UNLEARNING CHURCH MEETINGS
Hebrews 10:24-25; 1 Corinthians 14; John 21
Welcome back to our Unlearning Series. There are so many things that we have learned in life that keeps us from following Jesus in a healthy way. For three weeks the Lord taught us on unlearning our proneness to hide, and to easily pass judgment on others. Last week we focused on what Jesus said about His church and its purpose. The church reveals Jesus in the world; The church proclaims the Word of Christ to the world; The church is to be filled with the joy of God; and the church is to be united in love.
Today, let us look at church meetings. We will ask the question, why do we go to church meetings?
Reasons and Excuses. I have been following Jesus since I was 18. I remember missing a Sunday church meeting only once or twice. As pastor I have heard a lot of excuses, good ones, classic excuses, unique ones, some for the books, others are just funny, and most are ridiculous. Some excuses are legitimate. Some excuses would make me want to jump and praise the Lord. Do you remember the parable of the Good Samaritan. Two of those who avoided to help were on their way to a church meeting. They excused themselves from helping because of their temple obligation. Let me say this, that was a wrong reason to be early. It could have been better to come late, or to not come to the meeting at all, while you are ministering to someone, leading them to Jesus, sharing God’s love. Then the following week you could have brought the person and introduced that person even closer to Jesus. Perhaps you are just too tired to get up early on a Sunday or Saturday. You need that extra sleep. You just can’t stand anymore. May be one is dying. Or a kid is so sick and needing care and attention. Mostly in Hong Kong, it is being required to work on scheduled church meetings. (Most of you have only a day free during the week). I heard someone who can’t bring himself to a church meeting because he has no money to give to the offering. Someone did not have his favorite cloth washed. Another excuse I heard recently was fear of getting wet. The SARS outbreak gave some people another reason to miss a church meeting. Others point to their family responsibilities as reason to not attend church meetings.
The most challenging reasons are those who say I can worship God alone. They like to point out to Jesus’ words that you are to pray alone in your closet. That is a gross misunderstanding of what Jesus meant.
Others don’t show up in church meetings because they have been offended by one or two members of the church family. Coming to church meetings would mean they would have to see the person which they would rather not see.
So why do Followers of Christ meet together? Why do our brothers and sisters in China, Laos, in Burma continue to meet in basements, in forests, in unlighted homes – even when they are in danger of torture, punishment, losing their jobs, ridicule, censure, or even death?
The first reason we find in Scripture why Christ’s Followers meet together is to experience God together. We meet together to experience the presence of Jesus - to listen to Him, to be touched by Him, and be healed by him. (See Luke 5)
Luke 5:15 Yet despite Jesus’ instructions, the report of his power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases. (NLT)
Luke 6:18 They had come to hear him and to be healed, and Jesus cast out many evil spirits. (NLT)
Acts 10:33 “So I sent for you immediately, and it was good of you to come. Now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to tell us.”
Jesus said where His people meet “in his name” that meeting will experience His presence. True Christ is present everywhere, but Jesus’ presence in a group that meets because of him is different. In this meeting Christ becomes the head of the body and the body experiences the head.
One person I read who missed a church meeting is disciple Thomas. He earned the moniker “doubting Thomas” because of a statement he made. He refused to believe that Jesus was alive when his friends told him they saw Jesus come to their Sunday night meeting. He insisted he must see Jesus himself, see the nail marks in his hands, and put his finger where the nails were, and put his hand on his side, only then will he believe. The reason was simple. For some reasons, Thomas was missing that Sunday evening. Had he been there he could have experienced Jesus himself. Jesus showed up that evening. He spoke to the disciples. He strengthened their faith. He revealed His glory. Thomas missed all of that. He could not be in the same page as the others. He missed the presence of Jesus.
To miss a church meeting is to miss this joyous and meaningful experience of the presence of Christ.
Others have tried to move away from the church and suffered the consequences of a dry heart. Phillip Yancey, author of What’s So Amazing About Grace, confesses how his “journey away from the church resulted in dryness of heart.”
A few weeks ago Hong Kong surprised the world and its own leaders when half a million people marched the streets of our city, under the sweltering heat of the sun, expressing their opposition to the Article 23. I have friends who tell me that they missed this one. They would have wanted to march. They long to be identified with the marchers. They missed the sense of expressing once freedom along with half a million others. Such an experience gives you joy and pride.
