Top 10 Reasons Why, Part 2 (Pastor Don Pate, 08/19/23)

Back in 2019, when I had the privilege of being with you,

one of the sermons which I don't expect you to remember,

come on, I'm not that dumb.

In fact, you might not have remembered it

Sabbath afternoon, just you know.

But I delineated for you what to me were the top 10 reasons why

Jesus must return.

This precious theme from the time of John 13, 14, 15,

16, the Last Supper onward, where he says,

I'm going away, and they panic.

They said, you can't do this to us.

And he says, no, no, it's going to be fine.

It's going to be fine.

Actually, it's going to be good.

And so Jesus shared the return.

And we have, of course, as something

that's with half of our name, this whole idea

of the blessed hope, the anticipation,

the ultimate conclusion.

That is, by the way, just off to the side,

you already know this, and you're convinced,

so I don't have to sell you on this.

But that is, I've taught a couple public universities.

And there obviously are differences

when I taught at Adventist schools versus public schools.

And with Christian education, you get to tell the whole truth.

I've taught history at public institutions.

And the problem is, you look at most history books,

and there's this nebulous beginning,

you know, Hammurabi's Code or whatever,

and then nebulous ending.

Well, what humanity is going to do now,

we've got lots of choices.

And there's this nebulous front and back,

whereas with Christian education,

because we take it from the framework of the scripture,

we say, dude, we know how we got here,

and we know how this thing's ending.

And we have the capacity to tell the whole picture, which you

cannot do in a public institution.

And so this idea of the blessed hope of us knowing.

As Seventh-day Adventists, it has been a main theme

from our heritage on.

But most people, most Seventh-day Adventists,

at least in my track record, got really pretty good

at when and how.

OK, I'm not going to give you that whole November sermon.

I'm just refreshing you.

OK, the when and how about, but did we talk about why?

Why must the Lord return?

And so I spent time with you about the top 10 reasons why,

to me, Jesus must return.

He's going to rescue his planet.

He's going to restart eternity.

He's going to eradicate the cancer that exists

in the universe at this time.

He's going to end it.

He's going to silence the enemy.

It's like 1 Samuel 17, where David says,

who's going to shut that boy up?

The guy's up on the hill there screaming and saying,

thus about our God.

Who is this uncircumcised that he

should say thus about our God?

Somebody's got to shut him up.

And so one of the reasons why Jesus will return

is to silence the enemy, to complete the process.

Unless you're really just somebody I don't understand,

farmers do not cast seed and then walk off hoping everything's

going to work out.

The reason for a farmer to start a process

is he's looking for the harvest.

He's looking for the good that will come out of it.

This isn't just random.

I've got nothing else to do.

I think I'll plant a field.

There is a dream down the line.

And Jesus will return to complete his process.

He will respond to the victims from Genesis 4

all the way down to Revelation 6,

where it says the souls under the altar cry, God, come on.

How long?

If you're a good God, how long do we have to put up with this?

How long do the innocents have to endure?

He will hear the cry of victims and respond to it inevitably

to restore the family.

Once upon a time, it was the family of heaven and earth.

Things got fractured.

There was a divorce.

We need to get the family back together again

to restore the family.

Number three, to reveal his verdicts.

The Bible is replete with the issue

that he is a judge, faithful judge, righteous judge,

and all this.

But what's the purpose of judgment

if you're not inevitably going to bring this thing

to a conclusion, if you're not going to reveal

the purpose for the judgment?

And behold, he comes and he brings the reward

of the judgment with him.

He peels back the results of the judgment.

He reveals his verdicts.

Number two, to reward Christ.

Philippians 2, 5 to 8, someday Jesus

has to get what he deserves.

Everybody else in the universe agrees on that.

We need to get on board.

And how do I make that happen even today?

How do I start that echo right now, where this one has a name

above all names?

And every knee bows, at least every knee

in the Ringled Church today bows.

Whether they do three doors down here in Ringled, I don't know.

