Flying sure ain’t what it used to be … amen? You have to get to the airport three hours before your flight … go through the TSA checkpoint and get scanned … and then you have to wait and hope that your flight isn’t delayed … or worse, canceled. But we go through all this because of the people waiting for us at the other end, amen? You walk down the hallway, you turn the corner into the waiting area, and there they are … and there’s that instant recognition and joy and all the rigors of the trip just fade into the background.
Or maybe we’re the ones waiting in the airport … checking the flights on the schedule board … waiting to catch that first glimpse of our loved one or loved ones … and there is that sense of … well … connection the second you see each other.
We are more connected that any other generation in the history of the world … cell phones, skype, zoom, e-mail, the internet, countless social media aps. My daughter can send me a picture from Miami Springs, Florida, while she is talking to me on the phone over 700 miles away, and I’ll get it on my phone or laptop in less time than it took for me to say that, amen? It’s one thing to talk to her or see her on the phone and I am grateful for the technology that we have today … but it doesn’t compare to that moment when I see her and we get to spend some actual “face” time with her.
There is something deep within all of us that craves human connection, which is why social media is so popular and has become so massive. Charles Colson notes that the age of personal computers has pushed individualism to a new level. Rather than connecting with people face to face, we’re doing it more and more electronically. “In an increasingly impersonal world,” says media theorist Steven Johnson, “people really want to connect with one another” (Time. “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live.” June 5, 2009).
Our need, our sense of “connection” is so strong and runs so deep that it even hopes to transcend life. When a person dies, we hope and we pray that we will one day see them again and never be separated from them ever again by death. We hold on to their memories and we carry them in our hearts but we long for the day when we will no longer need to hold on to their memories because we will be with them and they will be with us forever and ever … which is why we worry about the state of their soul or their salvation or our own, amen?
I believe that our desire … our need … for “connection” is divine and God-given. When God created the universe, He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t lacking but He wanted to share His marvelous creation with someone who could appreciate it and enjoy it as much as He did … and so He created us. “Us.” He didn’t create just one of us. He created two … Adam and Eve … so that they could share the experience of sharing life and being together just as He wanted to share life and be together with us … and He told us to go make more people so that we could share life and love … so that we could comfort each other … help each other … so that we wouldn’t be all alone. “Two are better than one,” wrote Solomon, “because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
We are hard-wired for connection. One of the most severe forms of punishment is solitary confinement. “Studies have shown that solitary confinement can cause prisoners to develop mental health problems and exacerbate existing psychological issues. One of the main reasons for this is that those in solitary confinement can't enjoy human interaction and communication, which are important in maintaining good mental health” (justiceaction.org.au/solitary-confinement). How long can we go without human contact or limited human contact? It varies from person to person. "Some people have an immediate, profoundly negative reaction to it," says Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied the impact of solitary confinement on inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in California where prisoners confined to solitary confinement are held in cells little larger than a double bed. There are no windows. “The prisoners get 90 minutes of exercise a day. The rest of the time is spent staring at the steel door and the smooth concrete walls - or the television” (Kremer, W., & Hammond, C. “How Do People Survive Solitary Confinement? BBC World Service, June 13, 2013; www.bbc.com/news/magazine).
"For some people, there is something terrifying about being placed in an environment where you are completely alone, isolated from others and where you cannot connect to other people,” says Professor Haney. Those inmates who are not affected by this “isolation panic” may still slip into long-term depression and hopelessness. Eventually, the environment of solitary confinement takes its toll on cognitive ability, as the prisoners' intellectual skills begin to decay. They may suffer lapses in memory and, if in solitary confinement long enough, may even undergo a complete breakdown. "There are instances of people who literally go insane in solitary confinement - I've seen it happen," says Professor Haney. “In extreme cases, a person’s identity is so badly damaged or essentially destroyed,” says Professor Haney “that it is impossible for them to reconstruct it” (Kramer & Hammond, ibid.) According to an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, isolation can be as distressing as physical torture (Leonard, J. What Are the Effects of Solitary Confinement on Health? Medical News Today, August 6, 2020.)
Albert Woodfox is America’s longest-serving solitary confinement prisoner in America. For 44 years he would wake up in his 6ft by 9ft concrete cell and brace himself for the day ahead … each day stretched before him identical to the one before (“What is the Purpose of Solitary Confinement?” R4DN, October 6, 2020; http://r4dn.com).
