Why Christians Should Go To Church

Why Christians Should Go To Church

 

   I was in New Zealand, in early 2011, watching the marathon event of the Paraplegic World Championships and while cheering for the athletes I ran into a former coach of mine at U.C.S.D. We spent a while catching up before I let him know that I had to get going. Both of us having such a good time talking and watching the competition he asked me why I had to leave. I told him that it was Sunday and I wanted to go to church. He sternly told me that I didn't need to go to church "because church is in here," poking me in the chest. I'm not sure what events from his past fueled such a bold statement but I do know that there are many different reasons why God's people do not respond to His call to worship Him weekly in a corporate setting. My assertion is that lack of regular church attendance can be attributed to one or both of the following conditions, a need for proper biblical instruction and need for realignment of priorities. In this article I will attempt to provide the instruction and hopefully your desire to realign your priorities will follow, because attending church on the Lord's day is a matter of obedience to God’s instruction and is in part a fulfillment of the Great Commission.




The Fourth Commandment

 

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Exodus 20:8-10

 

   I will not take the time here to prove the authority of the Bible in all matters of life and godliness but I also understand that simply saying, "go to church because God told you to do so in the fourth commandment" is not going to be a sufficient argument, though I wish it were. Instead let us look at the historical background and reason God gave that word to Israel in Exodus 20.

 

What is the Sabbath?

 


   In the beginning God created the universe in six days and on the seventh day He rested. In doing so He created a pattern for all to follow, modeled after His own creation rest. As my pastor has pointed out: "Sabbath-keeping is part of our responsibility as image-bearers of God." Likewise when God gave Israel the Law He commanded them to remember the Sabbath (literally the day of rest) and keep it holy. The Israelites were expected to work diligently all week but from Friday night to Saturday night they were to rest from labor. This rest was both a reminder to Israel of what God had delivered them out of in Egypt (Dt. 5:12) but also a foretaste of the eternal rest to come in heaven. One of my elders has called the Sabbath our "weekly link to both past creation and future consummation." Every seventh day reminds us of God's redemptive work throughout history and points to our eternal Sabbath in heaven. Our churches should play the primary role in reminding us of this.

 

Why Keep the Sabbath?

 

   God made a covenant with Israel to be their God and they were to be His people. They were to be holy and set apart from other nations. Remembering the Sabbath by resting and worshipping distinguished them from the gentile unbelievers who labored every day to sustain themselves. So too, we are noticeably different from unbelievers today when we carve out the time to go to church on Sundays. It is an evangelistic opportunity when our co-workers see that we are gone every Sunday. They’ll take notice that your commitment to church is greater than their commitment to the San Diego Chargers. When you miss a school competition to attend a church service people will begin to question what it is that makes you different. When on vacation and you seek out a place to meet with the Lord and His people your family will respect the lengths you go to in order to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

 

Can We Actually Keep the Sabbath?

 

   For those who may be feeling as though I’m putting forth a system of do’s and don’ts remember that God will indeed judge us according to His law and each one of us will be found guilty of not always remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. Our inability to keep His commandments has lead us to recognize our need for a Savior. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Romans 7:12). Where once the Law told us “do this work and you shall live” the gospel now tells us “the work is done, now you are free live.” The chains of sin have been broken; we are now free for the first time to willingly worship with a local congregation in Spirit and in Truth. This is cause for great rejoicing and what better way to do so than amongst His people according to the manner in which He desires to be adored.

 

What Happens When We Keep the Sabbath?

 

   Going to church on the Sabbath therefore is to be a delight, not a chore. We have the joy of gathering together with like-minded saints. The privilege is ours to corporately sing songs of praise and offer prayers of thanksgiving. We have the blessing of hearing the Lord’s servant proclaim His covenant faithfulness in salvation, to have our faith assured and increased by receiving of visible and physical signs of Jesus’ sacrifice (baptism and the Lord’s supper), and be shepherded by the godly men He has called to lead us. In short to go to church is to participate in the fulfillment of the great commission.

 

The Great Commission

 

Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

 

   Worship has always been meant to be practiced as God has prescribed for us in the Bible and is to be overseen by appointed church leaders. In the Old Testament, Israel received specific instructions as to how they were to speak and act toward God. Animal sacrifices were brought and a priest ritualistically spilled their blood as dictated to them in the Law. In the New Testament, the perfect sacrifice has been made by Jesus, our High Priest, and He has sat down once for all at the right hand of God the Father, whom together have sent God the Holy Spirit to aid us in our worship.

 

   Church leaders today have the same tasks as Old Testament servants. Actually, the roles and responsibilities the church has now are the same as those given to Adam in the garden of Eden. Adam was to be a king, priest, and prophet over all. As king, he was to be the lord and leader of all under his care, keeping things in their place and maintaining order (the New Testament church fulfills this role by guiding and keeping watch over our souls). As priest, Adam was to be the spiritual leader of mankind, maintaining holiness and representing man’s needs to God (as fulfilled in the New Testament not only when the church serves the poor, sick, and needy but also through baptism and the Lord’s supper). As prophet Adam was to represent God to man and proclaim God’s word on His behalf (this corresponds to the New Testament role of pastor who fulfills that role by preaching and teaching all that I have commanded you).

