Is It Ok to Miss Church for Sportsball?

You have Christians today who are rejecting it and who are even going so far as to say, hey, I can worship God on my own. What do I even need the church for? What do I even need the gathering of believers?

I'm tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads.

They will hear his words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed, and they will perish. God wrapped himself in flesh, condescended, and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

The Command Not to Neglect the Gathering

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age-old question, is it okay to miss church for sports ball?

Now, Tim, as we kick this episode off, what Bible verse do you have to read for us that's relevant?

Tim Yeah, Hebrews 10 24 -25 says, and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

So, there you go.

Pete Okay, so, it seems like the, sometimes I ask you, how is this related to the conversation, you know, to sort of get us talking about it, but it seems like this Bible verse is just pretty clear in what it's saying, right?

Do not neglect the gathering, as is the habit of some.

Tim Well, I mean, basically, it's saying just that try to come to church as much as you can, as long as you don't have something better to do. That's what it means.

Pete Perfect exegesis right there.

Tim That's what I was told. I was told that's what it means. It means basically something to the effect of, you know, God's understanding and we're not supposed to be legalistic and basically God wants us to worship Him, but then, you know, sometimes, like, we're just human, you know, we're human, He understands, and like, sometimes you just need a break, man.

Like, you need a break. And He…. Pete You need your me time, man. And He's not saying that you need to worship Him every Sunday. He's just saying, you know, just try to do it as much as you can, you know, unless, you know, there's something important you got going on, then it's okay, you know, because He's basically a big, beautiful Daddy.

Who loves you. Tim Because He gets us, right? Pete He gets us, yeah. Tim Yeah, so obviously, that's trash. That's terrible. Pete That's what I was told. That's a terrible view. Tim I learned that today.

Pete That's such a low view of church in general and the gathering of believers, but okay, so you've read a Bible verse. Do me a favor, read me the Bible verse again. I want to be reminded of everything that it says.

Tim It says,.

Let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another as you see the day drawing near. For, you know, we'll just keep on reading a little bit just to help you with context.

Pete Okay, I appreciate that. Tim Because context will help, okay? Pete Yeah, yeah. Tim So, it says,. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that.

Will consume the adversaries. So, there you go. Pete He gets us. He's understanding. That's what I got out of that passage just now. Tim

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the events of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved to the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and outraged the Spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again the Lord will judge his people. It's not getting any better.

It's not getting any better. Pete It seems like, you know, the whole, hey, he's understanding is probably not the right thing to take away from the, hey, it's okay. He understands that you can't do it all the time and, you know, he's cool with it.

He gets it, you know? It seems like that's a terrible takeaway from this, but, okay, so the Bible verse seems pretty clear. Don't neglect the gathering of believers is the long and short of it, right?

Don't neglect the gathering of believers. It seems like most people who hear that Bible verse, okay, this is normally what happens with any Bible verse, with any Bible verse that's a command. Normally, people who read that are going, generally, they're going to read a Bible verse like that and say, yes, I agree with that Bible verse.

I also think I am not violating this verse in any way whatsoever.

Pete Sure.

Pete That's generally how a lot of people read the Bible, it seems. They agree with the verses theoretically, but then when it comes time to apply them, they actually don't agree with them and they don't really think that they're violating, they don't really think it's possible that they're actually violating them in any way.

And so, as you bring up a verse like this, they're going to say, yes, you should not neglect the gathering of believers, but you can miss church. You're not going to go to hell for missing church. So, what is your response to that kind of person, to the person who is essentially arguing, hey, I agree with this Bible verse, but that doesn't mean that the minute you miss a single Sunday, you're no longer a Christian anymore and you no longer get to experience the grace of Christ or something like that.

What is your response to that?

The Meaning of Neglect and the Sinfulness of Idolatry

Jared Yeah, I mean, some of it's related to the form of the word here. So, the word not neglecting to meet together is the word not neglecting there. I mean, in some of the translations, it's a little bit stronger.

So, in the King James, it's not forsaking the assembly of the saints. And so, I mean, it is a word that has a connotation of permanently leaving behind the assembly or something along those lines, but then this isn't really the only place where this idea is discussed.

So, part of it's that. Part of it is that there's a lot of other Bible verses out there that would filter into this kind of discussion and just give us some kind of bearing, but then there's a lot of people who they do go exactly where you say, and it is a bizarre kind of impulse.

