Sunday School at 9 am | worship at 10 am

Let's Go to Church!

Yeah, we know.  Last week the headline said, Don’t Go to Church.
What’s the real message here, should we go to church or not?  Yes, go to church.  But don’t just go to church.  Be the church!  That was last week’s message.  This week, the message centers on the connection between going to church and living in the real world.

 

Many years ago I interviewed for the pastor position at a church in a large city.  During the interview, the pulpit committee asked me some questions I wasn’t really expecting.  One of the questions was, “Is it permissible for a Christian to smoke?”  Here was my response:  “If you’re a Christian, and you smoke, you can still go to heaven.  In fact, you might get there quicker than you planned.”  Another man on that
committee asked me this question:  “What do you think about church attendance?”  My response:  “I’m in favor of it.”  Still am.

 

Of course, if you read last week’s article and attended the service last Sunday, you may remember that the title of the article and the sermon was Don’t Go to Church.  Now you’re reading this article with the title, Let’s Go to Church, and you’re hearing me say I’m in favor of church attendance. Are you confused? I understand if you are.  In my article and sermon last week, I was not trying to persuade you to not come to church.  My intent was to persuade you to not merely come to church, but to be the church.  So, if there was ever a doubt in your mind about my position on church attendance, I’m in favor of it.

 

But why is church attendance so important?

 

Some people—make that most people—see no connection between what goes on in church on Sunday, and what goes on in the world all week long.  Therefore, they see no need to go to church. Others would agree that there's no connection between church attendance on Sunday and real life the rest of the week, and there's not supposed to be. For them, worship is an escape from the real world. Beautiful music, friendly people, awe-inspiring moments…they don't find much of these things in their everyday lives. That's why they come to church.  How about you?  Why do you go to church, or not go to church?

 

This is Week Three in our sermon series, Transformational Church.  Our text is from Acts 4.  Peter and John had been thrown into jail for healing a beggar and preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. The authorities didn’t like that message, but they decided not to punish them.  Instead, they sent them away with a stern warning to stop preaching in Jesus' name.  Think with me for a moment.  If you had just spent a night jail unjustly, where’s the first place you would go after having been released? Home, to see your family? To a law office to file a complaint? The first place Peter and John went after a night in jail was to church.

 

And when they got to their own people, what did the group do? Stop praying and throw a party? No, they continued in prayer. They raised their voices in praise. They turned to Scripture for wisdom. They asked God for courage and strength, and they experienced the presence of God. In other words, they worshiped. Their instinctive response to their real-world trial was to gather with God's people and worship. Apparently, there was no disconnect for them between worship and the real world.

 

We don't come to church to escape the world but to encounter God—to turn to Him and hear from Him and be shaped by Him in light of what happens in this life. When we do that, God meets us and fills us with whatever we need to face our realities.