(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 06/18/06) 

INTRODUCTION:

Let’s be honest... We judge people by how often they go to church, don’t we!  Worship attendance has to be the ultimate gauge for evaluating a Christian’s faith, doesn’t it?  Weekly attendance – good Christian.  See a person only at Christmas or Easter – borderline Christian.  Maybe we judge people that way because that’s how we judge ourselves?  Boy, are we going to have fun today, because there are just so many things we can talk about when someone raises the topic of going to church.

You heard plenty in these verses about the Sabbath day, so let’s clear that up first.  Sunday worship is really not our version of the Old Testament Sabbath day.  We don’t have a Sabbath day any more.  God no longer designates one particular day for going to church.

Let’s also clear up the fact that Jesus’ disciples were not guilty of violating the Sabbath by eating grain from the fields.  At this time, Jesus and his disciples were still obligated to observe the Sabbath law, but the only thing they were violating was the extra rules the Pharisees had come up with for what constituted sinful Sabbath day work.  The priests who sacrificed animals in the temple on the Sabbath day and David and his men eating the consecrated bread were two examples Jesus used to exonerate his disciples.  With all their extra rules, the Pharisees were in the wrong.

With those points understood, let’s talk about this matter of going to church. Why does it become such a big thing?  Why do people get the impression that going to church is what being a Christian is all about?  Do we have that impression?  Do we give that impression?  Let’s be clear about...

God’s Will For Corporate Worship

How many things haven’t we all heard about going to church?  Here are some that I’m aware of, and maybe you are, too. 

• My parents made me go to church when I was a kid.  That’s why I don’t go any more.

• After all, you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.

• When I was growing up businesses were never open on Sunday mornings.  So I’ve told my kids that they will not take a job which schedules them to work on Sunday mornings.

• If you don’t worship for more than forty days, you can expect the elders to give you a call.

• I know people who drive over a hundred miles to go to church each week, and you’re telling me you can’t make it when it’s only a few miles?

• There’s the old widow who is heartbroken that she physically can’t make it to church anymore, and you’re just fine physically but you could care less about it?

•  Lots of people who work just as much as you do and are just as busy if not busier than you are can still take time off to be in church every week - why can’t you?

• If a person hasn’t been at church for a long while, but then they come for two or three Sundays, then everything’s ok again, for a while.

• Don’t show up for a year and your name will automatically be removed from the church membership roles.

• Or here’s one of the all-time greats – All God requires of you is one hour a week.

We’re told that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day came up with 39 major classifications of unlawful work on the Sabbath (above and beyond what scripture said).  Have we come up with just as many policy statements about going to church?

It was all the nit-picky rules regarding Sabbath day work and worship which Jesus was zeroing in on when he said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  The understanding of the Sabbath day which the Pharisees had created turned every Jew into a slave of the Sabbath day.  “To be keeping this commandment, you have to do this, this, this and this, but not that, and not that and definitely not that.”  That’s not at all what God had in mind when he gave the Sabbath command, and that’s not at all what we want to be thinking about going to church in our day. 

Let’s be clear about God’s will for corporate worship.  It is his will to bless us, not to enslave us.  Going to church isn’t supposed to be a slavish keeping of however many rules you’ve ever heard about going to church.  It’s something God has told us to do for our benefit.  “You’ll profit from taking this time off to be in my house because you’ll hear again how good I have been to you.  I want you to regularly put the rat race of life on pause, because at worship which centers on me you’ll be reminded how much I love you and how I care for you and sustain you day after day.   That kind of rest or time off is for your good.”

Now it’s still true that we are sinning when we have a very low regard for hearing God’s Word or for regularly being in God’s house.  Some of those statements I listed before do have an element of truth in them.  If Jesus told Martha, Mary’s sister, that hearing his Word is the one thing needful, then using the excuse, “I have too much going on in my life to get to church every week,” is nothing but a damnable sin.  It’s saying that I have no need for what Jesus says is my greatest need.

But what happens if I come back from vacation and look at last week’s attendance and hop into the pulpit and yell, “113 people in church last week!  Twelve people in Bible Class! What on earth is that?!?”  Perhaps a conscience or two gets pricked when statistics are given.  But you know what else can easily happen?  The impression can be given – A full church and a full Bible class, and all of us who are faithful enough to be there can be sure we’re going to heaven.

After telling his enemies that God’s intention with the Sabbath law was to bless his people, not give them endless rules which they could never keep, Jesus also said this:  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.   The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath because as God he’s the one who gave that law.  Since he put the law in place, it was ludicrous to think that Jesus was letting his disciples sin because he didn’t really know what the Sabbath law entailed.  He wrote it, for goodness’ sake.  As the giver of that law, he could have dispensed with it.  But the amazing thing about the Son of Man was that even though he was the Lord of the Sabbath, he also put himself under that law and kept it.

See what Jesus was pointing his enemies toward?  He was pointing them away from thinking that all their “going to church” rules saved them, and he was pointing them toward himself.  “I’m way more important than the Sabbath, because trying to keep the Sabbath will never save you, but I have.”

You’ll never pass through the gate of heaven for having faithfully attended church.  You’ll never erase the sin of not caring to hear God’s Word by returning to church to hear it again.  Even though lots of people (and sometimes we ourselves) think that church attendance is what determines whether or not we’re Christians, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  He’s Lord of every commandment. 

But he also kept every commandment, including this Sabbath commandment, which for us is all about having a high regard for God’s Word.  Remember when Jesus’ parents lost track of him and he, at age twelve, was in the temple courts listening to the Word?  That was Jesus keeping this commandment for you and me, because you and I haven’t always had the highest regard for the Word of God.  Remember Jesus’ anguished cry, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  That was Jesus paying the price for all sins, including the sin of low regard for God’s Word and the sin of thinking we’re good with God because of regular attendance. 

What does God do for you when you go to church?  He doesn’t mark down your attendance on the plus side of the ledger.  He gives you Jesus.  Let’s be clear about God’s will for corporate worship.  It is his will to highlight Christ, not our performance.  The heart and soul of corporate worship is not, “By my attendance I have done what I’m supposed to.”  It is, “Through what takes place in this service, God gives me what he requires of me.  He gives me perfect holiness in the person of Jesus Christ.”

Our sins against God are a crushing weight, but I pray that you’ll rejoice to come to this house of God because you know that here God will remove the weight. That’s what going to church is all about.  When you receive the encouragement to come to church, you’re hearing Jesus’ invitation, “Come to me and you will find rest for your souls.”  What a treat, what a lifesaver that is!  I’ll see you here again real soon!

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