Title: Why Go to Church: Community!
Text: Luke 15
Thesis: Church is a place where we may express our love for God, receive spiritual instruction and nurture for ourselves and our children, experience the loving care of God and be of encouragement to each other.
Introduction
In case you think flagging church attendance is a new problem, it isn’t. In 1756 Benjamin Franklin led a volunteer militia in defending a Pennsylvania colony against Indian attacks. Franklin and his militia built a fort in the Blue Mountain region and upon completion the militia moved inside the walls.
In his autobiography he wrote about the militia chaplain who complained to him that so few of the men in the militia attended his worship services. Franklin thought about it and settled upon a solution. He put the chaplain in charge of the daily rum ration. It is said that he said to the chaplain, “It is perhaps below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to only distribute it after church, you would have them all about you.”
The chaplain accepted the duty and Franklin reported that thereafter the men were punctual in their church attendance.
We’ll not be passing out shooters of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum this morning but we do invite you to enjoy an ice cream sundae following the service today.
Hopefully there are reasons more compelling than ice cream for getting yourself and your family up and around and faithfully attending church from week to week.
The first and most obvious and perhaps most guilt inducing reason is because God says so.
I. Because God says so!
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God…” Exodus 20:8-10
The commandment does not specifically say that you have to go to church on Sunday. It does say that we are to keep a Sabbath. And from the earliest practices of God’s people, attending worship was the norm. Jesus observed the Sabbath and the early Christians and Christians throughout history have observed a Sabbath and part of their Sabbath was attending public worship services. “As was his custom,” the bible says, “Jesus went to the synagogue on the Sabbath.” And it was “on the first day of the week” that the early Christians gathered for public worship.
The Ten Commandments are given to instruct us in how it is we are to relate to God and others. The first four commandments are about our relationship with God:
• “You shall have no other God before me.”
• “You shall not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water below…”
• “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.”
• “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy”.
The remaining six commandments instruct us in how we are to relate to others:
• “Honor you father and mother…”
• “You shall not murder.”
• “You shall not commit adultery.”
• “You shall not steal.”
• “You shall not give false testimony…”
• “You shall not covet …”
Jesus said that all of the Ten Commandments can be summed up in two simple commandments, which we call the Great Commandments:
• “Love the Lord your God with all you heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
• “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commands.”
I suspect there is at least one experience shared by nearly everyone in this room… I suspect that your mother and your father at some point in their discussion of why you had to do something or why you could not do something, fell back on the old power phrases, “Because I said so!”
You whined, “But why do I have to go to church?” And your mother said, “Because I said so.” Unfortunately I suspect I pulled that one out of the hat a few times myself in my parenting.
Perhaps we might frame the whole “because God says so” argument in a more positive way by saying:
“Going to church to honor and worship God is one of the ways we show our love for God.”
Worshipping God and the nurturing of our spirits is not just an adult thing… worship and nurture is for our children as well.
II. Our children need spiritual guidance.
“The Lord your God is one God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…” Deuteronomy 6:4-7
In his book Revolutionary Parenting, George Barna says there are three dominant approaches to parenting in the United States.
1. Parenting by default is what Barna terms the path of least resistance. This approach is influenced by cultural norms and traditions. The objective is to keep everyone as happy as possible so the parents can still enjoy the other prioritized aspects of their lives.
2. Trial-and-error parenting is based on the notion that every parent is an amateur at raising children. There are no absolute guidelines to follow, so the best that parents can do is experiment, observe outcomes, and improve upon their successes and failures. In this incremental approach, the goals of parenting are to continually perform better than most other parents.
3. And third, Revolutionary parenting takes God's words on life and family at face value and seeks to apply them faithfully and consistently.
Perhaps the most startling difference in these approaches to parenting has to do with the desired outcomes. "Parenting by default and trial-and-error are both approaches that enable parents to raise their children without the role of parenting defining their life," Barna explained. "Revolutionary parenting, which is based on one's faith in God, makes parenting a life priority. Those who engage in revolutionary parenting define success as intentionally facilitating faith-based transformation in the lives of their children, rather than simply accepting the aging and survival of the child as a satisfactory result." (Barna Update, www.barna.org 4/9/07)
Most parents believe they are primarily responsible for the spiritual development of their children, but according to the Barna Research Group, few of them spend time interacting with their youngsters on religious matters.
Close to nine out of ten parents of children under 13 (85 percent) believe they have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about religious beliefs and spiritual issues. However, the survey found that parents have no plan for the spiritual development of their children.
If spiritual instruction is important for children and parents know that it is important, surely part of the parenting plan would include seeing that the children receive spiritual instruction in our Friends and Followers and Kids Klub, Confirmation and youth group ministries of our church. (www.PreachingToday.com/illustrations/2003/august/14532.html)
A third reason we attend church is in our understanding of the nature of God.
