Evangelical Christians came to Thailand almost five hundred years ago. Today only about 1.2% of people in Thailand are Christians. We are very few in a predominant Buddhist country.
What makes it sad is that many people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ do not attend worship services. More so, participate in church activities. Imagine if the 1.2% of Christian are faithful in attending worship service every Sunday. What do you think will happen?
Hebrews 10:22-25 says,
22 Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 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.
Here in this passage, we will find three reasons why we worship together in church every Sunday.
We draw each other closer to Jesus (22)
Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings (22)
Why do we worship God in the church when we can worship Him everywhere? Anyway, God is everywhere, Jesus is everywhere. But the Bible says that worship is a special moment when Jesus is present. A presence that is different from his presence in the world. There is something special when we gather to worship him in this place. Verse 22 says it is because “draw near to God.”
Why do we come together here every Sunday? We come here to draw closer to our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not come to the church to hear a sermon, to listen to music, to fellowship with others or to give an offering. These are all good reasons, but the most important reason is we draw near to Jesus.
The book of Hebrew reminds us that in the Old Testament times, only the High Priest can go to the Holy of Holies to be in the presence of God. The ordinary people stay in the outer court and wait for the priest on what God will say to them.
But today, when we worship together in this building, we all go directly to God. We don’t go in as individua, but we all go in together as a church, as a community. When we worship together we all go direct to God because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And because of that we are in the presence of Jesus whom we worship.
We declare our faith in Jesus (23)
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Notice the word “unswervingly” this means “we do not change direction.” It seems that during the New Testament time there are many Christians who are “swerving.” They change direction. It means they stop coming to the gathering of believers to worship. In the New Testament time, when they stopped coming to meet with other believers. It meant they go back to their old ways of life.
In other words, in the New Testament time a person boldly declares his faith in Jesus if he regularly joined other Christians in worship. On the other hand, if he did not come to worship with others, he blatantly denied his faith in Jesus.
This is a challenge for us today, do you know that when we come to the church to worship, we declare our faith? It is like we are saying, “I still believe in Jesus Christ.
This is how important for Christians to be faithful in attending worship service. If a person is no longer coming to the church, then he cannot claim to be true follower of Jesus Christ.
The church and Jesus Christ are not the same, but they are inseparable. If we are not faithful in attending our church worship service, then we are also not faithful to our Lord Jesus.
We have to make a firm decision to be faithful to the church of Jesus. Attending our church worship is not all our witness but it is a particularly important part of our witness. If we are faithful to our church, we are saying to the lost that we are faithful to Jesus.
I challenge everyone here right now, if we are all going to be faithful in attending our church worship. I am sure, there will a significant increase of number of people who will come to the church and will believe in Jesus Christ.
We encourage one another (24-25)
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 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.
When we worship together, we also encourage one another. How do we encourage one another?
First, we encourage others by our presence. When we come to the church, we are saying God is important. Jesus is important and our brothers and sisters are important to us. When we are here you are saying I love Jesus and I also love my brothers and sisters in Christ. Isn’t that a big encouragement already?
Second, we can encourage our church family when we take part in worship. We don’t come here to watch but to worship; we do not merely come here to sing but to serve! We do not come just to listen but to do what we heard. When we worship with all our heart, we encourage others to worship with all their hearts.
The truth is we need each other. It is our responsibility to encourage our brothers and sisters to love one another and to help them do good work. We should also inspire others to grow in their faith.
We cannot grow in our relationship with God apart from other Christians. Our relationship with God grows deeper when our relationship with other Christians grows deeper too.
How do we grow and encourage one another? When we worship God together our love for one another grows deeper and our faith in God grows stronger.
Conclusion
There was a church that was built in the 1550’s in (Doubes) France. In that church building they had no candelabra. They had no lights. The mayor of Doubes instructed everybody to bring his own lantern to the church. At the end of the pew there was a place where the people would hang their lanterns.
As people would come one at a time, bringing their lantern to church, they would hang it at the end of the pew. And the more people came, the brighter the church building became. If no one came, the church building was in darkness.
Every time we come to church to worship together; we are bringing the light of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we choose not to come, just imagine, we put out our light a little until the darkness overcomes us. If we come and worship together, our church light becomes brighter, and we defeat the darkness.
Why do we come and worship together? When we worship together, we draw closer to Jesus, we declare our faith in Jesus, and we encourage one another.
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