So, impulse, I really don't even understand. I don't even understand why they would ever say something like that. So, meaning, if you were to say, hey, yeah, God wants you to church. He wants you to worship Him, right?

So, think about the Bible. God says you will have no other gods before me, right? Why is man condemned? Because he worships in service of creation rather than the Creator who is blessed forever and ever.

Amen. He's designated a day for his worship, and you need to give it to him, right? So, he'll have no other gods before him. He's a jealous God. No, he doesn't understand that you have things that are better to do than to come and to worship Him as He's commanded you.

So, you say something like that, and immediately people are going to do the exception thing that you're talking about and saying, oh, so you mean I can never meet, and if I miss a day, I'm going to go straight to hell or something like that.

It's just like, I don't really understand that kind of thinking, and I don't know how to, like, the issue is what that reveals is it reveals something about you. It reveals how trivial you think assembling with the saints actually is.

That's what it reveals. Because, I mean, if you can just imagine saying that with any other sin. Do you see what I mean? So, you mean like if I rape someone, I'm going to hell or something like that? Like, I mean, I know I generally shouldn't do that, but like if I were to do it one time, am I just going to go to hell?

It's like, well, that's, no one would ever say that. You see what I'm saying? Jared. Like the reason why they wouldn't say that is because they actually think that's a bad sin.

Pete. Right. They think that's an actual sin.

Jared. Like an actual sin. So, you're saying I can't murder someone sometime, right? Like, God won't forgive me. Like, you think I'm just going to go.

To hell. Pete.

Come on, man. We've all been there before. Jared.

All been there. You want to kill someone? See, but like no one does that with like real, like sins that they think are real. So, what this is about is they just don't think that this is a sin.

Pete. Right. Yeah, no. And so, you ran a poll on this and people were literally saying it wasn't a sin.

Jared Right.

Pete. And this was a poll that had almost 300 votes on it.

Jared Yep.

Pete 285. And essentially, the majority of people, the slight majority of people said, no, it is not sinful to miss church. In this example, you're asking, is it sinful to lead your family to miss church to go see a solar eclipse that was going on?

And 48, almost 49 of people said, no, it would not be sinful. With 46 and a half percent saying, yes, it would be sinful. So, the no's beat the yeses here. And then you had people commenting saying, just straight up, I'm just going to read you a tweet.

I'm not going to change a single word in it. I won't tell you who said it. Missing church is not a sin in and of itself.

There you go.

That is a comment on this post that, as far as I can tell, has the most likes in terms of comments on the poll. It has the most likes. And it says, missing church is not a sin in and of itself. So, that's just to give you some perspective on

Jared Someone did a follow-up poll on our replies or whatever, and they asked, is it a sin to miss church for any reason ever? Is it a sin to miss church for any reason ever? And 83 said, no. Jared So, yeah, there you go.

Pete. So, that's just to give some perspective on, you know, if anyone's out there saying, hey, I don't actually believe that, you know, Christians think it's not a sin, you know, to miss church, to neglect the gathering of believers, I mean, they're out there.

Half the people that voted on this said, no, it wouldn't be a sin to miss it, to go see a solar eclipse that's happening. One of the comments I thought was funny was, I think it was on this poll, but basically, the person said, yes, it would be a sin.

We worship the sun, not the sun, meaning S-O-N, not the S-U-N. I thought that was pretty funny, but so, you have a lot of Christians who are saying, hey, it's not sinful. It's not sinful. And then when you try to bring up the Bible verses that are relevant, and it's not, you know, obviously, it's not just Hebrews, I mean, just go read like the Psalms and everything and realize what you're actually reading.

So, the Psalms are songs that the Israelites sang gathered together as a body of believers, right? And the Psalms are constantly commanding the Israelites to worship God together, constantly, all the time.

They're being commanded by God to worship Him together. And, you know, they had laws around these things and how it ought to be regulated and all this stuff. And so, it's not like a new development in Hebrews.

This is essentially just a, in some ways, a continuation, it seems, of what was going on with the Israelites now expanded to the Gentiles as well. But then you have Christians today who are rejecting it and who are even going so far as to say, hey, I can worship God on my own.

What do I even need the church for? What do I even need the gathering of believers? And so, you know, we had people responding that way. We had people responding saying, you know, I can worship God on my own.

