Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! How many of you are wearing green? Good for you. But - wasn’t it just Christmas a couple of weeks ago? It’s hard to believe that Easter is only two weeks away. I realize that what I’m about to say will betray my age, but don’t you find that every year seems to go by faster and faster? Time flies. And the pace of change seems to accelerate every year as well. Many of you have recently seen changes in your own families and in your own lives. Some good and some not so good. The world around us is changing too, our country and our society are changing, and although we trust in God’s sovereign rule over history, it seems clear that not all of those changes are for the better.
So at times like this, when we’re buffeted by changes, in the world and in our own lives, experiencing changes that are both welcome and unwelcome, it’s good to pause and remind ourselves of some foundational truths, some basic principles. Some things that aren’t changing, and will never change. So that’s what I’d like to do this morning, to look into the Scriptures and draw from them something sure and certain, something that we can depend on, no matter what life manages to throw at us. Sound good?
All right. We’ll begin with a simple question, and it has to do with what we’re doing here this morning. The question is this: “Why go to church?” Now, that may seem like a strange question to ask all of you, since you are already here. You’ve already answered that question for yourself. But if I asked each of you why you decided this morning to get out of bed, to change out of your comfy pajamas and put on pants or a dress, to drive to Bay Lodge and devote an hour of your Sunday morning to this fellowship meeting, instead of doing something else—reading the paper, baking a cake, going for a walk, or maybe just sleeping a little longer—I expect I would get many different answers. For example:
• Maybe what gets you here on Sunday is seeing your friends and catching up on what’s going on their lives. Nothing wrong with that. That’s a very good reason to be here. But you don’t have to come to church to see your friends. You could meet them for coffee, or go for a walk around the neighborhood together. You could join a book club. You could go golfing with your buddies. You could go with your friends to a baseball game. Or just have them over for dinner. The point is that if you want to be around people, there are lots of ways to do it other than being here on Sunday morning.
• The music may be a reason you come to church. You may enjoy the hymns that we sing together. That’s an excellent reason to attend church. But there are other places where you can hear uplifting, inspiring music. I understand there’s someone named Taylor Swift who’s been giving concerts in various places recently. And of course, there’s always Spotify. You can find whatever you want there, even hymns.
• Or, it could be that you value hearing the Bible taught, that you look forward to hearing the Scriptures explained and applied. Another good reason to be here. But on YouTube, and on podcasts, and on television, you can find all kinds of sermons by well-known speakers.
• Or . . . maybe it’s just the coffee and donuts you’re here for. If so, there’s Dunkin.
I could go on, but you get the idea. There are a many good reasons to be here on Sunday morning, many needs that are met when we come together, but a lot of them could be met in other ways. And in fact, when people stop coming to church, or never start attending in the first place, it’s often because they have done just that; they’ve found some other way to meet those needs. Their social needs, their love of music, their desire for education and inspiration, their need for coffee – they have found ways to satisfy those needs elsewhere. They just don’t see a need for church.
In fact, there’s actually a movement called “Sunday Assembly” that tries to do just that; to have all the benefits of a church service without God. Here’s a description from their web site (www.sundayassembly.org/about):
“The best way to understand Sunday Assembly is to experience it for yourself. There will be singalong songs, moving stories, passionate speakers—all finished with tea and cake (or coffee and doughnuts!). Just by being with us you should be energized, vitalized, restored, repaired, refreshed, and recharged. No matter what the subject of the Assembly, it will solace worries, provoke kindness and inject a touch of transcendence into the everyday. But life can be tough… It is. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, we have moments of weakness, or life just isn’t fair. We want every Sunday Assembly to be a place of compassion, where, no matter what your situation, you are welcomed, accepted, and loved. You can join a choir, sing in the band, attend and facilitate self-help groups, welcome those who are socially isolated, host potluck dinners, share hobbies, and much more. Most of all, have fun, be nice and join in.”