That's their bit.

But every knee must bow.

Every knee will bow.

And we start that process already of bringing Christ

his reward.

And finally, the number one reason for why Jesus must

return is because he said he would.

If there was no other reason, he's painted himself

into a corner.

And if he is the covenant-keeping God,

he must return.

Otherwise, he does not deserve to be God.

He must return.

And so that was sort of an overview.

He will return.

He must return.

He's going to return.

That's an overview.

Well, I was thinking about, OK, part two.

Haven't seen you folks in a while.

And this just has been something that's

been brewing in me over the last, I don't know,

a few months.

But I've come up with this idea of what are the top 10

reasons why, not why Jesus will return,

but why in the world do we do this?

Why do we do this church stuff?

What is the purpose of this?

Why do we do this?

Why do we show up?

Why do we lock in?

Why do we participate?

Why do we do this?

And so I've come up with what, for me,

are 10 reasons that I think are all scripturally viable

and why we do this.

Why Sabbath morning, you do this.

Why Tuesday evening, small groups get together.

Why do we do this?

Which made me think about churches.

And I'm going to go very fast here,

because this stuff fascinates me.

It'll bore you to tears.

That's OK.

It's not going to hurt you.

I was thinking about churches that impress me.

The oldest existent Christian church

that I've ever been in, probably, I think,

probably is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Some of you maybe have been there.

You may know that that entry that you

can see inside the black square, that that is the main door.

The reason it's the main door is because when Islam came across

and took over the Middle East, they

turned the Church of the Holy Nativity, which

was 500 years more than that.

It was older than that.

At that time, they turned it into a barn.

They put their horses in the Church of the Holy Nativity.

Well, when Christians reasserted and got the Church back,

they shrunk the door.

No horse is ever going to get in there again.

That's why my wife is 5 foot 1, wishing she was 5 foot 2.

She has to bend over to get in there.

No horse is ever getting in that church again.

That's why the door is what it is.

Now, you get inside, and you've got this massive, what

you would expect, ornate, heavy.

It's fascinating.

And the floor in the middle of the main sanctuary area,

you can see there's a hole there.

If you go there, you can look down,

and you can actually see the original flooring

from the days of Constantine down in the floor,

the mosaic work, which is pretty cool.

Most Christians don't go there for this reason,

but it is worth it, because if you go down in the basement,

there's a room down there called the Cave of Jerome.

And that's where St. Jerome spent 30 years translating

from the Greek Old Testament, Septuagint,

and the Greek New Testament into Latin, the Latin Vulgate.

He did the work in that room.

Took him 30 years.

OK, that's underneath.

The reason why most Christians want to go, this is the place.

You know, X marks the spot.

That's where Jesus was born.

Don't hold your breath.

But it's worth seeing.

You know, it's worth seeing.

It's OK.

All right, now, the next, I was thinking, OK,

that's probably the oldest Christian church I've been in.

What's the next oldest Christian church I've been in?

Probably Galerius Oratory.

It's on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland.

It represents the first incursion of Christianity

into Ireland, this ancient Irish church

out there overlooking the bay.

It's kind of cool.

It's kind of fun.

And obviously, I just love the concept

of church and church architecture

and this kind of stuff.

It amazes me what Christians have done with churches.

Some creative, some amazing, some stunning,

some are boring to tears, I'm sorry.

Just, but anyway, the idea of churches.

What does a church do to evoke in you?

You've got the old church.

This just feels like church, you know?

It just feels like church to me.

It triggers, or this.

That's kind of magical for an ancient church, in my opinion.

You don't have to agree.

Very simple, simple little faithful people

who would get together in this little building.

That represents something.

I was driving up the Romance Highway in Germany one time,

and I looked over, and there was this Lutheran church just

off the road.

And I thought, that's pretty classy.

That's interesting.

So I decided I was going to see if the place was open.

And it was.

And I went in, and it was unlocked.

I don't know why.

And I went in.

It was majestic inside that building.