I don't need the gathering of believers. So, what would your response be to the kind of person who views church as something that they can miss because they can worship God on their own? They can worship God in nature.

They can go listen to some sermon that's recorded somewhere and then let that be their counting, their replacement for worshiping with a local body of believers. What is your response to that kind of person?

The Local Church, Ekklesia, and the One Another Commands

Jared. I mean, essentially, you just have a lot of very low church Protestants who basically, they, some of their Christianity just revolves around certain slogans that they've heard, you know? So, we don't serve a religion, like, you know, God's interested in a relationship and not a religion.

Like, this is, Christianity is a relationship, not a religion, whatever, however that goes. But I mean, that's their Christianity, essentially. It's these kind of slogans, things like that. And basically, they don't have a doctrine of the local church, basically.

So, they have a doctrine of the universal church, meaning like the total number of all the elect in all times and all places and everything else. So, they have a doctrine of that, but then they don't have a doctrine of the local church.

And I mean, I don't really know how to correct it other than just ask them to read the New Testament. Jared Meaning, I mean, you just think about every single one of these letters are written to the church at Ephesus, right?

To the church at Philippi. You know, you think about the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, they're not, these are not letters written to just the universal church. I mean, there's, you just read through the New Testament, you're going to see that there's a church that meets at certain individual's houses.

There's a church that meets at a seaport, right? Senkria or whatever the word is for that. But the issue is that every single one of these letters are written to specific local churches, and so you have to make sense of what's actually happening.

I mean, the word for church in Greek, in Koine Greek, is ekklesia. And that word basically, if you look that up in Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, what you're going to find is that word ekklesia, it's basically the translation for the primary word that comes from that is kahal, which means assembly.

And so, basically, when you think about what does the word even mean, you're talking about a word that means assembly, that's what it means. And so, assemblies are things that gather, right? So, a lot of people, they think of the church as they're trying to do basically the etymological fallacy.

They're trying to understand what it means based on some of its parts. And so, they say, yeah, what is the church? It's the called out ones or whatever. But this is just a normal word that means assembly.

It's not like a theological term. It's not a term that New Testament writers made up. It's a term that means assembly. That's what it means. And what God has commanded is that we assemble with the saints on the Lord's Day.

So, you think about what a church actually is, it's a group of believers who assemble on the Lord's Day and then they're doing so under the oversight of elders who are responsible to minister the word and the ordinances, the church ordinances.

So, the churches have been given certain responsibilities, like they devote themselves to the public reading of scripture, right? To the teaching of the whole council of God to Christians. So, you have a group of people who are in covenant together under a specific leadership structure, which God has ordained, who are commanded to gather on the Lord's Day and worship God.

That's what it is. So, what you have is you have a group of people who really just don't understand what the local church is. And I mean, the best way to fix it, as I said, is just read the New Testament, read these letters to churches and realize that like you have 38 one another commands, you know, you admonish one another, exhort one another, correct one another, rebuke one another, bear one another's burdens, love one another, greet one another, welcome one another, you know, on and on it goes, like you have all these commands that are given for you as a church.

And just read 1 Corinthians, you know, God's composed the body in such a way that each part supplies what is lacking. And you know, God's designed the local church, he's ordained like individual Christians to be a part of it, and each body is meant to build itself up together in love.

And then pastors are called to equip the saints for the works of ministry so that it may build itself up. So, you just have this task that God's going to build his church in case of hell will not prevail against it.

He's done that by means of local churches. So, these local churches are, you know, the outpost of heaven in the world, essentially. And they're looking forward to the day when there will be one final, you know, gathering of all of the elect together, right?

So, this is like an eschatological reality, it's pointing to something greater than itself, but you know, God's ordained the local church, and what you have is you have a group of people who don't understand the primacy, the place of that.

Then you think about like, you know, God says like, this is the love of God, you keep his commandments. How are you going to obey basically all the New Testament by yourself in nature, right? That isn't the way it works.

So, think about what the New Testament is, is a bunch of letters to churches to tell them how to relate to each other. These aren't letters to telling you how to relate to the universal church primarily, they're churches designed to tell you how to relate to the local church.

But what you have is you just have like a very low church Protestant abandonment of ecclesiology, unfortunately.