The same could be said about meeting together in worship. The church is the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God. As we gather with fellow lovers of Jesus, we proclaim the praises of God together. We declare the greatness of God in a world that wants to get rid of God. We sing with all our hearts the goodness of God in defiance to the world’s denial and hatred of Jesus and those who follow Him. True followers of Jesus are committed to doing that.
The church is like that. We gather to express Jesus. Our meetings are rallies for Jesus. Our meetings are demonstrations of the kingdom of Jesus. In these meetings we express God’s love and our defiance of the worldly systems. We proclaim who we are, and whose we are.
Another important reason for church meetings is to worship God together. Of course, it is possible to worship God alone and anywhere. But there is a spiritual dynamic that occurs when the people of God came together corporately to express unrestrained affection for God. To put it simply, we enter into the presence of God when we sincerely and exuberantly sing him our thanks and praise.
Psalm 100:1-5 A psalm of thanksgiving. Shout with joy to the LORD, O earth! 2 Worship the LORD with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy. 3 Acknowledge that the LORD is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. 5 For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation. (NLT)
Acts 2:42-47 They joined with the other believers and devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, sharing in the Lord’s Supper and in prayer. 43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved. (NLT)
(I shall speak more of worship next week as Jesus has already spoken to me about it. The Lord chided me for not teaching on the subject of worship more oftenly. Jesus told me to help the church see Him more clearly.)
Third, they came together to be equipped together do the work of the ministry. Ephesians 4:11-13 defines one of the purposes of church meetings: equipping for ministry. Please note that God did not give leaders in the church to do the work of the ministry. They’re there to prepare God’s people for works of service, i.e. to become better servants of God where God has called them.
Ephesians 4:11-15 He is the one who gave (Gk. Didogai) these gifts to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ, 13 until we come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. (NLT)
God’s people came then to be equipped, to be trained, to be taught, to be empowered to do what God has called them to do in their homes, neighborhoods, workplace. Serving God is not to be limited to our church meetings. Our service to God takes place everyday everywhere God has deployed us. There we express the life and love of Jesus to those around us and those God sends to us. We meet together to be equipped by those God called to the church family. Ministry was not to be done by a few people alone. It belonged to the Body of Christ. If anyone had the power to do this it was Jesus, but look what he did. He focused on a few men, 12 (and missed 1 of them) who would train others. The others who were trained would also train others.
Ephesians 4:11-15 is one long sentence in its original form. It contains reasons why God called these people gifts. Paul says they were called for the “completion or perfecting of the saints.” The apostle paints to us a picture of an unfinished building that needs to be built. His builders are the people gifts mentioned. The word also applies to the preparation of a bride before her wedding. The church goes through stages of cleansing to become the spotless bride Jesus called it to be.
Paul also states that these people gifts have been called to equip the people for works of service. Here we clearly see that ministry is not limited to the church leaders. Ministry involves every follower of Jesus. We are all ministers in some way.
I must how honored and humbled I feel for being called by God to be an equipper of God’s wonderful people.
The final statement of purpose speaks of the church being “built up… to the full stature of Christ.” I truly ached this week as this truth dawned on me. We have misunderstood maturity by relegating it to a personal individual experience. Paul does not. He sees the whole church growing into Christlikeness. He ministers to the body of Christ to make it more Christlike.
One final thought on being equipped together has to do with the duration of this work. It will continue to be done “until” we all come to a unity of the faith, full knowledge of the Son of God and to become more and more like Christ.
The sad truth about the church today are people who are missing this equipping.
Finally, we find another reason for meeting together in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. We meet together to be built together (1 Cor 14:26). This time the equippers or builders are not the people gifts (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) but the whole body as members use their spiritual gifts in love.
Every member is a builder in this sense.
If you lived in the NT you prepared your heart to come to church, you prepared your heart to worship, you came expecting to be equipped for ministry, and you ask God to give you a gift to bring with you that you might use it to strengthen someone else as well as the whole body. This was the NT way of going to church.
The same truth is expressed by the writer of Hebrews:
“In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing good. Let us not neglect our church meetings, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:24,25 (TLB)
God bless us all as we yield to these truths to become His church meeting to experience His liberating presence together; to worship God together; to be equipped together; and to be built up together.
