Why Go To Church?

June, 13, 2010

Why go to church?

SERMON:

Late night television brought us something that is a mainstay in our lives - the tongue in cheek top 10 list.

So here is my version of the top 10 reasons to go to church:

Ø 10 - They serve a quality grape juice for communion

Ø 9 - They sing the songs that I like

Ø 8 - There are plenty of singles for me to choose from

Ø 7 - The youth pastor is cute

Ø 6 - They have great potluck dinners

Ø 5 - They have barcaloungers instead of pews

Ø 4 - The worship leader is awesome

Ø 3 - They don't teach on tithing

Ø 2 - They have a late morning service so I can sleep in

Ø 1 - The pastor is my friend

I hope that there are other reasons to go to church and we will take some time today to explore the real reasons why we should want to go to church.

When I was growing up, Sundays were special for me.

On Sunday afternoon we would go to visit the grandparents. It was a good time for everyone. My grandparents appreciated the company, but especially they enjoyed their grandchildren. My cousins and I would have a good time as we got together to play and talk and just have fun. And it meant a lot to me personally because my grandparents always made each one of us feel special and it is nice to be noticed and to feel special.

I was thinking about those times at my grandparents houses on Sundays as I sat down to write the sermon for this week. In fact, as I reflected on the reasons why Sundays were so special to me as a child I realized that the same reasons are why it is important for us to go to church on Sunday.

I believe that in asking the question, "Why go to church," we can find three great reasons, and these three reasons happen to be part of the foundation on which we started this church.

I believe that we should go to church:

For God

That is our first blank today - for God.

If you have your Bible with you today please turn to Hebrew chapter 10. I will remain in this one section of Scripture for today. Hebrews 10:22 states:

22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22 - NIV)

One of the main reasons we go to church is for God. We need to take time from our busy lives to make time for God. It is at church that we have a chance to lay aside all the problems of our week and focus on spending time with God. It is in church that we are able to easily enter into His presence or as the writer of Hebrews said, we draw near to God.

Earlier I spoke about Sunday afternoons spent visiting my grandparents. My parents knew how much they wanted to see their grandkids and we really loved going to visit them too.

Sunday morning at church is our time to look forward to visiting with God, a God who wants to visit with us.

We can visit God anytime during the week, but on Sunday morning we put aside special time just for Him, just for our relationship.

One of the foundations of this church is worship. Worship is when we have a chance to be in God's presence. It is during worship that we spend time with God, to talk to Him, to listen to Him. Worship is more than just singing praise songs to God. The entire service on Sunday morning is a time of worship.

We sing songs to prepare our minds for our time together with God. During our time of singing we can put aside our worries and problems of everyday life and get ready to meet God and let Him work in our lives.

Our worship continues as we pray for each others needs and take communion together. We spend time listening to God's Word as we try to hear what He has to say to each of us for living our lives in a manner that is pleasing to God, helpful to others and that matures us as people and as Christians.

So we go to church for God. We also go to church:

For others

When I was at my grandparents house on Sunday afternoons when I was younger I would get a chance to hang out with my cousins. We would spend time talking with each other and keeping each other up on what was happening in our lives. We would play games, sing some songs and just in general have a great time together.