Church is Not Optional

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We come now to the last of our studies in this series, entitled Decently and in Order, Understanding Proper Lord's Day Worship.
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Over the weeks, we've looked at various aspects of worship, various elements of worship, and tonight we are going to look at the topic, Replacing Lord's Day Worship.
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If you look at your notes, I'll read the introduction.
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Many of us have relatives, friends and acquaintances who call themselves Christians, yet never step foot in the church.
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They replace worship and substitute it for something else on the Lord's Day.
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As a conclusion to our series on Lord's Day Worship, we are going to examine its necessity in the life of all believers.
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So, the three things that we're going to look at tonight, number one, that there are many reasons people give for avoiding Lord's Day Worship.
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We're going to talk about those.
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Number two, we're going to see that Scripture commands us not to neglect assembling together.
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And then finally, we're going to look at the reality that replacing Lord's Day Worship is a sin.
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And that's something that a lot of people will not say.
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A lot of people will not take that step.
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But I think that we will see tonight that logically that is a necessary inference from Scripture.
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So, let us begin with our first point.
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There are many reasons people give for avoiding Lord's Day Worship.
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Letter A.
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Most reasons are based on three things.
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Bias, ignorance or denial.
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Bias, ignorance or denial.
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Think of the excuses you've heard for people not coming to church.
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One of the most common that you'll hear today, people will say, well, I don't go to church because it's not relevant or it's boring.
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I just don't see how it has any application to my life.
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I don't see the purpose in getting up every Sunday morning and dragging myself out of bed and dragging my children out of bed and dressing and putting them in a car.
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I have to do that five days a week.
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I've got to take them to school or five days a week.
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I've got to get up and go to work.
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And on Saturday, it's like I'm always busy.
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I got t-ball.
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I've got this.
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I've got that.
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So Sunday was my day.
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I just don't see the purpose.
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I don't see it.
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I don't understand it.
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And so I would say those people fall into the ignorant category.
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They don't understand the value.
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That's that's one of the reasons why they say they don't do it.
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That's because they don't understand why it's so important.
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Why does it even matter? Right.
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Someone might say this, well, I don't want to go to church.
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All they want is money.
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All that pastor ever talks about every Sunday, stand behind him, silver offering plates.
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And he says, give me your money.
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Give me your money.
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Give me money.
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And he and he passes them out and it comes right in front of me.
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Like a beggar, he's got his hand out like a like a like a homeless person just putting out that tray.
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You know, and yeah, the church just wants to control people.
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Don't you know that it's all about control, man? It's been around forever.
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That's the church's biggest deal is about control.
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So go ahead.
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Well, we're getting there.
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We're getting there.
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We're getting there.
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I'm explaining bias, ignorance and denial because the first one, they don't know why they should go.
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They don't see the importance.
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That's ignorance.
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But the second one, I saw my bias.
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They say churches wants money or the church church is trying to control people is biased.
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There is an inherent bias that seems to be in our society opposing church.
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And, you know, this is not a new thing, but it is increasing.
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Because there used to be at least somewhat of a respect and and reverence held for the church in society that is gone.
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People see the church now in a very biased way.
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They see it in a very negative light.
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They see it as a place where, again, people are misusing money, misusing people, misusing resources.
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And they look at it in a very biased way.
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So so that I would say is the bias.
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Now, the third thing is denial.
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When somebody says and this is probably the most the most popular one, people say, I don't need church.
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I can study and I can read the Bible and I can listen to preaching and I can pray and I can do all those things at home.
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So I don't need it.
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And that we would we would put in a category of denial.
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They're not ignorant of of the purpose of church, but they say, I don't need it to fulfill those purposes.
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I can do all of those things all alone.
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So, again, these are some of the reasons people give for not attending church.
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And as I said, most of them are based on bias.
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Ignorance or denial.
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Now, let it be some of the reasons that people give are based on legitimate criticism, and we're going to talk about that.
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Legitimate criticism, the church does not have the best public image because of various scandals that have occurred within the larger church.
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And I'm not talking about each individual local church, not every each individual local church has been rocked by scandals.
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But in the general populace, there are a lot of churches that have experienced scandal.
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Pastors have been caught in adultery, money embezzled or misused.
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Children have been molested.
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You know, there's a church in our town wherein they don't allow children anymore because the pastor of the church was caught as a child molester.
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And so instead of removing him, as they should have done, they now say children are not allowed because he's not allowed within certain feet of children.
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So they can't have children because they're not going to give up this terrible pastor.
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If I'm lying, I'm dying.
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Look it up.
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It's in Jacksonville.
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It is right here in our town.
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It was, you know, they said, you know what, we're just going to make it an all adult church.
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That way he can continue being our minister.
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How ridiculous, how ridiculous is that? But doesn't that give the church a black eye in a lot of ways? Now, I'm not siding with those who don't want to come to church.
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I'm just saying some of the criticism is somewhat legitimate, at least to say that there is a church that's doing it wrong.
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Can't we at least say that? I mean, look at what has happened in the Roman Catholic Church.