Now, at this point you may suspect that I’m trying to persuade you to stay home on Sunday. And that’s certainly not the case. I’m not suggesting that you find something else to do on the first day of every week. But what I am doing is separating out the parts of the Sunday morning experience that are not unique, in order to highlight the one thing that is absolutely unique; the one thing that has no substitute. What I’d like to talk about this morning is something that happens here, every week, that doesn’t happen in any of those other places. Something that meets a need we all have, something that can’t be duplicated at a baseball game, or a concert, or a book club.
Let’s read together from the gospel of Matthew, chapter eighteen, verses nineteen and twenty. Jesus is speaking, and he says this:
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
“Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them”. What does that mean? It means that whenever any number of people who are followers of Christ come together in his name, for the purpose of worshipping and honoring him, then he is there. Jesus is present at that time and place, he is present at THIS time and place, in a way that he is not present at other times and other places. In other words, when we show up here on Sunday morning, Jesus shows up as well. And that doesn’t happen when you’re with other people, or even other Christians, at a baseball game, or at a concert, or on the golf course, or at Dunkin’ Donuts, or when you’re at home by yourself watching YouTube videos. It doesn’t happen anywhere else, at any other place or time, except when Christians come together to worship and lift up Jesus Christ. And when we do that, as we’re doing right now, right here, this morning, Jesus Christ comes and meets with them. Meets with us. And he is doing that now. He is here. He is keeping that promise that he made two thousand years ago. And he does that every Sunday morning.
Think about that for a moment. Let that sink in.
• Jesus doesn’t say that he will come and meet with us, that he will come and fellowship with us, if we play a certain kind of music. Organ, guitars, hymns, choruses, Gregorian chant, worship team, acapella, it doesn’t matter.
• He doesn’t say that he will come and meet with us only on the Sunday mornings when we feel spiritual or well-rested, or when we’re in a positive frame of mind.
• He doesn’t say that he will come and meet with us on those Sundays when the teaching is especially good, or when the attendance is high, or when everyone in attendance made it through the week without committing a sin. Thank goodness.
No, there’s one condition, and one only: “when two or three gather in my name”. When that happens, Jesus promises to be there. And that does happen here, on Sunday morning, every single week. Isn’t that amazing? Now, this idea, that there is a certain place and time when Jesus has promised to meet with us, may be new to you. And to be clear, this has nothing to do with the building. There are many wonderful church buildings. Some have stained glass windows and pipe organs. Some have large auditoriums and praise bands. And some places where Christians meet for worship have folding chairs and video projectors. But the church building is not the holy dwelling place of God. As Stephen stated in his speech in Acts chapter 7, “the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.” (Acts 7:48). No, what makes the place where we meet special is that this is where we gather to worship and honor Christ. It is our meeting together, and not the building, that he promises to grace with his presence. It is our presence here that invites and insures his presence.
But you might say, isn’t God everywhere? Good question. Indeed he is. That’s the attribute of God that we call “omnipresence”. ‘ And in fact, there is nowhere, in heaven or earth, where God cannot be found. For example, David writes this in Psalm 139, verses 7-12:
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
So yes, God is everywhere. And that is a great comfort to the believer, to know that we are never out of his sight, that we are never beyond the reach of his power, his grace and his mercy. That no matter where we are or what we are going through, he is right there with us. Amen? And even more than that, the Scriptures tell us that the Spirit of God, who is also called the Spirit of Christ, lives within every follower of Christ. All the time. In his last words to the disciples, Jesus made this promise [John 14:16-17].