I loved it.

It was very modern.

Sandy and I, just a few weeks ago,

somebody asked about Sandy and I going on a trip.

We went out to Utah for close to a month.

We had a wonderful time.

And when we were coming back across in Salina, Kansas,

this little church was right outside the road.

I just was drawn to that.

I so much wanted it to be open.

It wasn't.

But it warmed me to see that.

This is one of the most amazing churches I've been in.

It's the Newman Center at Berkeley,

on the campus of Berkeley.

It's the Catholic Worship Center on Berkeley Campus

that they own, and this guy.

If you look at this, the pulpit furniture is all boulders.

The pulpit is a hewn boulder.

The altar is just one single stone.

And the architecture is just, you may not be drawn to that.

That amazes me, the Newman Center.

Up in Merrillville, our own church here,

some of you have been there in the Georgia Carverland

Conference.

I did a wedding here a few weeks, a couple months ago.

And I also have spoken at that church a few times.

It's a very colorful, famous little church,

actually, in the region.

The architecture is pretty amazing, the Merrillville

Church, our sister church up there in Merrillville.

This is one of the most gaudy, expensive churches

I've ever spoken in.

I spoke there, I think, four times.

$32 million building.

Whoa.

It is kind of breathtaking.

This is one that means a lot to me.

This is one of those one-day churches

by Maranatha in honor of my dad.

This was, mom gave the money so they could build this church.

It's in memory of my dad in Kenya.

That church means something to me.

Sandy and I used to randomly, when we were in the Bay Area,

we'd, on Sabbath afternoon, go over to San Francisco

to St. Mary's Assumption Church, because it's just majestic.

And they play this beautiful music all the time.

You just wander in there.

You just sit for hours.

It's just, it is astounding.

This is the church I had my longest tenure as a pastor.

Sandy and I were in this church for 10 years.

We were in this church for five years.

The architecture, obviously, completely different.

Just down the street from that last one

was the Bullfinch Church, which is one of the two remaining

churches in New England designed by America's first true

architect, Charles Bullfinch.

And we used to do Christmas Eve services at 11 o'clock

at night every Christmas Eve in the Bullfinch Church.

There'd be snow on the ground most of the time.

Not always, but there'd be snow on the ground,

and the chimes would ring at 11 o'clock,

and people from the community would come out.

And I got to help lead out in a Christmas Eve midnight service

for the community.

Some of our church members would go and be part of the choir.

It was so much fun, the Bullfinch Church.

Some of you have been to Sedona.

This chapel in Sedona.

Don't ever go to Sedona without stepping into that.

You can't miss it.

It sticks out like a sore thumb on the main road leading

into Sedona, but whatever you do,

don't go to Sedona without going into this little chapel,

this prayer chapel.

It's majestic.

Now, this is a church.

I've never spoken there, and I'm glad I never did.

It's the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sedona.

And the reason why I'm glad I never spoke there

is who in the world would ever listen

to anything you'd have to say when they could sit there

and look out those massive glass windows at the red rocks

like that?

Why would they listen to a sermon?

Are you kidding me?

It is stunning.

I've never spoken there.

Again, you can see my tastes in architecture

are very eclectic when it comes to what churches are.

This is a church I've never seen.

I would love to.

Maybe some of you have in Helsinki.

It's the Church of the Rock.

That's the outside.

This is the inside.

Amazing.

Hewn out of this cliff wall, and it just,

I think that is just majestic.

Why do Christians build stuff like that?

Why do we do this?

Why do we expend the energy for stained glass

like this in Brazil?

Why do we do this?

Some of you have been there.

I've only driven by it several times.

Adventism's first church in Washington, New Hampshire.

You can still go there.

There are services there right now.

There's a small congregation in Washington, New Hampshire,

and it's very historic in our legacy.

Why do we do this?

And it isn't just why do we build buildings

and stick them on street corners and pay for the upkeep.

Why do we do this church thing?

Why do we envision architecture?