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And again, I don't identify Roman Catholics with Christians because I believe Roman Catholics are a false theology.
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But the world combines Catholics and Christians.
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So the world looks at all the scandal with the abuse of the children among the priests.
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Yeah.
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And they keep their priests and they hide a lot of what has happened.
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And the scandal grows and grows and grows.
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And again, it gives the idea of the Christian faith a black eye.
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In addition, those who are the face of the church.
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In fact, if I were to ask if I were to walk out in the street and talk to 10 people, random people, and I were to say, who would you say is the face of modern Christianity? OK, let's hope you said Billy Graham.
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OK, there's the one little Joey Osteen.
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OK, little Joey, Joey's the face, but who else? Benny Hinn.
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Benny Hinn is for most people, especially those people who are already biased.
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They look at him as the face of everything that's wrong with the church.
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And in a lot of ways, they ain't wrong.
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But who else? Oh, man.
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Yeah, I bet you all know he's talking about Joseph Prince.
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He's another one.
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He's another.
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He's a he's a smooth talking, fast talking guy.
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But he's the same idea.
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Health and wealth, prosperity guy.
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So you got Prince.
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Who else? Joyce Meyer.
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Who else? T.J.
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right there.
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I'm always thinking of the double dollar guys.
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You got Creflo Dollar and Freddie Price.
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And they both got the most ironic names in history.
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Creflo Dollar and Freddie Price.
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So there is, you know, I keep writing their names down, but there there is what the world sees as Christianity.
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You know, if you asked the average person, do you know who John MacArthur is? And they'll say, what, he in World War? No way.
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That's Douglas MacArthur.
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You know, I don't know who John MacArthur is.
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Now, some people who've been in church for a while would know who John MacArthur is, but not a lot of you.
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I was sitting in I was sitting at a table with a man who was a youth leader at another church.
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And we're at a fundraiser for a women's center.
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And I'm sitting there having dinner.
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And I said, I said, yeah, I was reading R.C.
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Sproul.
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And he said, who? And I said, what? You're in leadership in a church.
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You've never heard of R.C.
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Sproul.
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Are you a joke? Are you kidding? I don't know who R.C.
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Sproul is.
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Really? And these are the guys who should be the face of Christianity.
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But unfortunately, they're not.
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They're overshadowed by all the guys who are the flashy money raising, you know, people who, you know, are doing all these things.
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So, yeah, the church has in many ways been given over to a bad face, the face of the negative.
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Who's that? Jim Baker.
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Well, yeah, and he's tried to come back, but it's hard to come back after what he did.
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But for a long time, he was the face.
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And you know what? Often the face of the modern church is a lady with really crazy makeup and pink hair.
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Because when you're flashing through the television stations and you come to that one and you always know it's a Christian station, you know, it ain't an Islamic station because you can see her hair.
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But now you see the big, big hair, big makeup.
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You know, that's what people see.
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And even many local churches, small local churches.
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Reinforce the negatives.
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Because they allow sin and they allow problems to go unaddressed, they allow people to be hurt without any trying to restore or recover, seeking repentance, seeking restoration rarely goes on.
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Oftentimes, small churches have one or two families in the church that have a lot of influence.
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And those I know of a church very near here where there's a church with a lot of a lot of people in the church.
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But there's one family that has so much influence that that family can get away with murder and nobody can say anything because they're the biggest givers.
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They're the biggest promoters of the church.
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And I remember one time that somebody somebody here one time, this was years and years ago, was chiding me about something.
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And I said, no, this is what we need to do.
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And they said, well, you'll upset your givers.
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I said, I don't know who they are.
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I don't care.
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I don't care who the givers are.
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I'm going to try to make God happy and the givers will leave if they're not happy and we will continue to move on.
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Because there's not one family or one group that's going to take over this church, it's going to be God's word that leads has to.
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Yeah.
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And I don't I don't know who gives what.
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So if somebody says you got to keep your givers happy, I don't know who they are.
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I really don't.
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There's only two people in the church who know who gives what here, the treasurer and assistant treasurer, even the rest of the executive committee doesn't know.
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We know how much is given so that we can use that money appropriately and disperse it appropriately.
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But we do not know who gives.
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And it's not something that we seek.
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I know some churches where they track your tithe and they will they will put you under discipline if you are not appropriately.
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So.
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All right.
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So are there legitimate criticisms? Yes.
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Are they worth? Let's move on.
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Let me ask, are there legitimate criticism? Yes.
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But the problem is that even though there are legitimate criticism, that's not the issue for most people.
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The actual reason most people avoid worship is a lack of conversion.
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It's a lack of conversion, a person who has been converted.
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And by that, I mean legitimately say a lot of people who have talked the talk.
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They've they've said Jesus words, they've, quote unquote, asked Jesus into their heart, but they've never been converted.
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They've never truly come under the lordship of Christ.
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They I preached on Sunday.
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I hope everybody's listening.
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The churches are filled with false converts.
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The converted person wants to worship.
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It's part of the drive of the converted person is a longing to be in worship.
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Psalm 42, as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longeth after the Lord.