16 “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
Likewise, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus makes this promise [Matthew 28:20]: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Jesus is with us always, at every moment. His Spirit lives in us. We cannot be separated from him. As Paul writes, in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 8:35-39]:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . . . 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Nothing can separate us from Christ. As Christians, He is with us always. His Spirit lives in us. And God is everywhere; we are never out of his presence. Nevertheless, the Bible tells us that there is a unique and special sense in which Christ is present with us when we come together as a worshipping community, that is different from the way in which he is present with us at any other time. What did he say, again? “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
All right. So when we come together as a church, when we meet together in the name of Christ, he is here with us. But why is that important? Why does the presence of Christ make it worth showing up here on Sunday morning? It’s important for one very fundamental reason: because Jesus is the source of our life. We have to stay connected with him in order to survive and thrive in a world that is increasingly hostile to our faith. In John’s gospel, Jesus gives us this analogy. [John 15:4-8]
“4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
In my back yard, I have a tree that, over the years, had become covered with vines. The tree was dying. The vines were taking all the nourishment. So I needed to kill the vines. How did I do it? Did I try to rip them all out, or poison them somehow? Either of those approaches would damage the tree. And I couldn’t climb up fifty or sixty feet to get the vines in the top branches. But I didn’t need to. No, all I had to do was cut through each vine at the base of the tree and sever it from its source of nutrients. And then I waited. After a few weeks, the vines started to get brown; after several weeks, they were shrunken and dry, and eventually, they died. When I cut off their source of nourishment, they stopped growing, they withered, they dried up, and they died. Mission accomplished.
The same is true of you and I. We need to “remain” in Christ. Some translations read, “abide” in Christ. It doesn’t just mean that we continue to believe in Christ. It means that we are actively engaged with him, actively in fellowship with him, actively drawing on his power and strength to meet the challenges we face. One way that we can do that is in times of private, personal prayer. That’s another sermon. But another, very important way is to meet with him in the company of other believers when we come together to worship him and honor him as our Lord and Savior. Because when that happens, he promises to be here; he promises to meet with us. And when he is here, and we are here, he will freely pour out on us his grace, and his mercy; his peace, and his strength, and his comfort, and all of the other things we need.
That’s an important point. When Jesus promises to be here among us, he doesn’t show up just to monitor the proceedings, just to watch what is going on. He isn’t just sitting over there in the corner, taking notes. He isn’t a passive observer. He comes here to minister to us, to give us his gifts, to encourage us, to enlighten us, and heal, and strengthen, and challenge us. He comes here to give each of us what we need.
Now, for some of you what I just said rings true. It matches your experience, because you often feel uplifted and encouraged by the worship service. But others might say, well, I was here last Sunday. I went home after the service, and although I enjoyed it and was glad I went, I didn’t really feel any different. And that may be. That’s OK. Because God doesn’t only operate on our emotions, our feelings. Sometimes he needs to work on our mind, or on our will. And so even when you don’t feel it, God can be at work in your life.
For example,
• It may be that what you need on any given Sunday is help thinking through a problem. You need to get clarity on a situation you’re going through, to hear what the Bible has to say about a decision you’re making or a challenge you’re facing. What you need is guidance, or direction, or understanding of what to do.
• Or it may be that what you need concerns, not your mind or your emotions, but your will. Perhaps what you need is to firm up your intention to take a difficult but necessary step of faith. Perhaps you need to have your resolve strengthened so that you can do something you know you need to do. Perhaps you need to make a commitment to follow Christ, or to follow him more closely and intentionally.
The point is that whatever your need is; whether it is encouragement, or peace, or mental clarity, or conviction, or resolve, or courage —whatever it may be, Jesus Christ knows that need. And his purpose in coming to meet with us, his purpose in coming to meet with you, on Sunday morning, is to meet that need.
Now does that mean it always happens? Can I guarantee that if you show up here on Sunday morning, you will go away blessed and strengthened, comforted and enlightened? No. Not necessarily. Let me explain why. If you have been coming to church, but not experiencing the things I’ve been talking about, perhaps it’s because you weren’t expecting to receive them. You weren’t looking for them, you weren’t asking for them. You weren’t preparing yourself to receive them. In fact, you may have been looking forward to seeing everyone here EXCEPT Christ. Perhaps you weren’t aware of his promise and didn’t know that he would be here to meet with you. If that’s the case, then if you want to receive what he has for you, let me make a suggestion. Just pray and ask him. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer. But on Saturday evening, or Sunday morning, just pray something like this:
“Lord, you know what my need is. Thank you for promising to meet with me at church today. Please make me receptive to your gifts and help me to receive what you desire to give me.”