Why do we put time and money into this?

So I'd like to direct your thinking, just suggest to you,

what to me are possibly top 10 reasons why we do this.

Number 10 to me is number 10.

To some of you, it may be number one.

We're told to do this, and that's enough.

Caleb read the scripture this morning.

We are admonished to do this, to get together, to assemble,

to be together, to collect.

We're admonished to do this.

And if that was the only reason and there

was no other excuse, that would be enough.

I agree.

It would be enough.

I'm not sure about nine to three.

They could, I don't know what comes nine.

I don't know what comes seven, whatever.

Two and one to me are either two and one.

I don't know which one's one, and I

don't know which one's two.

But they're very, OK, that's my pattern.

You don't have to agree.

Here we go.

A lot of the art you're going to see is by Elizabeth Wang.

She died in 2016.

She had some very unusual concepts of church.

And she artistically was able to put them out there.

She was from Britain.

Number one, number 10, we are commanded to, as was read.

And by the way, if you can read the words, I hope you can.

This is something that since I left you folks,

has become absolutely my tradition.

I don't do classes without this.

I don't do sermons without this.

I've come to the place now where I take a passage

and I glue it together from as many different versions

as I can find.

I may use 13 different versions for one verse,

because each of them added a little.

It doesn't extend.

I don't extend it out 13 verses long.

I compress it, but I grab that word,

and I grab that phrase, and I glue them together.

They're all from viable translations.

So it won't read necessarily the way that Caleb read it,

but I believe you'll find it sings uniquely.

Not abandoning our common assembly as some,

I'm a little far away, some habitually do,

but giving mutual encouragement.

That's what we're called to do.

We're called not to abandon this.

We are called to, Jesus says, you do this.

You collect.

You gather.

You be my people.

You be the family.

You get together.

That is his heart.

This is one of Elizabeth Wang's, and you'll begin to see her

style and you'll recognize her.

Jesus wants, he wants his people together.

He said that.

He commanded that.

He saw the value in it.

We're commanded to do this.

Ellen White uses that famous phrase, press together.

Press together.

Press together.

Quit your fracturing.

Quit your positioning.

Do whatever it takes, unless you're

absolutely crossing a moral line.

Do whatever it takes.

Submit to one another.

Press together.

Refuse to allow somebody.

That's why the church at Antioch in the New Testament,

the Book of Acts, is so exalted.

Look at the Church of Antioch, where they were first

called Christians, and it makes perfect sense

that that would be the place where they were first

called Christians, little Christs,

because they knew how to do it.

And one of the things that you see in the Book of Acts

about Antioch is they refused to fight.

They would not quibble with each other.

When they came up against something they couldn't solve,

they went and reached out to the apostles.

They said, help us out, because we are not

going to split over this thing.

We will not split.

So you need to help us.

Press together.

Number nine, an outlet for gifts.

One of the reasons for this is an outlet for gifts.

And a lot of you, your first thought, my first thought

is, well, offering plate.

That's true.

That's not all of it by any means.

You are, I know, from 1 Corinthians 14,

eager for the gifts of the Spirit,

ambitious for spiritual endowments,

strive that your abundant possession of them

may build up a church, may strengthen

the faith of the church.

Jesus, Matthew 24, 25, tells the parable of the man

he hands out talents.

And two guys do real well with him.

One guy didn't.

It didn't play out real well for the guy

who buried it in the earth.

The guy who didn't utilize the talents.

The master was just exultant over the guys who

did something with the gifts.

The guy who didn't.

It didn't play out real well.

When the accounting time came, bad news for the guy who

did not use his giftings.

He's sent away into outer darkness.

If you can lead kids in singing, and you

are a car salesman, when do you ever get to use that gift?

If you work for an insurance company,

and you're a great storyteller, and God gave you that gift,

when is your occupation ever going to allow you to do that?

We are given gifts, and we are expected

to do something with them and use them.

And you may never have thought of that before.

