Today we are concluding our sermon
series “Theology 101”. There’s a lot more we could talk about in regard
to theology, of course. Still, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We
talked about the trinity, both as a whole and as three persons. We talked
about sin and about salvation. Last week we talked about heaven and hell.
Those are some serious subjects.
One thing we have not talked about
yet, though, is—us. The church. How does the church fit into God’s
plan? What does God want the church to do? In fact, why do we need
the church at all?
After all, you hear people all the
time who say, “I don’t need to go to church. I can be a good Christian
without going to church.” And of course, that can be true. There
are people who have faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior who rarely go to
church. And I’m sure there are also people who attend church regularly
who don’t have faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.
Now, don’t get me wrong here.
Don’t get the idea that the pastor is up here telling people they don’t
need to go to church. I think we do need to go to church. But God
is not in heaven taking the roll to see who comes to church and who does not
and making a red mark next to our names if we’re not here. Heaven is not
a perfect attendance prize. That’s not how this works.
I want you to come to church, of
course. I like it when we have a lot of people in church. But I
don’t want you to come to church just because you’ll feel guilty about it if
you don’t. I think guilt is a lousy motivator. We may decide to
come to church out of guilt, but we’re not likely to want to be there when we
get there. And if you don’t want to be there, we’re not likely to get
much out of coming to church. We’re just putting in our time, doing our
duty, fulfilling an obligation. We’re not trying to get closer to God or
closer to each other. We’re not likely to feel love for God or love for
each other. And as soon as it’s over, we’ll go home and forget everything
that happened there.
That’s not what I want. It’s
not what any pastor wants. And I have to think it’s not what God wants,
either. God wants us to come to church because we want to, not because we
have to. God wants us to be happy to be here. In fact, God wants us
to be excited to be here. And we should be. This is a chance to
come and worship the almighty, the awesome, the perfect God. This is a
chance to worship and praise the God who made us, the God who gave us life, the
God who gives us every good thing we ever get. That should be an exciting
thing! We should look forward to it! Coming to church and
worshipping God and praising God should be the highlight of our whole week!
But again, some people would say, “I
don’t have to come to church for that. I can worship God and praise God
at home. I can worship God and praise God when I’m out in nature. I
can worship God and praise God anywhere. Why should I come to church to
do it?”
Well, it’s true that we can worship
and praise God anywhere. In fact, we’re supposed to. Our worship of
God and our praise of God is not supposed to be limited to one hour on Sunday
morning at a church service. Our worship and praise of God is supposed to
be something that’s part of every aspect of our lives.
But still, I think we miss out on
something when we don’t attend church. And I think the author of the
letter to the Hebrews, which we read for today, nailed it. Listen again
to what he says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who
promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on
toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the
habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day
approaching.”
That’s why we need to come to
church. So we can think of ways to spur each other on toward love and
good deeds. So we can encourage each other. I need that. I
think you probably need it, too. I think everybody needs it. That’s
what we miss out on if we decide to just worship and praise God by ourselves.
We miss out on that encouragement.
I think that’s at least one of the
reasons why God created the church. I think that’s at least one of the
ways the church fits into God’s plan. God created the church because God
knows the followers of Christ need each other’s love and encouragement if we’re
going to make it.
Because the fact is, life is hard.
You don’t need me to tell you that, of course. And being a
Christian can make it even harder. At least it can if we take being a
Christian seriously. Jesus did not say that his followers would have an
easy life on earth. In fact, Jesus said the exact opposite. Jesus
said that following him could lead to all kinds of trouble.
I have a pastor friend who, every
time I see him, asks, “Are you staying out of trouble?” If I say yes, he
responds, “Well, what are you doing that for?” At first, I thought he was
just joking, but eventually I realized he has a serious point. Our goal,
as Christians, is not to stay out of trouble. In fact, if we’re taking
our faith seriously, we’re likely to get into some trouble. There may be
times our faith keeps us from doing things that would help us financially.
There may be times our faith keeps us from doing things we know would make
us more popular, but that we know would not be right. In fact, there may
be times when our faith leads to strained relationships. There can be all
kinds of trouble that comes from taking our Christian faith seriously.
God knows that. God knows we cannot
keep our faith strong alone. And God does not want us to try. Think
about it: even Jesus did not try to keep his faith strong alone.
Yes, there were times when he went off by himself, but most of the time
he had the twelve disciples with him, and I think that’s one of the reasons
why. Remember, Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. That
means Jesus felt all the things we feel. That includes feeling
discouraged. That includes feeling depressed. That includes
wondering if he could do everything he was supposed to do and if it was all
worth it.
Jesus felt all those things.
And he knew he could not do it alone. So he gathered twelve people
to help him, to encourage him, to keep him going.
Now, notice something about those
twelve disciples. A lot of the time, they did not understand what Jesus
was going through. They did not understand what was going on or why.
They had no idea what it was like to be Jesus.
But they helped him anyway.
How? Because they were there. They were there with him.
They did not always say the right thing. In fact, sometimes they
said the exact wrong thing. They did not always do the right thing.
Sometimes they did the exact wrong thing. But they were there.
They were there, and they cared, and Jesus knew that they cared.
And their caring helped Jesus do what he had come to earth to do.
And that’s why we need the church.
We need people to be there for us. A lot of the time, they won’t
understand what we’re going through. They won’t understand what’s going
on with us or why. They’ll have no idea what it’s like to be us.
But they can help us anyway, just by being there.
And sometimes, as the church, we
need to be the people who are there for others. Again, a lot of the time,
we won’t understand what someone else is going through. We won’t
understand what’s going on with them or why. We may have no idea what
it’s like to be that person. But we can help anyway, just by being there.
We won’t always say the right thing.
In fact, sometimes we may say the exact wrong thing. We won’t
always do the right thing. In fact, sometimes we may do the exact wrong
thing. But we can be there. We can be there, and we can care, and
we can let them know we care. And that caring will help.
The church was not given to us as
something to make us feel guilty. The church was not given to us to give
us another duty or another obligation. The church was given to us out of
God’s love. The church was given to us as a gift. The church was
given to us by God so that we would not have to go through life alone.
The church was given to us to assure us that we will always have a group
of people who will be there for us and who will care about us.
So let’s be the church. Let’s
be a group of people who will always be there for each other. Let’s be a
group of people who will always love each other and care about each other.
And let’s go out and look for other people who need someone to be there
for them and love them and care about them. Then, we’ll be on the way to
being the church that God wants us to be.
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