We need human contact. We crave human contact. We literally can go insane if we don’t have it … which is why “church” … the actual gathering together in worship … is so, so important. It is where the contact between Heaven and earth, between us and God, and us with each other comes together in a divine way. As one author pointed out, “we become something much larger than the sum of our parts” (Jeremiah, David. Living with Confidence in a Chaotic World. Nashville: W Publishing Group; 2009; p. 95). We are “the one body of Christ – an assembly of parts that only function in unison. This we call the church” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 95). In church, we experience not just face-to-face connection but soul-to-soul connection.
You know, I am grateful for all the ways that we can connect through technology … especially during the pandemic and times of bad weather when we can’t physically get together but it’s not the same as when we are gathered together in the church … at least not for me. I’m really confused that people have gotten … quote … “out of the habit” … end quote … of coming church. I couldn’t wait for the vaccines to come out so that we could gather together again … and I’m not just saying that because I’m a pastor. Watching “church” on TV or looking at each other on a computer screen … it’s something useful … it’s something that we might have to do from time to time … but it just isn’t the same as “going” to church. Am I alone on this? I hope not. Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). “We can always experience the presence of God alone,” says Pastor David Jeremiah, “and we should do that every day [but] special things happen when believers gather together to share in Him” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 96). When we gather, when we become the “body of Christ,” we experience a unique form of godliness that can’t be attained as separate human entities. We were created to live in community and not in isolation.
Imagine never being able to worship together. There are many in the world who can. When Mary Saunders was serving as a missionary in Africa, she would have to meet with new converts one-on-one secretly because the area that she was in was predominantly Islamic and intolerant of Christian practices and beliefs. In her diary, she records reviewing a memory verse with a young Somali man. The verse was Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the LORD hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” She then began singing it … “This is the day/this is the day/that the Lord has made/that the Lord has made/let us rejoice/let us rejoice/and be glad in it” (Les Garrett, “This is the Day,” 1967). Her student was delighted and asked her, “When there is more than one Christian, what other things do you do?” Mary realized that the idea of corporate worship, music, praying together, Bible study – all these things that she took for granted – were unimaginable to someone whose experience was limited to private Bible study and prayer (Ellison, N. Mama John: The lifelong Missionary Service of Mary Saunders. Birmingham, AL: New Hope, 1996; p. 8). This is the case for many, many Christians around the world.
The author of Hebrews says that we should not only gather but gather with an attitude or air of expectancy.
“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25).
“… as you see the Day approaching” … and the word “Day” is capitalized … what “Day” is he talking about? The “Day” of Christ’s return when He comes to claim His bride, which is us, the Church … with a capital “C.” Unlike today, where we are having trouble getting people to come back to church after the pandemic, the author of Hebrews is suggesting that we should be gathering together more frequently instead of less because each passing day means that we are truly one day closer to the “Day” when Christ will come, amen? The realization of that should motivate us to be busy with our Father’s business and it is very clear that part of that business should be to stay connected to one another through the fellowship of the church. We should devote ourselves to one another as we continue to prepare ourselves and the body of Christ for the day when Christ arrives to reclaim us, amen?
One of the central themes of Hebrews is “connectivity.” There are three imperatives or exhortations commanding us to stay connected to the body or Church in the passage that we read today. Verse 22 reads: “… let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (emphasis mine). Verse 23 reads: “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for HE who has promised is faithful” (emphasis mine). Verse 24 reads: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds” (emphasis mine). What do we hear in all three verses? “Let us.” Not “let you” … singular … but “let us” … plural. And then verse 25 says, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another” (emphasis mine). Let us meet “together” and encourage “one another.”
Worshipping together is more than just something pleasant to do on a Sunday morning. It has immense spiritual and divine significance. The term “gathering together” in verse 25 is actually a very unique and singular word that is only used twice in the whole New Testament … here in verse 25 and again in 2nd Thessalonians 2:1, which reads: “As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here” (emphasis mine).
You have to listen closely to catch the distinct flavor of this unique word. In Hebrews 10:25, the word is used to signify the gathering of Christians together … as in one body … in preparation and expectation of the Day of the Lord’s coming. The same can be heard in 2nd Thessalonians 2:1 … which also speaks of us gathering together as one body in anticipation and preparation of the Lord’s coming. The use of the word for “gathering together” speaks or suggests two “gatherings” … one in the present … like the one we’re participating in now … in anticipation of Christ coming and gathering us together in the future. Our present gathering is a foreshadowing and celebration of the “ultimate day” when Christ will come to gather up His church. As one author put it, it will no doubt be “thrilling to the soul” but our “current fellowship is just as exciting, just as supernatural, and Christ is just as present” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 100-101).