By doing that, you are intentionally opening yourself up to what it is that Christ wants to give you. And I promise that if you do that, week after week, your Sunday morning worship experience will be very different. It will be transformed, and so will you. Try it. Because it would be a shame to come to church week after week and not get anything out of it; to not receive what Christ has to give you.
You see, although Christ has promised to meet with us when we gather in his name, it doesn’t happen automatically, by some kind of spiritual osmosis; we don’t just absorb it when we walk through those doors. He is here to meet with us, but we also need to be ready to meet with him. We need to prepare ourselves. We have to ask him for his blessing, and expect to receive it. We have to ask, and seek, and knock.
There’s one more thing, and that has to do with the “two or three” part of the promise. What did Christ say? “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Jesus ministers to us through his Word, (which includes the sermon, and the Scripture reading, and the Biblical hymns that we sing), but he also ministers to us through one another. And so, even as you should come to church with an expectant attitude, open to what God wants to give you, you should also come to church with an intention to be an instrument of God’s grace, a channel of God’s blessing, to others. And you should expect that others will be a channel of God’s blessing to you. You are called to be a means by which the encouragement, and instruction, and comfort of Christ can flow to others. And every one of us can do that.
For example:
• Not everyone should preach — that would make for a very long service, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should try it. Like the old revival tent meetings: “all day preachin’ and dinner on the grounds”. OK, probably not. But although not everyone should preach, you can still minister the Word of God. As you are talking with someone before or after the service, you might have an opportunity to share something you’ve learned or experienced that could help them.
Let me share a verse with you. It comes from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth [2 Cor. 1:3-4]:
“3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
What that verse tells us is that one of the ways that God redeems our trials and difficult life experiences is by comforting us in them, so that we can share that same comfort with others who are suffering. Did you know that? When God comforts, and sustains, and strengthens you through a difficult experience, he intends that you pass on that comfort and strength to others who are suffering. And when we gather together is a good time to do that.
• Maybe what others need is simply for someone to listen. Not everyone needs to be a trained counselor, but any one of us can listen. Lend an ear. Ask how someone’s week went, and actually pay attention. Show care and compassion. Pray with them. Or even just greet someone and introduce yourself. Even that simple gesture can make a huge difference. No one should ever be able to come here and leave without someone greeting them and welcoming them. Amen?
• Or, how about music? Not everyone can lead the singing. But all of you can sing the hymns with all of your heart, and bless others in that way.
What I’m saying is that our Sunday meeting is a group participation exercise. And that is how the presence of Christ among us is made real. Listen again to what the Scriptures say; this is from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians:
“What then shall we say, brothers and sisters? When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” [1 Cor. 14:26]
“Each of you”. “Each of you”. Every single person here has something to offer, whether it’s giving a testimony, or reporting answered prayer, or giving counsel to someone privately after the service, or just belting out the hymns to the glory of God. And that is an important way that Jesus fulfills his promise to meet with us. He meets with us, and ministers to us, as we greet one another and minister to one another.
But to be most effective, this requires some preparation and forethought. So in the coming week, if God blesses you in a special way, think about how you might share that. If God shows you something in his Word, think about how to share that with others. Ask yourself who else might benefit from it.
Let me close with this. Earlier, I suggested that you pray to prepare your heart to what Jesus has to give you in the Sunday morning service. Remember? Here it is: “Lord, you know what my need is. Thank you for promising to meet with me at church today. Please make me receptive to your gifts and help me to receive what you desire to give me.” Now, I’m going to suggest that you add on to the prayer. Something like this: “Lord, help me to be an instrument of your blessing to my brothers and sisters in Christ this Sunday. Show me how I can minister to them in your name. Amen.”
It would be wonderful if each of us would pray that prayer each week and act on it. Will you do that? I hope so. Because it will make all the difference.
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