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My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
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When shall I come and appear before God? That's the longing of the converted soul.
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When will I get to go and worship my king? When can I? It's like water to a deer.
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And my soul is thirsty.
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So that's part of the worshiping experience or part of the believer's experience is desire to do that.
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It's a desire to worship.
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The second thing is that the person who does not have that longing.
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Demonstrates a lack of conversion, and I want to add something to that, the person who is converted and is seeking worship because they've been converted.
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So they want to worship the person who's converted and seeking worship.
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Will not allow the criticisms and the problems to keep them from worshiping.
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So we've already talked about the bias, the ignorance of the now we've talked about legitimate criticism.
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What are some of the legitimate criticisms? The black eyes, the problems in the church.
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But the reality is, if you are converted, you will find a place to worship.
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You will seek a place to worship.
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You will go hungry, looking for worship.
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I remember somebody asked R.C., they said, what do I do if there's no church in my town that's a good Bible believing, Bible teaching church? He said, move.
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You'd move for a job.
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You'd move for a good school.
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If it meant your child's education, you sure would move.
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If it meant that is not your soul worth looking and seeking and finding.
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People say, oh, that's extreme.
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How extreme is it really that you wouldn't drive an extra hour to go to a church that teaches the truth? Oh, I like this church.
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It's right next to my house.
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And there are many inside.
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They teach this false tongue stuff.
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They got all this.
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No, but it's convenient.
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And we have people who drive an hour to get to church on Sunday morning.
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Here.
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45, 50 minutes to get to church.
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Thank God for them.
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I'm glad they do.
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And that's, you know, that's the reality is if you want to worship, all those little things we talked about won't stop you.
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But if you don't want to worship, there's nothing in the world that won't stop you.
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You'll find anything.
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Oh, the pastor keeps it too cold or he keeps it too hot.
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You know, they don't get coffee.
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They don't have a Starbucks at the church.
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You know, they'll find anything if they don't want to come.
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They'll find any reason not to come.
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And that comes up to the hypocrisy thing.
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And that's where I was getting into earlier.
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And I didn't mean to cut you off, but I didn't want to build in this because the hypocrisy thing is the hot button.
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People say, well, I don't go to church.
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There's all kinds of hypocrites there.
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Now, are there hypocrites in church? Yes.
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Why are there hypocrites in church? Because it's one of the few places left in the world where there is a standard of behavior.
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You don't find hypocrites in a bar because there's no standard of behavior in the bar.
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You can't have hypocrisy when there's no standard.
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And that makes sense.
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It's one of the few places left where there's expectation on your morals, where there's expectation on your behavior, where there's expectation that we are going to seek to live out this Christian life in an experiential way and not just let it be our words, but actually let it give birth to our actions.
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So when people don't do what they're supposed to do and often they don't, they fail.
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What do we say? Oh, they're hypocrites.
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We don't say, well, this is a brother who's fallen that needs to be restored or this is something that needs help.
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We say, oh, look at their other hypocrites.
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Now, I'm not saying that the church doesn't give birth to a lot of hypocrites because it does.
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What happens, though, is in a lot of churches, there's they give birth to a pharisaical type of hypocrite.
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Pharisees, a lot of churches, they tell the other people, yeah, we're we do good because we're, you know, we're we're, you know, Baptist, gospel or, you know, method, method, material or what? I'm not trying to make fun of it.
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Yeah, we're whatever we are and we're the right ones and everybody else is wrong.
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And and then their behavior doesn't match up with their proclamation of self.
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Yeah, that's bad.
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That's not good.
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That's part of that legitimate criticism that's out there.
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And there are some hypocrites out there.
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But the reality is what most people say when they say, I want to go to church, I want to be around hypocrites, what they're really saying is I really don't want to worship.
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And here's the best excuse I've found so far.
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I don't want to worship.
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Here's the best excuse I've found so far.
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Is people in church don't always act like church people.
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So there's a lot of issues here and there's a lot of things.
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And I know a lot of folks who don't go to church and they find any reason they can.
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And again, my at the end of the day, what I say is most of the time is because they don't want to.
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And if they don't want to be in a church that preaches the truth and worships God as he ought to be worshiped and they're not saved.
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I'm not being ugly.
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I'm just telling it like it is.
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The reality is people who are converted want to worship.
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People are not converted, don't want to worship.
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And if you don't want to worship, you're not converted.
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That's you know, that's that's simple.
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That's a very simple syllogism.
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It is or ain't.
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So now we move on to number two, because I've made a bold claim, I've said those who don't want to worship probably aren't saved.
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Now, let's look at number two, because we're going to see what Scripture says about that.
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We're going to actually go and break down the text.
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Let's go to Hebrews 10 and everybody who's listening to this, especially those who listen to it on recording, will know this is where I was going.
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If Hebrews chapter 10 is the one passage which does deal with our requirement of assembling the requirement that we assemble together.
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Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25 says in verse 24.
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And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
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And all the more as you see the day drawing near.
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All right.
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Now, the word neglect in that ESV translation, sometimes translated forsake, if you have a King James Bible, the word there means to leave behind.
