God's Church
WHY DO PEOPLE GO TO CHURCH?
God's Church
WHY DO PEOPLE GO TO CHURCH?
Experiences in life often cause even the most faithful and obedient believer to miss worship on the Lord’s Day. But, there is something about missing the worship of the Lord on His day that is always deeply disturbing. Even when one misses because of illness there is a kind of disquieting, vacant feeling. One looks forward to the time when he can again worship with fellow Christians. An elderly and wise Christian was heard to say: “Over the years I have been concerned about those who did not go to church each Sunday. When I was a young boy, just beginning to discover the various aspects of the world, I supposed that everyone went to church. The first time that it ever came to my attention in a serious way that others might not be attending worship was one Sunday when the building was so filled that some of us who were young had to sit on the platform behind the preacher. Directly in front of me there was an open rear door, and beyond, a busy highway. As I looked beyond the preacher and saw the traffic on the highway outside, I realized that there were many people not in church. Since that Sunday in the long ago, I have learned that most people do not worship regularly on the Lord’s Day. Over the years I have also been concerned about those who do not go to church on Sunday. I have often asked myself why people go to church. Over a period of years observing the attendance of numerous families and individuals week by week, I have noticed that some are old, some very old, a number are young – college age and younger. But, the largest numbers consisted of parents in various years of maturity. Why did they make an effort to worship with others each week?”
The expression “go to church” is one that is widely used today and almost universally understood. It has become a kind of idiomatic expression, yet it is not Biblically accurate. The expression “going to church” implies that the church is in some specific material location – a building, whereas in actual fact the church is the people, those who have yielded their wills to Christ and have obeyed Him in penitent. Those who have been added to the family of God constitute His church. Hopefully, the expression “go to church,” is used as a briefer way of saying, “go to the assembly of the church.” Though not Biblically accurate, it is understood by everyone.
We Go To Remember the Death of Jesus: There are many reasons to attend worship, but no doubt eating the Supper of our Lord, remembering the cruel and brutal death of Jesus, is highest on the list. In addition, below are a few additional reasons why perhaps millions of people sacrifice sleep, rest, time and energy in order to attend worship.
We Go To Worship God: Preeminently, we assemble with other Christians in order to raise our voices in honoring and glorifying the God who created us and who sustains us. The opening sentence of the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Before the first chapter of Genesis is finished, we read these words from God, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Then a sentence later we read, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:1, 26, 27). We are made in the image of God and as His creation we long to lift up our hearts in praise and adoration.
In the second chapter of Genesis we read, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (v 7). Augustine wrote: “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it responds in Thee.” It is just as natural as breathing for us to want to lift up our hearts and worship the Creator. The person who looks up to God in worship is constantly being remade in the image of God.
God not only created us, He sustains us. It is in the writing of James that we read: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, or shadow of turning” (1:17). The air we breathe, the food we eat – all the blessings that make life possible – come from God. It is this realization of the grandeur of God that makes us want to say, as did the psalmist of old: “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights. Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His host! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light” (148:1-3).
Primarily, we come together to praise God, Who created us and sustains us. In an earlier Psalm of David, we read, “Ascribe unto Jehovah, O ye sons of the mighty; Ascribe unto Jehovah glory and strength. Ascribe unto Jehovah the glory due unto his name; Worship Jehovah in the beauty of holiness” (29:1, 2 AV & KJV). Man instinctively wants to worship something or someone and as he comes to comprehend even a little of the majesty of God, the power of God and the love of God, there is an inner urge to worship God. We are fulfilling that urge to worship when, in accordance with His directions, we assemble together on the Lord’s Day to offer prayers, sing hymns, read the Holy Scriptures, eat the Lord’s Supper, and give of our means. These deeply satisfying parts of Biblical worship enable us to render honor and glory to our Creator and Sustainer. We worship God because we believe Him to be infinitely strong, loving, serene and holy; the personification of spiritual qualities that matter most.
We Go for Forgiveness: Although modern man does his best to explain away the reality of sin, he never quite succeeds. Even though he speaks of man's misdeeds as the inevitable results of heredity and environment, he has not really convinced himself. Why? Because he often metes out praise for what he considers good acts, and blame for those that he considers bad. Man’s selfish, self-centered concern, often so obvious that it cannot be denied, leads to a disregard of the rights of others and ignores responsibility to God. But the truth remains: The world is full of sin and no one can explain it away.
Many burdened spirits and many troubled souls come humbly into a place of public worship seeking relief from the burden of guilt. Pouring out the innermost feelings of one’s heart in penitent prayer brings a feeling of release that is wonderful beyond words. James wrote, “Confess your trespasses to one another, that you may be healed” (5:16a). The apostle John promised, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). After a period of genuine worship, the depressed, crushed soul finds release and returns to the busy activities of another week cleansed and restored.