One of the best reasons for church existence

is it allows you an outlet for gifts

that you may not have in other areas of life,

and you're supposed to do something with them.

Let's keep moving.

Church allows you to use your gifts.

This is to be a refuge.

Some of you may remember a phrase

that it wasn't original with me, but just one of the best

phrases I've heard in the last 700 years.

Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name,

there you have people.

We should never forget that.

We should expect that things, we will be tempted to,

because we're people.

We are what we are.

But this place is supposed to be a place where we work hard

to not have that become a problem.

It's a place where everyone should be able to run

and know I'm going to be embraced there.

I'm going to be OK there.

They're going to love me hard sometimes,

but they're going to love me.

The church is to be the refuge from what's out there.

You and I get enough of what's out there, out there.

We don't need any of it here.

None of us.

Psalm 27.

One favor I've asked of the Lord, something which I earnestly

desire, to view the delightfulness of Yahweh

and to contemplate in his temple my whole life long,

constant in the Lord's goodness, and to consult him in his temple.

For in the time of my misfortune,

he will keep me safe in his tent.

He will hide me in the haven of refuge

and establish me upon a firm foundation.

One thing I need from God is I need to know where I can go

when nothing else is going to give me the answer.

I need the refuge.

The church is to be that refuge.

Number seven, we need family time.

We need family time.

Jesus was non-negotiable when he looked at him and said,

y'all are family.

Think about that.

Standing in front of him is Simon the Zealot,

an anti-Roman revolutionary.

He is part of what is called the sicarii, the dagger men,

the guys who carried little knives in their belt

so that they could maybe sneak up behind a Roman soldier

when nobody's looking and stab him in the ribs.

The sicarii, the dagger men.

They were the terrorists, subversives

against the policies of Rome, aggressive.

Simon the Zealot.

Standing next to him is a buzzard named Matthew

who sold out to raise taxes for Rome.

And Jesus put him in the same room.

Doesn't Jesus know what he's doing?

Family.

What you may not know is early church history, look it up,

says that Matthew took off to North Africa

when it was all said and done for the name of Jesus

to be spread and he got himself killed down there.

About two years later, he was killed.

Two years later, Simon followed him to go finish the work

and Simon got killed there too.

They both died in North Africa with the anti-Roman

revolutionary following his brother,

the guy who'd sold out to Rome.

This is supposed to be family.

This is the family that overrides all the labels otherwise.

We don't have any choice in this.

All who received him became the children of God.

You are no longer aliens but members of the household of God.

We are the children of God, Romans 8,

for the Spirit himself endorses our inward conviction

that we are the children of God and if we are his children,

we must share treasures and all that Christ claims as his

will belong to all of us as well but to share his glory,

we must now be sharing his sufferings

for I recognize the sufferings of the now that we now endure

bear no comparison with the splendor as yet to be unrevealed

which is to burst upon us for the whole creation

on tiptoe, looks eagerly, is expectantly looking for the time

when the glory of the sons of God shall be revealed,

the disclosing of his sonship.

Heaven is waiting for us to live the family.

That's what that passage says.

It's waiting for us to embrace that and say,

that's it, we're living it.

I don't like you, I don't like your car,

I don't like how you make food for potluck

but I'm going to love you to pieces just saying.

We need family time.

This is a place to recharge.

I don't know how your week went.

Mine ended up not as good as I would have wished.

We come here and we get energized.

We tap back in to the core of what

should be important to all of us, what should be central

and vital to each of us.

First Thessalonians, exhort one another,

encourage one another, console one another,

and try to build up one another's characters

as indeed I know you're already doing.

I know you're into that, Paul says.

I know you're into it.

Keep doing it.

Get better at it.

Keep building up each other's characters.

Keep being the link for each other reaching to God.

Elizabeth Wang again, a corporate recharging.

Yeah, you get it when you open your Bible

at your kitchen table at home.

Yes, you get it.

Don't know.

But there is something that pleases God

when his children get together and say,

we're going to do this thing together.