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So I'm going to give myself some more room on the board here.
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The word neglect means to leave behind.
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So it's saying do not leave behind or a better word, you might want to put the abandon, do not abandon meeting together.
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Some people do not forsake totally.
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And that's normally what we think of an abandon, but they forsake practically this time of year is the most common type of or the most common time wherein we see those who have abandoned the church because they tend to gather at the holidays.
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You know, we get our what I call CEOs, Christmas, Easter only.
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Yeah, they only come twice a year.
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But what would they say? I'm a member of the church, I'm part of the church, I'm, you know, because I come twice a year or maybe three times a year, you know, because I come on Mother's Day because I feel a little obligated for that.
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Mama wants me to come and they attend during those times.
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But for all intents and purposes, they have abandoned worship because even when they do come, they're coming either out of obligation to tradition or they're coming out of obligation to a parent.
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They're not coming out of fidelity to Christ.
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They don't have any consistent fidelity to Christ.
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They come and attend when it is convenient.
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They come and attend when they want to.
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And yet they still feel like part of the church.
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And they'll say that.
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I think I've told this story before very quickly.
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I have a family member.
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They come to church very, very, very irregularly.
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Again, you know, once or twice a year.
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And we had a family gathering at the family gathering.
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It was right after we changed the name of the church.
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Remember, the church used to have a different name.
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We changed the name of the church, went to the family gathering like six months after the name of the church was changed.
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It was like a while after.
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And this family member, she's never joined the church, but I want you to hear what she said to me and you just kind of consider what she said.
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She said, so why did we change the name of our church? I'll say it again.
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Why did we, to indicate group, change the name of our, to indicate that we're part of the same group, church? Who are you talking to? Did you start attending another church? Because this ain't, it's not our church.
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You're not a member of our church.
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You're not.
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That's why you didn't get a letter inviting you to come and discuss it because you ain't ever here.
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I'm not being ugly, but I said, and I kind of just look and I did.
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I didn't get into that.
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I didn't.
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I had a long family reunion ahead, so I don't want to get into a big argument about why she didn't come to church.
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But I just sort of stopped and thought, you remember that? And I was like, what in the world? What do you mean our church? What do you mean? What are you talking about? Do you really think you're a member of the church? Do you really think that you're part of it if you're never there? And that's this whole passage is about, because he says, you know, not leaving behind or abandoning the assembling of yourselves.
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And let me tell you something, if you only do it once or twice a year, that's an abandonment.
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If I only saw my kids twice a year, you'd say I abandoned them as a father.
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I can say, but I see them at Christmas and Easter.
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You'd say you're a terrible father then.
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I mean, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't that be the truth? If I only saw my kids twice a year, you'd call me an abandoning one who's abandoning his children.
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You'd have no problem saying that.
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But we we're you know, people say, well, he's a church member.
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He's been here since he was little.
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He only comes twice a year.
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Oh, but he's a member.
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No, he's not.
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Huh? Oh, OK, I see.
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Well, I agree with you, Jennifer.
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Talk one.
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We're talking one time.
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I said, I said, you know, just joking.
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You know, I said, you better not ever leave me because I'm going with you if you leave.
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I'm going.
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Where are we going? Because you're not getting away.
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Now, we've understood the word neglect means to leave behind.
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It means to forsake.
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It means to abandon.
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Now, the word assembling is a reference to the gathering together of believers.
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So the word assembling means gathering together.
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And this is an interesting word, because normally when we talk about the church and I'm going to just write a word here, we talk about the ecclesia, the ecclesia.
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The ecclesia is the church.
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OK, but this word is not ecclesia.
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This word is epicenter.
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Epicenter is the word where the word synagogue you've heard the synagogue comes from.
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OK, synagogue is the gathering of the people together.
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Church is who we are.
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Synagogue is what we do.
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We gather at the synagogue is simply to put an emphasis on the gathering.
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OK, so are we a synagogue? No, we call ourselves a church.
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But the reality is the church is the people.
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Ecclesia means it's to come out of and kaleo means to call.
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So the ecclesia are the ones who have been called out, the ones who've been called out of the world.
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They're the called out ones.
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And that's what the church is.
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The church is the called out ones.
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People talk about this in the church building.
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No, this is a this is we call it the church and it's modern vernacular.
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But reality, this is just a building.
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It's not the church until the people gather.
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And the people gather in synagogue, the people gather as a group and there is the church.
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Church is us.
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OK, so he's not saying don't forsake being the church because you can't you can't forsake being the church.
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You're part of the church, but you can forsake gathering as the church.
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And that's why he uses this word.
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Yes, sir.
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I confuse you.
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That's fine if you just jump out when you know, but the point that I'm trying to make is simple.
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He says, don't neglect, don't abandon, don't let go or leave what? Gathering together.
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Don't neglect that in the church.
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When people come to church, that's that the Holy Spirit is there.
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God is there, right? Yes, yes, there and there is a ministry of God which happens when the people of God are gathered.
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That doesn't happen when we're separated.