It breaks my heart when I see someone out and about that I haven’t seen in church for a while. I ask them where they’ve been … not to accuse them of anything or put them on the spot but because I am concerned about them, and to let them know that their presence … or rather, their absence … has been noticed. I hear a lot of excuses but the one I hear most frequently is that they watch it on TV. Like I said, it’s a useful tool when you can’t get to church but it is a poor, poor substitute for getting together and worshipping together. The church is up-close and personal. As the author of Hebrews cautions us, we must not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some (Hebrews 10:25) … and here’s why I feel so strongly about it.
First of all, gathering together is a privilege … one that we take for granted. Joel Rosenberg is an author, an American-Israeli communications strategist, and a Christian convert who wrote about a rapidly growing underground church in Iran. Like the Christians in Africa, Christians in Iran are forbidden to gather together and so the pastor broadcasts the service via the internet … memories of COVID, amen? As Mr. Rosenberg reports: “People are eager to hear the sermons and lessons because they worry about what would happen if the secret police were to catch them attending a Christian church. They don’t dare play Christian music in their homes or sing praise songs aloud because neighbors could turn them in. So they depend completely upon the pastor’s broadcasts for their worship and fellowship in the world” (Rosenberg, J.C. Inside the Revolution. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House; 2009; p. 417).
As I said, we do what have to do but this is what they miss out on by not being able to gather together. First of all, they don’t get to meet and share love and fellowship like they can in corporate worship. They don’t get to do what the writer of Hebrews describes as “provoking” one another to love and do good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). We don’t get to experience the kind of “agape” love that Christians experience when they come together as a body. What is “love” if you have no one to “love”? Those people that I described earlier who are locked up in solitary confinement are cut off from anyone that they love and they have no one there with them that can give love them too. They can neither receive love nor give love … and we heard about what happens when we’re cut off from human company or don’t have loving, caring human beings around us to interact with.
When we gather on Zoom, I love all of you … but that’s because I know you, I’ve met you, I’ve interacted with you in the flesh. Suppose the only time I ever met you was on Zoom. I could get to know you … care about you … maybe even love you but you would still be an image on a screen and it just wouldn’t be the same as if I could see you and touch you, am I right? The problem with social media is that we “know” a lot of people but don’t really connect with them in any meaningful way.
Gathering together lets us get to know each other and experience life together. We eat together, sing together, pray together. We get to worship side-by-side before the throne of God. We are united in our love for God and our love for God inspires and encourages us to love each other. As one pastor put it: “Faith, hope, and love grow within us as we come to church and interact together: faith in Christ, hope in the future, and love for each other as our hearts intertwine into a true spiritual family” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 105). That’s a beautiful image, isn’t it? Our hearts intertwined into a true spiritual family. That’s how I feel about you and I know that’s how you all feel about each other because I feel it every time that we gather together.
When we gather together, we also provoke each other. That doesn’t sound very loving. Usually we use the word “provoke” to mean riling someone up to upset them or start a fight but the word that the author of Hebrews uses means to “stir up.” It can mean provoking someone to the point that they start a fight but it also means to inspire and encourage each other into action. We should “stir” each other up and incite each other to do God’s work. We should provoke each other to go out into the world and not retreat from it, amen? The sermon should provoke you to go tell people about the Lord. The music should inspire and stir you up to go share the Good News with family and friends. Hearing what God is doing in the world around you should give you a hunger and desire to be a part of it. And the best part of it is that we don’t do it alone … we can’t do it alone. “Two are better than one,” remember, “because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. … A threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, 12). In other words, we can do more for Christ together than we can by ourselves, amen?