He likes that.

When we all come back to the recharging place

for our corporate recharging, we get reoriented.

Personally, I am confident about you, Romans 15.

My brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness,

richly supplied with every kind of knowledge

and are well qualified to instruct one another,

competent to counsel one another.

We draw each other here.

We corporately recharge.

And there are some Sabbaths, you come in here,

and you're a little stronger than the person sitting

two pews away from you.

They need you to be stronger, that Sabbath.

The Sabbath will come down the line when you need them to be

stronger.

But we do this together because Jesus said so.

We get reoriented together toward him.

Number four, critical mass has some value.

There's some value in.

Somebody asked me when we were out preparing to come in,

they said, does anybody understand

why Southern is exploding, which isn't necessarily

the norm for everybody?

And there are lots of speculative reasons.

But one reason, I think, it's one is just right now,

it's kind of the thing to do.

I have in my class, it's going to start Monday,

I think I have either 10 or 11 students from California.

What?

It isn't like California doesn't have a few schools closer.

What?

Critical mass.

There's this inertia, some excitement, some building

momentum that maybe one student is coming from Maryland

because two of his friends is coming from Maryland.

Other than that, he couldn't care less.

But he's coming because they're coming.

Critical mass, the draw seems to be picking up some inertia.

I don't know how much that plays into it.

I think it has something to do with it.

Critical mass has value.

Being together gives us a strength.

Encourage one another day after day.

Give the same daily warning.

Help one another stand firm.

Admonish one another.

And thereby, strengthen your own resolution

so that while there is a today, as long as today lasts,

while there is yet time.

Today's the day for us to press together, strengthen together.

While there is yet time, make sure

that none of you grows hardened or stubborn

through the pleasantries and wiles.

The fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery

which the divisive glamour of sin may play on any of you.

Critical mass.

Jesus started the fire.

Upper room flame.

He started the fire for this church.

And you all know enough about fires, campfires, et cetera,

that for a fire to be really viable,

it needs to kind of stick.

You start pulling embers out and pulling pieces out,

it's going to start losing its energy.

That when you take one stick and stick it off by itself

like it's some maverick, it doesn't have much of a chance.

Critical mass gets it done.

We need critical mass at the time of funerals.

You know, I was on the radio for, well, still am,

but intentionally alive for 17 years.

And one of the things that I used to randomly say

was, I really, we do need you to support this ministry.

But we need you to be committed to a local church

before you do that.

Because you need it.

Because when you get sick, I'm not

going to be visiting you in the hospital.

When you die, I will not be having your funeral.

You make investments in that kind of community ongoingly.

I'm going back up to Knoxville this Thursday evening

for a funeral.

It was a call I got on Tuesday I did not want to hear.

Out of the blue, the pastor called me,

and one of my young men that I ordained

as an elder in his early 30s.

Wonderful guy.

Sweet Christian.

He was the neatest guy.

Beautiful wife, sweetheart, just, and two little girls.

They must be about eight and six now.

Just the sweetest family.

He died unexpectedly on Tuesday.

Nobody saw it coming.

Nothing scandalous.

Nothing, you know, just something

happened with a blowout in his brain,

and nobody saw this thing coming.

And now we've got this young widow

with her two little ones.

And that church is going to have to be

what that church needs to be for them moving forward.

Critical mass is valuable for keeping us strong.

It's called ecclesia, which in Greek

means the assembly, the gathering.

Church is ecclesiastical.

It is the gathering, the assembly.

This is valuable to God.

It's valuable to us.

It's valuable to God because he knows it's valuable to us.

It means more to us than it means to him, I think.

And that's why it's so important to him.

Ecclesia, critical mass.

Number three, this is what got modeled to us.

You want to be a Christian?

This is what you do.

Early Christians did it.

They gathered.

So those who had taken his words to heart,

who welcomed his message, were baptized.

And on that day alone, about 3,000 souls

were added to the number of the disciples.