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So there is a special dispensation of that ministry of God that occurs when the ordinances are happening and when we're singing those songs and we're asking for God's blessing and presence among us.
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Yes, I would say that the Lord is always present and the person, the Holy Spirit within us, every believer, he's always in the in the in the in the presence of us as individual believers.
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But there is, again, a special blessing of his presence among his congregated church, his his his called out ones.
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So, yeah, I would agree with that.
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And I would again say that that's why.
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And we'll go on to the third thing, because this kind of fills in with what I was going to say.
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This is part of an imperative statement within the text.
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And that's the next.
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That's the next blank.
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It's part of an imperative statement within the text.
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What is an imperative? It's a command.
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And you might say this.
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If you look back at the text, verse twenty five, not neglecting to meet is not in the imperative.
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But what is in the imperative is in verse twenty four.
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Let us consider how to stir up one another.
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That's the imperative.
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How do we do it? By meeting and not neglecting me.
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So what do we do when we come together? We stir each other up towards good works.
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We stir each other up.
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How? By challenging one another, by hearing the word preached, by fellowshipping with one another, by praying with one another, by participating in ordinances.
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All of that together is stirring us up toward doing those things that Christ has called us to do.
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And if we neglect the gathering together, we're neglecting that one thing that we're being told to do, and that is to stir one another up.
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This is the argument people say, well, I can sit at home and I can listen to a pastor four times good as you.
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And I don't disagree.
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You can sit at home and listen to a much better pastor than me.
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But what you cannot do is sit at home and stir one another up toward good works.
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You can't do it.
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Well, I can get on Facebook and slow down.
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Facebook ain't church.
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The calling is to gather together in community for the purpose of stirring one another up toward good works.
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And what's the other word there? Love.
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You can't love someone as they need to be loved and as they long to be loved and as God calls us to love one another through Facebook.
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We do this through the word, however, we do this through the assembly and the word is part of that.
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The preaching of the word is part of that.
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But we do that also through the assembly.
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We gather together in love.
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We stir each other up toward love.
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We stir each other up towards good works in the assembly.
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We can't do that individually.
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We can't do that as our lone wolf.
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Yes.
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Oh, yeah, they'll travel miles on foot to assemble.
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And we've got automobiles with air conditioning and satellite radio and Starbucks from here to Tallahassee, all lining the roads.
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And we won't get in our cars and go because it's inconvenient.
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Yes, sir.
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I would say, yeah, but I would say overall, the biggest thing that substitutes for a lot of people is the television.
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Facebook has provided a new outlet for community, for people, and we could get into the dangers and the badness of Facebook.
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We could also talk about some of the ways in which it can be used to help communities know what's going on.
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You know, we advertise through Facebook as church.
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I mean, there's you talk about pros and cons, but the reality is, I think that what has happened is that every time someone sees a new outlet for them to express their, quote it helps them to not have to be uncomfortable in the community because that's one of the things that people don't don't often think about.
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It's very uncomfortable going to a church for some people.
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Because, like, I mean, people think people think I'm I'm not a shy person in any way, shape or form, but I really do sometimes feel very uncomfortable when I feel out of place.
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And so my wife and I, you know, when we're out of town, we'll go to a new church and we'll sit under someone else's preaching.
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And I often know how to how to how to engage people.
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I'm not socially awkward, but I don't know I don't know what the norms are, you know, and I think people do have that issue.
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They come into a church.
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They don't know whether it's a it's just a it's how do people relate to one another here is, you know, and honestly, the reality is there was a study recently done.
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Conservative churches are more likely for their members to have relationships outside the church than liberal churches are for their members to have relationships outside the church.
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They just did a study.
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What's the chances? What's the more likelihood that members in a church of conservatives versus liberals? And what they found in the study was this is that, you know, for a for a conservative body, typically their religion extends past the walls of the church and it actually becomes part of their life.
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And that's where I know for me, most of my friends are church people.
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Most of the people that I spend time with, most people that I do things with, most of my family is my church family, whereas in liberal churches, a church is something they do.
36:41
It's not their life.
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It's it's it's it's it's an it's an accessory.
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It's an adornment on top of everything else.
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And they might be a member of the first whatever church and also a member of the lodge and a member of the country club, a member of the club or whatever.
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So they've got various communities that they deal with.
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And the church doesn't become a centralized part of their family life.
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It's just another part of life.
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It's a accessory.
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It's another it's another adornment for the tree of life, if you will.
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So that's sort of off the subject.
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But it does show sort of how different people view church.
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And some people don't want to be part of a community.
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They they want to come into church and they want to not really engage.
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And I think that that's one of the things that I hope our church does is encourage people to want to know one another and fellowship with one another and be a part of each other's lives, because really the only way that we're going to really help stir one another up to love and good works is when we're really engaged with one another.
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And the only way to do that is to really love one another.
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To really actually care what's going on in each other's lives, not just, hey, I'll see you next Sunday and, you know, boom, boom, we're out, you know, but to engage one another.
37:57
And some people don't know how to do that, so that's come there's patience involved.