Providence, Sickness, and the Difference Between Missing and Neglecting

Petey. So, with all that being said, you know, obviously, we live in a fallen world. We can't anticipate every circumstance we'll ever face. There will certainly be throughout our lives times where we are not able to attend the gathering, right?

So, meaning things like, severe sickness or, you know, you go on a trip and you get in a wreck or something and you're not able to get back in time. These sort of things that are in a lot of ways completely outside of your control preventing you from attending church on a Sunday.

Is that also, would God also consider that a violation of the, you know, the command like we have here in Hebrews 10 to not neglect the gathering of believers? Is that the same, are we talking about the same thing there at that point, the same kind of unfaithfulness?

Jared. Yeah, so, like the issue is, I mean, we have a church covenant at our church that basically says that we're, you know, covenanting with each other to, you know, committing to faithfully attend the regular gatherings of the church that the elders deem necessarily for the health of the body and all that.

So, but like, unless, like there's a qualification, unless hindered by providence, right? So, like the issue is like, God obviously can throw you in a sickbed and you can't get out, you know? But then, I mean, when you're thinking about what's happening in Hebrews 10, 25, however you're translating this, where you're translating it, not neglecting to meet together as a habit of some or not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is, right?

Either one of those ways of wording it, like the issue is that there's a willful, voluntary laying aside this command, and that's not really what happens when you're sick, right? So, when you're sick or something along those lines, like you're not neglecting to meet together, you're laying in a bed, like that's what you're doing, or you're laying in a hospital room or whatever else.

So, like the issue is there's obviously any number of situations where a person might be physically unable to attend church, right?

Pete. Right.

Jared But that's very different than just, yeah, I'm going to miss church because my kid has sports ball or something.

Pete Yeah, I've got travel league.

Jared Right. So, I mean, I think what

Pete. My kid can make it to the league, man.

Jared. Yeah, so, I mean, what's happening in that is that God is very concerned about idolatry, and you know, He does say that you'll have no other gods before me, and I don't think He's nearly as understanding as what people think He is related to that kind of thing.

And what I mean by that is He doesn't wink at sin. He hasn't given us grace in order that we may continue in sin that grace may abound. He is a jealous God, and He does command us to worship Him. And this is kind of unthinkable.

I mean, it would be an unthinkable thing for a Jew to lay aside worshiping the Lord just because you want to go play sports or something like that. So, part of this is like a Lord's Day discussion. In general, what God has commanded for us to do on the Lord's Day, part of it's related to that, but part of it's just like a general, like God commands worship, and you know, this is a big deal.

This is in the Ten Commandments. So, you might want to worship Him as He tells you to, and He didn't look very highly on Nadab and Abihu messing with that. So, like in both Testaments, He takes this very seriously, and I think we should take it very seriously.

And like the idea that, you know, I think the idea that most Christians have is that God hasn't commanded you to go every week. It's kind of a silly thing when you think about how absurd it actually is.

God's just commanded you to be regular, be faithful.

Petey. Don't make it a habit.

Jared. Don't be legalistic or whatever. Don't be reliable. Don't actually be dependable.

Petey. Right. So, aka, how many Sundays can I miss? Yeah, that's typically the way the question kind of comes off is, okay, so how many can I miss, though?

Jared. It's one of those things where it's like, okay, step one in the argument is can we agree that, you know, maybe like you're not in sin if you miss because you're sick. It's like, yes, we can agree that you're not neglecting to meet together because you're in a sickbed.

Sure. So, then what you're saying is He doesn't, this isn't a command that you're in sin if you ever miss for any reason whatsoever. It's like, well, sure, I guess. So, therefore, I can go play sports instead, right?

It's like, how do we get there, you know?

Pete. Well, that was a big jump you made.

Jared That was a big, I don't know how we got here, you know? But I mean, it's kind of a

Pete. Is it gymnastics because you're really good at the mental kind?

Jared. It's kind of a funny thing. I mean, it's a funny thing, like being a pastor and having these kind of conversations because it's such an incomprehensible kind of conversation to think about, you know, like if you're not there, like, what's going to happen?

It's like, yeah, I don't feel like going. I'm sorry, guys. I don't really feel like, imagine if your pastor said that, like, yeah, I just didn't feel like coming today.

Pete I'm not feeling it today.

Jared Yeah. It's like, I guess so. You just get someone to say something, you know? It's like…. Pete.