And they went on to give constant attention to

and regularly occupy themselves with the instructions given

by the apostles and to the fellowship

and with the society of the common life,

breaking bread and praying together,

content in attendance to hear the apostles teach.

They devoted themselves to the fellowship.

That's what early Christianity showed us.

You do when you become a Christian.

They gather.

Jesus did it.

He came to Nazareth as his custom was.

He knew where to go.

He modeled that for us.

As our custom is, do you come to church

just because it's habit?

Well, that's a good start.

Don't break the habit.

Let the rest of it get it done for you.

But don't break the habit just because you say,

I don't have all the rest of this together.

Keep your habit.

Let it grow.

Let it mature.

Again, I told you number two and number one.

We're just about done.

Number two and number one.

I don't know which one's number two,

and I don't know which one's number one.

Jesus waits for us here.

If there's no other reason to get together,

Revelation 1 says, I turned to see the voice

that was speaking behind me.

And when I turned, I saw seven lamps of God.

And in the midst of the lamps, one resembling the Son of Man.

He wore a long robe that reached to his feet,

and he had a golden band around his chest.

The mystic meaning of this, the open secret

of the seven stars, which you saw in that right hand,

and in the seven golden lampstands, what is it?

The seven stars are the messengers

of the seven assemblies, and the seven lights

are the seven churches.

Look at Revelation 1.

Where is Jesus?

He's in the middle of the church.

He's not off to the side with the church hanging on by itself.

He's not taking little lampstands

and setting them out there by themselves saying,

hang on, do your thing.

Jesus says, I'm going to be in the middle

of where the church is.

That's his imagery that he gave you of what to expect.

So you see the artists who portrayed Jesus

in the middle of the lampstands.

He's in the middle of the churches.

That's valuable to him.

And finally, I don't know if this is last or if it's number

two, practicing for eternity.

When we do this, when we gather, when we collect,

when we encourage each other, when we support each other,

when we re-energize, when we do this,

it's because we will be doing this for eternity.

For as the heavens and the earth,

I will make a new shall last before me, the eternal promises.

So shall your race and your name.

They will stand continually in my presence.

All mankind will come to work with you.

All mankind will come to worship me from Sabbath to Sabbath,

from month to month, says our God.

This is one of my favorite pieces of art, Machachmakoff.

It's called Angels Running Toward God.

Given the chance, the angels want to run toward God.

Do we want to run toward God?

Eternity, we know what we're going to be doing.

Are we getting good at it now?

Are we practicing it now?

Are we making it part of who we are now?

Some people say, oh, yeah, we read the scripture.

It says, yeah, get together.

OK, we've been commanded to do that.

But, but, it's been 2,000 years, and that was a long time ago.

And the world has changed, and the church has changed,

and yeah, OK, fine.

Let the text tell you what to do with that argument.

Let us vie with one another, bestow thought, consider,

and give attentive, continuous care to watching over one

another, that we may incite to love and stimulate one another,

arousing one another to brotherly love, right conduct,

and rivalry of love and noble actions,

not abandoning our common assembly,

not neglecting our church meetings,

but holding aloof from the church meetings,

as some people out there do, but give mutual encouragement,

admonition for one another.

And you do this more and more and more,

the closer you get to the end.

The argument that church is archaic, and it's old,

and it doesn't have its day anymore,

you're disagreeing with what Hebrews just told you.

It says the closer you get to the end,

the more you need to do this.

None of this, well, the church ain't what it used to be.

What's your point?

The world is different.

So what's your point?

We're told that the closer we get to the end,

the more we're going to need this, not less.

So that's my 10.

You don't have to agree.

Why do we do this?

Why are we invited by Jesus singularly,

where he leads us to a corporate body called the church,

where he leads his church to his ultimate presence?

That's his progression.

Yes, first singularly.

No church is going to carry you.

But first to Jesus, and then to the Lord.

But first to Jesus, and then Jesus takes you,

and he takes you to his church, and he takes his church

to his end goal.