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That's what my wife's really good at talking to new people, much better than I am at engaging with people because she's a lot nicer than me.
38:07
So I've used her as a buffer and if she meets and talk, am I OK, you're right.
38:12
She's shaking her head.
38:13
Yes, she's much nicer than me.
38:15
So she put you on, put you in, you just happen to sit in the perfect spot and put you on the spot.
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So I let her do when we go new places, I let her talk to people.
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I just kind of hang back because she's better at it than me.
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And I'm usually embarrassed.
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Oh, by the way, my husband's a pastor.
38:33
Oh, so before before we move on to part three, I want to address one more thing.
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It's not in your notes, but I want to I just had this little additional thing.
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What is the church turned to Ephesians five? And let's just read what is the church? We're going to read verses twenty five to thirty two.
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Now, this is in the midst of talking about wives and husbands.
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The Apostle Paul uses the church as an example of how wives ought to treat their husbands in verse twenty five, he says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, that word, Ecclesiastes called out once his bride and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
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That she might be holy and without blemish.
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And it goes on to say in the same way, husbands should love their wives with their own bodies, he who loves his wife, loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nurses and terraces it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.
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Therefore, a man should leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.
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This mystery is profound.
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And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
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So so who what is the church in relationship to Christ? His bride.
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So here's something to just consider from that.
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When someone says, I hate the church, I hate the church to me, that's that's that's blasphemous because you're saying you hate the bride of Christ.
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You know, if somebody said, I like Keith, but I hate Jennifer, well, we're not friends, you know, because that's my wife and she's precious to me.
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And so, too, is the church precious to Christ.
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He has given himself for the church.
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And has the church had plenty of black eyes? Yeah.
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Has the church inflicted a lot of those wounds on herself? Yes.
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Has there been a lot of problems in the church throughout the years? Yes.
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But Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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That's the key.
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The church is Christ's.
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Now, when a church body is not doing what it should do and it's blaspheming Christ, yes, it needs to be called out.
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There needs to be things done.
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But that doesn't mean that we are to forsake the church because one local church or one group of churches is doing something wrong.
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We don't have the right to forsake what Christ has called his bride simply because it doesn't fit with our personal idea of what should and shouldn't be.
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So I always look to that.
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There's all these references to the New Testament about the church, how the church is supposed to run, how the church is supposed to operate, who are supposed to be in leadership in the church, how those men are supposed to be called, how those men are supposed to be identified.
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All these things are said throughout the New Testament.
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If anybody can read the New Testament and say Christ doesn't care whether or not you belong to a church, they are kidding themselves, because not only is there the imperative statement there in Hebrews 10, but there's all of this stuff about the church all throughout the New Testament.
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To say that, oh, Christ doesn't really care about that.
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To me is foolish.
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It's foolish.
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So let's move now to number three, replacing Lord's Day worship is a sin.
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And I am combining two things just in case I were to hear this or maybe you're hearing this and you're you're making connections in your mind.
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You're saying one thing I'm saying church and next thing I'm saying, Lord's Day worship, Lord's Day worship is the is the first and most important thing that the church does.
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They come together, they gather together to worship.
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So I'm saying this, somebody says, well, I'm a member of the church, but I don't ever go to church on Sunday.
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I don't ever go on Lord's Day to worship.
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No, in fact, our Constitution says this.
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It says if you join the church and you have not been in a Lord's Day worship service for more than four months, then you're not a member of the church anymore.
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It's one hundred and twenty.
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Is that one hundred twenty days? It's one hundred and twenty calendar days.
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If you have not been in a regular Lord's Day worship outside of means of necessity, and we talk about the elders being able to decide if somebody's been ill or somebody's been if somebody's, you know, for whatever reason, their job has kept them.
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But they've been coming on Wednesday or whatever.
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If there's something, you know, we've got guys with police officers, you know, there's things some people have to work on Lord's Day.
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So we work around those types of situations.
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But the reality is if somebody just says, well, I didn't want to go and they're gone for more than four months, they no longer are considered to be members in good standing.
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We don't do that because it's ugly.
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We do that because it's ridiculous to think otherwise.
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I'm still a member of First Baptist Church of downtown because I was baptized.
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Oh, that's a good one.
44:14
That's even better.
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I was baptized.
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No, I wasn't baptized.
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I went forward there when I was like six because a guy brought me from my neighborhood.
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You remember that, Pat? Somebody saw me on TV because they had their TV show.
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I remember you telling me somebody saw me.
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I was like six or something, went forward because I thought they were going to baptize us that night and had the biggest, prettiest swimming pool I'd ever seen.
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I was a little boy, but this one's even better.
44:36
I forgot this had been a better story.
44:38
Her mother doesn't attend church.
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But grew up in church.
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She got a call.
44:46
What happened? Oh, got a letter in the mail and a phone call and then a letter recently.
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She's lived here for 40 years.
44:53
Forty years.
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Hasn't been in the church in 40 years.
44:56
They're updating their membership records and wanted to make sure they had all their information correct.
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Send a picture.
45:03
Send a picture.
45:04
Yeah, send a picture.