III. God cares about us.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home and calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” Luke 15:3-8
In the parables of The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin and The Lost Son we are reminded that God loves us and wants us to be secure in his care. When we wander off, Jesus comes looking for us and when he finds us he brings us back into the church community where we are safe, sustained and nurtured in our walk with God.
When I was three years old I wandered off. We lived on a farm southeast of Winterset, Iowa. A half-mile to the west and a half mile to the south my aunt Leah and Uncle Harold lived on their farm. When my mother discovered I had gone missing she panicked and went to the field to get my dad. They frantically searched everywhere in all the barn and farm buildings, they checked the wells and stock tanks. They checked our pond. They searched high and low… and then the phone rang and it was my Aunt Leah calling to tell my mother that I had just showed up at her house asking for a piece of pie.
Over the years I heard the story told many times by my parents and by Aunt and Uncle and never once did I ever get a hint of them being angered by my wandering off… only loving concern for my well-being and huge relief and joy when I turned up.
The shepherd was not content until all of his sheep were safely gathered in the flock. The woman was not content until the lost coin was safely back in her coin purse with the other coins. And the father was not content until his lost son was back home again with the family.
It seems church is one of the places from which we wander off. We used to go but we got distracted or we got busy or we got tired or we got angry or we got lazy or we got whatever… we just wandered off.
One of the compelling reasons for getting back and being in the habit of going to church is because God loves us and it is in the framework of the flock or the church home that we receive nurture and care for our souls and sustenance and strength for living our lives. We may understand life in the faith community as the place God wants us to be.
The church community or faith family is also a place where we can encourage and be encouraged.
IV. Church is a good place to encourage each other.
And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25
In the letter to the Hebrews the writer speaks to the need for us to be of mutual encouragement to each other and to do that encouraging in the context of the gathered faith community.
Apparently some had gotten out of the habit of going to church and he is writing to encourage them to get back into the habit or regular practice of church attendance and to use the occasions of their gathering together to “spur” each other to be loving and do good deeds.
The image of a rider on horseback digging his spurs into the flank of the horse is unpleasant. The image of someone taking a sharp stick goading an oxen to pull harder is not a pleasant image. The image of a person wielding a whip to drive a beast or a person to work harder is not a pleasant image.
We don’t go to church to spurred or goaded or whipped into action…. But in the context of being encouraged and being of encouragement to others is a helpful image.
Author Max Lucado tells of discovering the importance of healthy encouragement in a half-Ironman triathlon. After the 1.2 mile swim and the 56 mile bike ride, he didn't have much energy left for the 13.1 mile run. Neither did the fellow jogging next to him. He asked him how he was doing and soon regretted posing the question.
"This stinks. This race is the dumbest decision I've ever made." Lucado’s response to him? "Goodbye." He said, “I knew if I listened too long, I'd start agreeing with him.”
He caught up with a 66-year-old grandmother. Her tone was just the opposite. "You'll finish this," she encouraged. "It's hot, but at least it's not raining. One step at a time…don't forget to hydrate…stay in there." He said, “I ran next to her until I finally had to slow down." He said she waved and kept going. (Max Lucado, Facing Your Giants, Group Publishing, 2006, p. 65)
When we gather it is an opportunity for us to be of encouragement to each other. It is not a place suitable for complaining and offering disparaging or discouraging remarks.
Conclusion:
There is a story that has been around for years. It is the story of a longtime church member who became increasingly infrequent in going to church and eventually he just stopped. After a time the pastor decided to needed to see what was going on and paid a visit to the gentleman’s home. He found him alone, sitting in his big easy chair in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace. The man invited the pastor in and pointed to a chair near the fireplace where he could sit. After the initial greeting the two men sat quietly, watching the blazing fire dancing in, around the over the logs.
Then the pastor took the fire tongs and picked up a brightly burning ember, which he placed to one side of the hearth by itself. The one ember’s flame began to flicker and eventually died. And soon it was a cold, gray coal with no life and no warmth whatsoever.
Then the pastor took the tongs and placed the ember in the middle of the flre. Within seconds it began to glow with light and warmth, ignited by the flames around it.
When the pastor was preparing to leave the man said, “Thank you for the sermon Pastor, I will see you on Sunday.”
Who knows if such an incident ever happened? But it does remind us that in the faith community there is warmth and light and life which is not possible when we go it alone. There is good in being together.
In summary, when we are faithful in participating in the life and ministry of our church:
• We love God, ourselves and others.
• We care for the spiritual nurture of our children.
• We honor God’s desire for us to be safe, nurtured and sustained in life.
• We encourage each other to live good and godly lives.
