It was Palm Sunday and, because of strep throat, the family’s 5-year-old son had to stay home from church with a baby-sitter. When the family returned home carrying palm branches, he asked what they were for.
His mother gently explained. "Well honey, people held them over Jesus’ head as he walked by,"
They boy suddenly got upset, folded his arms and sat down in kitchen chair, "Wouldn’t you know it," he said, "the one Sunday I don’t go, He showed up!"
APPLY: What was that boy saying? He was saying that he was used to going to church. He loved going to church.
But when he went to church, he went expecting see Jesus.
There are a lot of people today who go to church, without expecting to see Jesus. They go to see their friends. They go because they like the good moral atmosphere it can give their family. They go to fulfill an obligation or out of habit. BUT there are many who don’t go to see Jesus. And that can be a problem.
There’s a clever country song out by Brad Paisley that goes this way:
They’ve read the scripture, they’ve passed the plate
And we’re both praying he don’t preach late
But he’s getting "amens," and that’s just our luck
Yeah it’s 86 degrees outside and he’s just getting warmed up
Oh, you and me, we could be soakin’ up that sun
Finding out just how fast your brother’s boat’ll run
I tell you that there ain’t nothing that’ll test your faith
Like a long sermon on a pretty Sunday.
Now, that’s a catchy song and it has clever lyrics. I’ve even caught myself singing a little of it now & then (pause…) but I hate that song. What I hear this singer saying is that he has to be in church - but he doesn’t really want to be there.
Why doesn’t he want to be there? There’s something else he’d rather be doing. He isn’t in church to see Jesus. He’s there to fulfill a moral obligation.
When people get that kind of an attitude in their hearts, (that they have to go - it’s a moral obligation), sooner or later its going to show up in their actions. They’re not gonna want to be going to church every Sunday. Maybe every other Sunday, or once a month, but they won’t want to take this thing too seriously. Because, frankly, it’s something they "have" to do, not something they "want" to do.
Now, this is not a new problem. This attitude has dogged church since the beginning. Hebrews 10:25 tells us "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…" There were people, even then, who didn’t really want to go to church. But, why would people get in the habit of not meeting together for worship? Well, because, when they did show up - it wasn’t to see Jesus. And that’s sad, because Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 "…where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
That’s the best & really the only reason we should come to church - to see Jesus. Anything else really isn’t worship. And this is the kind of attitude (coming to see Jesus) that we all need. It an attitude that we want to place in the hearts of every new Christian when they arise from the baptismal tank. But, how can we do that? How can we create within people’s hearts the desire to want to go to church with an expectation of seeing Jesus?
I. We can start by appreciating what Jesus has done for us. If we don’t appreciate what Jesus has done for you and me, church will always be a "have to," not a "want to."
(pause…)
So, what did Jesus do? What was it that He did that was so all fired important that I should WANT to come to church?
The writer of Hebrews tells us that what Jesus did was to change our entire relationship with God. AND to help us visualize what this meant, the writer goes back into the Old Testament and draws us a picture.
Back in the Old Testament, before Jesus died on cross, God was basically unapproachable. (At this point I showed an overhead of the tabernacle so the audience could visualize what was being said).
This is a picture of the tabernacle which was at the center of Israel’s encampment in the desert. This tabernacle was the place where God’s people worshipped. If you were of the tribe of Judah, or Benjamin, or Manasseh (or any other of the tribes), your worship of God involved offering an animal sacrifice. And you brought that sacrifice to the gate on the East side of the tabernacle courtyard. There a priest came out from the gate and slit the throat of your offering and carried it back inside with him. BUT you weren’t allowed inside the that gate, because if you passed inside the courtyard area, you were killed. They stoned you to death. YOU COULD NOT APPROACH GOD BEYOND THAT GATE.
Only the priests and the Levites were allowed to minister to God on other side of gate. They would place your sacrifice on the altar and offer it up as a sweet fragrance to God. These priests could also go inside the tent-like structure you see here. This was tabernacle itself.
The tabernacle was divided into two parts, separated by a curtain. The priests were allowed inside the first half of the tent and they ministered to God by taking care of the 3 pieces of furniture that were found there: the lampstand, a table holding loaves of bread, and an altar for incense.
BUT, they weren’t allowed beyond curtain into the room called the Holy of Holies where the ark of the covenant was held. If these priests passed beyond the curtain, they died - either by stoning, or by God’s hand. THEY COULD NOT APPROACH GOD BEYOND THAT CURTAIN.
Only one person was allowed inside the Holy of Holies -the High Priest - and he only once a year, to offer a special sacrifice for the people’s sins. But even the High Priest was not allowed to look upon the things of God there. As he entered the room, it was filled with smoke. And it was a fearful experience. Bells encircled the bottom of his robe and a rope was placed around his ankle. While inside, if the bells ever stopped tinkling, those outside were fairly certain his sin had made him unacceptable to God and his dead body could then be pulled from the presence of God.
EVEN THE HIGH PRIEST COULD NOT APPROACH GOD OPENLY AND WITHOUT FEAR.
The writer author of Hebrews point was simply this: before Jesus died - you couldn’t approach God in worship. Your sins would have kept you separate from God. You might have known God loved you but you could never feel close to Him. Never totally at ease in His presence.