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You haven't been we haven't talked to you in 40 years.
45:10
That's ridiculous.
45:13
There's a lot of there's a lot of issues that arise.
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So we talk about replacing Lord's Day being a sin.
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Let's talk about that very quickly.
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We'll kind of start winding everything down.
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Letter A, replacing Lord's Day as a sin.
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The Bible teaches that omitting something that is commanded is a sin to omit something.
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Which is commanded is a sin.
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If you want to write a Bible verse, James chapter four and verse 17.
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Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it to him, it is sin.
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I think the King James said he who knoweth to do right and do it, do it, do it not to him, it is sin.
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You know, if we know what the right thing to do is and we don't do it, it's sin.
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Being a Christian is certainly not about what we call ourselves.
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Being a Christian is what we do.
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I'm not teaching Lord's.
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I'm not teaching work salvation there.
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But I am telling you this, that if we say we are saved and we don't have any fruit in our lives, then Jesus simply tells us that our words of salvation are simply words.
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They're empty words.
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How can we say that avoiding the assembly of fellowship with other believers is anything less than sin if it's something we've been called to do by Scripture and yet we don't do it? When a person lives apart from the assembly of believers, they are living in active rebellion against God.
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It's just as simple as that.
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And so if a person comes to me and they say, do you believe that church attendance, that Lord's Day worship is essential for a person who is calling themselves a Christian? I respond by asking three questions.
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Number one, I say, is it proper Christian practice to consistently forsake the assembling of other Christians with other Christians? Hebrews 10 says no.
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Is it proper Christian practice to be devoid of public, corporate, unified worship and accountability? Hebrews 10 tells us no.
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The rest of the New Testament tells us no.
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Number three, is it proper Christian practice to be separate from the grace which is found in the ordinances and in the elements of worship? The Scripture tells us no.
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So the reality is the Bible emphatically tells us when somebody says, is it a sin to not be in church? The answer is yes.
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Letter B, the problem is we have stopped identifying sin as sin.
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We have stopped identifying sin as sin.
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We choose to explain things away.
47:57
Oh, well, they're there.
47:58
They had a lapse in judgment.
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They're just making a mistake.
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But the Bible says that.
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That type of a lifestyle is a it is functionally living in sin.
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You know, we talk about people who live in sin, oftentimes when you hear somebody say something about living in sin, what are they talking about? Living together out of marriage, they're sleeping together and you talk about living in sin.
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But you know what? That's not the only way a person can live in sin.
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That's just the way that society and we don't even think that anymore.
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But for a while, that was the way society sort of identified living in sin is two people who live together and weren't married.
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That's a serious issue, but that ain't the only way somebody can live in sin.
48:46
Might I propose to you the idea that a person who calls himself a Christian but doesn't attend church is living in sin? Because they're living in rebellion.
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Sin in a sense.
49:04
Huh? It says even my thoughts, you know.
49:17
Sure, sure.
49:18
But I'm talking about active rebellion.
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When we talk about the difference between living in sin and people, all Christians battle sin.
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We talked about this in our dads and dudes last night.
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The reality, you know, Galatians 5 talks about the flesh and spirit and the battle that goes on there.
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But the reality is there's a difference between those who battle sin and those who live in sin.
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And the person who lives in sin has chosen.
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For instance, I tell this story, but I think it's a good illustration.
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Guy came to this church, he and this woman, and they were fine people, nice people, really liked them.
49:51
Very nice people.
49:52
This is about eight years ago.
49:53
This is a while back.
49:56
He asked me for a meeting.
49:58
I wasn't even the pastor at the time.
49:59
I was the associate pastor, but I was preaching.
50:03
I was doing all the preaching.
50:06
So he he invited he asked me for a meeting.
50:09
We came came to church.
50:10
We met on Wednesday afternoon.
50:12
He comes down to my little office down there and he says, he says, Pastor Keith, I want to join your church.
50:20
Hey, fantastic.
50:22
Tell me about yourself.
50:23
Tell me about you and your wife.
50:25
Well, she's not my wife.
50:26
OK.
50:29
Do you live apart? Are you all dating? No, we live together.
50:36
Do you live? I'm trying to get memory out in the world.
50:39
Do you? Are you roommates? You know, did you see she sleep in one room, you sleep in another, you just sharing the bills.
50:48
I'm trying to get every opportunity here to to to not be living in sin.
50:53
Now, we we live as a married couple.
50:57
So do you realize that's a sin? Yeah.
51:02
Sounds like he was testing your knowledge.
51:05
Well, no, no, he said, yes, of course.
51:08
I said, you realize that's a problem.
51:10
Well, yeah.
51:11
I said, are you willing to repent? Well, what do you mean? I said, marry or leave.
51:21
Marry her or leave.
51:24
Well, she won't marry me.
51:27
Leave.
51:29
No, we're happy.
51:31
Well, you're happy in sin.
51:32
No, you can't join the church as much as I like you, as much as I think you're a nice guy.
51:40
You are living in sin.
51:41
And you know, when he did when I when I did that, I came under a lot of firestorm because he had a lot of friends in this church.
