To the Hebrews 10:19-25 [NLTse]
19 And so, dear brothers and sisters,[f] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 By his death,[g] Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21 And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Sermon
Anybody ever invited someone to church who told you, “O, I don’t need church. I worship God at home with Charles Stanley or Joseph Prince on Sunday mornings.” Or have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t need church. I worship God in my backyard or in the woods or…”
You know, don’t you, that what these people are telling you – whether they are truly Christians or not – is that they just want to do what they want to do. It doesn’t matter to them that the Bible tells us clearly and repeatedly that God wants us to meet together regularly. It doesn’t matter to them that the pattern the Bible gives for Worship, almost since the very beginning, has been for God’s people to meet together and worship Him together.
You see, worshiping at home or on your own let’s you be in control. You get to listen to the TV preacher’s sermon if you want, and you get to turn him or her off if you want. You get to sing whichever songs you want to sing, that is, if you want to sing songs at all on any given Sunday. You get to pray for what you want to pray about and for who you want to pray about, again, that is, if you decide you’re going to pray that Sunday.
We can trick ourselves into thinking that such a time of Worship is about God. But it is not. When we Worship when we want, for as long as we want, the way we want, doing whatever we want or not doing whatever we want, that is not worshiping God. That is worshiping ourselves, and the small little idol we’ve made God into.
And our Father has given us Worship, and called us to Worship together, just to set us free from those kinds of self-worship and those kinds of idolatry.
The truth is, we need each other.
And I’m not saying that we need each other because you and I are all that wonderful and we need each other’s wonderfulness in our lives. No. The stories you too often hear from many of the people who don’t want to go to church are stories about this or that Christian person hurting them or doing something that made going to church a burden or a chore instead of the wonder and glory of encountering God that Worship has been given to be.
And yet, recognizing that none of us are all that wonderful, and that we have a remarkable capacity to hurt each other and others, I say again, we need each other.
Across the Scriptures, but especially across the letters the apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament, there are many different ways that the Lord calls us to treat one another, that is, our fellow Christians.
The Lord calls us to be at peace with one another. He calls us to always seek to do go to one another. He calls us to be hospitable to one another without complaining. To not speak evil against one another. To build each other up. To be subject to one another. To no longer pass judgment on one another. To bear with one another. (That is, to put up with one another.) To love one another. To encourage one another. To agree with one another. To be kind to one another and to forgive one another. To welcome one another. To confess our sins to one another and to pray for each other. To outdoor each other in honoring each other. To never lie to each other. To live in harmony together. To provoke each other to love and good deeds. To become slaves to one another…
How can we do these things if we’re not together a lot? And notice that the list recognizes that we may be doing some things and treating one another in some ways that we don’t like, because it includes our needing to bear with each other and to forgive each other. (If we weren’t upsetting or frustrating each other we wouldn’t need to put up with each other or forgive.)
We human beings who trust in God through our trust in Jesus Christ cannot grow into maturity as Christians if we are not regularly spending time together in Worship, growing together in our studies or classes, and serving together in various ministries. Christians cannot grow into maturity alone: Just me and Jesus!
We need to sing songs we don’t like to sing. We need to pray for people we don’t want to pray for. We need to read from passages in the Bible we wouldn’t read if it were up to us. And we need to hear sermons and teachings that we disagree with and that push us out of our comfort zones and that stretch our faith and challenge our souls.
We need each other. We need the Church. Worshiping – Growing – Serving – and Inviting Others to join us.
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We need each other. We need the Church.