the benefit or the value in making more effort to gather together.
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But think about what we said in point one. We need help. And if you recognize that you need all the help, all the encouragement you can get, then you're going to start to realize that I need all the gathering
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I can get. Let me say that again. Since we need all the encouragement we can get, and who's going to say in this room right now that they don't need more encouragement in their life?
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I think we can all agree we could all use a little more. Times are not always great. And so since we need all the encouragement we can get, we also need all the gathering we can get.
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Well, let me pause for a moment, because if the theme of our gatherings, whether on a
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Sunday or midweek or any other time, if the theme of our gathering is encouragement, coming alongside one another to strengthen one another, and if we need more encouragement, not less, then shouldn't we give careful thought to what we do in our gatherings as Christians?
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This might be where I lose some folks for a moment, but please, please, please hear me out. Acts chapter 2, verse 42.
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A familiar verse around here, very recently even. Speaking of the early church,
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Acts chapter 2, verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.
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Might I suggest that those are the ways in which our gatherings encourage one another?
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That our gatherings ought to reflect, I'm talking about the formal gatherings of the church, ought to reflect those priorities.
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So we have times where we come together for learning the word of God, the apostles' doctrine, the teaching that the apostles received from Christ that they passed on to us in the word of God.
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And that happens on the Lord's Day, it's why every service we gather as Protestant Christians, we have the preaching of God's word.
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Because we recognize that part of what we do when we come together is we are learning apostolic doctrine. And there'll be other times where we need time spent in God's word.
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So we have, like we talked about today, men's and women's Bible studies. We're having a conference in February.
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A whole weekend where we spend time together around God's word. So there'll be times of learning the apostles' doctrine, times of fellowship, where we're sharing in the spiritual life we have together in Christ.
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Times where the breaking of bread happens. That's, as you remember when I preached this passage a few months ago, those of you who were here,
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Acts 2 .42, when it uses that language, breaking of bread, it's talking about communion. And it's kind of using that as a header for what we call the means of grace.
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These simple things that God gives us for building up our faith. And there'll be times of prayer, corporately.
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That's why in our church, last Wednesday of every month, we took time off because of the holiday period, but last
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Wednesday of every month, we have a prayer meeting, we call it the engine room. These are the kinds of meetings, catch this, that the body of Christ, the gathered people of God must participate in.
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Individual Christians might get together for other reasons, which are perfectly fine and wonderful, and I'm not saying we shouldn't.
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We may get together for more social times like holidays or just enjoying each other's company, something where we're not necessarily doing something spiritual per se.
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But when we talk about what the gathered church does together, the things that, again, I'm speaking of the church as a corporate entity, the things that the church does together, the things that we do, are
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Acts 2 .42 things, I would argue. Again, it's not wrong for a church to put on social events, it's not wrong for a church to do things that aren't necessarily spiritual, not at all.
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We simply have to differentiate, and I'm laboring this point because I think this gets lost in our culture sometimes, we have to differentiate between what the church is commanded to do and what the church can do, what the church must do when it gathers and what it might do when it gathers.
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When we gather together, we are explicitly commanded to be concerned exclusively with growth in godliness and service to one another.
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Why? Because the church in Christ's name and with his authority is only authorized. Think about this, if Jesus is head of the church and he tells us why the church should gather, then the church is only authorized to do the things he's commanded us to do, right?
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We don't get the freedom to invent other things and say, these are commanded. Now again,
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I'm a child of my times, I know what people will say, Kofi, that just sounds unnecessarily restrictive. Actually, can
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I put it to you, that's not a restriction, that's a freedom. How is that a freedom? Well, it's a freedom because it means that myself or elders at Redeemer Gilbert or anyone else for that matter can't compel you to do something
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God's word doesn't command you. So, I grew up in a tradition where when pastors had their birthdays, you kind of cringed.
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My dad didn't do this, thankfully, but we knew other pastors who did. Pastor's birthday is coming up.
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You have to, not you should, you have to put money aside and we're going to throw a pastor a party and give him money at this party.
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The Bible doesn't command us to throw a pastor a birthday party. That's why you never heard me ask for one here at Redeemer.
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It doesn't command that. It doesn't command that you should explicitly give me money, though, hey, if you're giving it,
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I'll take it. No, those things are not explicitly commanded.
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As our fathers in the faith said, God alone is Lord of the conscience and he's left it free of human doctrines and commandments that are in any way contrary to his word or not contained in it.
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So that means I can't compel you to come to my birthday party and give me money. Or the church can't compel you to attend a political rally or compel you to attend a concert.
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It might decide to host those things. We might have some disagreements about whether you should or not, but it can't compel you to do that.
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The church, not even me, the church, in line with God's word, does have Bible warrant to call for prayer,
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Bible study, celebrating the waters of baptism or the joys of the Lord's table. We can compel those things.
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Kofi, why are you laboring this point? I'm laboring this point because I think we have to set expectations accordingly when we think about our gathering.
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But let me get to the happy part. That was kind of the negative part. Here's the happy part. Let's look again at the end of verse 25.
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This is not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.
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What day is he referring to here? Well, he's referring to the day of the Lord. He's referring to that period of final judgment that will end with the return of Jesus for his people.
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It's precisely because we have an end time new creation perspective that we do not live as people of the present.
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We live as people with our eyes looking forward to that great and final day. Precisely because a day is coming when we will eternally be with the lover of our souls who gave his life for us.
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Who is, as he himself said, preparing a place for us. Who will one day return and take us to be with him.
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Precisely because we know we are headed to a time and a place where there will be no more time and there will just be one eternal day in the presence of God.
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Precisely because we know that a day is coming where we will trade in Sunday mornings for an eternal worship gathering that will never end.
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It's precisely for that reason that in the here and now we willingly give up our time for the purpose of gathering.
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Can I put it to you that our gatherings together are a glorious spiritual advance on what we will one day enjoy in full.
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That unlimited and unbounded communion with God and with his people for all eternity.
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And I cannot put it to you that we don't have to wait until that day. Yes, we look forward to it. But we get to enjoy an advance on that.
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We get to see a preview of that when we gather.
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That's why the gathered church matters. It matters because we need help if we're going to grow. And if we're going to get that help, that requires we come together.
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And it matters because what we do now is preparing us for what we will do for eternity.
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Join with me as I pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are so good to us.
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That you have not waited until we see you in your presence. For us to enjoy communion with you and encouragement from your people and to be strengthened and to be built up in our faith.
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That you give us the gift of gathering together on the Lord's day. And throughout the week, that you give us this wonderful gift.
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Not as a law to hang around our necks, weighing us down. But for the purpose of encouragement.
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That we would honor you and serve our brothers and sisters who so desperately need to be served.
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Father, help us that we would value the gathering. Help us that we would value the time that we get to spend together as your people.
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Father, if we've been neglectful of the gathering. Whether that's in actually making gathering a priority or it's often the case for so many.
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I know it is for me sometimes. Being physically present but being mentally absent.
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Father, help us that we would recommit to taking the gathering of your people seriously.
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And Father, as we come around your table even now. We thank you that for all the times that we have not taken gathering together seriously.
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Your spirit ministers to us assurance because of not what we have done but because of Christ.
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And so as we celebrate him in the table. May he join in to us in a special way even now. We ask it in Jesus name and for his sake.