51:51
And a lot of people were angry with me because he was also financially fairly sound.
51:57
People said, don't you realize what you gave up? Yeah, I came up a sinner who would have brought that sin into our church.
52:04
We had a lady when I was a child.
52:06
Remember this lady who stood up in church and said, I'm living with so-and-so and people better stop talking about me.
52:13
Remember that? You don't remember.
52:15
Maybe it was Jack Bunning told me about it, but basically just stood up and said, nobody better.
52:18
And she made this announcement in church.
52:20
And I said, had that been 2014, we would have had an immediate call of the elders and we would have excommunicated this person.
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If they stand up and blatantly say I'm sinning and I'm unwilling to repent.
52:33
And.
52:35
We have to deal with that, but nobody did anything, if I allowed it, exactly.
52:45
Yeah.
52:45
And that's just the whole thing.
52:47
The whole thing comes down to, you know, we have to hold to that standard if somebody is living in sin.
52:53
So now I want to bring that back out.
52:56
What if the person would have come to me? What if a person would have come to me and said, I want to be a member here, but I don't ever want to go to church? I'll give you money.
53:05
I will send you money.
53:07
I'll send you money every week.
53:09
I'll send you a thousand dollars a week because I want my name on the roll here.
53:14
And I want people to respect me in the community because I have to be a member of a church to get respect.
53:19
It happens.
53:19
I will tell you what I'm saying right now is not a maybe this is something that happened years ago.
53:30
It did happen here.
53:31
That's what I'm talking about.
53:32
The person was a member on the roll for years.
53:36
This is when I was a young man.
53:38
Remember, I grew up here.
53:39
I've seen a lot of crazy things.
53:42
And they justify she sends money every week.
53:48
What? Well, I don't know about that, but she said she sends money to her name staying on the roll.
53:57
No, no.
53:58
We purged the rolls a long time ago.
54:00
That's one of the first things we did when establishing sovereign grace and moving away from the old church and establishing the new constitution.
54:06
As we said, the constitution now is the people who are here sign it.
54:10
The people who are here sign a new membership form.
54:14
Essentially, the church is brand new.
54:17
This church is four years old.
54:19
The church that preceded it is gone.
54:25
So biblically speaking, let her see.
54:27
And we got to finish up.
54:28
No time has gotten away from us.
54:31
Biblically speaking, it is obvious that gathered worship is not optional.
54:42
There is no biblical precedent for a lone wolf Christian anywhere in Scripture.
54:46
And I want to show you one last verse of Scripture and we'll close.
54:49
First Corinthians chapter 12.
54:52
Because when somebody wants to argue with me about whether or not church attendance is something that is mandatory and whether or not it's optional, I don't often automatically go to Hebrews 10 because a lot of people automatically.
55:04
Well, that that says assembling together doesn't say, Lord, they worship.
55:07
They want to argue where, again, I could I could take them to taking the task.
55:10
But instead, what I say is this.
55:12
Do you believe that believers are given spiritual gifts, that each believer is given a spiritual gift? Well, the Bible says we are.
55:20
Bible says we're given spiritual gifts.
55:22
What is the purpose of spiritual gifts? Turn to chapter 12, verse seven.
55:27
To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.
55:36
Your spiritual gift is not given to you for you.
55:39
Your spiritual gift is given to you for the church.
55:45
You have been given a gift.
55:47
Every one of you who has come under the Lordship of Christ and been given the gift of the Holy Spirit within you has been given a gift to be used within the church.
55:54
And it's not just for you.
55:56
It is for the church.
55:58
And when you are not in the church, working in the church, doing the living in the church, you are robbing the church of the gift that God has given you to give to the church.
56:12
So that's really the final word, is that when we have been given by Christ a gift to use in his church and yet we say out of that community, we are not investing.
56:25
And what does the Bible say about the person who was given the talent and he went and buried it in the ground? He said, you worthless servant, you worthless servant.
56:37
It would have been better if you would have at least invested it in the bank.
56:41
Remember the parable? It would have been better if at least you were in the church and you weren't using your gift.
56:46
But no, you didn't even go.
56:50
Now I'm stretching the meaning of the parable a bit there, but can you see how it relates? The worthless servant who has been given a gift that has made no investment at all with that gift.
57:05
So questions for discussion.
57:07
We're out of time, but here are some things to think about.
57:10
What excuses have you heard for people avoiding late in Lord's Day worship? And we've already talked about them.
57:16
And how do you personally respond? How do you personally respond? So I would I would have you think about those because I don't know about you, but I have people all in my life that tell me there's no reason to go to church.
57:29
How would you respond? Let's pray.
57:33
Father, thank you for this time of study.
57:36
Thank you for this series.
57:37
I pray that it has been beneficial for your people.
57:40
I pray that through it, they will have been challenged and that ultimately that you've been glorified.
57:46
I thank you for this season.
57:49
And I pray that as we do see people who don't come to church often in church.
57:53
That we might.
57:56
In a loving way.
57:58
Call them back to obedience to your word.
58:04
In Jesus name, Amen.