But all that changed when Jesus died on the cross. Matthew 27 tells us that "when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split" (Mt. 27:50-51).
Why would that happen? Why would this curtain, the symbol of our separation from God, be split from top to bottom at Christ’s death? Because, when Jesus died, He broke down the walls that stood between God and us.
Hebrews tells us: "…we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body" (Heb 10:19-20). When Jesus died on the cross, the promise of God declared in Jeremiah (and quoted here in Hebrews) became real for us "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more" (Jeremiah 31:34). In Jesus’ death, your sins, and my sins were removed. Forgiven. They ceased to exist. The guilt that would have kept us away from God was wiped clean.
BEFORE the cross - God was unapproachable. But now, because of the cross, we can approach God (not with fear) but with confidence, boldness, and a realization that we are accepted in His presence.
II. The 2nd thing we can do to develop love for church and a desire to see Jesus is to appreciate what we stand to lose.
ILLUS: Back in the 1600’s, the colony of Virginia had a law on the books that decreed that anyone who missed 3 consecutive worship services, was put to death! And I thought my parents were tough!
Notice what the writer of Hebrews tells us can happen if neglect worship: In Hebrews 10:37-38 he intimates that by "shrinking back" from our commitment to God, we make God unhappy. And one good way to upset God is skip out on church.
Hebrews 10:25-31 tells us that if we neglect worship risk slipping away from God and falling back into sin we invoke the anger God. He views this kind of behavior as trampling "the Son of God under foot," treating "as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him," and as an insult to "the Spirit of grace" (Heb 10:29).
ILLUS: I know a man, baptized into Jesus, BUT he stopped coming to church. He didn’t think he needed it. He told me he talked to God all the time and he worshipped God "in his own way." But, he went back to drinking, started living with his girlfriend, and now he’s spending serious time in jail, because of his lifestyle.
Now, am I saying that this will happen to everybody who skips out on church? YES. They might not sin as dramatically. They might not spend any time behind the bars of a jail. BUT they will sin, AND their sinfulness will imprison them.
The writer of Hebrews is basically saying - Church is not optional. BUT there are people who (because they don’t appreciate what they have… or don’t appreciate what they can lose), SKIP OUT & LOSE OUT.
III. Is there anything we can do to help others who are in danger of that? Hebrews tells us, "yes" there is something we can do… look again at Hebrews 10:24-25. The writer tells us the cure for a wrong attitude toward church is to encourage one another. It seems so simple. AND when a church is small, and not growing, everybody knows everyone else (I’ve even seen it where everybody is related to everyone else) it is easy!
HOWEVER, when church starts growing (like we have), there new faces every Sunday. People start slipping thru the cracks, their attendance becomes erratic and eventually they stop coming. Nobody seems to notice.
It’s not that a church (that’s growing) is callous and hard hearted. It’s just there are so many new faces and there is so much to do anyway, that people just fade into the background.
Now, we haven’t had a lot of people slip thru the cracks… but we’ve had more than we want. AND SO, your eldership has come to a conclusion. That conclusion is that we need to become more "deliberate" in how we fulfill this command from Hebrews. They’ve come up with a plan, and the plan has to parts.
Part one is this: You have 3 elders. These are your pastors. The shepherds of the flock. That’s their Biblical job description. (Have them stand, and introduce them).
In the next week or two your these elders will divide this congregation into 3 parts and EACH ELDER will take responsibility for 1/3 of the church. If you’re not in church, they’ll make sure you get a call. If you’re in the hospital, they’ll be sure you get a visit.
HOWEVER, your Elders know that this job is bigger than they can do alone… so they are asking for your help. And actually, what they’ll be asking is Biblical. LOOK AGAIN at Hebrews 10:24-25. Does it say there that the Elders are to encourage the congregation? NO, it says "let us encourage one other."
So, here’s what we’re wanting to do (this is part 2 of our plan):
We want to recruit "encouragers" to help the Elders, and we’re going to call them the "Master’s Encouragers." In your bulletin is a slip of paper and if you sign that paper and turn it into me or one of the Elders, you will be assigned to an Elder to help him with his 1/3 of the congregation. He will then alert you to people that need encouragement and visitation. Maybe it will only include a phone call or a letter, but you will actively be obeying God’s command listed here in Hebrews 10:25.
TAKE TIME TO FILL THESE OUT
CLOSE: The last thing we want in this church, is for people to fall away from Christ, to slip out the backdoor unnoticed. The story is told of a German soldier was wounded. He was ordered to go to the military hospital for treatment. When he arrived at the large and imposing building, he saw two doors, one marked, "For the slightly wounded," and the other, "For the seriously wounded." He wasn’t seriously wounded so he entered through the first door and found himself going down a long hall.
At the end of that hall were two more doors, one marked, "Officers" and the other, "Non-officers." Since he wasn’t an officer, he entered through the latter and found himself going down another long hall. At the end of it were two more doors, one marked, "Party Members" and the other, "Non-party Members." Since he wasn’t a party member, he took the second door, and when he opened it he found himself out on the street.
That’s how people can feel in a church where they are not encouraged, and where they are not looked after, and that’s one thing we can not allow in our church.