 

   All of that to say that the three roles and responsibilities of king, priest, and prophet comprise the Great Commission and are therefore the criteria of any true church. They are the primary means God uses to transform our lives and we will now take a look at each and see how going to a true church meets each of these criteria and in part fulfills the great commission.

 

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . .

 

   Jesus commissioned the Apostles to make disciples, or followers/students, of Christ. In doing so, the Apostles laid up a foundation that congregations today are now building upon. We are the fruit of those first seeds planted, watered, and cared for. We have only gotten here by following the parameters enforced by our spiritual governing authorities. If everyone had acted on his or her own authority without regard to appointed leaders, the Christian church would have dissolved long ago. So, much like any sports team or class of students, there needs to be an ordered structure and method if we are to get where we are going. Elders appoint the time of our services on Sunday and are responsible for making sure that the Word of God is read and taught and that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are administered. They make sure the content of our services is consistent with God’s word as we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. Without even knowing it we are being disciplined. There I said it, a mark of any true church is that it exercises discipline. We are usually unaware that this is even happening, and that’s a good thing. But the church has the responsibility, if someone steps outside the boundaries of God’s revealed will for His people, to bring them back into the sheep fold. This is often a painful and drawn out task but necessary for we are prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. But as I said, this is part of the Great Commission and a role to be fulfilled by the church today who acts on behalf of Jesus our true King, Priest, and Prophet.

 

. . . baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . .

 

   Secondly we come to the church’s role in the administration of the sacraments. Both baptism and partaking in the Lord’s Supper are required of every Christian because both are visible and physical symbols of our identification with the life and death of our Savior. These sacraments have been given to us in order to accommodate our weakness. God understands the difficulty in placing our faith in an audible word alone and so He has given us something that we can touch, taste, and see that the Lord is good every week. Respectively, baptism and communion symbolize the passive and active obedience of Jesus that we need in order to be considered righteous before God, for we are guilty of sins of omission and sins of commission.

 

   Without even knowing it you and I neglect to love the Lord with all of our heart, strength, and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves. Therefore we need Jesus’ passive obedience, which He accomplished by receiving the punishment given to Him by the Jews and dying on a Roman cross. This righteousness is symbolized in our baptism of the Holy Spirit. No one goes out and baptizes them self with the Holy Spirit and so it is therefore a passive act when we are baptized. The Lord’s Supper on the other hand is something that would not get done if we did not pick up the bread and wine and place them in our mouths. This, then, represents the active obedience accomplished by Christ that cancels out all of the sins we consciously commit (i.e. lying, stealing, not remembering the Sabbath, etc.). In perfect faith Jesus actively loved God and His neighbor in everything He did, providing the merit that has been credited to our account.

 

   Therefore, going to church is our part in the fulfillment of the great Commission because it allows the church to exercise its proper role in the administration and reception of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This brings us to our final point.

 

. . . teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

 

   In a service the role of the pastor, as minster of the Word, is often the most visible and arguably the most important position in the church today (it could also be said to be the most beneficial part to us as receivers). We often see in the Old Testament that kings failed to fulfill their responsibilities (see King David) and priests erred in their priestly duties (see Nadab and Abihu), but rarely do we see a prophet not serving the purpose for which they were called to accomplish. That is because a prophet was meant to represent God to man and to deviate from this role was to misrepresent the Lord to His people, and God simply would not allow this. This is the same reverence with which the pastors must enter into the pulpit too, because the minister is not there to bring a message about God but to bring a message from God. In doing so he is aiding in furthering God’s kingdom here on earth by providing us with substance for our faith. The bible exhorts us to notconform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This happens primarily in church services as the word is preached and our Sheppard feeds his flock.

 

   So we see here a straightforward command and commission to regularly attend a worship service with no room for discussion. Nowhere in the bible do we have believers who were not a part of a local, regular, gathering of worshipers. We are told in Exodus 31:14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Similarly, all of the New Testament epistles (letters) were written either to churches or to individuals who were part of churches. This is no valid excuse for a Christian to be outside of the body of Christ. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” That is in fact what one says when they do not regularly attend church; “I will be my own king, priest, and prophet, despite God giving these gifts, which I need, to the church.” Thus, we come face-to-face with a commandment and a commission that requires our lifestyle’s to conform to Scripture. You may have dozens of reasons for not attending church from one Sunday to the next but the truth is we make time for the things we really want to do. Do you really want to be obedient to the holy, holy, holy, Lord of all who has accomplished salvation for you through the death of His Son, or would you rather follow the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life? The only thing keeping you from going to church is an obedience that will require you to realign your priorities. I hope to see you at church this Sunday.