Just get someone to say something. Y 'all just, I don't know, just pray or whatever.

Jared Yeah, just take turns sharing, like, deep thoughts, you know, spiritual thoughts with each other.

Pete. This is what this Bible verse means to me. This is what it's saying to me. Jared.

Do the reader response thing. I mean, so, as a pastor, it's just kind of a ridiculous thought. Everyone expects you to go, but then the issue is they expect you to go most of the time just because your salary depends on it or whatever else.

Well, you're paid to do this. It's like, no! We're meant to be examples. We come because we love God. We want to serve Him. We want to worship Him as He's commanded, you know? That's the only reason why we do any of this and not do something else, you know?

So, like, the issue is they expect it of you, you know? But then on the other hand, it's like, if you were to say, hey, yeah, you know, He actually expects you to come, it's like, whoa, that sounds legalistic, you know?

Pete.

I think that is pretty interesting that the accusation is immediately legalism for simply saying, hey, it's like, no, God is not okay with you missing church for sports or for a solar eclipse or whatever it is.

No, God is not okay with that. Whoa, hang on, no need to be legalistic here. You don't want to be a Pharisee, do you? Jared.

Yeah, it's like, they go straight to the antinomian arguments that they may not even use in other places. It's kind of funny because it's just like, man, you just go straight there. I mean, someone asked us to ask the solar eclipse, like, can I take my family on a vacation to see the solar eclipse or whatever instead of church or whatever?

And someone said, well, can't you just meet with your church and do a sermon and then also look at the solar eclipse too? It's like, no. No, you can't. Like, the issue, this is what's incomprehensible to people when you get to this level of the discussion.

It's like, well, they're literally saying, like, can't you gather to look at the eclipse and to have your sermon or whatever? It's like, when you put it like that, no, like, we don't gather to look at God's lesser emissary, right?

We gather to worship the Lord. That's what we're gathering to do. So, when you pervert this gathering, you're changing the nature of what this gathering is. This is a gathering about worshiping God. This is not a gathering about looking at nature, but that's kind of incomprehensible to people, like the response back to that kind of thing is, well, so you're saying it would be sinful for a church to meet outside?

It's like, no, I'm not saying it's sinful for a church to meet outside, but it is sinful for a church to meet outside in order for them to see the sunrise and to worship God. The issue is, we're gathering to worship God, we're not gathering to view the creation here, okay?

So, if you happen to meet outside, you happen to meet outside. You meet indoors, you meet indoors, but then the issue is your focus should be on God. Your focus shouldn't be on observing some astronomical phenomenon or something like that.

You're taking the purpose of gathering and you're perverting it at that point. But I don't know. Yeah. It's just a

The Jealousy of God and the Call to Faithful Worship

Petey. Okay. Okay. Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation and discussing this. It certainly is funny in one aspect just to kind of see the baffling arguments that a lot of people use, ultimately, I think, probably just to soothe their own conscience, most likely.

But then at the same time, it is a fearful thing to read a lot of these comments and then think about how jealous God is for the worship of himself. And then to see a lot of these comments that are essentially downplaying all of that and these people, they got it from somewhere.

So, someone along the line was teaching them the same thing and all of a sudden, you have a whole society, a whole sect of the church that now views the corporate worship of God as something much less than what God views it.

And that certainly is a disturbing thing. And it seems like the kind of thing that we need to be praying for ourselves, that we're constantly on guard against feeling that way ourselves. I mean, I know it's easy sometimes to be tempted to, I mean, there are plenty of times in my life where I've been tempted to be like, hey, I just don't want to do anything this morning.

I'm too tired. I'm selfish. And then you have to repent of all of that and then realize this isn't about me at all whatsoever. This is about God. And it's frankly shameful to even think this way at all and not view it as an extreme pleasure and a privilege to worship God.

That should be how we think about it.

All the time. Jared. Yeah, if Jesus rose from the dead, you can get out of bed. You're right.

Yeah, exactly. That's good. I haven't heard that before. But that's good. I mean, you know, think about everything that He has done for us and then our response is to say, yeah, I'm too tired. I'm too tired.

God understands. He gets it. He knows that I'm tired. I mean, you know, Jesus came down, He's faced everything that, you know, the world has to offer and tempt with and so He gets it, you know. So that's such a terrible way to view all of this.

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Transcribed by https://otter .ai.