When we are united in purpose and heart, we also encourage each other: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds … encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:25). To “encourage” someone is to “pour courage” into them … literally to “give them heart.” We encourage each other so that we can go out into a world that is sorely need of encouragement right now, am I right? One of the ways to “provoke” someone is to “encourage” them. It’s hard to be inspired to go out and face the world when you are down yourself, amen? Church is the place where we come to be encouraged and stirred up, right? If you are discouraged by life, we’re here to pour courage and hope back into your heart. We’re here to stir up your spirit so that we can go out and encourage a world that is in despair together … so that we can go out into a world that specializes in finding fault … a world that gangs up on people and knocks them down every chance it gets. We can provide the world with real encouragement, real relationships, and real agape through the agape and inspiration that we experience here with each other. Nothing can come close to the hope and peace that we have to offer the world because we are merely sharing the love, the hope, and the peace that we experience when we are together in God’s presence, amen? We believe in what we have to give to the world because we have experienced what we have to give to the world firsthand through each other. Let me repeat that: We believe in what we have to give to the world because we have experienced what we have to give to the world firsthand through each other. “Living outside the fellowship of the church carries its own penalty,” wrote one pastor. “It’s like a world without sky, or one with no music but plenty of noise. Why would anyone want to deprive [themselves] of the good gifts of God?” he asks. “Fellowship in a local church is the most beautiful of all” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 109). I agree and I hope that you do too.
Let me give you a famous example of what happens when we encourage and provoke each other to go out and share what we receive here so abundantly. Charles Spurgeon is known as the “Prince of Preachers” whose preaching took England by storm in the 1800s. We have Mary King to thank for that. Spurgeon grew up as a non-believer. With no idea what do in the future and no career in mind, he decided to study Latin and Greek. While attending school in Newmarket, he met a person whose influence set the course of his life. It wasn’t a professor or instructor or even a preacher. It was an elderly woman by the name of Mary King who worked as a cook in the school’s kitchen (Anderson, C. Travel with CH Spurgeon: In the Footsteps of the Prince of Preachers. Epson, Surry, UK: Day One Publications; 2002; p. 16). How did she encourage Charles Spurgeon to consider walking the Christian path and living the Christian life? She simply talked to him, got to know him a little bit, and then invited him to come to her church … where he met other Christians who encouraged and inspired him. See how that works? She provoked him to come to church. They provoked him to go into ministry and millions of people owe Mary King a debt of gratitude because of Spurgeon’s contribution to their faith. We use stories like Mary King’s to encourage and provoke us to love and to do good deeds. God uses ordinary, available Christians like Mary King to stir us up. If God can do that through someone like a school lunch lady, what can He do with ordinary, available Christians like ourselves, amen? When we see the joy that others experience from being willing vessels for holy encouragement, it inspires us, it provokes us to become willing vessels for holy encouragement too, amen? If, as one pastor pointed out, such power was in Mary King’s hand, it’s in yours as well (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 110).
The writer of Hebrew is encouraging us too. As the “Day” of the Lord gets closer and closer, our faithfulness in church attendance should increase. Each day that it doesn’t happen brings us one day closer to the possibility that tomorrow could be that “Day” … with a capital “D.” “As we see the day approaching, we should be motivated to build the body of Christ into something that justly glorifies God” (Jeremiah, ibid., p. 112). The church is the living presence of a holy God in a fallen world. We are the tangible, flesh and blood evidence of an invisible hope, dressed in the skin of all the people who have found hope. When the world seems to be coming unglued … as it appears to be right now … we need to provoke and encourage each other more than ever to go out and share that hope with a world desperately in need of some hope and encouragement, amen?
I want to close with the story of a church in southern Europe called the “House of Many Lamps.” It was built in the 16th century at time when they had no artificial light. Each seat had a receptacle built into it to hold a lamp, which the worshippers brought with them. I want you to picture the local villagers carrying their light through the darkness … all the lights converging on the church and then going inside. Now imagine yourself carrying your light into the church … your light joining with all the other lights inside. Beautiful, amen?
Now imagine that you decided to stay home one morning. Guess what? Your light is missing, amen? There is a dark spot where you usually sit. You may not think that your one little lamp makes a difference but it does. We notice it. Now imagine if others began following your example and stay home too. This church would grow darker and darker. First there would be just a few dark spots … then more … then half the church would be dark … and empty. It’s discouraging to walk into a half empty house of God, am I right? Just look around. How many lights are missing here today? And we are by no means alone. More and more churches today have more empty seats than full ones. If we continue to lose lights we will soon resemble Europe, where the darkness has already engulfed over half a continent that once dominated Christendom and gave the world such luminaries as Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Spurgeon and many, many more. You might not think that one little light would make a difference but your little light does. If you’re not here to provoke and encourage us to love and do good works, you’re also not here for us to provoke and encourage you to love and do good works … and Lord knows the world does a good job of provoking but not so much to love and do good works as it is to divide and separate. When Christ comes, may He find His Church radiating love and busy changing the world by our good deeds, amen?