We Go for Strength to Overcome Weakness: We live in an intricate, complicated world – too often swimming beyond our depth. Bringing a child into the world is frightening when we realize the responsibilities of rearing children. Also, in times of failure, when we have disappointed ourselves and others, we need the spiritual strength that comes from offering our petitions to God, together as a family of believers – as one in Christ. In times of financial loss, in times of serious illness when we contemplate some major rearrangement of our lives, in times of bereavement, or growing older, we need to assemble together and worship God. How weak we are; how much we need to come into God’s presence in this special kind of way.
Again, let us go to the Psalms of David. Favorite of so many is the great twenty-third Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” There is power in the reading of God’s Word in a company of like-minded Christians: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.”
In the twenty-seventh Psalm, David added, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?” and then, toward the end of the Psalm, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed, see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, Wait, I say, on the Lord!”
We also remember the words that Jesus spoke to His disciples, “For when two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). So when we are weak and discouraged, or face decisions we do not know how to make, we seek God’s presence – to pray, sing, listen, and receive strength. We go away from such worship with Paul’s great sentence on our lips, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
We Go For Instruction: The great principles of God are taught when the Biblical church assembles together to worship. Little by little, the Lord’s meaningful words are taken into our hearts. We live in a highly sophisticated world. There are so many pressures and cross-currents – all happening so rapidly. How we do need spiritual guidance. The prophet wrote, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little” (Isaiah 28:10). The task is not finished in one hour of worship; it is not completed in a month or a year. It is done in a lifetime, little by little, principle by principle, until we grasp God’s way to live. There is a passage in James, which says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it shall be given to him” (1:5). When we commune with God and listen to His Word, we find life-living guidance.
Thousands of people are mentioned in the Bible – God’s case histories. They are not merely case histories, but examples selected by the Lord for our spiritual consideration and study. While in school, most of us found the reading of case histories a most interesting kind of reading. The Holy Scriptures are written that way. By reading about the successful life stories in the Bible, along with the failures, we are provided life-living guidelines. We go – attend – to listen while God’s Word is read and taught in order to receive spiritual guidance.
We Go for Encouragement to Live Right: We go to be reminded, to be admonished, and to be exhorted. Most of us know what is right, even though we often fail to do what is right. It is so easy when we have learned something to let it slip away; to let it slip far enough into the back of our consciousness that it ceases to be important. When we sing great hymns of faith, we are reminded. As we hear the Holy Scriptures expounded, great principles become fresh and new. Yes, we need to be reminded, admonished, and exhorted to be strong in the face of temptation – to do the right. We assemble together on Sunday to worship God – to be reminded of what we have forgotten, and encouraged to do our very best.
There is an often used illustration about a fire in an old-fashioned grate; a coal fire with lumps of coal burning brightly. Using tongs, one of the red hot lumps of coal is taken out and placed on the hearth by itself. The red glow immediately begins to fade and in minutes the coal burns out. Christians need to worship regularly in order to be reminded, challenged, and renewed – to keep the spiritual glow burning.
We Go For Christian Fellowship: We are gregarious beings. We need companions. We find like- minded friends and loved ones in the church. One of the great joys of being a Christian is to know and love many people. When the service is ended and the final prayer has been said, fellowship with other Christians provides a wonderful accompaniment to worship. The hymn expresses it so well: “Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.” Christian fellowship strengthens us spiritually, turning our unhappy, worried, restless, and broken heart into peace and joy. The Biblical church – the church of our Lord – offers a fellowship that says, “We love you, and we will hold on to you.” When was the last time the remembrance of worship kept you from stumbling into temptation or giving up in despair? A beautiful scene is an entire family worshipping together – father and mother leading the way; children following. If worship is meaningful to parents, not just a surface activity, the children will know, and it will be meaningful to them, too. Families are drawn closer together and the generation gap is all but erased when Sunday worship is a regular occurrence.
In a day when so many want the disappearance – destruction – of the church, it is good to pause and think of all the blessings that can come into one's life through regular participation in Christian worship. The quickest and most efficient way to destroy a nation is to turn its people away from meaningful worship to God. Parents have a special responsibility to see that their children are introduced to meaningful worship to God early in life. Parents can render no greater service to their children than to introduce them to God and His house.
The quickest and most efficient way to turn a nation from just going to church is to convince her youth that the church is for the elderly and superstitious or that it exists for the express purpose of exploiting the people.
We pray that you will be one who contributes to the ongoing of the Christian religion by regular attendance at worship. It is a time for all of those who believe in Christ to stand up and be counted as faithful supporters of the Christian faith. The writer of the Hebrew letter admonishes us, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as you see the Day approaching” (10:25). God has done so much for us. We believe that He has every right to expect our faithful and heartfelt worship in return.
Conclusion: Before worship of God can be meaningful, we must become a Christian – be born again. This means faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; accepting Him as Savior – a genuine heartfelt determination to follow Christ and His way of righteous living. We make known our sorrow for sin, as well as our faith in the Lord, by obeying Him. As Christians we follow a life of rich, meaningful worship to God and unselfish service to others. Often, when children of God assemble together to worship Almighty God, we find the encouragement and guidance that brings us to that most important decision of decisions – obeying the Gospel.
(Bible text is the New King James Version. Renderings from other translations are noted.)
